The adventures of raising little Hales and surviving the day to day

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Do you know how to give a baby a milkshake?

Graeme knows just what to do to give his little brother a milk shake!  


We are only sad it doesn't capture how hard this was making Liam laugh.  Once Graeme noticed Mike taking the video he stopped.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Beach Pictures

A couple of weeks ago, the boys and I went to the coast for the weekend.  While there, we met up with a childhood friend and her kids to take beach pictures of our kids.


Saturday was nice and warm, but it was not to be as after about 10 pictures my camera died . . . I hadn't charged it since we had gotten back from Florida.  OOPS!  This one is one of my favorites (also the last one I got before the camera died).  We call it the levitating children shot :-)

So we met again on Sunday afternoon as the boys and I were starting back toward Holly Springs.  It worked out great even though it was a bit chillier as Graeme was in a much better mood than he had been in on Saturday.








As another friend commented on her own blog, the results really don't reflect how crazy it is to get good pictures of kids!

While there we also got to go to my nephew Neal's Blue and Gold scout ceremony.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Family Vacation Wrap Up

Wow, am I a slacker.  I did really well getting the first part of vacation posted and then apparently took a blogging vacation.  Now over a month later, a quick wrap up of our Orlando Vacation.


Just inside the gates, were some fun animals for the kids to climb 




Getting ready to start our adventures, we found an overlook that showed us the different places we could go in Universal's Island of Adventure



Our first stop was a big hit with the kids-Seuss Landing


We explored around "If I Ran the Zoo" where we found this strange little animal crawling around


Here Graeme and Jadyn found the water zone


Bouncing along


Picture with Joe


More water fun


Riding the Caro-Seuss-el



Liam sat amongst the Truffula Trees


The kids took off to ride a fish


The great thing about adventures in February, we didn't have to wait to ride the rides or to jump right back on and ride them again.  


While Mike took Jadyn and Graeme on the Trolley Train Ride, Liam and I went over to meet the Grinch.  He told us his heart was still 2 sizes too small!


We still aren't sure if they were along for the ride or were being picked up by the cops :-)



As we walked around, Graeme and Jadyn enjoyed random photo ops

We then arrived at the one really busy area of the park, the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  We didn't explore here very much and the rides here were busy, so we walked through and just looked around.


The castle


Next we explored Jurassic Park.  This area had a lot of fun places for the kids to play.


They could look through the eyes of a stegosaurus.


They could check out the dinosaur egg hatchery



Next was Toon Lagoon.  The kids really enjoyed Popeye's ship where they could slide, explore and climb.


Once again, Liam and I explored while the big kids played.  


He got to meet Popeye and Olive Oil.


I took Jadyn's picture here to send to her parents, loved her facial expression!


Next we journeyed through the Marvel Heroes area


As we finished our circuit of Universal's Island of Adventures, the kids found some ducks to feed the last of our popcorn.  Graeme chased them and Jadyn even tried to feed one of them by hand.  They were pretty fun to watch.


The rest of our vacation, Mike had his conference.  The kids and I hung out around the hotel and ended up playing in the fountain at Downtown Disney each day.  We had a great time!