Our trip to FL

We flew down on Friday, the 4th (We took Jim out of school for the day so we could fly at ideal times!). We drove up to BWI, a little worried we weren't going to make it past security since Ben didn't want to tell the TSA guy his name, but he finally said it and we were to our gate. We got some lunch and the boys enjoyed watching the plane show out the window.  No problems with the flight down there (one slight problem - all the stations on the plane weren't working right, so Jim was a little bummed he couldn't watch the sports channels!). We got our luggage, and since I did online check-in for our rental car, we got to walk down the aisle & pick whatever car we wanted!  Of course the boys picked an American car, a Dodge Journey, and we were off to the hotel.  The parents were all there & checked in, waiting for us.  We had pizza for dinner that night & took a walk around the place checking everything out. And then it was off to bed to rest up for our first day at Magic Kingdom!!

On Saturday, our first full day there, was a park day!  Mark did a great job planning everything out - which helped us ride all the rides we wanted to by 2:00!  We got an early start, and we were riding up in the monorail just as Mickey was pulling up on the train.  It definitely helped to have an early start to the day, as we walked up Main Street and over to the Buzz light Year ride, and pretty much walked right onto that ride with not much of a wait.  We had planned out all our Fast Passes, but since we had an early start to our day, we ended up switching them all around, which really helped minimize our wait times!  Here's a list of the order of rides we did on Saturday:

Buzz Light Year
Tomorrowland Speedway
Attempted little mermaid but it was closed down
Peter Pan (longest wait!)
It's a Small world
carousel
Goofy's Barnstormer
little Mermaid
Ice cream break
Mickey's Philharmagic
People Mover
Winnie the Pooh

Lots of fun on our first day there. Both boys loved the Buzz light year ride, Ben loved the race cars, and neither were a fan of the rollercoaster (Goofy's ride). Walking out of the park we did catch the end of the parade in front of the castle & watched that. Ben loved seeing Pluto - I loved seeing his face light up when Pluto came by on the parade. As we were walking out Main Street was pretty packed as they were having a Cubs parade, but we made it out, took the boat to the parking lot, and got to ride the caterpillar (aka the tram) to our car.  For dinner we sat by the pool & ordered from the restaurant.  The boys walked around in the water and played some video games in the activity center. We thought they would crash after such a busy day, but they had a ton of energy!

Sunday we did Downtown Disney & a pool day.  We walked around downtown Disney (I guess now it's called Disney Springs, spending time in the Lego store, watching the amphibian cars, and picked out a souvenir (which was a process but Ben got a Car and Jim a new Lego set). We tried to get lunch at Earl of Sandwich but the place was packed!  We ended hooping to a brewery and eating there!  And Jim lost his 2nd tooth!!!!  It was super wiggly and I wanted to pull it out for him but he wouldn't let me. He went to play some foosball and when he came back to the table he looked at me and goes "my tooth is gone!"  We think he swallowed it!  After lunch we went back to the pool. It was a little chilly,  it the boys had fun swimming!  After that we walked to the basketball courts for some b-ball!  And just did dinner in the restaurant at the hotel. A good way to spend our Sunday!

Monday was another day at Magic Kingdom, with the 8 of us!  The boys enjoyed riding the caterpillar again, and then we took the boat to Magic Kingdom and hopped on the train to start our day!  Splash Mountain was the first ride of the day and we had no wait at all, which was great!  It was a great idea to get to the park as close to opening as possible!  (It was an earlier opening day, 8:00) but we were there around 9ish. The boys did not love that ride. Ben was more concerned about being wet, even though we didn't get that wet!  And neither loved the hill, but I'm glad we went on it!  Ben wasn't a huge fan of the darker rides, but all in all it was a fun day!!!  The list of rides from our 2nd day were:

Splash Mountain
Pirates of the Caribbean
Tiki room show
Shooting Arcade
Tom Sawyers Island
Country Bear Jamboree
Swiss Family Treehouse
Ice cream snack
Haunted Mansion
Carousel
Popcorn snack
Buzz Light year
Walking out - parade & dapper Dan quartet

We caught the end of the parade again as we were walking out. And Ben again got very excited when he saw Pluto!!  We took the monorail back to our car & ended the day with dinner at the hotel restaurant.

