Double Digits!

On June 9, Griffin turned double digits! As much as I love planning parties and making decorations, we did something different to celebrate Griffin's big 10th birthday.  He picked three friends to go to Wilderness at the Smokies overnight (on June 8), and we left the twins with Mimi so they wouldn't put a damper on the big kids' fun.

 
We tried out two different outdoor waterparks, but the boys agreed that they liked the indoor park best.  I wasn't able to get very many good pictures of them because (1) cameras and water aren't the best combo; and (2) the boys didn't hardly stay still long enough for me to get any!

In addition to the waterparks, they also played laser tag, went bowling, did the climbing wall and the ropes course, and played some video games.  

Griffin said it was the best birthday ever!

 

On the evening of his birthday, we got ice cream at Bruster's...

 and then Weezy, Mimi, and Papaw Al came over for Griffin to open presents. 

Birthday Boys

Baylor and Hudson turned SIX on April 14th.  Since it was Good Friday and we were all out of school, we were able to have their party on their actual birthday.  Like most six year old boys, they love Legos so that was the theme of the party.

The kids decorated Lego keychains and necklaces... 

built Lego cars to race on the race track...                               

played Lego BINGO...

played on the playground...

(the party was at their old preschool gym/playground so they thought it was funny to ride on the "little kid" toys now that they were such big kids!)

ate pizza, cake, and ice cream...

 

and took swings at the Lego pinata. 

And then there was the mad rush for candy once the pinata busted!

LOOKING BACK...

Because I got so behind on my blog, I never even posted about Baylor and Hudson's 4th or 5th birthdays.  So here's a little look back at their other special days:

For their 5th birthday, they had a ninja party at The Little Gym.

For their 4th birthday, they had a superhero party.

This was a really fun party to plan!  In the months leading up to the party, I learned more than I ever thought I would know about superheroes (and yes, I even visited a comic book store!).  I just really don't know how two years have passed since this fun day!

Superman-loving Hudson

Batman-loving Baylor

How is it possible that my sweet babies are already six?!?  

Ringing in 2017 in Orlando

In the past couple of years, I have made several comments, promises, and even resolutions about doing better at staying up-to-date with the blog.  I had gotten so far behind that I really had pretty much decided that I was done blogging.  After all, I think there are probably only a few people who actually read my blog so is it really worth the time and effort?  Well, what I realized is that I do it more for myself than for anyone else. I enjoy going back and reading my own comments about things that would otherwise be blurred memories (there are lots of blurs in my life...especially in the first couple of years with twins!).  So I have made another commitment to getting back on track, starting now!

My last post was about Spring Break 2015, and now we're half way through January 2017. I hate that there's a missing year and a half where I just didn't get it all down in blog-form...but if I try to go back and catch up on all I've missed, I'll never get it done and I really will throw in the towel once and for all. So fast-forward nearly two years from my last post...

For their big Christmas gift, we gave the boys a trip to Universal and Disney. Baylor and Hudson had never been, and Griffin was only 5 1/2 the last time we were there (the same age as the twins now). We left on December 29 to drive to Orlando--thank goodness for movies in the car to help distract the kiddos from how long they've been riding and at least reduce the number of times we heard, "Are we there yet?"  Since we got an early start, we were to our hotel by about 4:00. We unpacked and then headed to Universal's City Walk to stretch our legs a little and eat dinner (and do a little surfing!).

We spent December 30 at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.  Griffin loved everything about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! He was even selected by the wand master at Ollivander's to be "fitted" for a wand.

And when you're in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, you have to get Butterbeer and a Chocolate Frog!

While they were good sports at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and were even allowed to cast a few spells with Griffin's magic wand), Baylor and Hudson were much more excited about Seuss Landing. These rides were definitely more Hudson's speed! While he's normally my wildest child, he really doesn't care for roller coasters!

On December 31, we let the boys sleep in a bit since we'd had such a full day at Universal. We spent a couple of hours at Disney Springs checking out the big Lego store, eating lunch at T. Rex, and shopping at Under Armour. Then we checked into our Lion King room at Disney's Art of Animation and let the boys spend the afternoon at the Finding Nemo-themed pool.  It was a great end to the year, but we were all asleep well before midnight!

We spent the first day of 2017 at Magic Kingdom.

We started and ended our day with the race cars. Some of the other favorites of the day were Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and the Haunted Mansion.

While they aren't into princesses, they still thought Cinderella's castle was pretty amazing all lit up at night.  But they were SO TIRED by this point! Our fitness apps told us we'd walked about 9.5 miles around MK--that's an awful lot for those little legs! 
On January 2, we park hopped from Epcot to Animal Kingdom to Hollywood Studios.
Baylor and Hudson got up close and personal with this sea turtle in the aquarium at the Finding Nemo ride at Epcot.

Here's a rare picture of all 5 of us--we're getting ready to head out on our safari at Animal Kingdom!

The other highlights of Animal Kingdom were Dinoland (where B&H both got dinosaur lovies) and the Festival of the Lion King show.  It was quite warm and humid and we were hoping to do the Kali River Rapids to cool off a bit, but a 2-hour wait wasn't going to work with three tired boys!  We'll have to try that one next time (with a FastPass!).

