Exploring

We have had fun finding things to do around our new home. There are lots of parks with great walking paths, playgrounds and lakes. There also are lots of activities. We are closer to Baltimore than D.C., so we've spent more time there so far.

We visited the Aquarium one weekend with friends from D.C. and went another day to the Baltimore Children's Muesum. Besides that, we have both the kids in weekly swimming lessons and we have made friends with several children in our neighborhood. Our neighbors have three children close to Cate and Keaton's age and there are two other girls just down the street. Cate has made friends and we've spent time playing when the weather has been nice.

All in all, we are starting to get accusomted to everything that's new to us and we're finding our routines again.

Cate and a friend at the Baltimore Aquarium. We had fun looking at sharks, fish and playing in the sandbox, but the dolphin show was the highlight of the day.


The kids and grownups had a lot of fun at the Baltimore children's museum, Port Discovery. We spent half a day there for Keaton's birthday.
Keaton "driving"


Digging for veggies



Baking in the diner


Golfing

Easter

Now that we are completely moved, settled into our new house and jobs in Maryland, we are finally getting into a routine and catching up on a whole list of things.

I was working on some photos today and thought I would add a few to our blog -- it's been a while!

I started work in Maryland on March 1, but we all were back in Kansas for Easter.

Coloring the eggs with Mimi


Hunting for eggs in Mimi and Pop Pop's backyard



Modeling our Easter outfits

New, news and more news

We've got all kinds of changes on the homefront. Keaton had his first haircut, I've got a new job and there's just general chaos all around!

I have a few photos from Keaton's haircut. Not too drastic, but he really looks more like a little boy and less like a baby.

The Princess and the Princess

Cate had a chance to play with a good friend from her old day care last weekend. They started day care together as infants and Cate just adores her. As you can see, there was a lot of princess action around our house.

New Year's Day Present

I think the kids got their new year started off right. They had fun playing with their cousin Quentin on New Year's Day. Quentin stayed with Stephen's parents for a few days so we scheduled a "play date" for Cate and Keaton on New Year's Day. There was a lot of running and screaming -- I think that means they had a great time.

We stayed late and put pajamas on the Topeka Martino kids before we got in the car to head home. It is incredibly hard to get a good picture of three children under the age of five. This was my best effort.

Happy New Year!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

That crazy guy in the red suit

Cate had a little visit with Santa at her preschool. As you can see, she's got some serious doubts about the guy, but will tolerate him in exchange for gifts.

PSA

Cate's preschool serves children with varying levels of abilities and is operated by a foundation that provides a variety of therapy services to children with disabilities. They recently produced a PSA for the program and Cate has a small role! You can see that she really loves their music time.

Looking for photos?

I have finally managed to get all our photos from recent months edited and I posted them to our Shutterfly site at http://martinopics.shutterfly.com

I know a few people who wanted to see more from our China trip, as well as updated photos of the kids. I posted about six months worth of photos, so take your time :)

I put a brief slideshow here of photos from November.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Great Wall of China