Mimi will stop at nothing to have a baby. I decided to take all her babies away until she went #2 on the potty. In retaliation she has adopted my flipflop as her new baby. As you can see she has gone as far as to walk it around in a stroller and give it a bottle. I even caught her swaddling it and “shh-ing” it to sleep. I have such a strange child.

Annie’s version of home sweet home.

Here’s a little better view.

Making sure to get every possible D.C. activity in our schedule before we leave, we decided a Nationals game seemed appropriate. The Bells, Cheslers, and Parks also headed out to the ballgame with us. Trang works only blocks away from the new stadium and got to witness the construction from the ground up. She’s been itching to go since the grand opening.

Of course, our seats were high enough to see not only the game but also the passengers on commercial planes flying overhead. The Nats played the Cubs and won 5 to 3. It was fun to watch, but the other girls and I got a little bored a few innings into the game. Even Annie was asking if she could home and go to bed which is very rare for her.

Check out the pictures (how cool that I’m now able to include the galleries directly into the posts). There are captions below the thumbnails:
svgallery=nationals

Mike’s accent score below. Is that a surprise to anyone?

I’ll send you a new pair of shoes if you can name the movie of the quote above. The shoes are not new to me, but to you they would be new. Except that they are actually sandals. Oh, and I broke one last Saturday while at the Arboretum.

Anyway, the point of this post is about accents. Where would someone that doesn’t know you say you were from? Apparently, I’m from nowhere which is really about right. My accent is categorized as “Midland”, whatever that means. The eerie part about the description of my accent is that it mentions both the states in which I technically grew up. I found this quiz via Courtney. Reading her description though leads me to believe that the quiz isn’t exactly accurate because it basically says the same thing for the “Western” accent.

I changed out the picture of the girls to the left for a higher quality one. When I was originally making the site the better picture was on my laptop. I was too lazy to get it, so I settled for the low quality one. Please take a few seconds to notice it. Thank you very much!

This past Saturday night was spent at McCormick and Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant. Seeing as it will probably be our last opportunity to take advantage of the fine dining establishments D.C. has to offer, I decided to get crab legs. So did Trang. That’s why we’re wearing bibs. No, really it is. Ok fine, I always wear a bib at dinner time. At least Mike thinks I should since I usually spill something on my shirt.

Mike and Matt couldn’t resist feeding each other. Again. We can’t take those two anywhere together.

The funniest part of the evening was watching Annie eat as much or more of my crab than me (this was after she polished off her own meal). At one point I had to tell her to back away from the crab. Mike snickered and commented that Annie has expensive taste just like her mommy. Hrmph!

Well, she’s finally done it, Mimi now regularly tee tee’s on the potty! Big news, right? It is for us. The trick to finally getting her to do it was to buy a new baby and only give it to her when she went on the potty. The rule was that if she had an accident, then the dolly was taken away. We only needed to do this a few times before Mimi was volunteering her time on the magic bowl and actually going. So Hooray for Mimi! Of course, she’s not even attempted the #2, and that will probably take another few months considering how long it took her to get to this point. Only time will tell.

Annie is having a little bit of a difficult time letting Mimi get the attention during all this excitement. I keep reminding her that we did the same thing for her when she was at the point and that she should be very happy for her little sister. It’s not exactly working, but we just keep at her. Speaking of Annie, she had her spring program at school last Friday night. The theme this year was “Under the Big Top” and Annie was a ribbon-twirling acrobat. We had her all decked out in a leotard, ballet wrap skirt, and ballet slippers. Just the outfit itself was enough to thrill her. Needless to say, she’s been wearing that outfit ever since.

Mimi thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Here’s a video that I think I can share. It’s during Annie’s twirling number. I believe she’s got true talent.

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Below are some pictures from various evenings out with the Cheslers and other couples. Trang was organized enough to always have her camera on hand and was even nicer to give some of the pictures to her photographer friend, who didn’t have a camera during any of those occasions.

First up is a night out at Ben’s Chilli Bowl We met up with the Cheslers in March for a night of chilli dogs and cheese fries. All low fat, of course.

Not sure why that last one is so small (Miss Trang and Brady).

And, how could I not share this one of Annie being so silly.

While Daddy was away, the girls played. We had ourselves a festive evening at [El] Guapo’s (I always like to add the “El” a la “the 3 Amigos”). The girls love Mister Matt and couldn’t get enough of him.

Look at how cute the girls look in the sombrero. It’s as big as they are.

Can you guess what this is?

Give up…it was this. Cool effect, huh?

Now after all those nights of eating out I’m paying for it. I wish I still had that gym membership. I guess I’ll have to keep sweatin’ away to all my workout DVD’s. Although I do have quite an extensive collection now. It may be an obsession.

I almost forgot about this video until Mike’s mom reminded me of the fun the girls had when they were hunting for Easter eggs.

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So I was listening to the radio the other day in the car when aI heard a song that tickled my funny bone and actually had a fun beat. The song was “Tips for Teens” by Sparks. To my surprise, I have discovered that this band has been around since the 70’s and has released critically acclaimed albums as recent as 2006 (ahh, what you can find out on Wikipedia and/or iTunes). Depeche Mode and New Order (two of my favorite bands since childhood) even cite Sparks as a major influence. How is it possible that I’ve never before come across any of their songs in my 3 decades of life? Maybe Mike’s older siblings can weigh in on this since they are a little bit older than me. Anyway, I found this video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MqISz5bH7o

It’s hard to hear the lyrics, so I’ve pasted them below (I literally laughed out loud when I saw the portion I’ve highlighted below):

I’ve got a snapshot of your Aunt Maureen
She’s 90 and you’re a teen
I’m trying to cheer you up
Don’t be so mean, don’t be so mean

Crach, bam, now you’re looking good
Tip Top, now you’re feeling good
Once more, here’s your Aunt Maureen
Don’t you feel good, don’t you feel good

Chorus:
Tips For Teens, Tips For Teens, the kind
you don’t see in magazines
Tips For Teens, Tips For Teens, the kind
you don’t see on T.V. screens
Tips For Teens, Tips For Teens
Wake up to music
And say you’re too sick to go to work

Soon, you will lose all your zits
Tight sweaters no longer fit
Jetsetters will make their pitch
I told you so, I told you so

Chorus

Don’t eat that ice cream
It is vanilla
Give it to me

Don’t eat that burger
Has it got mayonnaise
Give it to me

Keep that mystique up
And wear a “D” cup
No matter what

Don’t eat no curry
Before a very
Important date

Do I look so knowing and old and wise
Maby it’s those Dacron ties
How come you keep asking me
For Tips For Teens, for Tips For Teens

Crach, bam, now you’re looking good
Tip Top, now you’re feeling good
Once more, here’s your Aunt Maureen
Don’t you feel good, don’t you feel good

Of course, I couldn’t conclude without disclosing the fact that they have a song called “Moustache”. This is just for you Mike:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8yN_6KIxxw&feature=related

Can you tell that I’ve got nothing better to do on a Saturday night with Mike out of town (::snicker::)?