This handsome little guy is now one of the “big kids” at school (it’s an adorable set-up where only PK3 through kindergarten is housed in his bldg… so it’s true, he’s one of the biggest!)

I was relieved to be starting up a routine again after an insanely fun but also frenetic summer. Dylan was nervous about having a new teacher and classroom (see art as evidence!) but he got comfortable very quickly, and after a school play date and a couple days of school he already has a bunch of new friends.

I think it’ll be a great school year and it’s off to an excellent start!

Oh man did Dylan and Hudson love Sesame Place. We did quite a few trips over the summer and I’m fairly certain this was their favorite, even though it wasn’t mine! There are just SO MANY people crammed into the park on summer weekends. But the boys had such a blast and it was incredibly special to see how excited they were to see all the Sesame Street characters. We also went around the lazy river about 10 times, which was perfect in 90 degrees of heat and humidity 🙂

You know what else Dylan and Hudson loved? Staying in a hotel, taking turns sharing a bed with Mommy, and having a room service picnic on the floor! Love traveling with these guys – they make everything so much fun!

Man, these guys are getting to be good travelers. I think going to the airport and flying on a plane are one of their favorite parts of vacation.

So after San Diego, we flew with Omi and Opi to Denver to visit Aunt Lau, Uncle Andy and baby Zach. It was great to see the cousins playing together – Dylan seemed especially into being the big cousin and spending time with Zach.

Other highlights of Denver included: seeing Lau and Andy’s new house in Stapleton, Dylan’s wacky sleep patterns (yes the 3 of us shared a room yet again – he was halfway across the floor one night), starting to potty train Hudson (and why not?!? Seems as good a time as any!), swimming in the local pools, and doing math with Dylan (no really). This was a much less touristy trip than we’ve been on in the past, so we really took advantage of Lau and Andy’s new neighborhood and had a lot of fun with the fam. And got to see Dylan show off his new swim skills!

Can’t wait for our next cousins get-together!

The Isaac family vacation looked a little different this year – normally we would rent a beach house somewhere on the east coast (like Cape Cod), but no one could commit far enough in advance so we ended up in an extremely kid-friendly city on the opposite coast instead! Dylan and Hudson and I flew to meet Omi and Opi in San Diego for 4 days, and then flew to Denver to spend the rest of the week at Aunt Lau’s house (see next post).

There is so much to do in San Diego! But not enough at 5am when the east coast kids are up and raring to go 🙂 (Hence stencils pre-sunrise in our hotel room). We ended up at Seaport Village looking at the water and sea life quite a bit, at our hotel pool (which was a bit of a club scene but Dylan and Hudson didn’t seem to mind!), spent a day at the Zoo, ate a lot of Mexican food (I don’t want any more chips, my tummy has bad too many! said Hudson), went on an extremely touristy pedicab ride, saw seals and the aquarium in La Jolla, did lots of math (mostly Dylan), and enjoyed eating the same breakfast every single day (Opi, Dylan and I are creatures of habit!)

Dylan and Hudson also loved taking turns sharing their bed with Mommy. I will admit I have gotten better sleep in my life 🙂 But they are just so darn fun to travel with, I will squeeze into a hotel room with them any day!

Sure, it’s May already, but there were too many good pictures from Passover in CT this year not to post!

The night before the first Seder, we charged up with food from Whole Foods and got on the road. After listening to a book on tape, Dylan passed out immediately and then Hudson chatted with me until about 10:30pm 😬 Conversation highlights included “Mommy, we should talk more about my day” and a variety of made up songs, including one about cousin Zach.

The boys love going to Connecticut and seeing the fam!! And that’s an understatement. It was so special to have so many Isaacs together. Nice big group shot below!

Dylan got really into the Passover story this year – Unkey got the boys quite a few Passover books and Dylan had a lot of questions and wanted us to keep re-reading them. I foresee costumes, a play and an attempt at the four questions in his near future…..

It was a chilly couple days in CT, but didn’t stop us from trips to the beach!

Dylan and Hudson are especially loving their cousins – the big ones (Max and Sam, brother role models!) and the little one (baby Zach, not technically a baby anymore!!) Hudson appreciated that Zach giggled hysterically when he splashed him in the bath (unlike Dylan, who does not have the same reaction!)

