My Sister's Keeper

As soon as the movie "My Sister's Keeper" came out, I wanted to see it.

I had read the book 2 years ago and loved it, so I emailed my girl friends to see who was interested.

Alex, Sarah and Sally were all on board, so we decided to have dinner at Aladdin's Eatery in Ballston first and then hit the movie.

We completely stuffed ourselves with salads and hummus and then decided to make up for our low calorie meal with huge desserts (Sarah's was slightly small then the one Alex and I shared)!


Next stop was Ballston Mall for the movie. I brought an entire box of tissues, knowing we would need them and boy was I right! We sobbed through the entire movie!

It was nice having a good cry and fun to spend time with the girls.

Safety First...

I brought Rusty in the car with me the other day, but left the kids at home.

This is where he wanted to sit:

Fun Day at the Pool

Not much text needed for this post. Just another fun day at the pool with all 3 of my boys.





And a silly video of Peter's favorite pool activity:

Mason District Park Day

On June 27, Brett and I decided to organize some of our friend's for a free kids show, picnic and hike at Mason District Park (my FAVORITE Annandale park!).

The park has an "Arts in the Park" kids show every Saturday at 10:30am, and was featuring Rocknocerous that week.

Our friends Tony and Heather came with their two daughters, Morgan and Chloe for the show.

Morgan and Peter ended up spending most of their time walking around holding hands, but the younger kids watched the music (or sat quietly because they were being fed).





After the concert, we moved the party to a picnic area near the play ground to meet up with friends who were coming without kids.

Everyone brought something to share with the group, so we had a full spread ranging from lunch meat, to fried chicken, to watermelon and veggies.






We spent the next 2 hours stuffing our faces, playing with the dogs, and chasing all the kids before most of the group headed home.



Our friends Alan and Jaquie stuck around to go for a hike, so we packed the kids in a stroller and back pack and took the "Nature Walk" trail around the park before calling it a day.

It was really fun to get our friends together and look forward to more impromptu events like this!

Free Date Night

Brett and I try to take full advantage of the many free tourist and community things that there are in DC and Northern Virginia. One of the best things in the summer is the many free concerts around the area. The last weekend of June, Brett and I had a date scheduled and decided to try out the concert series in Herndon - Friday Night Live!

The traffic was bad as a storm threatened to blow through Northern Virginia, so it took a while to get to the show. Thankfully, my husband is very entertaining:



When we finally got to Herndon, Love Seed Mama Jump was playing cover songs and some of their own music.

We had brought a picnic dinner, so we ate during the first set, and then packed up our blanket so we could dance for the second set.

Besides the cost of gas and groceries for the dinner; the evening was completely free and so much fun! We plan on heading back again this Friday to see Gonzo's Nose!

Rollie Pollie

The following picture was sent to me the other day when I was working at Curves. It was too cute to keep to myself.


Many thanks to my amazing husband for taking such good care of our babies and capturing these special moments while I am working!

If you're happy and you know it...

Another peek into our life.

Here is an example of the kids during lunch:

(My apologies for my not so amazing singing voice)

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

Peter loves monkeys, so naturally he loves the monkeys jumping on the bed song.

Here is a typical bedtime evening for the Gardner family:

Man Shoes

Peter is old enough now that he is requests clothes and shoes to wear in the morning.

The other day he was asking to wear his "Man Shoes"

I had no idea what he was talking about. He and Aaron have one pair of matching shoes that he calls "Aaron Shoes," he calls his crocks by their brand, calls his Speedo shoes, water shoes; but I had never heard him say "Man Shoes"

After many attempts to put on shoes that looked like Brett's shoes (thinking he was trying to look like a man - like daddy); I finally gave up and showed Peter all the shoes so he could pick up the "man shoes" with his hands.

I should have guessed:

Creative use of bowl

More silly videos from the Gardner family: