9/23 - Eli's 4th birthday

Wednesday was Eli's actual birthday. On Tuesday afternoon I brought a balloon and playdoh (little containers for all his class) so that he would have something to share with is daycare friends. I only get to see the boys for about 15-20 minutes in the morning so it made me feel slightly better planning ahead and leaving something at daycare. My mom cooked a yummy dinner made up of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and green beans (all his favorite). We then skyped with daddy to sing Happy Birthday to Eli and he got to have a big cupcake that Nana made.

On Thursday Aiden and Nana help me put up the Cars scene. This thing is about 9 ft tall and about 15 feet long. It's huge and takes up the entire kitchen wall space.

We had Eli's birthday party at our house on Saturday. We invited his daycare friends (12) to help celebrate. Most of the kid friends that we have at church are Aiden's age so I felt like it wouldn't really be Eli's party so I invited his class. So I must ask - what is the problem with RSVP's these days? In Alabama I had almost no RSVP's for Aiden and a ton of people came. For Eli's party, I did have 3 RSVP by wednesday (the please RSVP by date) and then another 1 on Thursday evening and 2 on Friday morning. Needless to say, I had already made the goodie bags and bought stuff for the party on Wednesday and then went back out on Friday and had to buy more stuff to make sure we had enough.

I went to set up the backyard in the morning (the party was at 10am) and saw how wet the grass was so I decided to try and blow it dry. That wasn't working out so well so then I decide to just quickly mow it. Well, that didn't work out so well either because it was so wet that the grass wouldn't shoot to the bag of the bag so I was having to empty the bag every lap. On the bright side, our backyard looked great!! :) Our first guest arrived promptly at 10am. I had a trampoline set out, a bean bag toss game, and little race track boards I made earlier in the week (which I found on Pinterest).

After it seemed like most of the kids were here, I asked if anyone wanted to make a race car to eat. I got a few strange looks and then showed them mine and then a bunch of them wanted to make it. I was actually going to make these ahead of time and have for snacks and then Aiden suggest we make it a craft. Great idea. It's just an apple slice, with 2 tooth picks in it and 1/2 grape stuck on the end of the tooth pick to act as tires. Here is Aiden sowing me his. It was fun meeting the other mom's and dad's from the class although I really didn't get a chance to talk to anyone since I was running around do random stuff.

Mike and Arin (and Grace) came as well and they showed up and Arin iced a bunch of mini cupcakes so they would match the awesome car cake she made, and Mike just went out to the backyard and picked up a ball and started playing with some of the kids. That was awesome.

There was one other daddy there too and he was playing ball with the kids too which was great. The little race car track things turned out pretty good. I just spray painted 2 pieces of wood that Brad said I could use and then glued pipe cleaners down the side and middles so that the cars wouldn't fall off the track or crash into each other. I then propped one side up on a stool and brought out a small basket of cars and we were in business.

Arin used a cake mold that we had and made Eli a really cool race car cake. I think the funniest part is that when I was trying to find the pictures of when we used the mold before (and Grandma Jo decorated it) I found out it was for Eli's 3rd birthday. Haha. He didn't care and was excited about it. We were going to do Mr. Potato Head theme and then he changed his mind a few weeks before his party. Now he's says he will do Mr. Potato Head when he turns 5 but I keep telling him he has a while and he might change his mind before then. The cake turned out awesome!!

Here are Eli (left, green shirt), Aiden, Grace (far right, purple shirt), and Reagan eating some cake. My mom even bought little ice cream bowls for them too.

It was getting a little hot outside and I already moved all the tables from under the patio out to the grass since there was more shade out in the yard than under the patio but now it was just getting hot. Change of plans. We brought everyone inside after they were done eating, and let Eli open gifts inside. Eli was taking his sweet time eating so he was the last one done so Mr. Mike gave him first class service by bringing him inside in while still sitting in his chair.

We let the kids come over and take pictures in front of the giant Lighting McQueen/Cars scene and most of them did. I'll return those pictures in the thank you cards!

