Laps Around Lincoln

Leah's school had a jog-a-thon fundraiser called Laps Around Lincoln. On Saturday morning at 9am 50+ Tyler Elementary students jogged around historic Lincoln Park to raise funds for healthy school programs. They had t-shirts and pom-poms and medals. A bonafide kid event.

Leah enjoyed running and socializing with her friends.

And "Team John" put in a number of laps as well.

One of the highlights was having the Lincoln Bobblehead President come to the event.

He ran a lap with the kids...

and then hung around for some picture opps. (That's Leah's good frenemy, Io. John was not interested, thank you very much.)

It was a good time had by all.

Noelle's First Birthday!

So as of about 10 minutes ago, I gave birth to this delicious little nugget exactly one year ago.  And she has brought such a peace and joy to our family.  Leah and John adore her and she is very easy going.  She's starting to get really funny too.  I can't wait to watch her grow up even more!

John helped me make coconut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for her family celebration tonight.  (Of course, I substituted many of the ingredients - sprouted spelt flour, coconut oil, sucanat, raw honey, etc. - but those were the recipes I started with...)

And we served Noelle's cupcake on her newly made birthday plate by Grandy Heart Creations.

When Leah got home from school, we all frosted them together.

And Noelle wanted to get in on the fun.

And then Leah had the brilliant idea of adding a strawberry on top.  She really has a gift for colors and presentation.  It's fun to watch.  

Our housemate and church friend, Anne, joined us for the celebration.

We put Noelle's first measurement on our wall and though it's hard to see, she is over 2 inches shorter than Leah was when she was 1 and over 3 inches shorter than John was when he was 1!  She's our little petite one!

She loved when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her and she really enjoyed her first cupcake!

Happy Birthday to ME!  

White House Easter Egg Roll

Leah has a friend at school whose mom works with Michelle Obama on her "Let's Move" campaign against obesity. At the last minute she called us offering 4 tickets to this year's White House Easter Egg Roll! I knew this was a big deal, but I had no idea...

Luke already had a spring break golf date with a few friends, so Grandy gladly took his ticket and graciously helped me wrangle the kids through the chaos. And Poppa Len deserves a medal for taking Noelle for the afternoon.

For starters, this was the line that we waited in for over an hour. 30,000 tickets were issued through a lottery to people from all of the 50 states and there were 5 time slots. We and almost 6,000 others lined up for the last slot of the day. 'Twas hot out there too.

There was lots of security and they thoroughly went through all of our electronics and purses. I asked one of the security officers if this was his least favorite day of the year. He said there were much worse days despite having been there since 4:30am.

This experience definitely rivaled a summer day at Disneyland. The line weaved around for a long time, but finally picked up. The 1200 volunteers were still very friendly at the end of the day.

Our first view of the White House!

They had TONS of activities for kids. They started with an Easter egg hunt. (Over 5,000 eggs were hard boiled and dyed for this event by local non profit DC Central Kitchen.)

Then we went to the face painting and crafts tables. We never made it to the story time or musical performance stages, but according to the brochure, celebrities who participated in the event throughout the day included Apolo Ohno, Reese Witherspoon, the cast from Glee, and a bunch of other people that I didn't recognize because I'm not that cool.

I was excited to see the Presidential honeybees, but bummed that I was never able to get a peek at the White House garden.

John was thrilled that they had a sports area complete with college and professional players teaching them the ropes. Many of the Redskins players were there throughout the day.

John's got a great wind up and follow through on his baseball throw.

They got to go through obstacle courses,

shoot soccer goals,

and get some putts in.

I love this picture of Athlete Leah doing hurdles,

and Touchdown John running for the big end zone pad.

They had some fun giveaways like sweat bands, frisbees, and souvenir wooden Easter egg with the President and First Lady's signatures.

And we ended with the signature event - the Easter egg roll.

I was really impressed with the efforts that this administration did to make it a more sustainable and healthier event. In the food stations, they had smoothie and spring roll samples and only handed out a small box of Peeps at the end. (Check out the 2010 Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest.)

The kids did a great job keeping up and being grateful. We were all sweaty and wiped out by the time it was over. I was so thankful for the opportunity to do it, and yet I NEVER plan do it again. =)

Thanks, Easter Bunny! Bock! Bock!

Happy Easter!

It takes a lot of work to get that one good shot.

Stations of the Cross

Thanks to my dear friend, Leslie, we've done the Stations of the Cross with the kids for the last 2 years, but since she moved far, far away to a land called Connecticut (sniff, sniff), I just couldn't bring myself to organizing it in her absence. Fortunately, another MOTHer (Mom on The Hill) named Angela who came last year organized it after her daughter kept begging her to do it. This time we did it during a gorgeous Good Friday at Lincoln Park.

She set up the 14 stations under trees and each kid had a chance to hold the picture...

and open a little gift bag with an object that symbolized the particular station. (Leah unwrapped a band-aid during one of the ones where Jesus falls. There was also a wooden cross, a black material for when they wrapped his body, and a big rock for when they laid him in the tomb.)

At the end of each station we repeated the prayer, "We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. Because by the holy cross, You have redeemed the world."

Leah also got to catch up with a couple old friends.

It was a sweet time had by all and I am thankful to Angela for organizing and for the opportunity to meet a couple new Christian families on the Hill.