Mr. Stengel Goes to Washington

Back in mid-October, I participated in the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk in Washington, D.C.  The walk fell over my Grandpa (aka Pa) and Grandma's birthdays, so we asked Pa if he would like to join us and celebrate his 90th birthday in the nation's capital. 
We are so glad he said yes!

 

The walk was amazing, as usual (a big thank you/shout out to all my donors!!), but I actually had more fun exploring the museums with these three guys:

 

We all had our favorite things.  Pa's was the the Air and Space Museum 

(big surprise there :).

 James loved running around in the National Mall

 But in the Air and Space Museum, he found something he liked even more.  

Any guesses to what it was?

 Sputnik! 
As soon as we walked into the museum, he started yelling "Ga!Ga!Ga!" (his word for ball) and pointing up :)

 I liked the First Ladies exhibit in the American History Museum and the National Galleries of Art, although I'm not sure we'll be allowed back in after Pa touched a painting by Monet (and got reprimanded by the security guard, to which Pa muttered under his breath that he highly doubted it was an original) and Matthew asked a different guard if anything had ever been stolen from there.  I'm sure our pictures now reside at the front desk under the "No Admittance" list.

 Matthew liked running around with James and the new Star Spangled Banner exhibit

(he lived in DC for a month a couple of years ago, so he had seen most of the museums already).

 Despite the loooong car ride (and the debates about which route to take), we all had a great time.

Long overdue update

Things have been a bit busy since we last spoke.  We went to Washington DC for the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, celebrated Halloween, celebrated Aunt Jill's wedding, and just got back from celebrating Thanksgiving in Southern Indiana (the hard drive on our computer also crashed, which helped contribute to the lack of posts around here lately).

We also got to see more of this little one, baby numero dos:

(please forgive the poor quality of the pictures)

I had my 20 week ultrasound on 11/16.  Everything looked perfect!  Little baby even posed for us, sticking out his/her elbows and putting his/her hands behind his/her head.  And if you couldn't tell from that last statement, we also successfully did not find out the sex of the baby.

Matthew wasn't able to get off work for the appointment, but he did get to see the little one on a dvd that the ultrasound tech recorded.  We are very thankful that the little babe is right on track development-wise.  10 fingers and 10 toes!

Thanks to Uncle Matt for babysitting James during my appointment and congratulations on changing your first diaper.  As much as I tried to talk him into it beforehand, James did not go #2 while Uncle Matt was watching him. :)

Pumpkins!

Or as James calls them, bububu

Actually, at first, James wasn't quite sure what they were

What IS this thing??

Maybe if I take a little taste...nope.  Still don't know what it is.

How about I smell one?

Hmm...that didn't help much either.

Gosh, this is hard.

Oh, I think I got it!

It's a pumpkin!!

I was just messing with you guys.  I knew it was a pumpkin all along.

I'm a little stinker, aren't I?

 In addition to playing with the pumpkins, James also did a little hat modeling

And some just plain cute modeling

He's changed a bit since last year's visit to Uncle Jason's pumpkin wagon.  I think this may become an annual thing...

 No trip to the farm is complete without a ride on the gator, or better yet, the tractor

On an unrelated note, we're going to have to change the name of the blog.  I'll let James tell you why"

In case you couldn't understand the little man, the name is changing because this blog won't be just about him anymore:

(And for those of you wondering (like Matthew did upon seeing this for the first time), the baby does not have a beak.  That's his or her left hand)

WPAFB NMUSAF

A couple of weeks ago, Grandpa (Matthew's dad) and Pa (my Grandpa) joined us in a trip to visit Wright Patterson Air Force Base National Museum of the United States Air Force (aka WPAFB NMUSAF - 20 points to anyone who figured that acronym out).

James was very excited, as you can see from this picture taken on the way there:

James had fun running around

and finding cool stuff on the ground (like bolts screwed into the concrete floor)

while the rest of us learned about the planes of WWII

I'm not sure if we learned more from the exhibits or from Pa:

He was able to identify most of the planes by sight, both allied and enemy.  It was pretty impressive.

This is a pic of him and a B-24, which he flew (although this one is a different model - he flew the B-24G which had a nose turret in front).  He was a gunner, mainly operating the nose turret, but he also operated the ball turret and served as a backup bombardier. 

We spent 3 or 4 hours at the museum, all in the WWII area.  There are 4 or 5 other hangars that we didn't even get to.  It's a very cool museum.  If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it.  If not for the planes, you should at least go for the air force clothes in the gift shop :)

And now, for the planes:

(10 points for anyone who knows what movie the song is from).

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

My parents came to visit a few weekends ago, and we took James to his first Cincinnati Reds game.  A great time was had by all :)

In case you're wondering, yes, I did wear my Seattle Mariners Ken Griffey tshirt.

 

My dad was also there when we took James to see the Seattle Mariners back in June of 2011.  He's changed a little, don't you think?

You can see the original post from the Mariners game here: http://sweet-baby-j.blogspot.com/2011/06/visit-from-papaw.html

Uncle Matt & Aunt Steph's Wedding

A month ago yesterday, my older brother Matthew (aka Uncle Matt or as James calls him "ee-ah".  I don't think it's a coincidence that he says the same thing for IU) wed his beautiful bride, Stephanie.  We were very blessed to take part in their special day.  Congrats, Uncle Matt & Aunt Steph!

The bride getting ready.

Reception at The Grand.

First Dance.

Me & My Pops.  Notice that his bowtie matches James's :)

Me & the Groom.

They had a photo booth set up at the reception, which was a lot of fun:

 

Matt & Steph were too busy having a good time to get some photo booth pics
taken, so we did an impromptu one at the end of the reception:

Have you ever heard the term photobomb? Yeah, me neither. Unitl the night
of the wedding. I couldn't get Matt's attention to take a picture, so we
took one of me standing behind him. Then it became a thing:

According to Urban Dictionary.com, a photobomb is 1) to drop in a photo
unexpectedly...to hop in a picture right before it is taken. 2) An
otherwise normal photo that has been ruined or spoiled by someone who was
not supposed to be in the photograph. Thank you to my cousin Douglas (seen
in three of the pictures in the bottom row) for teaching us a new word.

Noodle Milk & Fred Astaire