Aiden was an awesome helper and opened the front door to all our guests and then showed them to the back yard and put their presents on the table for Eli.

This was Eli's first party with kids his own age and he was a little overwhelmed a few times. Other kids were opening his presents and he didn't care too much. He would open it, someone would take it and look at it and it was all good.

 He actually even came up to me at one point and just gave me a hug and stood by me because he was so overwhelmed. There ended up being 9 kids including Aiden and Eli.

 Overall he had a great time. My mom, Arin, and Mike were a huge help. Oh yeah. Let me comment on that a little more. Mike was helping hand presents to Eli and was taking the old paper to throw it away and stuff and someone says, "doing a good job dad." I didn't think much of it but then I realized someone really did think he was Eli's dad. Another woman starts looking up at the huge family picture over the fire place and is seeing that Mike is not the guy in the picture. We finally had to clarify that Eli and Aiden's daddy was gone but they Mr. Mike was doing a great job of filling in for a few hours. It was too funny.

 I was so glad Eli was letting the other kids play with all his stuff although he was (and still is) possessive about a Cars 2 car.

After he was all done opening present Eli comes to me and says, "can I open one of my presents?" I say sure what do you want to open? My new nap mat. This kid got cool Superman outfit stuff, a musical guitar thing, and a few Cars and Planes toys and he wants to open the nap mat.

 Thankfully Mike and the other daddy (John I believe) helped put all the toys together.

And this toy by Eli is the winner. It's his favorite (and Aiden's) toy. Eli had a blast and his friends had fun too. I think I am making a deal with myself though and anymore birthdays that daddy is not around, I give myself permission to go have them hosted at some other place so I don't stress as much.

I meant to take a picture of the goodie bags. We had mainly food in them Luigi's Tires (oreo cookies), Mater's Tow Cables (red twizzlers), Cars gummies, and Red Light, Green Light Playdoh (the home made stuff). At least it's stuff that kids will eat and won't be thrown away.

8/5 - Our vacation to Orlando

So I have some updating to do as usual. We got my mom moved in and had 2 days to enjoy her company before we all left her. Here is the evening before we left. We were having some backyard fun. Since our yard situation is so drastically different from Alabama, we've had to be creative. This is one way that entertained us for a while. Brad is using the stomp rocket and sending missiles upstairs to the balcony to my mom's room. The boys love hanging out up there with her so it was pretty cute.




They tried catching the missiles for a while and then they both actually came down to try and send some rockets up themselves. Aiden did pretty good because he will jump high/hard enough to give the rocket enough ump to send it high enough.


We were pretty excited for Eli this evening because he finally learned how to blow bubbles on a consistent basis. He always blows too hard and can't make bubbles but Nana must have given him some awesome instructions because he finally got it!!!







On Wednesday morning, we packed up and headed to Orlando. We made a quick stop at IKEA and then checked in to our resort. It was called Reunion Resort and it was awesome. We had a 3 bedroom, 3 bath with full kitchen, a huge dining room and living room, and a huge balcony. There were something like 11 pools within the resort. The first day we were there we went to one of the pools and the boys got in the hot tub for the first time. Go ahead and judge me. I was so stinking excited Aiden got in. He is very temperature sensitive and has never gotten more than a toe in the hot tub. I was equally impressed (maybe even more so) with Eli who eventually got in. Eli is way temperature confused (he gets hot and cold mixed up all the time) and sensitive as well. That little guy eventually even got in!! Another highlight of the first day was being able to ride to shuttle (aka rocket bus) with the boys. They were so excited about it. Here they are to the left waiting for the rocket bus to come pick us up. Unfortunately we had to wait 20 min!!



Here are Aiden and Brad relaxing on the balcony. That was the part out of the master bedroom and there was another part with a round table and 4 chairs over by where I was standing taking the picture. Aiden stayed out here during almost the entire nap time just relaxing.

