Christmas Prep

We have been busy with lots of fun activities getting ready for Christmas!  We started with decorating the day after Thanksgiving, and then did the tree on Saturday.  I was impressed with how long Timmy and Tyler stuck with helping me.  When they did burn out they snuggled up with Tim and watched Frosty while I finished up.

I was passing out non-breakable ornaments, Tyler was stock piling them instead of putting them on the tree!  Every so often I would have to tell him he couldn't have any more until he used the ones in his pile!

I made this for the boys last Christmas and a matching one for our nephews, they enjoyed putting it up but have not been redecorating it this year!

The following weekend we went to visit with Santa!  It was a rainy day so the cookie decorating was under the overhang and after Santa arrived by boat, he met with the kids in the book store.  Santa told Timmy and Tyler that he loved their shirts!  We had been practicing their lists and they told Santa what they wanted.  (We had to give Tyler some guidance, as his only wish for Christmas was for a "gun that shoots money"!  He's pretty excited for his items now though, and I haven't heard him mention the money gun since seeing Santa!)

This was our 5th year seeing Santa at this event.  I sent him this as a Thank you for always taking his time to see us here!

That Monday we went to Ice! at National Harbor with Elena, Al, Becky, and Chris.  It was a great display and we had a lot of fun.  We had to pull Timmy and Tyler out of the slides!  This year they added an area where they showed how the display is made, it was pretty neat.

This past weekend Brayden and Bryce spent the night on Friday, so the 4 cousins all put on their matching PJ's and cuddled up with Grammy and PawPaw to watch Rudolph, PawPaw's favorite.

On Sunday I took the boys to Aunt Jenny's house for Cookie decorating with their cousins, and their cousins other cousins!  They had a lot of fun decorating gingerbread boys and sugar cookies.  Tyler decorated one for me and then ate a plain one!  Timmy decorated 3 or 4 cookies before they all decided it was time to run around.  It was a lot of fun!

We've also had a few movie nights, Tim and I went to a neighborhood cocktail party, I went to a cookie exchange, and I've had a few nights of wrapping presents!  Tyler had his class party already and Timmy's will be Friday, the day we leave for Ohio for the weekend.  So class party pictures will have to wait til we return!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very relaxed Thanksgiving this year with only one dinner to attend!  We spent the morning relaxing and watching parts of the Parade.  Around 1 we headed over to Tim and Susan's, joining them, Connie, Jenny, Brett, Brayden, Bryce, Becky, Chris, Andrea and Clint.  Later on Rocky, Margaret, Christa, and Brandi joined us.  It was a full house!  The food was fantastic and it was so nice to get to visit together all evening.

This was the main course, after a table full of apps had been cleared and there was a third table of desserts!

The next day Tim had to work, but the boys and I headed to Reston Town Center to be in the annual Holiday Parade.  We got to walk in the parade with Tyler's Preschool so we saw lots of his friends.  Timmy chose to stay bundled up in the stroller the whole time, but Tyler and I wandered around to meet some characters while we were waiting for our time to walk.  The kids got a kick out of the parade itself.  They waved at the crowd and Tyler jingled his bell the entire time we were walking!

The week before Thanksgiving we went to Timmy's school for the annual Thanksgiving Luncheon.  It was hectic but fun!  Tyler was so excited to be there and really wound up.  He and Timmy were going back and forth between loving on each other and hitting/tackling each other the whole time!

I love Timmy's Thankful Turkey.  He's thankful for his brother, his mom and dad, his hair, and his pool!  :)

Pool Time

With the freezing weather we suddenly have, let's look back at a hot July day!  We usually get a few of these days in with family each summer, and they are the best, when no one has anything to do but splash around and get some sun!

Timmy made huge strides in his swimming this year and has even started learning real freestyle and backstroke.  Hopefully next year he'll be able to do full laps!  Tyler spent most of the summer being fairly timid in the water (it could have something to do with him falling in as we were opening the pool, he held his breath until I got to him, but it makes his love for his floaty very understandable.)  At the end of the summer he was starting to jump in with the floaty and swim with us without his floaty.  Brayden alternated between no floaty and a floaty, it's certainly more tiring without one!  Bryce was fearless! Jumping in if you were ready for him or not, and asking his Daddy to throw him like he did Timmy!

Spring Break 2014

Another week long vacation, another ridiculously long post.  You have been warned!

We ventured to Florida and my parents for Spring Break again this year.  They are definitely bribing us to continue making the drive for every vacation by paying for park tickets.  And it's working.  The boys are so good in the car though, it's not too horrible.  This year we opted for Universal Studios tickets because their prices are more reasonable, and it was something new.

We went to Universal on our first full day in Florida.  Unfortunately I've let it take so long to write this post that I'm a little fuzzy about what happened on which day, but will do my best to straighten out between the 2 cameras and multiple cell phones that were taking pictures!  We had a much more relaxed pace then we ever have at Disney, we only spent partial days at the parks each time we went.  On day one we definitely decided that Universal doesn't come close to Disney World, it doesn't have the magic and it just doesn't follow through on the details like Disney.  Also, the fast pass system does not work. at. all.  Once we got past all that, we definitely had a great time.  They have some fantastic rides and tons of stuff the kids could do.  Poor Timmy was afraid to ride anything and poor Tyler was dying to ride everything but was too short to!  We did the Islands of Adventure side on our first day.  We rode Shrek and then made a turn towards the kids area and ran right into Bumble Bee!

They have a childsize roller coaster that Tyler was tall enough for, thankfully.  Timmy and Tyler were both a little nervous to go on it for the first time, but they were super excited after!  We rode it a few times in a row! (Per their request, despite what their faces say on the ride!)