Tuesday we went on an air boat ride.  The place was about an hour away, but they had a cute little animal park so we got to walk around that for a bit and check out some of the animals.  The boys really loved the boat ride!  We were successful and got to see a couple alligators on the ride, as well as a bald eagle, which was pretty cool!  The ride may have been their big highlight of the trip!  After we got back from that we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool!  It was a little chilly again, but still had a fun day!  Played some poolside bingo, and enjoyed some ice cream.  Tuesday night was beer tasting night, so the boys hung out with Grandma in the activity room and playground while the rest of us did the beer tasting!  Followed by dinner at the hotel restaurant.

And then it was back home on Wednesday. Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and had a good flight back to BWI. We did hit rush hour traffic on the drive home, so that slowed us down a bit. But all in all we had such a great trip!!!!

We have a 1st grader!!!!

Yesterday was Jim's last day of kindergarten!  He's officially on summer break and is officially a 1st grader!!  How is that possible??!!!

They had a kindergarten celebration, which was a lot of fun!  They were all flowers and sang a little song...everyone brought in snacks...and they handed out their report cards & some awards.  Very proud of Jim for getting the Academic Excellence Award! 

Excited to have Jim home with us for the summer, and very proud of all his hard work in Kindergarten! 

Jim's 6th Birthday

How is it that we have a SIX year old now?!  We had a very fun weekend celebrating Jim!!!  Love this collage of pictures of each of his birthdays!!!

Jim got to spend his birthday weekend with Grandma & Papa - so on Sunday we took him out to a birthday dinner at Southside! 

 Think someone is excited about his birthday ice cream sundae?!  Love his smile!!!!

He did have to go to school on Monday (his actual birthday), but I think he had a pretty great day.  He got his pancake '6' for breakfast, and then Grandma, Papa, and Ben got to go have lunch with him!  And then Ben & I went back in the afternoon with cupcakes to share with his class!

After school, Parker, Sienna, and Drake came by and they played outside for awhile - what better way to celebrate a birthday than being with great friends and family?! 

After we were done playing outside, we came back inside so Jim could open his presents!

And his birthday dinner, which he picked = spaghetti and strawberries. 

 This year he wanted an army cake, chocolate with chocolate frosting!

 I think someone had a very Happy 6th Birthday!!!!  Here are 2 birthday collages from his weekend fun!

Jims 20 Questions at SIX

1.  What is your favorite color?  Rainbow
2.  What is your favorite toy?  Fluffers
3.  What is your favorite fruit?  What's the green stuff?  Honeydew!
4.  What is your favorite thing to watch on TV?  What's the funny show?  America's Funniest Videos.
5.  What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  PB&J...no!  Pancakes!
6.  What is your favorite outfit?  This outfit  (showing me his fireman PJ's)
7.  What is your favorite game?  Monster Jam Game (for Wii)
8.  What is your favorite snack?  String cheese.  No a popsicle.  String cheese & a popsicle.
9.  What is your favorite animal?  Cat & dog
10. What is your favorite song?  The um, recess - when you move around at school.
11. What is your favorite book? The Pigeon Book
12. Who is your best friend? Drake, Parker, Ben, Sienna, Liam, Orion, and Thalia. "That's a lot of friends, right?B
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Honey Bunches of Oats
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Run around like a crazy man.
15. What is your favorite drink?  Apple Juice
16. What is your favorite holiday?  Halloween
17. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Um, I just said Honey Bunches of Oats
18. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Scooby Doo, Fluffers, and 'Blee'
19. What's your favorite thing to eat for dinner?  Pancakes
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A construction worker

Spring Break

I'm trying to get caught up on things that have been going on.  I love looking back through this to see what we did at different times throughout the year.  And I'm going to be disappointed to see big gaps in the blog.  I'm really trying to be better, but haven't been all that successful. 

For Jim's spring break we made our way up to NY!  And were able to meet Avalon!  The timing all worked out pretty much perfectly.  Since she was breach, they scheduled for a C-section on Friday the 18th, and we were planning to head up on Monday!  That gave them their time in the hospital, and we got to meet Avalon when they were home!  And got to spend the week with her! 

Pretty much my whole goal of that week was to spend as much time with her as possible - and my parents were great that week, watching the boys. 

Allison came down on Saturday (she couldn't leave Friday after work because she wanted to meet Avalon before she drove down!)  And spent Saturday & Sunday with Chris.  And then Monday morning we got up bright and early and drove to Buffalo - driving straight to Ashley's!

Both boys held her for a couple of minutes, I was very surprised that Ben wanted to!  But they both did great!

Jim and Ben got to spend a lot of time with Grandma & Papa, and we were all very thankful for that!  They took them to Paula's donuts, to the park, and to Chuck E Cheese one day!  I think everyone had a lot of fun together!  Can't forget how awesome Aunt Ali was, staying at home at times to entertain the boys and then coming to Ashley's later on.  It really was an awesome week, and it made me realize how thankful and how awesome our family is!