On Thursday, we got up and went to Wet n Wild. The new family splash park was huge. I was a little nervous to see how the boys would respond but they did really well. I was completely blown away with how quickly Aiden adapted and how brave he was to go on the slides. First of all, the water was FREEZING. Also, there was falling/flying water EVERYWHERE. It was a little much but nothing we could do about it. We tried to teach the boys how to go around some of the water or how to block it out of their way and I ended up carrying Eli a lot up the slides. They had a blast. We eventually took them on the lazy river and then we also went down one family ride where we got all got in a huge innertube and went down a ride. We got there right after it opened and stayed until about 12:30. Eli missed his nap the day before and we wanted to get back in time for him to nap this day. 

The boys changed clothes (it was Aiden's idea to bring dry clothes). Here is Eli waiting for Aiden and daddy to come back from changing clothes. As you can see, he was so tired. We headed off for the what seemed like 2 mile walk to the van. Eli was exhausted so I was carrying him. We were almost to the van and it started POURING. I mean POURING. We ran for a bit and then I had Brad and the boys hide out behind a car which blocked a little of the rain and I just took off for the van. I was soaked. I got in and hurried off to pick up the boys. Needless to say, they were wet but not as bad as you would have thought with the amount of rain that came down. We just hung out at the hotel that afternoon and eventually, our friends Arin and Grace came to visit and stay with us for a few days. 

Here is a staple activity when we are on vacation and the environment permits: playing with the sliding glass door. You would think the boys have never seen one with how much fun they can have with a door. 

On Thursday afternoon we went to the water park that is in our resort. It was pretty amazing. It has a water playground type thing, a lazy river, and then a zero entry pool. The kids had a ton of fun playing on Thursday afternoon. Just below is a picture of Brad getting ready to go around the lazy river with the boys. 

The picture below is Aiden doing one of the shape puzzle (like tangrams) that I brought.

On Friday morning, we headed off to the Rooftop pool. Aiden had been asking to go see this pool when he heard us talking about it. I must say, it was a pretty amazing pool. Here is the view from the pool on the right. 

The kiddos were all ready to go swimming. Eli just loves his floaty and his arm bands and thinks he is such a big boy now. 

On Friday early afternoon, our friends (and Aiden's former therapist - The Beckers) came over. They were also vacationing in Orlando (from Alabama) and we decided to hang out for a few hours. We headed down the resort water park. Eli and Brad stayed back for a while so Eli could nap and the rest of us went on down to the water. It was a great time. To the right is a picture of Rusty and I.

And here is Arin and little Ms. Grace.

Eli of course had a great time and loved going down the lazy river with no inner tube and just floating down in his water wings and vest.












Brad was a great daddy as usual and the boys enjoyed playing bumper boats with him with their inner tubes.

Aiden had worn himself completely out and didn't have the energy the to walk home. Luckily for him, Rusty is a sucker and carried him the whole way home. He really does love this sweet woman though :)

And this last picture ... well, I had to include this for me. To many of you, it may just be a picture of 2 drenched gals. For me, it makes me laugh and smile. Rusty is one of 2-3 people I know who could totally work this picture if I put it on Facebook. I love the lactating mom look!

Below you can see that Brad has turned Aiden in to a burrito. When Brad learned from Rusty that doing that was actually really good for him, he took full advantage of that :)









And the picture below: two boys enjoying their iPads.





Overall, it was a great vacation and it really fun to see and hang out with friends. I will update the blog again soon. We were home for one day and then Brad took off for a few months. Ahh the life of a Navy family.

7/23 - Unpacking: what a LONG process

So we are getting there. Just 1 box in the boys' rooms and about 4 in mine. The office - well that's a different story. I took the boys on a bike ride the week we got here to give Brad some time to mow the yard. The boys did great. Eli has graduated to Aiden's bike and Aiden is now riding a bike that our former neighbor gave him. He wouldn't ride it for the longest time because the training wheels were a little shorter than the real wheel and Aiden freaked out if the bike would rock a tiny bit. We gave up on trying to convince Aiden he was still safe so Brad adjusted the training wheels and now it's rock solid and Aiden is back in his comfy place and will let his brother ride the other 'big boy' bike. After 2 years of Eli pitching a fit if I even tried to put the helmet on his head and not even click it together, he has decided to freely and voluntarily wear one now. What gives? Even though we are supposed to be living in a really nice area, I like our old development better. It had huge sidewalks and they were on both sides of the street throughout the major parts. Here, we can go on the sidewalk for 2-3 houses and then have to go in the street for 1-2 lots because houses are not built yet and that means there is no sidewalk. It makes it very challenging to go for a bike ride. I think we will start putting the bikes in the van and then driving over to Oakleaf and riding on their huge sidewalks.

