Poor Neglected Blog

This blog is severely neglected. But there's not too much going on. Jake goes to school and works. I work a little bit and stay home with Paige. We both adore our little girl who seems to get cuter by the day.

She's 8 months old now, as happy as ever, and always an adventure.

Annapolis

On the last day of Jake's internship, his department planned a day trip with all the legal interns to Annapolis, MD. The morning of all of the others decided it was too rainy so they canceled the trip. However, we figured we were already planning on going--so we went anyway. We didn't spend a ton of time there, because we wanted Paige to be able to get in her naps.

First we went on a touristy harbor cruise. We got on a tour boat and went for a ride around the harbor. We sailed past the Navel Academy and some really pretty coastline. It was really relaxing to be on the boat. We had perfect weather during the boat ride. It was overcast because of the rain, but it wasn't raining and it wasn't too hot. However, it was really bright so Paige and Jake (with their sensitive blue eyes) were squinting most of the time.

Here are some pictures from our boat ride:




After the boat we stopped at a restaurant for a fresh crab lunch. Since Jake and I grew up in Colorado, we didn't have much experience eating fresh crab. We ordered one crab (mostly just to try it... crab is expensive!) and a soft shell crab sandwich. I was honestly a little disturbed when the waiter brought our meal. The crab came on a tray slightly buried in dry seasoning. It literally looked like he had crawled up through the sand was was staring at me. The crab on the sandwich maintained the crab shape, but it had been deep fried (image a bun with deep fried legs sticking out of it). Put it all together and it looked like one crab was glaring at me for deep frying his friend. I wish I would've taken a picture of it, even though it was a pretty disturbing. But we had a good time and laughed through most of the meal and just enjoyed the taste of the crab.

Great Falls "Hike"

We haven't been able to do much hiking since we moved here. So a few weeks ago we decided to go hiking to the Great Falls. We imagined it would be a short hike up to the falls... we just didn't imagine how short. It took approximately two minutes to walk to trail to the overlook. We had a good laugh at ourselves and enjoyed the view of the falls. We also went for a walk down some of the other trails near the falls, but it just wasn't quite the same.

The Many Faces of Paige

"This looks interesting"

"Whoa! What's up there?"

"pppppbbbbbbbtttttttt"

"What."

"That's delightful!"

"Neat! There's something behind me!"

"I want that in my mouth."

"I'm outta here!"

Jake's Internship

This summer, Jake has an internship with the American Bar Association. One of his assignments was to write an article for and edit their newsletter. Click on the link to check it out. It's so fun to see his name in print!

Why Northern Virginia is Green

The other day we had a massive rainstorm. In a matter of minutes it went from not even sprinkling, to pouring sheets of rain.



The video doesn't really do it justice, but a massive amount of water was coming down.

Twilgiht: Eclipse

The third Twilight movie came out this past week and Christen, Eve and I went and saw the midnight showing. The great part about it was that we got to leave our babies at home and have a fun night out. We got to the theater early and were first in line. We camped out playing cards and eating junk food while we waited:

The theater offered a free t-shirt to someone willing to pose for a picture with that t-shirt. That someone was Christen:


After a nice wait we got into the theater (ok, maybe we ran to the theater with the rest of the crowd) and saw the movie.

On the way home from the theater (at 2:30am), since there were no babies in the car, we opened all the windows, blasted the music and had a nice ride home. It was an awesome movie and an awesome night!

Eastern Market

The Eastern Market is one of the longest running markets in the area. It first opened in 1873, and has (basically... in some form) been running every since. It's now a massive farmer's market and has it's own metro stop.

The Eastern Market was one of the first things that my friends and I put on our To See in DC list last August. A few weeks ago we finally made it down there. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the market booths were only out on weekends and we went on a Friday. So there were no booths set up, but we did see the market building, and we walked around the neighborhood a little. It wasn't what we were expecting, but it was still fun!

Tanaya, Christen and Henry:

Me and Paige, Eve and Alex:


After walking around we went back to Christen's house and had a fabulous lunch (because Christen is an amazing cook) while the babies played.

Henry and Alex playing with a large bucket of blocks:


Paige looking absolutely delighted to see Henry:

Paige and Alex, perhaps in some kind of showdown:


It was a long exciting day, and it wore little Paige out. She curled up and fell asleep in Henry's crib:

And what were our husbands doing during all of this? Working. Poor guys. Thanks for working so hard, boys!

Paige Highlights

I acknowledge that fact that (for some strange reason) not everyone is as obsessed with Paige as I am. So I only put up her highlights on this blog and then put the fabulous baby details on the (private) blog I made for her. If you want access to that blog, please let me know!

A lot has been happening for Paige over the past month or so since I've blogged (yikes, that long?!). Gramma Brison came out to visit:


And bought Paige a fun new "space ship" toy (thanks Gramma and Grampa!):

She found her toes and is delighted to have a toy with her all the time.

She likes hanging (literally) out with her Dad. Here she's helping Jake take out the trash.