 

The boys got to spend time with Blake & Brody too! As they came up to Buffalo during that week.  We had a little Easter Egg hunt at Ashley's, which they all seemed to have fun with!

 A picture of the happy grandparents with all their grandkids!

 Trying to get all 5 kids to smile and look at the same time is a challenge!

Mark drove up on Wednesday night, and came to Buffalo on Thursday spending the day with us.  Then he took the boys up to Castile on Friday to build the retaining wall.  I made my way up to Castile Saturday afternoon, and it was back to VA on Sunday! 

Ben's 4th Birthday

We had a lot of fun celebrating 4 and Ben!!!!  His actual birthday was on a Thursday.  I felt a little weird not having Jim with us during the day to celebrate, but we still had a great time.  We did start the morning off with his #4 pancake, and singing happy birthday to him!  And then I let him pick what he wanted to do for his special day - and he picked the trampoline park, Flight!  For the first 15 minutes, we practically had the place to ourselves, I think there was 1 other family there!  But we had lots of fun running around & jumping.  After flight we went to Wegmans to pick up his birthday cupcakes, and I told him he could pick whatever he wanted for lunch - his pick was cereal!  So I let him pick out his own box, and he went with cinnamon toast crunch. We had a lot of fun celebrating 4 together! 

I let him skip his nap for his birthday, we went and got Jim, played outside for a bit and then when Mark got home we made our way inside for dinner (his pick was macaroni & cheese, hot dogs, and cupcakes!), presents, cupcakes, and trying out his new Monster Jam wii game!  All in all it was a great day!

Grandma, Papa, and Aunt Ali flew in Thursday evening, and the boys were very excited to great them Friday morning!  We had a fun day, walking Jim to school, running on the track, baking Ben's monster truck birthday cake, and just playing together! 

Friday night we did drinks with the neighbors.  Uncle Chris came up too to celebrate!  Ended up doing drinks in the backyard around the campfire!  I think a fun night was had by all!  We did sing to him and enjoyed cake together!  Love how excited he was about his monster truck cake! 

Saturday morning we took Papa to the donut store!  (We all went, but it's their special treat to do with Joe Bag of donuts!)  We went to Sugar Shack and then made our way into Old Town.  Just walking around for a bit. 

I think it's safe to say that Ben had a great birthday weekend and lots of fun celebrating FOUR with family & friends! 

Ben's 20 Questions at age FOUR

1.  What is your favorite color?  Blue
2.  What is your favorite toy?  My new flatbed race car truck
3.  What is your favorite fruit?  Pineapple
4.  What is your favorite thing to watch on TV?  Mighty Machines and Lighting McQueen and Lego City
5.  What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?   Peanut Butter & Jelly
6.  What is your favorite outfit?  My Paw Patrol Shirts
7.  What is your favorite game?  The Paw Patrol Game
8.  What is your favorite snack?  Fruit snacks
9.  What is your favorite animal?  Catty
10. What is your favorite song?  The one we did last night, they said frog  (not really sure what one he's referring to!)
11. What is your favorite book?  2 Old Fashion Cars ones and the snow plows
12. Who is your best friend?  Oisin
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Marshmallows
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Run Around
15. What is your favorite drink?  Milk
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas?
17. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Marshmallows
18. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Catty
19. What do you want to eat for dinner on your birthday? Macaroni & Cheese, hotdog and cupcake
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  A flat bed truck driver

12 Questions

This set of 12 questions was floating around on Facebook awhile ago, and I went ahead and asked Jim & Ben them.  You can tell the Ben started to get silly & decided to copy Jim as the questions got towards the end.  I asked these questions without any prompting - a great way to see what they think!

Jim - 5 years old

Ben - 3 years old

1. What is something I always say to you?
• B - We can't do anything
• J - Don't do that
2. What makes me happy?
• B - When we play by ourselves and are quiet.
• J - That we do good things
3. What makes me sad?
• B - Hitting & kicking & when we don't eat our food
• J - No punching, no wreking, no peeing your in your pants.
4. How do I make you laugh?
• B - Tickle Me
• J - I say something silly & I tickle
5. What was I like as a little girl?
• B - I played with Uncle Robbie's GI Joes
• J - I had lots of barbies.
6. How old am I?
• B - 10
• J - 25
7. How tall am I?
• B - 6 Feet
• J - 50 Feet
8. What is my favorite thing to do?
• B - Cleaning up
• J - Cook
9. What do I do when you're not around?
• B - You die (insert silliness from Ben here!)
• J - I take Ben to school.
10. What am I really good at?
• B - Cooking
• J - Cooking, taking good care of us.
11. What is something I am not good at?
• B - Cleaning up my crap
• J - I don't know
12. What do I do for a job?
• B - No answer
• J - I drive a work truck

A Look Back to 2015

I've done this the past couple of years - 2014 (there are links there 2013 &2012).  It is fun to see a summary of the entire year in one post.  And seeing how I am not the best on updating this it's a good overall picture to our year. 

