Recently Carlie asked me to sing the song about how it isn't her birthday yet. There isn't one, so we make up a tune and lyrics as we go. The lyrics are usually something like this:

Me: It's not your birthday yet.

Carlie: It's not my birthday.

Repeat

Me: But it will be soon!

Carlie: Yes, soon.

Me: And we will have cake! And it will be tasty!

Carlie: And it will be messy! 

Me: But it's not your birthday yet. 

How Carlie tells the only knock-knock joke she knows:

Carlie: Knock Knock!

Me and Carlie together: Who's there?

Carlie: Mr. Spicy Candy who?

Me: Mr. Spicy Candy who?

Carlie:...Candy! 

She made it up herself. 

I thought I had a funny Garrett story, but I can't remember now that I'm trying to. 

PS. This is Candace. The account automatically logs-in as the administrator, which I just realized means that Nathan comes up as the author. If he ever wrote, you would know. In the meantime, it's just me. :)

Well, almost home for Christmas. We had a nice Christmas morning at home, then to church, and off to the airport. Then our plane was delayed, so we didn't actually get there until 1:30am on December 26th. Close enough. :)

We had a great time in Maryland. The kids especially enjoyed getting spoiled by Nana (that's what Nana's do best!). Even I enjoyed being spoiled by Nana.  

Nate and I celebrated our 9th anniversary! It's been a good 9 years. You already know what an amazing, wonderful guy he is and how I'm madly in love with him, so I'll skip the mushy stuff for now. 

And now, for the parade of vacation photos!

Here's the whole gang:

My Mom took the kids to the Baltimore aquarium and we met up with them later:

I really miss the Maryland landscape. I miss the tall trees, leafy woods, four seasons, mountains (even if they're small), and proximity to so many cool locations. I'm still surprised every time we go camping in Texas and the campsites aren't in the middle of the woods. My Mom has some trees behind her home with a trail and playground, so we took the kids on a walk. They had at least as much fun playing Pooh-sticks on the bridges as they did at the actual playground.

On our way back, we were surprised by a snow flurry!  

We also made it to DC for my Mom's birthday.

Nate took the kids to the Smithsonian museums:

This is Carlie pretending to be a "scary T-Rex": 

Yeah, she's a little too cute to be very good at the scary thing. :)  

Garrett has his shark moves down (not that he's not cute too).

We treated my Mom to a Segway tour for her birthday.

In the evening we had a birthday dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. It was pretty cool. It's reservation only and you have to knock on this big wooden door before they let you in. Then it's all floor to ceiling tapestries and incense. You sit on these couch-like seats and eat from a giant communal platter with your hands at a knee-hand table. There was a belly dancer that same out and performed as well. It was a really cool experience. I love restaurants like that - with a really unique ambience/dining experience.

We also went out to see the airplanes and fighter jets at a satellite Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport:

 Not that you can tell from that picture. But we were there. 

All in all a good trip. It was really nice seeing my family and spending time with them. Sorry for the travelogue, but believe it or not, that was a tiny percentage of the pictures we took. 

By the way, I can only share these low-quality smaller pictures for some reason, so if you ever see a picture you are interested in having, let me know and I'll email it to you. They look much better on my computer.