So upset I didn't catch his whole face, but you can see the smile!  He jumped up and down saying how awesome it was!

We ate at Mo's Tavern in Springfield and it was pretty neat!  After we ate Tim bought a monster size donut and put it on the table in front of Timmy and Tyler.  Tyler's eyes turned into saucers and I'm pretty sure they both started drooling.  Then Timmy asked, "Wait, do I have to share this with Tyler?"  It was big enough for all six of us to share!

The parks are definitely Dad's happy place!

I know that we did more then this on the first day, but we must have stopped taking pictures!  While we were in Springfield we took Timmy on the Simpsons ride.  He hated it.  He did keep his eyes open through it, and at one point when the video made it look like we'd gone upside down he asked, "Wait a minute.  Did we just...?"  I assured him that we had not.  He was shaking afterwards.  I'm sure he will not ride that again for a long time!

The next day we headed back to Universal and finished walking around the same park.

The highlight of the day was the parade, it was Mardi Gras themed.  The kids collected so many beads!  When we got home we gave them away to all of their classmates and put them in Tyler's goody bags for his birthday, and we still have dozens!

The next day we took it easy, played in the pool, and kept an eye on Chompy.

This is Tyler "jumping in"!

On our next trip to Universal we wandered through the Super hero section just in time to see all of the Super heroes!  Tyler was asleep in the stroller at first, but we woke him up in time to meet Captain America.

We also met a few other characters and spent some time in Seussland.  Tim eventually convinced Timmy to ride the White Water Rapids ride which is Popeye themed.  Timmy was so nervous before hand because we were honest that there is a little drop on the ride.  They ended up going a few times in a row though, and I think it's still one of Timmy's favorite rides.  The boys did not ride Do-Right Falls, but they did think it was cool to sit in the log!

Back to Universal again and we took Tyler in to become a Minion!  He's not tall enough to sit in the moving seats, and Timmy wasn't feeling well so he really wasn't in the mood to try any new rides.  This actually helped us out with the line though, We took Tyler in to the stationary seating without having to wait at all!  The ride is really fun!

The kids loved exploring everything in Seussland!  We rode everything at least once!

This.  This is what I saw constantly, every time we stopped, every time I put him down.  Accompanied by his hand reaching up as high as he could reach and a, "Mom.  Pick me up."  If ignored it would be repeated, whined, or demanded until I gave in!  My poor back!  That sweet face!

We were lucky enough to have some old tickets to Disney World so we went to the Magic Kingdom for one day.  It was hot and the most crowded we have ever seen one of the parks.  That said, with Tim's great planning we were able to do absolutely everything.  He said he was going to write a book after this day and he should have!  We went straight to Storytime with Belle which we had never done before.  Tim, Timmy, and Tyler were all selected to be characters (a Guard, Maurice, and Chip!)  It was really fun.

From there we got onto the Little Mermaid, Goofy's Barnstormers, and Tomorrowland Speedway.  We only waited 20 minutes at the longest for any of these rides.  By the time we got out of each the lines were much longer!

Tyler's First time driving!

Timmy and Tyler were both putting in requests for which rides to do next but were accepting our reasoning that we had fast passes for later, or the lines would stay short, or we'll go there in a little bit, until Tyler spotted Buzz Lightyear.  He was NOT going anywhere else until he got to see Buzz!

After collecting my childswap ticket at Space Mountain we came out to find Stitch, the boys other favorite.  Tyler even showed Stitch his own stitches!

Next up was the People Mover and Buzz Lightyear ride followed by Mickey's Philharmonic Theater and the Carousel.

Then we took a ride break and went to watch the new parade.  We are not usually parade people but it was definitely worth seeing!

We took a food break and by this time the park was just packed.  We did the Haunted Mansion with a fastpass and then started going to attractions we usually skip, just to get out of the heat and the crowds!  We went to the Hall of Presidents, Country Bear Jamboree, and the Tiki Room!  The boys enjoyed all of them, but I think it would have to be similar situations for us to do them again any time soon!

As the sun started to go down the crowds did too.  We made a mad dash around the park hitting some more favorites, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, we rode Aladin's Magic Carpets during the fireworks, and then cut back across to Peter Pan, Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, and a few more turns through Buzz Lightyear!  The boys were both passed out before we were through Main Street!

My cell phone tells me there were 9 minutes between these two pictures!

The boys, Tyler especially, needed a break the next day.  We had plans to meet up with the Gorondy family that evening anyways, so we spent the day resting and swimming at my parents and coloring Easter Eggs.

My parents kept the boys for us while we went and met Shana at Junk 2 Funk and then went on to Stanford to see their house, play with Parker, and go to dinner.  They took us to an awesome German restaurant and we enjoyed eating outside in the beautiful weather.  After dinner we went across the street to an eclectic bar for a while.  We wrapped up the evening back at their house, visiting until after Parker was asleep!  It was really great to spend so much time with them!

On our last full day we had more down time and Baba and M+M made an Easter Egg hunt for the boys.

For dinner that evening we went to Mickey's Bar-B-Q and M+M joined us!  Timmy was just as amazed by the Lasso Artist as the first time.  Goofy was Timmy's favorite of the night  (it might have had something to do with his hat selection for the trip.)  Dale made a special visit to our table to see M+M!  He was very excited when we told him that one of her son's is named Dale.

It was a great trip!  We drove home all day on Saturday.  Easter morning Timmy and I were the only ones that were able to get up and go to church.  Timmy enjoyed going through his Easter basket before we left, and of course we had candy for breakfast!  When we got home Tyler and Tim were in better shape, and Tyler enjoyed his Easter Basket goodies too.