Funny thing about this is that I could say this reflects their moods, but really only Stella is being genuinely Stella. Usually you can’t catch Sam without a smile on his face (although he *is* going through the whiny 2 year old phase), and Scarlett’s the most neutral.

Danielle and I went to Mount Vernon back when we first moved here and were exploring new things to do in our free time that were unique to the area.

We’d thought of bringing our parents to see Washington’s house and property, but the timing never quite worked out - you really want to visit in the Spring or Fall, not during the Summer or Winter. So it remained a place we’d only been to once even as we made multiple trips to the same couple Smithsonian museums and zoos.

This Easter we went to the farm so they kids could hunt for eggs there and then enjoy the farm. Unlike my childhood, Easter’s pretty cold up here as you can see.

It’s pretty ridiculous to me, considering almost my entire childhood consisted of going to the local park.

Stella’s been enjoying horseback riding for a bit now, but this was the first time she was old enough to do it on her own without me holding onto her the entire time.

Back in November we took the twins on their first trip to Disney. This time around Scarlett wasn’t as interested in the parades as she was last time, but the twins were REALLY into them. Surprisingly, both twins ended up warming up to the characters. Sam’s reluctance with Mickey on the first day made me think he was going to try and avoid them the entire trip. But as you can see in the video, he eventually got into interacting with the characters.

First substantial snow of the season happened in December and it was warm enough for the kids to go play outside. A few shots from that day:

I took Sam and Stella to the park on Columbus Day (Scarlett was in school) and they were finally old enough that I could step back to take photos while they worked their way through the jungle gym.

Back in October, we went to the pumpkin patch to do our annual pumpkin patch portraits.

Unfortunately, the twins were not amenable so we just did the other farm activities.

Jumping forward (I’m still generally working on photos from August because I’ve fallen behind with other responsibilities and playing some video games for Extra Life), we get to Halloween photos. Once again these awesome costumes were sewn by my mother-in-law.