Swimming Lessons

We signed Teresa up for swimming lessons, and she had her first lesson last week. She was super excited, she's always asking to go swimming, and was pretty pumped about her new Hello Kitty bathing suit. Here she is before her first ever swimming lesson:

Her bff, Mina, is in the class with her, they were so cute eagerly awaiting the start of class.

I was a little nervous about how she would do, she gets pretty upset anytime she gets water in her face or eyes, but she did so well. She actually followed most of the directions pretty well. She was even willing to put her head partially under water to practice blowing bubbles!

They practiced kicking first:

Paddling after the ball:

Her least favorite part was learning to float on her back. She was clinging on to Marc so tightly the whole time they were practicing that one.

Nora was pretty jealous, she kept trying to climb in the pool with the rest of the kids. Marc let her dip her legs in at the end and she was thrilled about it. Looks like we will be having lots of trips to the pool this summer.

T loved the way they ended the class:

I originally thought that thirty minutes wasn't very long for the lesson, but by the end of it I could tell the T was getting pretty worn out. I guess a half hour is a lot of swimming when you're only almost-three.

Afterwards she told me it was "fun but a little bit scary".

Philly

This past weekend we decided to make a little day trip up to Philadelphia. We've been wanting to go back since visiting last year, and finally got around to it. It's actually a really nice little drive, just under two hours. Last time we went we saw some of the historical sites, so this time we decided to check out some of the more contemporary spots. We started out with the famous LOVE statue.

It was a little disappointing. Much smaller than we thought it would be (twss).

And, of course, as soon as we got there Teresa had to go to the bathroom. Nora had a blast looking at all the flowers while we were gone.

We were a little surprised by how super friendly and nice everyone in Philadelphia was. We had to go several different places to find T a bathroom, and everyone we interacted with was just so nice and helpful, and even so apologetic if they didn't have one she could use. It was pretty refreshing after being in Baltimore/D.C. area. Of course when we got back to Marc and Nora, a good thirty minutes later, Marc reminded me Philly is called the city of Brotherly Love. Now we know why.

Anyway, after that we drove over to the Museum of Art to see the Rocky statue. Again, not as impressive as we thought it would be. Maybe we have unrealistic expectations of statues?

Then it was lunch time and our girlies were getting a bit tired of being dragged around to look at stuff, so we went in search of a good cheese steak. Last time we were there we had intended to try some places we'd seen on the Food Network, but unfortunately followed the suggestions of one of the guards at the Liberty Bell, and tried a different place instead. We saw something on the Food Network ages ago that said the two best places in Philly were right across the street from each other, and have quite a long standing rivalry going on. We first tried Pat's, and it really wasn't very good. Both of the girls spat out the pieces of meat they'd bitten, and I was starting to think that maybe Philly cheese steak's were just way overrated in general.

But then we went across the street to Geno's.

And oh. my. goodness. did they have a delicious sandwich. Seriously, one of the best sandwiches we've ever had. We were pretty bummed we had wasted stomach space at the other place. Even the girls loved it, they could hardly wait for their turns to get bites in.

Here's the T-bear trying to give it a thumbs up:

Nora was very enthusiastic about the fries, as well.

So, if you're ever in Philadelphia, be sure to get a cheese steak at Geno's.

After that deliciousness, we took the girls to a little play museum place nearby and let them burn off whatever energy they had left for the day. We will for sure have to go back, though, because they had a ton of outdoor play areas that looked so fun, but they didn't open until April 1st, and of course we went on March 30th.

See, I was there, too!

We could probably go to Philly every weekend for a month and not see all the cool, historical stuff there, so hopefully we will be able to go back again before we leave here.

We were this close...

A few weeks ago we got the chance to go listen to Mitt Romney speak at a Town Hall meeting here in Maryland. Eegits that we are, knowing it started at 3:30, for some reason planned to arrive at 3:30. On the way there we were kicking ourselves for not planning to arrive earlier. I'm gonna blame it on the fact that it was the day after I got back from Texas, and my brain was still a little foggy.

Anyway, the place was totally packed and we weren't able to get inside, but he did come out and speak for a few minutes before going back in to do his Town Hall thing. It was so fun and interesting listening to him speak, and really gave me a glimpse of why people can get so riled up and energized about political candidates.

Those blurry people are me and the Nora, here's a better picture of Mitt:

So presidential...

We had planned to leave both girls with a babysitter, but took Nora with us at the last minute because she'd been having a bit of a cold. It was so fun to have some one-on-one time with Nora, poor little second child that she is. She was so sweet and cute, but unfortunately missed out on being the baby that Mitt held before he went back inside. I totally think she would have made such a better photo-op than that other baby...

Marc ditched me after Mitt went in, to go take some pictures, and a journalist started interviewing me about my opinions on Mitt. It was so nerve wracking, I felt like I sounded so dumb the whole time I was talking to him. He wanted my opinion as a young mom, and I'm pretty sure he was a super-liberal kind of guy, so I felt like I was on the defensive the whole time. Of course after we walked away I thought of about a million better answers than the ones I gave him.

Nora with her Mitt Romney sticker:

(On which our interviewer sardonically commented)

Isn't she cute? Her first political rally...

We stuck around a bit to listen to the broadcasted Town Hall meeting, but it was a hard to hear, so we wandered off and did a little photo shoot with Nora for her one year pictures, instead. We just love her so much, and she is so fun to photograph now, with her big smiles and "cheese"'s for the camera.

This one is my favorite:

The rest of the story.

I need to get the rest of our Texas pictures up here so we can move on to all the crazy stuff we've been doing since!

Nora was concerned about baby Ryan when he started crying, and she started patting him on the head. She's getting so good at listening now - she stopped before I got the camera out, so I told her to go back and pat the baby again, and she totally did it! So, yeah, the next pictures are totally staged, but still cute.

Nora thinks she's a big girl like the rest of the kids.

Almost-three-year-olds:

T loves to make cupcakes, and she actually got to do a good bit of the work herself this time. Nora appreciated it as well.

Nora smiles and says cheese for the camera now:

Marc's parents were able to come up and see us the last day we were there, and the girls had fun with them. Nora loooooved the hotel bed.

And ice cream pictures are always fun.

We had a ton of fun, but were glad to get home. I was worried that Nora might be a little hesitant with Marc, just because she had started getting a little clingy with me towards the end, but she was so thrilled to see him. Both girls were giving him lots of hugs and kisses, but the cutest thing happened when Marc was putting T's car seat back in the car. Nora was already strapped in to hers and was watching him work on getting Teresa's in, and she just softly reached up and started rubbing his cheek with her little hand. It was super sweet.

Oh, and a quick Nora update - we had her back in for a weight check this week and she is up to 18 pounds 8 ounces, which means she gained 1lb 6oz in 6 weeks, which was satisfactory for her doctor. And us too :).