The local Wal-mart here is like a small chuckie-e-cheese. Here are the boys playing on the rides for a bit. They are getting smarter though and now they know if you have money, cooler things can happen to those machines! :)

It's been pretty rainy here lately so we even tried hitting up the Orange Park Mall. The boys used to love this play area. They were really excited to go back but unfortunately, they have taken about half of the fun things to climb on out of the play area. 

We went up and down the escalators in a department store which always makes them happy. We tried to wear them out. Another thing: they are used to relatively short drives from one place to another. Those days are LONG gone here in Jax. Everything is about 30-45 minutes here and that is taking some adjusting for all of us. They are bored, I mis-plan and am late everywhere, and I spend $70 a week on gas. 

I have taken the boys down to the pool. It was ... not Oakleaf (which has huge water features for kids to play with) but there is a baby pool which has a little slide and a bigger pool with a 100-ft slide that is crazy fast and something my kids will not go on probably while we live here. If they do, I better put a swim diaper on them because they might actually poo in their pants with how fast it is. I love it! There is also a 1m and 3m diving board but you have to know how to swim in order to use those.

Eli tried this speedo vest on and water wings for the first time the other and LOVED them. I was shocked. He was swimming around everywhere and wouldn't let Aiden have the wings back. He didn't want us near him and said he could "do it by himself." I informed him that unless he knew how to swim and float with the vest and floaties, a grown up would always be by him while swimming.















The one thing that saved us at the pool was that there are a few water spout things and the boys love to play in those.

Aiden is all registered for Kindergarten. I'm still looking for a daycare for Eli but think I have it figured out. The boys both went to their former daycare last week for 2 days so Brad and I could get some work done and they could socialize and play with friends. Both had their physicals done and we already have an appt set for Eli for an ENT and it's the same doctor who did both sets of tubes and his adenoids which I'm super happy about. These super hero boys have been troopers lately with so much going on.










The boys have really been wanting to go in a canoe in the lake where we live at. We finally did that last week. It was going great until it suddenly started pouring. I mean absolutely went from no rain drops to POURING. Aiden freaked out a little. He was in Brad's canoe and they came racing over to the dock and Aiden got out and ran for shelter. Eli was in my canoe and we got to the dock first. Eli thought the rain was pretty fun.

Our friends that we met in Maryland 5 years ago just moved from CA to FL. We are so excited that they are in the same city as us now even though we live on opposite sides. We got to meet up with Mike and Arin (and Grace, their 4 yr old daughter) last week. It was great and I can't wait for more visits and hang outs to come. 

The boys have been asking to go to Chuck-E-Cheese for a while now so we finally went. This one is right down the street from us which is nice. The boys had a blast.  

And I do mean ALL the boys (Brad is so cute).

I have another post to do. We went to St. Pete on Friday and moved my mom in with us on Saturday. Things have been overwhelming lately and I still have unpacking to do but I never seem to have any time to do it. We are about to enjoy a 4 day vacation in Orlando before Brad leaves for a few months. We just found out today Brad's next orders are longer than he thought. In addition to that, he will have a 9 month cruise. Our lease is for 2 yrs which means it is likely that I will have to move our entire household during his deployment to another location for a few months which totally would stink. Our landlords are military as well and they have 2 yrs orders and are planning to move back in here (and retire) so I'm not sure there is any wiggle room. I have to trust that this is God's plan and He will provide and guide us and worrying about things is not going to help me at all.