We even got to see bonus cousins on the drive home – we did our usual stopover just outside of Philadelphia at a playground with cousins Amanda, Jordan, Jasper and May. Insanely cute conversation: I said to Dylan, “I bet Aunt Judy would love this picture of you and Jasper!” And then Dylan turned to Jasper and said “wait you know my Aunt Judy?” 😂😂

Hope everyone had a happy Passover!!!

Admittedly this wasn’t on my radar at all until Dylan’s teacher notified parents that it would be an excused absence if we wanted to take our kids to work last Thursday. And so I did – bonus time with Dylan!!

We dropped Hudson off and gave him big hugs:

And THEN we rode the metro, watched the coffee machine with wonder, enjoyed Mommy’s glass office doors, made an eerily accurate depiction of the solar system (with help from Google), ate a whole donut from District Doughnuts, met Reince Priebus, walked along the Wharf, drew on the windows (recommended by the office manager, so apparently that’s kosher), and then took the metro back to school by lunchtime – quite the morning of activity!!

Can’t say he knows what I do or why I go to the office every day (it’s possible he thinks I drink coffee and eat donuts and make art…. that’s cool). Great bonus morning with Dylan!!

There was no batmobile this year, but we saw some pretty cool cars at the DC auto show! Actually, I can’t say it mattered what the cars looked like- the boys were just super excited to put on their seatbelts and drive (Hudson) or observe from the backseat (Dylan) or sing as if the car radio were on (Mommy) or push all the buttons (everyone).

Dylan’s little poses are the cutest – someone finally started posing for the camera!!

The day of the DC auto show was technically also my birthday 🙂 There is only one way to celebrate – with ice cream!!

Loved celebrating with my favorite little people 🙂 38 is looking good!!

We are back!  Yes, there have been a lot of changes in the past few months, and yes, I took some time off of blogging.  But let’s kick things off again now that it’s 2019, shall we?

Here are some Dylan and Hudson highlights from the past few weeks, which included Dylan’s 5th birthday, our first trip to see Omi and Opi’s new house in FL, and winter break.

First, here is Chanukah in our new apartment!

As always, I tried not to inundate the boys with presents, but that is basically impossible with Dylan’s birthday and very generous family members 🙂  Here are they playing with some of their favorite new stuff:

Dylan turned 5 while we were in Florida!  Can you believe it?  Aunt Jude made him a ridiculous dinosaur/candy cake, Omi made him a train cake, and he also had a school party (his teacher made him a bday sheriff’s star) and a friend party at an indoor trampoline park in DC.  No shortage of celebrations for this guy!

Because we need to add some realism to this post, here’s something else that happened in the past few weeks:  we got lice.  UGH.  Inevitable but still a huge pain and also EWWWW.  They boys were total troopers and I also loved the women who de-loused us (she basically gave me a therapy session as she combed through my hair haha).

Next, we had about 5 days in Boynton Beach with Omi and Opi and it was sooo nice to be in sunny 65-75 degree weather – perfect for running and hot tubs, I might add.  The boys are happy to play in the sand in any weather, and they also loved Omi and Opi’s jaccuzzi and the local nature reserve.

They are getting easier and easier to travel with – which is good, because we are going back to FL in a couple weeks and then flying to Denver to see Aunt Lau!  And early takeoff means traveling in PJs – what’s not to like about that??

When we got back from FL, I also had the boys for part of their winter break, which was so nice to have all that uninterrupted time together.  DC has so much to do for kids, so we went to Zoo Lights, an indoor playground, a new outdoor playground (how are we still discovering these?), an indoor pool, finally rode the H Street streetcar, went to a restaurant, took the metro, etc.  So much fun with these little guys.

And now we are back to our regular schedule in DC!  Dylan and Hudson continue to love school, and they’re doing great going back and forth between Daddy’s house and Mommy’s apartment.  Here are the new digs, in case you were curious:

The boys are doing well in the same room, though as I write this I can hear Hudson talking to himself while Dylan tries to fall asleep (same scenario each night).  They LOVE watching the H Street street car go by (common refrain: “I saw it, you missed it”), and they are very into the trash chute and baggage/package cart.  Look how chivalrous they’ve become 🙂

We don’t have a tv (joy!), so they boys to get watch a show on their kindle fire sometimes.

And, because we need even more new things in our life, we also have a (temporary) new addition – Newman the cat!!  You can see him on the bunk bed above if you look closely – though his favorite place to sleep is actually Hudson’s changing pad these days 🙂  He is staying with us while Omi and Opi are in FL for the winter:

Anyway, 2019 is off to a great start – I’m excited to get back to more regular updates here!