Six (and a half) Years Old!

Yes, I'm a little behind on my blog (again)...
I started composing this post over the summer, shortly after Griffin's 6th birthday. However, I never finished it and then the blog got pushed to the backburner when I went back to school in August and was also coaching cross country on top of keeping up with my 3 boys.  But this past Monday was Griffin's half birthday and that spurred me to finish my post.

Here is what I started back in June...
I really can't believe that Griffin is six! Since we were coming back from the beach on Saturday, June 8th, we had a family party on Sunday afternoon (his real birthday) and waited until the following Saturday to have his friends' party.

We had a Star Wars theme for the family party, and I surprised Griffin with this R2-D2 shirt that I painted.  I also made an R2-D2 cake and decorated with all of the Star Wars toys and items he'd accumulated over the last several months.

We had an Art Party at Michael's for his party with his friends. Everyone painted t-shirts and made glue suncatchers before decorating their cupcakes.  Because I was helping out so much with the art projects, I really didn't do a very good job of playing photographer during the party. Here are a couple pictures of the decorations and then a couple of us working on our projects.

And now, six months later...
As soon as he wakes up every morning, Griffin goes straight to the advent calendar to collect his prize for the day.  Some days it is candy, sometimes it is something fun for us to do together (like the Polar Express movie night at Fort Sanders this past Friday) and other days it is something little I've found at the dollar store. For his half birthday it was a $5 Target gift card--I expected him to ask to go to Target right after school, but instead he calculated how much money he now has when he adds the gift card to the money already in his piggy bank. Maybe we have finally taught him that it's better to save your money for something bigger rather than spending it as soon as you get it?!

I would have liked to have joined him for lunch at school to make it a more special day, but I couldn't get away from my own school.  I did make one of Griffin's favorite meals for dinner and then we had HALF a cake to celebrate!

Isle of Palms 2013

We spent the first week of June with Pop, Chaz, Katie, Connor and their two friends at the same house in Isle of Palms where we stayed last year.  We were happy to find that Baylor liked the beach and pool more in June than he had for Spring Break in March.


Griffin still preferred the pool over the beach, but we spent plenty of time at both.  Almost daily, Griffin took a bike ride on the beach while I pushed the twins in the double jogger.





I've mentioned before that Hudson is a natural little athlete. Look at the way he is holding this football--his little hand can't even begin to really grip it, but he definitely has the right idea! And it isn't even football season yet--just wait until he starts watching some games on TV and trying out the moves!



And then there's Baylor, ready to kayak around the beach with his shovel as a paddle!

We didn't have great weather in the afternoons and evenings so we spent a lot of time inside...much of it watching Hudson play baseball.  Yes, this 2-year old really can hit a pitched baseball!

Because a trip with 3 boys under the age of six isn't really a "vacation," we decided to take everyone out for a whole day so Pop, Chaz and the others could have a quiet day to kick back. We ate lunch at Cosmic Dogs where Baylor and Hudson rediscovered their love of hot dogs (and they got turns "driving" this red car).

Then we went into Charleston to sight-see.  While Hudson was having a meltdown in my arms, I was still able to capture a few shots of these other two sweet boys holding hands while they walked.  As we walked through the city market, Hudson fell asleep in the stroller. For much of the time, he had both of his hands behind his head which drew a lot of attention and comments from amused passersby. We made a stop at the playground on Sullivan's Island before going to dinner at Shem Creek Bar & Grill..

One afternoon, our friend Collin (who lives in the Charleston area) and his two girls, Bennett and Cason, came by to swim and hang out for a while. 

Everyone surprised Griffin with an early birthday celebration on Thursday night. He really was surprised to the point that he was kind of sheepish at first. But he quickly snapped out of it when he started opening presents and got birthday cake and chocolate ice cream! 

I can't believe this cute boy is about to be six!  I love this picture because it shows off his two missing teeth--he lost the first in mid-May before school let out and then lost the other the first week of summer break.

It was a fun week and we made a lot of special memories.  And the best part is that we are getting into a stage where all three boys can really play together.  It's so great to be able to (occasionally and very briefly) sit back and just watch them all play happily together.  I look forward to many more of these moments in the years to come!

 And here is what two 2-year olds look like after a morning of digging in the sand and swimming in the water.  They fell asleep in my and Katie's arms so we just laid them on the couch to nap.

