Morning at the Air & Space Museum

Last Friday, Carolyn and Noah met Baker and I at the National Air & Space Museum. I've been wanting to take Baker there since he's been old enough to enjoy it and he most certainly did! The moment we walked into the door, he saw the airplanes hanging from the ceiling and immediately starting yelling "airpane! airpane!", formerly known as "airpeen". He proceeded to yell this word for the next hour or so, loud enough for the whole world to hear. As sweet as it was, it did get a bit old! :) But I guess his little voice is so sweet that it never gets old. I'm sure I'll change my mind later when he's older and won't stop chattering and all I want is a moment of silence. But we had a great morning out and I think Baker and Noah certainly had fun.

The real Wright Brothers' airplane! Craziness. I have no idea how they had the confidence to fly on this thing!

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Since I used to be a flight attendant for American Airlines, I think I enjoyed this museum as much as Baker did. It was neat to see the really old passenger planes, esp. the AA ones. I can't imagine working on those old planes but I now back in the day they were the creme de la creme!

Baker and Noah were watching a helicopter movie with complete fascination.

I have no idea what this is called but I know it once was on the moon. Having to chase after a little one made stopping to enjoy the exhibits a bit difficult. I literally saw everything at a glance!

Baker flies his first airplane!

If only you could really see how excited he was in this picture. His face was priceless. If you click on it to make it larger you can probably tell a little better!

Apollo 11

The space stuff was the coolest. Don't you like my technical terms?

Baker and Noah ran for days, chasing each other, and just had fun!

Note the other AA plane in the back

Hmmm, wonder if I would have been hired back in the '50s? The requirements to be a flight attendant then were crazy! I thought f/a training was crazy now. Imagine what it would have been like then! Eeek!

A Day At the Mall...

The National Mall that is. On Friday, I had to run some errands and on my way back home, I thought, why not just park and run around the Lincoln Memorial for a bit? So, that's what we did and we had so much fun. I don't know why I don't do this more often but I think we will now because Baker loved it. We stopped by the concession stand to grab a bit of lunch for Baker on the way out and then walked up by the river to the car for some gorgeous views. It was an amazing, cool fall day and we had a fun time!

Nothing is as close as it seems in DC. So when we were driving by, I thought, oh it will be just a short walk from the car. Not! Once we had parked, we had to walk up the mall to get to the memorial. So, Baker trekked it with me! Anything to wear him down for nap time!

A hundred more steps to go! Only we stopped shortly after this because I had our stroller and I didn't want to leave it unattended.

He looks so small! This was pretty much the view I had of him the entire time...his back. He kept running away from me!

Ooo, finally a front view of him!

Thanks to a nice English lady, we got a picture together, only Baker wasn't interested in me holding him and was squirming out of my arms.

Having his first real hot dog. I didn't think he'd like it but he ate it up, all but a couple of bites. But trust me, hot dogs are not going to be a common meal for us! I prefer not to feed him these sorts of things if I can help it.

Walking back to the car was a slow process as he wanted to pick up every stick or just admire what was around us.

Love this pic

Looks like he's fishing here.

Cute face. Don't you just want to squeeze his cheeks?

The Climbing Wall

I remember about 5 months ago going to the playground and seeing this little climbing wall...well, it's not really a wall because it's really slanted but I remember looking at and thinking I can't imagine Baker ever being able to climb it. I honestly don't know what I was thinking but at the time it looked so difficult for a little one. Baker scales it with no problem now, after months of perfecting it, so I caught a short video of it. I also included a snippet of him singing, it's really quiet but I just can't ever enough of hearing his sweet voice!

Disney's The Christmas Carol Train Tour

This past Wednesday, Disney's train tour promoting their new movie made a stop at DC's Union Station. Of course since Baker loves him a "choo choo", we had to go and met up with Carolyn and Noah. Baker was enamored at first and was really excited about seeing the train, even though we ride on the Metro here. I guess it never gets old to him! We got to do this fun character morph and make a photo of ourselves. Baker made the sweetest Tiny Tim ever! Funny enough, I was Tiny Tim too but a very scary version. As soon as Walmart emails the pictures to us, I hope to be able to upload them! The train tour was great but I was hoping it would be a bit more hands on. It was basically a behind the scenes of making The Christmas Carol. Still pretty interesting and if nothing else, something new to do with our tot! It's exhausting trying to come up with new ideas of things to do with him!

They had carollers standing at the entrance to the gate!

Baker liked the fake snow. That's the train on the right.

Baker and Noah, so excited to see the train!

Baker handed his ticket to get it punched like a pro!

Getting ready to go in!

Wow, walking through the first car. They didn't allow flash photography in the train so it was a bit difficult to get good pictures.

Standing in front of Big Ben. The entire movie was filmed in room about the size of this train car and the Big Ben shown here, as well as the house (I don't have a picture of it), were the actual models used in making the movie!

Baker loved the faux fireplace.

I ran into my friend Rebecca (in pink) and her two kids while waiting in line to see a sneak 3-D preview of the movie.

Baker wearing his 3-D glasses...hahaha!!

They were giving out train conductor hats so you know Baker loved that!

On our walk back home, we stopped by the playground for some more fun. Wearing Baker out for his nap is a must!

