11/26 - Thanksgiving at Disney!!

So we decided to take a family trip to Disney for Thanksgiving. We left on Wednesday at 2 pm but forgot the something at the house and had to go back. It set us back about 30 min and we got stuck in a TON of traffic in Orlando. We didn't get in until about 6:30 so we let the boys play for about 20 min and then put them to bed.

Aiden thought the phone was pretty cool and kept saying he wanted to call "nana." It was too cute. I unplugged that phone and let him play with it. He called "91" and asked for "help" which was impressive too. Eli thought the phone was cool too.

We left the hotel/timeshare at 8:15 and were at the Disney parking lot by 8:30. We took a tram ride and the boys were getting pretty excited.We gave Aiden the choice of train (monorail) or boat and he chose the latter. The boys were pretty excited about the boat ride. I haven't been to Disney since I went as part of UF's gymnastics team about 14 yrs ago (wow I feel old). Despite a couple setbacks (the tickets were in the car and we were at the gate and we had vouchers, not tickets), we finally made it and I already had everything planned out. We went to Pooh's adventure first. We waited in line for about 25 min but there were things to do along the way.
I also bought us some time with "snack time." There were interested to see what was going on.
Aiden sat with Brad and I sat with Eli. It started okay but then Aiden got freaked out and really didn't like transitioning from one section of the ride to the next when the doors fly open. He covered his eyes for half the ride unless Brad and I used soft excited voices to point out neat things. Eli was great. We went to "It's a small world" next thinking Aiden would love it because it's a boat. Now he was scared though of opening doors. He didn't want to go so he sat on my lap and wanted to cover his eyes the entire time.
Eli went with Brad and thought everything was pretty cool.
I finally convinced Aiden to take his hands off his eyes and look around a bit. He eased up a bit.
Aiden started clapping when the ride was over. The line for Dumbo was about 40 min so we went on the carousel. We sat the boys on their respective horses and Aiden went nuts after Brad put the strap around his waist. We all had to get off! Brad and I decided no more rides for a bit! We went over to Minnie and Mickey's house. The boys had a ton of fun in that area.
Aiden thought the mailbox was pretty cool at Mickey's house. Eli thought sitting on top of it was way cool!

Right across from Mickey's house was a toddler play area (like at the mall) and the boys loved it! They got to run around and release some energy. Eli was busy crawling through tunnels and Aiden was all over the place.

After they played for a bit, we went back to the van for lunch and naps. On the advice of others and seeing how much time it took to actually get into the park, we decided not to leave. We came equipped with lunch, a sleeping bag, pillow, blankies, and a tarp to put over the van to keep the sun out. We had such a great idea to let them nap in the van. Lunch went fine but Eli wanted nothing to do with a nap even though he was exhausted. Needless to say, I was getting extremely frustrated and just put Eli in his car seat. It took him about 15 minutes but he fell asleep. Aiden then wanted in his seat too. Aiden didn't sleep at all but thankfully he's used to being quite even if he doesn't nap. He was too excited. We let Eli sleep for an hour and then left at 2:00pm for the park again. We went to the Swiss Family Treehouse. Aiden thought it was pretty neat but didn't want to climb by himself.
Aiden wanted to go on Aladdin's carpets. We were a little nervous that he would freak out once we got on but he did great. In fact, he loved it. I forgot the camera in the car so the rest of the disney pictures had to be taken with my phone.
Here is Aiden driving the carpet by directing us up and down. He did a great job.
We walked around a bunch more and took the train around. We also went on the Jungle Boat (Fast Pass is awesome) and that was tolerable for Aiden. It was getting late in the day and Eli was getting pretty fussy. We had some ice cream and then headed back to the car. We couldn't get down Main St too fast though because Aiden insisted on walking down the track doing a "choo choo" motion with his arm. Everyone thought he was adorable ... except for Eli who wanted him to hurry. We did get a family photo right as we were walking out.
Aiden fell alseep in the van. Publix was closed and we didn't have time (or energy) to stop in a restaurant for dinner so the boys got corn dogs from 7-11!! They ate and went to bed right away without a protest. They were both alseep by 6:55pm. Overall, it went great.
Aiden showed daddy his stickers this morning and Eli and I were playing on the bed. This is his new smile. It's very odd and funny.
This is Eli's new smile. Not sure where he got it from but he loves to do it right now.
The boys enjoyed spending time playing together and it was great to watch them all.
We decided to head to the heated pool for a bit. The boys had fun but Eli was super tired. We only stayed a short bit and then I took Eli back and put him down for a nap at 8:45am. He was so thankful for that. We ended up leaving Orlando around 11am and headed back. Eli has been tugging on his ear quite a bit and his balance was off this morning so we took him to the dr at 3pm. No ear infection that the dr can see but we'll see how his balance is over the weekend. He might have an inner ear infection which can't be seen. He is teething a molar on his bottom right and is having a very tough time.

