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.

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.

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!

Family Vacation Part 3

On Wednesday, we celebrated Mike's 31st birthday!!!  As posted earlier, we also welcomed a new niece into the world that morning, too.  We are still anxiously awaiting our chance to meet this new adorable addition to the family (yeah for Facebook and great family for posting pictures!)

As for how we celebrated Mike's birthday, we went to Downtown Disney.  Mike really liked the sea dragon made of Legos.  Our sadness, however, was that the Lego store was being remodeled so there wasn't much else to see and that is generally the coolest store to check out-maybe next time!

Jadyn enjoyed the big Disney Store and the chance to get some pictures with princesses and other characters.

We found Mickey watering some plants

Graeme knew there was something not quite right about this pirate captain

We then headed over to T-Rex cafe to take Mike out for his birthday

The kids really got a kick out of the big dinosaur skeletons outside the restaurant

We were first seated right under this T-rex.  Graeme love it-that is, until he roared and freaked the kids out and so we asked if we could move tables.

They then seated us in the ice cave, which was fun (except for the noise and lights of the "meteor shower" every 20 minutes).  Graeme never really did get over the surprise of the first dinosaur roaring, so Mike took him and Jadyn for an exploration of the restaurant.

Liam thought it was all great and had a blast in his chair

Graeme wanted his daddy to hold him tight

We had a fun and very yummy dessert-a brownie/ice cream lava "cake"

It was a blast, but we would definitely recommend kids be at least 5 or 6 before you make reservations here.  

After lunch we continued exploring and found Buzz.

We did find the temporary location of the Lego Store and while it didn't have the little displays that can be so much fun, we did find Lego Woody.

Our next stop was to get Liam's name put on his ears-he was very excited!

Jadyn liked seeing all the broomsticks carrying buckets.

We also found a water adventure for Jadyn and Graeme.  Their laughter and play made Liam giggle and smile as he watched from the sidelines.

When we got back to the hotel that evening, Jadyn and Graeme engaged in an age old activity-PILLOW FIGHT!  They are both experts of the hit and run!

Mike's birthday was quite the adventure this year.  I know he will always remember this one.  He got really great presents-great memories and especially that he gets to share his birthday with Anna Joy!