January - Another New Year that we rang in with the neighbors - we went to Southside for dinner, and then came back  hung out here and across the street.

We officially went diaper free in our house! 

February - We took a trip to Pittsburgh to meet Brody & go to his baptism!

Spent lots of time outside - whether it's playing in the backyard, going over to the high school

March - Ben turned THREE!!!!  Grandma & Papa were here to celebrate with us & Ben's Paw Patrol Chase themed birthday!  Went into the city to the Air & Space Museum and lunch at the food trucks with them. 

April - Celebrated Easter - with an Easter egg hunt in Old Town with friends...

A visit from Aunt Ali (who drove with us up to NY!!!)

An Easter Egg Hunt & Brunch with neighbors!

 Then we made our way up to Buffalo - where we celebrated Jim's 5th Birthday!!!!

 Ashley & Kevin got married!!!!

 

May - Took a weekend getaway to Lake Anna with neighbors!  In the beginning of the month.

And a trip to Ocean City with the parents at the end of the month. 

We made a trip up to Albany for Papa's funeral, and getting a chance to visit with family. 

 Spring soccer season came to an end

...Just in time for the pool to open

 Of course we enjoyed lots of playdates with friends, strawberry picking...

June - The big event from June was Jim's fractured collarbone! 

 With my mom's group we did our own version of a summer camp - which was a lot of fun!  Got to go on a tour of the Firehouse, did a gardening themed day, and an under the sea day.  Our pool time was a limited with Jim's arm as it was hard for him to do any swimming, but we made up for it with lots of park fun & fun with friends!

July - We celebrated the 4th hanging out at home, Jim & walked over to Mount Vernon for the fireworks!

Enjoyed lots of time outside, whether it was out back doing jobs, hanging out with friends, or spending time at the pool!

And Jim attended his bridge to kindergarten at school.  It was a good preview of what's to come in September!

Ben had his little procedure done and was a champ through it all!

August - Was our trip up to New York, a great 2 weeks up there!  Niagara Falls, playing with cousins, a trip to the zoo, bounce house, a night at Kevin & Ashley's land, a trip to the fair, riding rides, tractor pull, fishing at the lake, just to name a few of the fun adventures!

September - Was a big month for us with Jim starting kindergarten!!!!

 And of course we kept busy doing stuff outside, soccer, playdates.  Ben & I adjusted to just the 2 of us during the day!  And we took our first camping trip - lots of fun, can't wait to do it again!

October - We made it to the pumpkin patch on one of Jim's days off of school...Ben started a little in-home preschool with a couple of other 3 year olds which is great!  He has fun going to playdates and playing with his friends.  And a Spiderman & Ninja Turtle had a lot of fun with Halloween, going trick or treating with the neighbors!

 C is for cat from his 'school'!

Making ghosts with his friends!

Jim's first field trip to a pumpkin patch!  Too bad he had a rough bus ride there and got bus-sick, but once he recovered from that it was a fun day!

November - We're settled into our school routines now - with Jim in kindergarten & Ben's weekly get together with friends.  November was also filled with soccer games, leaf fun, celebrating friends birthday, and get togethers with friends.  Mark & I took the boys to the National zoo for the first time.  They've been to the Buffalo zoo, we just never ventured into D.C. to that zoo.  Boys had a lot of fun checking out all the animals. 

We made our way up to NY for Thanksgiving.  Ended up taking Jim out of school on Wednesday & drove to Mark's parents then.  Spend Thanksgiving there, and then on Friday drove to Buffalo.  A short trip as we were back to VA on Sunday.  We made our yearly trip to see Santa!!!

December - December was all about Christmas time.  It's such a fun month with 2 little boys who are so excited about everything!  There was decorating, Christmas cookie swaps, gingerbread house making, wrapping presents, so much fun!

 

We made our way into Old Town for the Scottish Walk parade, and then later that night for the boat parade -

Christmas party with a  visit from Santa!

Christmas up in New York!

Family photo time!

All in all 2015 was a great year!