Another field trip for Van {Dec. 15, 2008}

Look who likes art...

My friend Whitney had a school assignment to go to the Nat'l Museum of Art (one of the Smithsonians) for some art observations, and since I'm home every day and Van probably wants to get out and see things as much as I do, we jumped at the chance for a little field trip. Fortunately, the weather was AMAZING, and although I had brought a coat, I was seriously shedding it within minutes. I couldn't believe how warm it was, I hadn't felt hot outside for a long time., but I of course loved it. Summer and I are good friends; winter and I don't exactly love hanging out together. It was bright and sunny and couldn't have been better. This made for some fabulous lighting in the museum, which is lined with skylights for perfect overhead natural lighting. Needless to say, I took advantage of the lighting to take some photos, and needless to say, Van didn't last long before we were playing the binkie game trying to distract him from his hunger (I know, such a bad mom tactic). This of course becomes a very obvious game in a quiet place like an art museum, but considering the circumstances, he did great. We just acted like the halls of the museum were a small race course for strollers, and as soon as his race car stroller got cruising, he was good to go. I loved how much he was fascinated with the light coming through the ceiling, his eyes just get so fixated on any lights at all, he LOVES them.

Thanks Whitney for getting us out of the house, and for reminding us of all the great things we have so close by that we should go to more often! And thanks for putting up with me stopping every 2 seconds to take pictures, I hope it won't sway you from doing more things with us in the future! :)

Thanks Smiths!!

Thanks again to Jon's mom and dad and his bro Jer (who just got back from his mission in Hawaii 4 days after Van was born) for making the trek out here to meet the new little man in our lives, and for all the time they spent with us here. We loved having you, and we can't wait to see you again in just a few weeks when we come your way!!

Here's a little photo tribute to Van's visitors:

National Christmas Tree {Dec. 6, 2008}

This is a little out of order since I forgot to post this a couple posts back. While Jon's parents and bro were here and the night his cousin's family with their 5 little kids got here we decided to pack up everyone and head to the National Christmas Tree. It just happened to be the night it "snowed" (I say snowed, but we all know in DC that does not mean we were treading through snow piles or shoveling walks for hours, but it was indeed biting cold, windy, and pretty miserable to be outside in) and had outrageously low temperatures. We FROZE! So there we were with a one-month old bundled up and 5 kids with watering eyes from the cold trying to make a big tree, 50 state trees and a huge yule log sound cool to them. :) They loved it (I think) and we all survived, but this was mostly another redeeming trip to make up for our photo-less trip to the tree last year. Thanks for sticking it out with us everyone!

Metro moments

Here are some of my favorite photos from our weekend with Jon's parents and Jer while hanging out on the metro and giving Van his first taste of public trans. Startin' him young!

Van's Baby Blessing {Dec. 7, 2008}

After much debate on whether we should have Van blessed here in December or wait until we went to Utah in January, we finally decided to have him blessed in the ward he was born in, here in Arlington. It was a super hard decision to make, especially with family so far away and so few able to come, but we were glad that Jon's parents and Jeremy could be in town, as well as Jon's cousin & wife and their 5 cute kids (thanks Wakefields!), and we were especially grateful to all our dear friends who live in the area that came to support us on Van's special, simple day. We definitely focused on simplicity, and it almost made it seem unreal, but it was perfect for our little boy. The meeting was at 9:00 am on Sunday, December 7, and Van was blessed by Jon, being joined by his father, brother, our bishop, and a few friends. Thank you so much to all of you that went out of your way to be there for us and Van! It was so good to see you all and it meant so much to us that you would come.

We missed our family greatly (and you were definitely all in our thoughts!!), but we're grateful that all gospel ordinances and blessings can be performed anywhere in the world and still have the same meaning and validity. I'm so grateful for the priesthood and that Jon strives to live his life in a way that respects the priesthood he holds. We're just a little family, and this is just our little beginning, but I love every part of it! Thinking of the things Jon mentioned to Van in his blessing makes me amazed that we will see this little one grow from infancy to manhood, from being completely dependent on us to being an independent and responsible adult, and every step in between. I can't even imagine it!! I hope and pray every day that we will raise him the way he deserves to be raised, and that we will bring him up according to the Lord's will. It's a great responsibility, but I know that it's definitely not one that we will fulfill alone, and for that I am eternally grateful.

For the record, Van was silent as ever for the blessing, even though he was awake, and the best part was when Jon slightly raised Van for the congregation to see, because Jon's friends from work loved it--they later told us it reminded them of the Lion King. :) So here's to our sweet little Simba with his whole little life ahead!

{I may or may not have completely forgotten to take pictures of any kind until 10:00 pm that night...at which point I may or may not have made Jon get back in his church clothes as soon as I changed Van back into his blessing clothes to look like I remembered as soon as we were home...obviously still new at this mom stuff!!}




















































































And this is how Van felt after his blessing day (the same as every other day I guess!).