Then it was on to Hollywood Studios.  We had saved this for the end of the day because there's usually a huge display of Christmas lights at this time of year. (That was one of the things Griffin really remembered from our previous trip). Unfortunately, there is a big renovation project going on at Hollywood Studios right now and, therefore, no Christmas lights this year.  But the huge Star Wars and Toy Story sections they are working on look like they'll be lots of fun next time we're there!

So the Star Wars and Toy Story Mania rides were definitely the highlights of Hollywood Studios. We did Star Tours twice and lucked out with different story lines...ones that included BB-8 which was fun!


We also went to the Muppets Vision 3D show where Hudson was able to squeeze in a power nap!

While at Epcot, we had told the boys we'd let them try the Coke samples from around the world at Club Cool. However, we were ready to go to Animal Kingdom before Club Cool even opened that morning.  Trying Coke was going to be a BIG deal since we'd told the boys they couldn't have it until they were 10 years old (just 5 more months for Griffin, but much, much longer for Baylor & Hudson). So when we made it back to the hotel, we got one Coke from the hotel cafe and let them all share it.  They LOVED it!


We packed a LOT of fun into 4 days, and the boys were absolutely exhausted by the time we were done. While we knew the ride home wasn't going to be much fun, it turned out to be so much worse than expected. On our last night, Matt and I both woke up in the middle of the night with food poisoning.  Luckily, the boys didn't get sick (the fact that they don't eat veggies--including salad--worked to our advantage this time!).  And luckily, it happened on the last night when we were "just" looking at a 10-hour drive home rather than a day of standing in lines and riding roller coasters!

Spring Break

We stayed close to home for Spring Break, but we did make a day trip to Atlanta to visit the Legoland Discovery Center.  This was the first time we'd ever been there, and it was a fun little outing for everyone.

A Tribute to Tom

In July of 2005, Matt surprised me with a Golden Retriever puppy whom we named Lola. By the next summer, we decided that Lola needed a friend.  This time, we decided to adopt a dog from the Golden Retriever Rescue.  They thought they had a dog that matched our wish list, and a volunteer from the organization scheduled a "trial visit" one weekend.  When she first arrived with Tom, he was a bit skittish.  However, once we let him into the backyard with Lola, they quickly started playing ball together.  In fact, Tom was the first dog that Lola had ever played with who could get to the tennis ball faster...and, surprisingly, she didn't seem to mind.  We kept him for the weekend and fell in love with him.  He was about 10 months old at the time, and he was nearly full grown and close to 70 pounds.  Yet, he seemed to think of himself as more of a lap dog and always wanted to snuggle up with someone.  He was also accustomed to sleeping in the bed, right up by someone's head...and that is how he slept for quite a while.  We finally trained him to sleep down between our legs rather than halfway on top of our heads.

By the next year, we were ready to expand our family again, this time with a baby.  Once we brought Griffin home, Tom quickly learned that he had lost his spot in the bed and had moved down a notch on the family totem pole.  However, he didn't seem to mind and turned out to be a great "big brother." As Griffin became more mobile and more interactive with his environment, Tom regularly got stepped on or crawled over.  He had his fur pulled, eyes poked, and everything else you can imagine. However, he never snapped or growled at Griffin--he was just happy to be getting some sort of attention.  A few years later when two more little people came along, he continued to be just as tolerant.

In February, while we were out of school for winter weather, Tom became very sick.  He wasn't eating and wasn't responding to any of the medications.  On February 27, we sadly had to say goodbye to our dear friend.

I began this post several months ago, but didn't publish it right away because I wanted to find more pictures to add.  However, I haven't blogged at all since that time so I am just now revisiting this post. Even though more than 5 months have passed since we lost our four-legged friend, the boys still talk about Tom regularly and remember how much he loved to play with them.  He is definitely still missed by us all.

Snowcation!

By the end of January, we had only seen a few sporadic snowflakes floating around on a couple of days, and I was giving up hope that we would get any snow days.  The boys all had their Valentine's Day parties at school on February 13.  Little did we know that they wouldn't go back to school until March!

On Monday, February 16 (an in-service day for me and President's Day holiday for the kids), an ice storm came through Knoxville that canceled school for the first part of the week. Then we got another wintry mix later in the week that canceled school for a couple more days. Then the next week we got some snow (much more fun than ice!) and got a couple more days off from school. We'd spent the first week cooped up inside most of the time so we were glad to be able to get out and play...finally!

 And then when we thought we'd finally be going back to school, we got the biggest snow of the season--about 5-6 inches!  This one wasn't as good for sledding, but it was great for making snowballs, snowmen, and igloos!

 Once we left Hudson and Hollins (the two "wild ones") alone in the igloo, it didn't last long!  

They had fun knocking each other into the walls and flipping over the tops of the walls. 

To his credit, when Griffin and Harper got upset about them tearing down the igloo, Hudson did try to fix it (but that didn't last long, either).