Hail The New Ye Lads and Lasses!

Happy New Year!

After too many pictures, Will decides to eat his sash!

2008 was a great year around here. William Olen made us a family in March, Jason and I celebrated 7 years of marriage and 14 years together, we took Will home to Washington, and have visited lots of friends and family. 2009 is sure to be fun as well! The Inauguration of Obama in January, we take Will home to Seattle for his first birthday at the end of February/first of March, Aunt Tricia and Uncle Tim will visit in April, and we go to a conference in Pittsburgh with Jason in March. This summer will hold the biggest changes, Jason will hopefully find a professorship and we will be leaving Maryland for good! Yeah! So if any of you feel the need to come see the Lincoln Memorial while enjoying sleeping on our floor, please take advantage of this opportunity soon! May you all be blessed with a great 2009!

Sick,Sick,Sick...

I am sick. I cough, wheeze, and cough some more. I need to go to the Doctor today. Thankfully, Will is still healthy. He is however in a terrible mood due to teething. Hope all my Seattle Peeps are recovering from these crazy snow storms!

American History Museum

The Iconic Kermit.

Mom and Molly in front of the Capitol.

Mom shoring up the Washington Monument.

Molly and her dear friend Steven Colbert, from the "Colbert Report".

Edith Wilson's Purse, it had an amazing amount of beads, all hand done of course. Wow!

Mamie Eisenhower's Inaugural gown, it was gorgeous! I would never have guessed she would wear this kind of thing. Her matching shoes and purse are also there. Her feet were pretty big.

The American History Museum finally opened after 2 years of renovations. It was very crowded and really not yet completed, but still fun to visit. The "Hall of First Ladies" just opened on the 19th so we were eager to see that. Will was very irritated with being in the stroller all day and was grateful for the few times we were able to turn him loose. Below are a couple of random pictures from the past couple of days.

First Christmas Morning!

Worn out after a morning of fun!

Merry Christmas!

A quick post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We spent the day happily preparing for the evening, and watching a Christmas marathon. We got all the way from Red Ryder to Garfield. Pretty much every great holiday classic! Will opened 3 presents with help, but basically was unwilling after that. He loves the paper and boxes though and we are realizing that on the next kid we can save a ton of money! Hope everyone is having a great day!
Sorry the picture is so dark, as is my husband....

Will got a gnome jack in the box, and seems to be scared and thrilled at the same time.

Solution to overcome fear?...Throttle the Gnome.

Will sleeps through his first Christmas Eve Service.

Will in the car, being very charming in hopes of avoiding his car seat restraints.

Will thinks that the echo-y boxes are the best part of Christmas.

Will took one taste of the dill pickle and literally THREW it down, then proceeded to pick it up and continue eating it while entertaining us with some great faces.

George Washington Slept Here....

Will waiting for his food at the George Washington Inn.Will and Mommy freezing together at Mount Vernon.

Aunt Molly, Grandma and Pudd waiting to go in to the house....

Mom posing with the Washingtons.George isn't the only one who slept here!

Peek a Boo!

Capital Capitol Christmas!

The Lighting of the Menorah- It's the 2nd night of Hannukah. There was also a HUGE blue dancing Dreidel- I couldn't get a picture....SAD

It was really, really cold!

Waiting in Santa's Toyshop- it was amazing and so was Santa! He was so nice and authentic.

Will's cold little cheeks.

I would like to start a campaign for a new Creche and Nativity figure set, the Jews have a kick ass Menorah and all we had was this....

The Baby Jesus is poorly represented here.

Mom and Molly embracing winter's majesty.

The Simmons Family.

The National Christmas Tree with the Washington Monument in the background.

The Best Present!

Will has been having a lot of petechiae- small broken blood vessels under the skin, and these are always a worry in children. Dr Rahman wanted us to get some blood tests to rule out some nasty things and everything came back fine! She thinks he must have had a virus recently because his Leukocytes and Lymphocytes were still slightly elevated. That made sense because a couple of weeks ago he was really crabby and had a temp, but we chalked it up to teething. Anyway, Hurray for a healthy baby! For now we just have to make sure no more form and that they don't get bigger. And especially after his blood draw today I hope they don't. I don't ever want to do that again!

Happy Holidays!

Update...

Will playing with the HUGE tree at the airport.

Will at California Pizza Kitchen

Our Tree.

Grandma and Molly arrived on Sunday and we have been super busy ever since! Will is loving all the extra attention. He is getting tons of books read to him and is being constantly entertained. We went to California Pizza Kitchen the other night, which we all love. Today we took Will to see Santa, I was so surprised when he didn't scream after I put him on his lap. The picture turned out Ok, Santa didn't look too thrilled, but who can blame him after holding tons of kids on his lap all day. I found a lot of cute clothes on really good sales for him as well. I will post the Santa picture tomorrow, I need to scan it in. But I will post a few, including our tree.

O Tannenbaum!

Daddy helps find Will's hand so he can touch the tree.

Ewww, Nature!


The Tree almost landed on the baby!

We ventured out today to get our Christmas tree. We went to the same farm we got pumpkins at but they were charging- get this... 100 bucks! For a tree you will throw away in 3 weeks! So, obviously, we didn't buy one there. We went north away from the city and found a farm that had great trees for 40. That's more like it! Will had a great time, and wore this very sweet outfit(top picture) from Auntie Bridget. The tree is up now, with lights and he doesn't quite know what to make of it. But he sits there and smiles at it. I will post a picture of it when I finish decorating it.