She sleeps like a champ!! Each night around bedtime (usually 7:00pm) we do a quick bedtime routine (put on pjs, a new diaper, sometimes read a bedtime story, say a prayer, get a pacifier in her mouth) and then lay her down in bed. She'll look around for a little bit and then go to sleep. She sleeps until around 1:00 when she wakes up (with no crying) to eat. She then goes right back to sleep and sleeps until around 4:00 when she wakes up again (still no crying) to eat. She goes right back to sleep and until it's time to get up between 6:30 and 7:00. In the mornings she greets us with big smiles. It's delightful.

She's found a new way to sleep that she seems to love. She sleeps on her side with her neck stretched out:

She likes to play with anything in front of her... like the remote.

She can flip from her back to her stomach! One day I left her on a blanket on her back and come back to find her up on her belly. It was shocking because she used to hate tummy time.

We've taken her swimming a couple times. She's not entirely sure what to think of it, but I think (and hope) that she'll learn to like it.



She has figured out that toys are really fun. In this video clip she goes wild for the toys hanging from her bouncer:


Basically, Paige is just awesome. We love having her around!

Anniversary Date

To celebrate our anniversary, Jake and I had Tammy babysit Paige and we went out to dinner. It was strange (and wonderful) to be out with each other.

We came home to this fun sight, Paige asleep in Tammy's arms. So sweet!

On our way home we stopped by the store to grab some milk. Jake went in by himself and came out with milk and these amazing roses:



It was a great anniversary date!

Three Years

Jake and I were married three years ago!

As usual, Rascal Flatts says it best:

We made some plans, had some crazy dreams

And now that we reached a few, you would think

That it would get old to you and me

But it still feels good

Happy Anniversary to us!

(Sorry, Jake for the cheesy anniversary post. Couldn't help it!)

Cute Paige

I think Paige is absolutely adorable. That's all.

First Year Finished!!

Jake officially survived his first year of law school!!! Hooray!! I'm so proud of him for surviving. It turns out everyone is right. The first year of law school is absolutely miserable.

As he finished his last finals I made him a cake. Since he finished his first year he's now a:

2L! I didn't frost it, but I was still pretty excited about the cake. Even more excited to be done with that first year.

National Portrait Gallery and Ford's Theater

While Jake was suffering through finals this semester, Paige and I went to the National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum and Ford's Theater. We went with Michelle and Gabbi Prince and Emily and Abby Hamilton.

The National Portrait Gallery is connected to the American Art Museum and we spent some time wandering through that building. There are some really cool things there. License plates from the 50 states the spell out the preamble to the constitution:

The wanted poster from Lincoln's murder:

Portrait of Joseph Smith:

Portrait of George Washington:

This was a really cool museum to visit. This is about how much Paige was into it:

Abby on the other hand was loving it:

That day we also went to Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was shot. We saw a museum about the assassination, the coat Lincoln was wearing when he died (the man was huge!), and a really well done presentation about the assassination. I was a little disappointed to find out that the theater was a recreated after being gutted and turned into an office building. But that's alright. The recreation was good and it was still neat to be there.

Paige and I, Michelle and Gabbi before the presentation:

The babies did alright during the presentation, even though they did make a little noise (mostly happy noise) which earned us some glares from other people. Abby on the other hand decided she wanted to be outside running up and down stairs rather than be in the theater.

Emily and Abby:

This is Paige and I in front of the box where President Lincoln was shot. The box is decorated like it was that night.

This was definitely a cool sight seeing trip. I love living so close to Washington, DC!

She Rolls

Paige rolled over yesterday! Go Paige!

Kartchner Visit

Jake's parents and sister Lindsey came out to visit Paige. (Seeing us was a negligible bonus) We love having visitors out here!

Paige and Aunt Lindsey:
Paige and Grandma Kartchner:
Paige and Grandpa Kartchner:

While they were here we went down to Mt. Vernon to check out where George Washington lived. The estate was gorgeous and had the most amazing view of the Potomac.

While they were out here Jake blessed Paige in church. Paige looked amazing in her blessing dress that had been made out of my wedding dress (thanks, Aunt Peg!). The dress was originally my grandma's, worn by my mom, and then worn by me at our weddings.

We had an awesome weekend with them!

Paige's First Photo Shoot

My friend Brittney did some awesome pictures of Paige:

I'm officially one of those moms who puts up lots of pictures of their baby... I just think she's too cute!

Spring

It's definitely spring time in DC. The weather is warm and everything is blooming. Paige looks adorable in her little short sleeve outfits.



Paige also looks so cute in her headbands, and usually manages to work them down over her eyes when she's wearing them.


Unfortunately, spring means law school finals so the boys are hard at work studying. This week while the boys were at school the girls got together and dyed Easter eggs.

The EXTREMELY talented Michelle made these eggs. So cute!


Eve, Christen, and I are admiring little Paige on our first play date:


Michelle and Gabbi:
Eve and Alex:

Me and Paige:
Gabbi and Alex (who are so big in comparison to little Paige!):