The boys were super excited to be home playing on their own turf again. Tomorrow is Gymboree and then we are picking out a Christmas tree.

11/20 - Zoo and cool playground; Eli is walking!

Brad has been home much more than normal lately and it's been great. The rest of the squadron is gone for a few days and Brad doesn't need to be there as long during the day. It's been fabulous spending time with him.

Aiden loves reading books. I found him sitting on his bus reading through many of his books the other day. He was doing great until .....

Eli came behind him. Aiden started crying because Eli used Aiden to help him balance and stand up. World War III eventually broke out and Aiden was done reading for a bit.

We were outside for a bit last week for one night. Aiden was busy drawing with chalk on the ground. I totally forgot to give Aiden is glow stick on Halloween night so I got them (one for each child) out.

The boys were mesmerized by them!
Eli thought it was pretty cool. He had the green one.
Aiden carried his around everywhere that night and even took it to bed with him. It lit up his entire room!
We went to the zoo last Saturday afternoon right after naps.

Aiden and daddy going down the cool slide built into the rocks.

Eli and mommy during the train ride.
We rode the train around 1.5 times the park. Aiden loved every second of it but Eli got a little bored. Playing with daddy's zipper was pretty entertaining for about 5 minutes.
Aiden wanted nothing to do with the family picture I was trying to take on the way out. We were leaving right at 5:00pm (which is when the zoo closes) and he was pooped. Although they both had a great time, they were so tired.
Aiden is doing great. He's almost talking in sentences and is getting a solid grasp on counting to 10 (although he still likes to skip 7 a lot) and he know the beginning of the alphabet. He loves to mimic what we say! Our usual bed time is at 6:45 we turn on Sprout and we watch the craft of the night and then Thomas. By 6:55pm we go to Aiden's room to read a story and then bedtime. He's so good. I'm so grateful that both of the boys go down so well (although we did put in a lot of effort to make that happen when they were younger) and stay asleep.

Little Eli is so precious. He loves my cell phone and stole it the other day. He actually put it up to his ear (in the second picture) and acted like he was talking. It was too cute. In the past week, Eli can wave hi, bye and blow kisses. He also can kinda say hi and bye and mama and dada. He's exploding. He's starting to walk a lot now! The video of him walking was taken about a week ago and he's getting better and more sturdy every day.

This video is of Eli learning how to stab with his fork. He understands now how to eat from his fork and he's starting to try and stab stuff on his own (rather than just taking is free hand and scooping food up). He's getting is pretty good considering he turned 14 months old on this day!!

We started to going to a new church 2 weeks ago and I met up with 2 woman (and their kids) on Tuesday. We had a great time and I'm hopeful I can make some meaningful relationships.

Aiden was such a help the other day during snack time. After he finished his snack he wanted to help Eli so he was feeding him a few pieces at a time.

We went to a new playground this morning. It's a 25 min drive but was very cool and worth the drive. Aiden had a blast. It's called Clarke park and it like a giant castle, pirate ship, and space ship. It has dozens of different levels and tunnels/caves to crawl and hide in along with many swings. They had a sand pit area and another playground area with cars/trucks made out of wood.

