Spring Break - 3

The sign says it all :)

Trying to pose with the castle in the background

Kaelan, Mike, Grandma, & Grandpa went straight to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while I took the littles to play outside Splash Mountain.  One of the few moments Blake got to get out.  However, he was a little unsure of his surroundings he was happy to explore, until another little girl came and ran right over him when she wasn't looking.  That pretty much ended his "playtime".  Poor guy! :(

Max was clearly too big for this little playground now but he didn't care.  :)

Waiting for the "Celebrate a Dream Come True" parade.  We had just finished a wonderful lunch at the Tavern Inn thanks to Dad.  Everyone enjoyed their meal and the boys LOVED their light-up skeleton straws Grandpa got them.  Even better, the parade route was right outside the restaurant so we easily got a front row view.

Watchin' the parade with Grandma

Kaelan wanted to show off the new hat he HAD to buy.  He briefly saw it at an outdoor kiosk on the way from Splash Mountain (our last ride before lunch) to the restaurant.  It's literally ALL he talked about at lunch so Mike took him to get it real quick before the parade started.  It's so funny what kids get hooked on...randomness!!!

Being in the front row has its advantages.  The boys loved it!!!!

Epcot was day 3 at the parks.  This is oddly Kaelan's favorite park.  He loves Spaceship Earth and Test Track!!!  This is a horrible picture but had to include it for memory's sake.

We had been losing a lot of time leaving for naps and dealing with crowds, so  we decided to stay and see if Max would sleep on a bench someplace.  If he hadn't lost basically an entire night's sleep earlier in the week, we wouldn't have cared if he napped at all, but he really needed to catch up.  Obviously, this was not a problem.

I sat with the 2 sleeping little ones while Mike, Kaelan, Grandma, & Grandpa rode Test Track.  When they got back, it was my turn to ride along with Scott and Melonna.  Definitely a highlight for everyone!  2 HOURS later, I finally had to wake Max up.  The boy can sleep!!!!

  Next, we were off to the World Showcase and Kaelan's new favorite part of Disney World, "Where's Perry?"  He and Uncle Scott had the BEST time with this activity in Mexico and neither one of them can wait for our next trip so they can find Perry in the rest of the countries. 

Posing with a couple of their favorite characters, Phineas & Ferb

Spring Break - 2

After narrowly avoiding being vomited on, Kaelan ended up spending the rest of Saturday night in our bed with me while Mike "slept" with Max on the pull-out.  Usually a cough would warn us that more was coming, but if that 1st cough wasn't enough to wake up Mike, it was too late.  Three sets of sheets later, poor Daddy got the timing right.  I tried to help them towards the beginning of the night but then Blake woke up so I had to deal with him.  To say none of us got much sleep would be a ginormous understatement.  Exhausted, Blake woke us all up around 7.  Oddly that ended up being the latest he would let us "sleep in" the entire trip (although after the night we had, it may as well have been 4 a.m.).  We had to really move fast because Scott and Melonna were meeting us at our room at 8 to go to Hollywood Studios.  What was supposed to be a fun-filled 1st day at Disney was cut extremely short for obvious reasons.  However, there were definitely wonderful memories made and some firsts for the boys.

One excited boy on our way into Hollywood Studios

Equally excited, not at all phased by his tummy troubles the night before, just extremely thirsty.  :)

Our 1st stop was the popular Toy Story Mania ride, an interactive ride that allows you to "play" several carnival-style games.  Everyone loved this ride, especially Uncle Scott who finally beat Melonna (supposedly).  ;)  

 All the boys had their own spending money for vacation (which was honestly more than we had) so they were able to choose the way they wanted to spend it.  Of course getting Kaelan through Downtown Disney the day before without spending every cent in the first 10 minutes was not easy.  We tried to get him to understand that he was going to see SO many things he wanted to buy that he should probably wait until after he had been in Disney for a few days before buying something so he could narrow down his options.  However, he saw a face painting booth outside the Toy Story ride and his mind was made up.  While he was getting his face painted, Max and I took a walk to check out the rest of the Toy Story goodies around that area.  As we walked, we saw this guy...

