March Madness

No, this is not a post about college basketball ... March Madness has a whole different meaning in our household. March is the month in which both our girls celebrate their birthdays. Maddie is at the end of the month, Josie in the middle. But, once the month begins, all talk is birthday related... Josie: "Mom, how many sleeps 'till my princess party at Grandmom's house?" Maddie: "I seriously need a new wardrobe for my birthday, Mom..."

March is also the month that my darling husband is reminded of how expensive daughters can be! James cringes when he sees the price tags at J. Crew, American Eagle, and Banana Republic. I don't blame him...

We visited my parent's place this past weekend to get an early start on the celebrations.

My Mom ordered this beautiful cake from a local baker:





Josie received wonderful gifts - befitting a princess. My Mom & I shopped all day on Friday at the outlets in Rehobeth. Josie caught on quickly - she was a size 4T. So, she searched the racks and pulled out every size 4T dress that she found. She then told us, "I like this one, we should buy it." The outcome was that Josie walked out of Gymboree, The Children's Place and J. Crew with a total of 4 bags of clothes. Needless to say, she is fully outfitted for the the spring and a majority of the summer!






Maddie and James joined us at the shore late on Friday night. Maddie had her first soccer game, which began at 5:30PM. It was snowing for most of the day... not the kind of snow that lays on the ground, but more of a snow shower. Either way, she froze her butt off! It was 31 degrees at game time. Maddie's team lost the game 2-0. However, James said they looked pretty darn good for a team that had only been practicing together for two weeks. Most of the girls on the opposing team had played together for years. The only disadvantage to being at a newly opened school is that it takes the teams a bit longer to find their 'groove'. We have complete confidence that in the coming years, this team will be one to reckon with!



In other news, we've been having a tough time adjusting to the crazy weather here in Virginia. March came in like a lion with 8 inches of snow falling overnight on March 1st. James actually insisted on going to work that morning, so I was out at 4:45am - documenting the snowfall:


This is our street - notice the steep hill...


Here's the house, looking lovely with all the snow falling.


Here's the backyard, photo taken from the deck.


And, here is Carson, our snow dog! You can tell he was born in Michigan... he loves the snow!


Here is our 'poser' daughter, Maddie. Snow is just another 'photo-op' for her!



And, finally, here is me wiping Josie's nose while shoveling the driveway. Note the red minivan behind us: it went back and forth for over an hour... the hill in front of the house was too steep for the van to negotiate. In the end, she had to be towed out. I'm still trying to figure out why she just didn't slide back down the hill and go home... Oh well!

Three days after the record snowfall, we had record warm temperatures. In the following pictures you can see that Josie was in shorts as she and her Dad visited the Smithsonian Castle's carousel and the newly re-opened Museum of American History:





That's really all for now. There's a whole lot more going on in the coming weeks: We have Josie's birthday celebration with her classmates on Thursday, a 'playdate' party with her friends next week and then we'll get into Maddie's birthday celebrations. I will be happy when March is over!!!