It was a great workout for Aiden going up and down so many steps.
They even had this cool music section that Aiden thought was pretty neat.

Eli had fun at the park as well. Although he didn't care to walk around much, we forced him a little. There were lots of different levels and he's not that advanced yet but he wanted to just plop down and play with acorns and mulch rather than walk anywhere.

He eventually found a puppy by the swings that he thought was pretty neat.
I haven't been posting much lately because I've been enjoying the time with my hubby home. It will probably continue that way until he leaves in mid January. I'll post again after Thanksgiving, maybe before if I have time and have taken pictures. I will definitely have lots of pictures to post after Thanksgiving because we have decided to go to Disney!! I'm so excited. We are going down on Wednesday, going to Disney on Thursday, and coming back home on Friday. We designed it around having a room in the middle of the day so the boys can nap. We plan on going when they open at 9am, coming back for a nap around noon, and then going back for the afternoon until they close. We wanted to do it before Brad leaves because once he comes back next summer, Aiden will cost money! haha.

11/10 - Eli is kinda walking!!

After a few weeks of sickness, the boys are finally on the mend. Aiden is up to no good in this pictures since he's trying to hit Eli on the head with his blanket.

Eli has been practicing on his walking skills a lot lately. He's getting much better. He takes about 5-6 steps at a time now before plopping down and speed crawling.

Eli, as I mentioned, is all over the place. He's learning how to move his body more. In the past week or so, he's started trying to talk a ton, wave hi and bye, and blow a kiss!! That's huge. He's been busy. On top of that, he's been busy trying to walk, play with blocks, and starting to dance.

Eli has been wanting to be on the bus which is still one of Aiden's favorite things. Thankfully, Aiden is sharing pretty well. Eli has been a dare devil standing up on the bus.
Little Eli is also teething lately. I'm not sure what teeth or how many but they are coming.I went to a pre-deployment fair last week and found out about deployment boxes for kids at many USO's. I asked Brad to stop by and get one and thankfully he did. It had a teddy bear that had a leather flight helmet, goggles, and dog tags. The box also has a video to explain deployment to kids and a journal and some post cards to see. He likes his dog tags and the kit came for with one that Brad keeps too.

Aiden has become scared of .... most everything right now. In this picture, he was watching a Thomas the Train video and was scared because there was a cow on the train track. He gets really scared when animals are involved in things. I suppose it's kind of sweet but it's starting to interfere with normal stuff. For instance, this past week at Gymboree it's been jungle week. Aiden is scared of the stuffed animals when he's asked to "walk over the aligator pit" and a stuffed aligator is on the ground. He was also a little scared to give the stuffed monkey a banana. If he sees animals that are about to be hurt, he is instantly scared.

We have these balloons that we pumped up and let go in and they screech and go flying around the house. Eli used to hate them but he likes them now. Aiden has recently decided he wants to pump up his own balloons and he's gotten quite good at it.

It was a chilly day the other day (considering it's Florida) but we still wanted to get outside. We went to one of the playgrounds and the boys go to release some energy. Eli was climbing everywhere and Aiden is getting pretty sturdy on his feet at the playground. Aiden can climb the "rock wall" by himself now and he

s been climbing this arc ladder thing for a while but I like to stand there in case his foot were too slip so I have never been able to video it.

Aiden is showing interest in the potty every now and then but overall, he could really care less about it. Eli on the other hand, thinks sitting on the potty is great. The past week I'm giving Aiden a "treat" from trick or treating if he either sits on the potty or pulls his pants up and down (he has a hard time with this sometimes). Eli was showing off his potty skills and he was too excited for himself.

Things are going pretty well. Aiden is doing much better from being sick although he said his ears hurt tonight. Also, Eli is doing better although he still has a cough and is getting breathing treatments a couple times a day. I, too, am finally starting to feel better. I've been able to workout twice this week which is new record seeing how I was injured and then got sick. Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and Brad has off. Unforutnately, I do not so he'll be watching the boys in the morning while I go to Gainesville and test participants.