This picture shows the beginning of what would be a completely different experience for Max than we ever expected.  I'm sure I've mentioned that he was NOT a fan of characters or anything(one) in costume.  However, he was so interested in this soldier from Toy Story I asked him if he wanted to give him a "high 5".  To my surprise, he said YES!  Even more shocking, he actually left my side and walked up to the guy (whose face was even completely covered by the way) BY HIMSELF.  WHA?!?!?!?

He actually did it!!!!  Yay Max...SO proud of you!!!!!!  Little did we know, this was just a taste of his new found courage.  

Case in point...he decided he also wanted to get his face painted once he saw Bubby's.  Of course he chose a pirate look.  This picture really shows how they got into character.  These boys are so fun!!!!

  After the face painting, everyone went to a Jack Sparrow show while I took a napping Blake to get fast passes for Tower of Terror.  One of the 2 rides that Kaelan had never been on because he hadn't been tall enough until now.  We tried to prepare him by explaining that it was just like a little crab ride he went on at Sea World when he was only 3.  It takes you up and then drops you down but this ride was inside and dark sometimes.  Well, if you've ever been on Tower of Terror, you know that was extreme sugar-coating (sorry buddy).  Needless to say, it was a little much for him at this point.  It had been a LONG time since we had been on it and I could have absolutely prepared him better for the fact that he would literally be lifted off of his seat.  EEK!  Reminder for next time (and there will be a next time...at some point), hold onto the metal bars at your sides!

Little Blake gave Kaelan a run for his money with Aunt Melonna.  He flirted with her even more than his big brother did/does and got lots of snuggles.  :) 

 It was almost lunchtime after we got off Tower of Terror so we decided to head back to Scott and Melonna's resort to eat and to let Max have a nice long nap.  In fact, he ended up sleeping so long (around 4 hours) that we decided to head back to our resort instead of going back to the park.  We still had 4 days left, 1 of which we assumed would be spent back at Hollywood Studios doing all the things we didn't get a chance to do Sunday (including Fantasmic!).  Little did we know...

Lookin' adorable in a hat

Checkin' out the pools at their resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort

He wanted to take his face paint off but Mike couldn't get all of it off.  He looked like he had a black-eye afterwards.

And our baby boy went swimming for the first time.

Spring Break 2013 - 1

We spent our Spring Break in Florida visiting friends, family, and Disney World!  We left late Friday morning and returned the following Friday evening.  Since we were there for a week and I clearly share lots of pictures, I thought it best to break it up into multiple posts.  

One of the benefits of Mike traveling for work all the time is that he earns LOTS of sky miles.  So many, in fact, that we were able to fly our whole family to Orlando and back without having to pay for a ticket.  Although the thought of flying with more kids than adults, 1 of whom is still an infant, was a little scary, the thought of wasting 2 days in the car was much, much worse.  Turned out that the flights were a couple of the best parts of our trip.  All 3 boys cooperated throughout the whole process.  (A HUGE knock-on-wood for all future flights!!!!)  In fact, our one and only snag was that we almost didn't get on the plane at all...WHAH?!?!?!?!  Yes, that's right, we almost didn't get to go.  We knew we didn't have to have a ticket for Blake since he was an infant, but we didn't know we had to have some sort of identification for him (I guess showing his age or name).  We got to security and they wouldn't let us pass without an "infant in arms" ticket for him, which we couldn't get without one of these forms of ID.  Thank God one of the forms they accept is a copy of his shot records and luckily we have a FABULOUS (I think I've raved about them before) pediatrician's office who was able to email it to us right away and we were good to go.  WHEW!!!!  A huge thank you to Nana for dropping us off at the airport so we didn't have to pay for a whole week's worth of parking.  

The "big" boys spent the flight watching videos and/or playing games on iPads and looking out the window.  Their favorite parts were definitely the taking off and landing (my least favorite!).