National Botanical Garden--take 2--{Dec. 6, 2008}

After the Capitol Visitor's Center, we continued to brave the ridiculously cold air to take Jon's family over to the Botanical Garden for the Christmas train exhibit, which we went to last year and LOVED. The trains were outside last year, but this year they set them all up inside for whatever reason, and we were grateful for that so we could get out of the cold! Everything the trains are surrounded by and run on, (the bridges, walls, tunnels, miniature houses, literally everything) are made by natural materials (sticks, bark, wood, plants, dried leaves, you name it), and that's what makes it so impressive. They did a fairy tale theme this year, so you can see the 3 Little Pigs' houses, the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe's house, and those are just a couple of the many there.

In the atrium, they also annually set up naturally made replicas of the monuments, laid out like the National Mall, and it's soooo impressive. You may recall that Jon and I also went to this last year and blogged about it, but we had lost our camera the DAY before, and thus it all had to go undocumented by photos, and recorded only by words, while I tried really hard to learn the lesson of why sometimes it's good and important to create memories without photographing every second of what's happening. I'm sure you think I didn't learn that lesson very well based on the amount of photos we take all the time, but to my credit, I did say sometimes it's important to do things without picture taking, not always. :) But lucky for us, we had the luxury of both worlds in the end--last year without the camera to focus on the moment, and this year with the new camera to document it all.

So forgive us for all the photos, but it was kind of our make-up trip for last year's loss, so that anyone who wanted to see what they could only read last year will be able to do just that. Or at least we will in 30 years when we want to go back and remember it!

Capitol Visitor's Center {Dec. 6, 2008}

Their timing again being perfect for site-seeing, the Capitol Visitor's Center (CVC) opened the very week that Jon's parents and Jeremy came to visit. So of course we made sure to go see it! We were really impressed with it (and we should be, seeing as it cost $621 million of our tax dollars) and we would highly recommend it for everyone to go see. It has these really cool glass ceilings that you can see the Capitol through (the CVC is underground). We just went to the 13 min. movie, which we enjoyed, especially to get a quick version of what goes on in Congress and to make you feel all proud to be an American because of the replaying theme "of many...one."

We got some pics with some of the statues that didn't fit in the Capitol and have thus overflowed to the CVC--the most important ones being Hawaii's King ____ (some really long Hawaiian name, don't be mad at me for not remembering it Jer!) and Utah's Philo T. Farnsworth, father of the television. Van, again, was a silent, sleeping tourist the entire time. But he got his own ticket to the movie nonetheless, as you can see stuck to his beenie. We couldn't get over how easy he makes it for us to get out and keeping doing the things we love!

Visitors for Van! {Festival of Lights, Dec. 5, 2008}

We were fortunate and very happy to have Jon's parents and little bro Jeremy out to meet Van the man and visit us for a long weekend at the beginning of December (December 4-8), and we definitely took advantage of their time here to show them the sites! We hope we didn't tire them with our excitement to go out and see it all despite the freezing weather while they were here!!

They managed to time it just right to go to the Festival of Lights lighting ceremony this year, which is always fun to hear great musical numbers, wonderful speakers, and to get excited for the Christmas season. The Festival of Lights is an annual month-long event at the LDS Washington DC temple that is open to everyone and has free (not to mention amazing) musical events every night until January 1st that are open to the public. The lighting ceremony is the debut night of the Festival, and this was the 2nd year we were able to attend. Elder Neil A. Anderson spoke this year, and he shared a wonderful story reminding us to 'have room in the inn' (see the December Ensign for the story in full). We loved seeing all the nativity scenes from all around the world, checking out all the lights, and seeing Van sleep through yet another event, as photographed below :). Jon designed the invitations/logo again this year for the Festival, so I threw that in for fun at the bottom of the post.

This is what I get to wake up to

One early morning after Jon had left for work, I decided to take advantage of the one time in the day that a little bit of light comes through the window in his bedroom, and we had our own little photo shoot. These are some of my favorite pictures of him...doesn't it just make you want to hold him? (these were also taken when he was just over 3 weeks old) I especially love the flailing picture, haha. Let's be honest, babies scream. But they're just so cute when they do it!

Ridin' along in my automobile

Here's the little man, all tiny and bundled up in his carseat, shoes monogrammed with his name so he could be rightfully returned to his parents should he get lost (okay, so they came like that), and eyes shut tight, all ready to see the world. So maybe the only world he sees is the back of his eyelids, but that's totally by choice! He's just a sleeper when we're out and about. Jon calls it "survival mode" because it's so cold. He holds his hands out in front of him so funny when he's strapped in, I love it. Van LOVES his carseat, but mostly just after he gets in the car and we start cruising. He's gonna like roadtrips just like his mommy and daddy!