Baker gets ready to go down the big, curvy slide but not before pointing something out...this is his "Oooo" face. He still doesn't get into going down the slide on his bottom an insists on going down backwards!

Playing with sticks, chestnuts, and whatever else he finds on the ground.

Heading home. I gave Baker his hat back and moments later, this is the way he was wearing it!

Okay, I don't have a title for this post. Sometimes I get tired of thinking of titles, so this one is title-less. I feel you Christa!

Hard to believe that this is the same Baker that used to be so afraid of the vacuum. Now the noise isn't that big of a deal to him anymore! I can't wait until he's old enough to actually vacuum!

Like I've said, Baker loves hats. On this day he insisted on wearing his helmet around. He probably wore it for 30 minutes before he was ready to take it off!

Oktoberfest

Last Saturday was Oktoberfest in Capitol Hill, so we met some friends that we went to Lee with, Ryan, Aimee and Mercer Fox, for an afternoon of good German fun. It was held down Barrack's Row a few blocks from where we live but wasn't as quite as German as we would have liked. Nonetheless, it was still fun and they had a petting zoo which was a huge hit with Baker! Unfortunately, it started to pour rain on us as we were getting ready to leave so we had to walk back home in the rain but thankfully we all had our umbrellas with us!

Just before we left, I took Baker for a quick walk. He loves to find the acorns that are all over the place and will usually carry as many as his little hands will hold.

Looking so grown up

Typical face

At the petting zoo

Baker was not afraid of the animals and would stick his hands right in for all of them to lick! He loved them and they loved him too! Yes, we had hand sanitizer ready as soon as we parted!

Sweet Mercer turns one this month!

Ryan and Aimee with Mercer

Baker says "cheese" when he sees a camera. Unfortunately, he doesn't usually say it when the camera snaps but he's smiling here!

I love his smile!

Having lunch at Belga Cafe. The Arcara's popped by for a visit while we were eating. That's Sam in the corner.

Just Plain Silly


Baker loves to dress up...not that he puts on a firehat and thinks he's a fireman, but he loves to put hats, glasses and whatever else on. Of course, as soon as he does, he runs straight to the mirror to see what he looks like. These are just a few random pics of him being his cute self!

We had to buy Baker another Bumpkin bib and one of the only ones to choose from was all about transportation...Baker's favorite thing! So, when we put it on him to wear during breakfast on Saturday, he refused to take it off afterwards because he loved it so much. Not the usual at all because he HATES bibs! Then, he put his little Mickey glasses on to complete the outfit. I see many outings in a Spiderman costume in our future!

Decked out in his Revolutionary hat that we bought from Mt. Vernon!

This picture seriously makes me die! Yesterday, I was getting ready in our bedroom while Baker ran around and tore it apart. I turned around and saw Brad's boxers on his head just like this! I roared with laughter and as you can tell, he was very excited about it. Thank God they were clean! When I took them off, he kept screaming "hat, hat"! Hahaha!

Jesus Loves Me

We've been sing "Jesus Loves Me" to Baker from the beginning but recently he's started doing his own version of it. It by no means sounds like the song but it is indeed sweet. You'll need to turn up the volume though because it's quite low. And if you're wondering why the angle is a bit odd, it's because Baker would stop singing the minute he knew I was recording him so I tried to be discreet! (BTW, please ignore my singing!)

Teddy Bear

Brad and I have always thought, from the day that we brought Bleeker home, that he looks like a teddy bear. And this picture proves it. I mean, look at his little bear paws. Sometimes he even acts like one when he sees another dog on the street! How cute is he though? We just love this dog!

Catch-up

So, my mind hasn't necessarily been on the blog over the week so I'm gonna play catch-up on a bunch of pictures I've taken over the past week and a half. There is more to come after this round!

I was wondering where Baker was and when I looked over the couch, he was laying on the floor. He loves this little game where he pretends to be asleep and fake snores. Neither Brad or I really snore but I've pretended to do it in the past with him and he just picked it up. He is so cute,thinks this game is hilarious and does it all day long! I'm hoping to catch it on video at some point!

At the gym last week, Baker finally got into the foam pit without me putting him in there! He usually hates it but something just clicked with him and he jumped in. I was shocked! This particular picture is after he accidently slipped and fell in. He thought it was funny!

Playing in the tent with a new friend he made..one of the many things he loves at the gym!

This is officially one of Baker's favorite toys...Busy Ball Popper. If I could recommend a toy to any parent for their tot, it would be this one. It does drive me a bit crazy but he still loves it...and we bought it for him last Christmas! But if you'll notice, there are lots of other things in the tubing other than the balls that are supposed to come out. Baker loves to fill it up with other things. This particular day, it's full of puzzle pieces! If there is ever something missing, I can usually find it in there. For example...one day, I couldn't find keys for the life of me. Where were they? The popper. I brought a pair of socks down for him to wear on Sat and seconds later, I could not find them anywhere! I checked everywhere and finally gave up thinking it was a lost cause. So I got another pair of socks out and just before we left, I was cleaning up his toys and guess what I found? His sock crammed in the popper! Ah...he loves to experiment!

Taking such good care of Franz and feeding him a teething paci.