Blake luckily spent the flight napping...HOORAY!!!  Although Kaelan had a little pressure pain in his ears during the landings of both flights, he took it like a man and it seemed to subside by the time we had landed.  :)

 Since we flew, we still had plenty of time on Friday to "play" when we arrived in Orlando.  Not only does my brother and his wife live there, but so do our close friends the McCormicks (Ironically, they only live about 2 miles from each other.  I'm a very lucky girl!).  Poor Mike woke up queasy that morning so the boys and I dropped him off at Scott's house before heading off to Melissa's house to play.  Max and Kaelan got right to playing with Jack and Gracie while Blake and Erin took a bath.  The pressure of the flight did a number on Blake's digestive track (thank you Melissa for informing me of that so I wasn't worried he was getting a bug) and E had just eaten almost an entire thing of hummus which was now all over her.  Clearly they were both in need of a little rinse.

They were happy to oblige.  :)

 

Then we went to their neighborhood park so they could run around and get some exercise.   Here are all 6 kiddos. 

Melissa's family was also in town and Mama Janet was nice enough to take this photo of all of us.  LOVE her!!!!

Max thought everything sound out of Jack's mouth was hilarious.  And yes, that is my lazy 6-year old in the STROLLER!!!  Remember my comment about his endurance in my last post about soccer?  ;)

Just chillin'

After spending the night at Scott and Melonna's house Friday night, we spent most of Saturday at Downtown Disney, which is in my opinion just as fun as one of the theme parks.

Every visit to DD begins at the Lego Store.  Unfortunately the only Woody and Buzz we got to "meet" this trip. 

Can you tell he was a little confused?  haha

Can't leave the Lego Store without building something.  Blake was extremely happy to be able to do something.  The poor guy didn't spend too much time out of the stroller or someone's arms for pretty much the entire week.

Kaelan built a car to race.  (Unfortunately he found wheels but no tires for his "car"  so it didn't really go anywhere... but shhhh, he didn't realize that was why.)

And no trip is complete without eating lunch at TRex...yummmm!

The McCormicks tried to come have lunch with us but we made plans too late and couldn't end up eating together.  However, at least we got this great shot of the boys.

We stopped at SuperTarget on the way to our resort to get groceries for the week.  The boys fell asleep on the way there so Mike stayed in the van with them while Scott, Melonna, and I did the shopping.  Love this picture!!!

That night we went to dinner at a local place just down the street from our resort.  It was super convenient and we had a good time.  However, it ended up being a HUGE mistake as Max spent the ENTIRE night getting sick.  We think it must have been food poisoning from his spaghetti because he had no other symptoms and was over it by morning.  Definitely NOT a way anyone wants to spend a night on vacation.  We went through 3 sets of sheets for the pull-out couch that night.  I don't know how so much comes out of such a tiny guy.  I've never seen my poor little baby boy like that and I hope I never do again.  :(  Another disappointment...spaghetti was one of his favorite foods and now he can't eat it.  He wants to, but can't.  Hopefully he can get over that soon.  

Days 2-6 to come later this week.  Hope everyone is enjoying their week so far.  :)

More from Cleveland Park

I haven't been able to get my mobile blogging app to work for MONTHS but since I rebooted my phone last month, I wanted to try it again to see if it would work. As you can see, it DID!!!  Hooray!!!  Hopefully that means that I'll do some quick posts more often when I get cute pics on my phone, but you'll believe that when you see it.  ;)  I had lots more pics on my good camera plus a video of Blake climbing on the playground (Don't worry, we washed his hands right after (gross!!) so I thought I'd hurry up and get them up here before I forgot.

The flooring is that rubber-mulch surface which didn't feel great on his knees.  Easy solution to that problem! 

Balancing boys

Love the excited/happy/proud look on his face here!

Climbing the dirty "rock wall".  It shows where he started which makes the video more impressive

I got yelled at after taking this photo because, "Mommy, you took that picture right after I put goldfish in my mouth!"  I can't do anything right.  :)

4 of the 6 kiddos