Halloween 2018

We finally broke away from princesses and Star Wars for Halloween last year! Natalie got it in her head a couple of months earlier that she wanted to dress as a "dark fairy" - I had no idea how to do that, but a quick search on Amazon showed me that indeed there are "dark fairy" costumes for kids! I stress that "for kids" part as some of the costumes were definitely not age appropriate.

After reading the first 4 books, Henry was excited to go as Harry Potter - that's quite the easy costume to find!

The fun part about these costumes was that I got to do some makeup on them both. Henry's was simple obviously - we used his existing scar but turned it into a lightening bolt. I had fun playing around with face makeup for Natalie; ultimately we settled on a spiderweb-inspired design that we were both really happy with.

Natalie still likes for her and I to do costumes together, so last minute I pulled together a costume for myself using all items I already had - she was a dark fairy, so I was a light fairy!

 

We were out trick or treating for quite a while, venturing further through the neighborhood than we'd done previously. As we walked around, we ran into a group of 5th grade girls trick or treating together and joined up with them for a bit. It was great that Natalie got to do this with some friends for the last time in Leesburg!

And then two days later...

A small February snowstorm hit! Yep, just two days after Henry and I checked out the sunset, without jackets, we had pretty much the opposite weather hit, and we all bundled up for an evening walk in the snow.

It was truly lovely out, especially with the snow mostly untouched. We really do have a pretty neighborhood!

As you saw in my Montreal post, I really like focusing on snow/ice covered branches that are backlit by streetlights. Our street was just as pretty - look at these trees!

 

Evan and I had to take a snowy selfie - aren't we adorable?!

And the kids wanted to run in the snow as much as possible. I managed to get them to pose for me on this hill, very briefly, and then they were off again.

They were particularly excited because we hadn't really gotten snow before this snowfall. It didn't stick around for very long, but particularly Natalie enjoyed running around in it outside!

January sunset in DC

On January 20, I went into DC for another Kennedy Center show (this one was a play, The Humans). But this post isn't about the play (which was overall ok, but the ending was...dark and kind of left a sour taste in my mouth about the whole thing). This post is about the sunset that I saw as I walked from the Kennedy Center to the restaurant where my friend and I had dinner. Check out this beautiful sky!

 And ice on the Potomac! And birds! And reflection! And building silhouettes! Just beautiful all around.

And these were taken on my iPhone, with no filters applied or changes in post. It was truly stunning to capture.

I love this shot with the moon above.

And finally, a look back across the ice at the Kennedy Center itself. Such a gorgeous night!

Celebrating Christmas with Carrie

A few years ago, Carrie and I started a holiday tradition of spending a day together prior to Christmas (typically sometime in December), and shopping with one another - picking out gifts to give one another, with the main goal of just spending the day together.

This year, we did it a little bit differently - because of schedules, it was hard for me to find a day when I could meet up with Carrie solo. Also, Carrie wasn't going to be able to make it to our house for Christmas (we were going to be hosting a houseful - more on that soon!), so I asked her if it would be ok for me to bring the kids with me this year. She said ok, and we figured out something fun for all of us to do for a day.

We started off with a bit of shopping (and photos in front of the mall tree).

 

 

After shopping and dinner, we headed over to our main activity of the day: seeing the holiday lights at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond. We were looking for something "Christmas-y" to do, and this seemed to fit the bill. Neither Carrie nor I had gone before, and I'm very glad we did! I think I would make this a Christmas tradition.

Every year they do a different theme; this year was "Story book tales". Everything was absolutely beautiful. I can't begin to guess how many lights there were (millions), and the work that went into setting this up. I took all of these photos on my iPhone; I think it handled the lighting very well!

Don't let this photo below fool you - there were tons of people around. But I managed to get a shot of the kids in this plaza with no one around (ever so briefly).

We also had a full moon that night, which made for some very cool shots! See a few of them below too.

In the middle of the gardens is a giant lake, which made for some very cool reflections in the water.

Here the kids are recreating this "Hansel and Gretel" light display.

We asked a random passerby to take a photo of the 4 of us.

This was one of the coolest parts of the entire garden - The Giving Tree. The story alone is enough to make me tear up, and the lights they did on the tree were simply stunning.

We ended back near the front of the gardens in the greenhouse. We needed a bathroom stop, and it turned out there was a lot to see there as well. I love these lights arranged to look like large flowers!

Inside the greenhouse were a number of displays, with the most eye catching being this giant Christmas tree made entirely of (fake) flowers.

And we finish with a couple of my more "artistic" shots of the grounds.

Halloween 2017

Before we moved to Leesburg, I didn't know that decorating for Halloween was a thing. Now, many years later, I love decorating! I've had to replace some of my decorations over the years (they do wear out due to weather), but I love adding new things and figuring out where to put them all.

Let's start with the outside of the house:

 Natalie was very scared by the spider and web! LOL

 I also have some inside decorations, on our mantel (which apparently I failed to photograph this year) and on the table just inside our front door.

So, what were our costumes this year? For the second year in a row, Natalie chose to NOT be a princess (I guess we are finally past that age), but for the first year, she wasn't even a tv/movie character (she went as Rey from Star Wars last year). This year, she asked to be a black cat. I was happy to oblige, as the costume was easy, and the clothes we bought for it could be reworn.

When we found her ears and tail set, there was a mouse set there too...so I went as a mouse! Cat and mouse. Natalie was very excited for us to do a joint costume, and I will definitely take that as long as it lasts (before I'm completely uncool). We had to test out our makeup and costumes before Halloween, of course!

 Natalie also got to try out her costume during dress-up week at dance. She wore the cat costume to both days of ballet (I think), and wasn't the only one who was dressed as a cat - although not a zombie cat like her friend Bridgette :)

 On Friday, for their lyrical class, a group of the girls decided to dress up as Star Wars characters. How cute are they?!

 Then, it was finally Halloween! This year we decided to not go to the Leesburg parade; we didn't have a reason we needed to walk in the parade, and we both really liked the idea of just taking the kids trick-or-treating around our neighborhood with our neighbors. It was pretty cold, but the kids bundled up as best as they could (while still showing their costumes) and we headed out.

 Natalie and I had our cat and mouse costumes, Henry was a Transformer, and Evan wore his usual Halloween "costume".

 

We had a lot of fun hitting all of the houses in our section of the neighborhood (and a few in the townhouses across the street). Saw lots of neighbors, met a few new folks, had some neighbors give out adult treats of rum-spiked cider (to keep us warm, of course!), and came home with two big buckets full of candy. A successful Halloween indeed!

Beach 2017: July 4th

Who doesn't love July 4th? Cookouts, pool, fireworks, getting to stay up late...throw that together with the beach and a houseful of friends, and it's even better!

The weather wasn't great on July 4th - we weren't even sure if we would be able to go outside and light fireworks for a while there. But, the rain petered out and we could get outside

It turned out that the town-run fireworks weren't until the weekend (not on July 4th!), so it was a good thing we had other things planned for the kids. First, everyone got into their finest red,white, and blue.

Think the kids were excited?

Beta brought a bunch of "poppers", which had facts about the US, stickers, and other things inside. We all brought glow sticks and necklaces, and the kids decked themselves out.

 

We watched fireworks on TV, switching between the different channels (DC, NYC, and Boston). After the littlest ones went to bed, we took the big kids outside to light sparklers by the pool. I did the best I could to capture these photos with my Canon 5D. Thank goodness for better low-light capability!

 The kids had a blast sitting around with their glow stuff in the dark, before everyone went to bed. Here's Natalie and Henry - can you tell who is who? Lol.