Two little monkeys turned two!

With Baylor and Hudson always watching and copying each other, it has been "monkey see, monkey do" at our house for a while now so I decided to make that the theme of their birthday party this year.  Inspired by my recent obsession with Pinterest, I ended up going a little over-the-top with the decorations, turning the dining room into a jungle with vines hanging from all corners of the room.  All 3 boys loved the new look!


We kept this party to just family since Baylor & Hudson have enough playmates with their big brother and two cousins. We spent most of the party playing out in the back yard, and then we went inside for cake and presents.

Sticking with the monkey theme, we had sandwiches cut out in monkey shapes, gorilla grapes, chimp chips, tamarin tails (Cheetos Puffs--my kids' favorite!), jungle juice, banana pudding, and monkey cupcakes.

The boys got lots of great presents--a water table, matching Dreamlites, monogrammed beach towels, tons of new clothes, light-up balls, musical instruments, and more--but this giant Elmo was an instant hit with both of them!  The hugged, kissed, tackled, and fed Elmo like he was their long-lost best friend.


We had their party on Saturday, April 13th so we made their real birthday a special day, too.  The mini-trampoline was a gift from me and Matt that was waiting for them when they came downstairs that morning.  I took a ton of pictures of them jumping, but Baylor was jumping so much that he was a blur in almost all of them!  Of course, this is the little boy that acted like his crib was a trampoline to the point that we were afraid he was going to bounce himself right out of it.




We let them have a little time to play with their new stuff before we took them out for a birthday breakfast. It turns out that a water table is pretty fun even inside with no water!

Spring Break 2013

We spent the week in Fort Walton Beach with Mimi, Papaw Al, Aunt Holly, Uncle Jason, Harper and Hollins.  Five kids ages 5 and under all in one condo together definitely makes for a wild week!

Our first day there was very sunny and pleasant so we hit the beach.  Hudson loved it right away, but Baylor wanted nothing to do with it.  He stayed on his towel the entire time.  Meanwhile, Hudson was doing bellyflops on the sand!

The next couple of days weren't beach or pool weather so we went shopping and entertained ourselves in other ways.  Matt and I took the boys to the Air Force Armament Museum.

We found a playground at one of the local elementary schools.  Baylor wouldn't even get down and play because the ground was covered in sand around the playsets.

It warmed back up Thursday and Friday so we were able to get back to the beach and pool.  Baylor's feelings about it hadn't really changed--at least he did get to where he would stomp around in the walk-in water area.   What you can't tell from these pictures is that the water was FREEZING!  The swimming pools were heated, but this walk-in area that was connected to the lazy river was not...but the boys seemed oblivious to that fact.

Mimi's birthday was on Thursday night and she requested a cookout and play night.  We squeezed in a little play time before dinner, but it quickly started cooling off once the sun started going down so we had to move the party inside after we finished eating.

On our last night, we took all 3 boys and Harper to play putt-putt.  Hudson was quite serious about trying to get his ball in the hole--this little boy is just a natural athlete.

We started the week with Baylor and Hudson sleeping inside their pen together.  After Baylor spent one night torturing Hudson by sitting on him, bouncing on him, and who knows what else, we decided to make two smaller sections so they could be separated and sleep in peace (hopefully).  That worked for a few nights, but then Hudson learned how to climb out.  He ended up spending one night snuggled in the bed with me, one night snuggled up with Griffin, and the last night in the floor at the end of the bed (after spending some time exploring the room outside the pen, opening and closing doors and drawers, this is where he finally fell asleep).

Disney World...finally!

We took Griffin to Disney World just after his second birthday, but he doesn't remember that trip at all.  I had to show him pictures to prove to him that he really had been there.  This past summer, Griffin asked so many times (on a daily basis for a couple of weeks!) when we could go to Disney World.  In the fall, Matt and I decided that we would give him a trip to Disney as his Christmas gift and go while Griffin and I were both on break from school. 

We managed to keep it all a secret until Christmas day.  We wrapped a few clues for Griffin (a toy plane, the Florida piece from his USA puzzle, and a box full of Disney characters), but it took him a little while to figure out just what his real gift was.  Once we helped him put all of the clues together and told him that we would be leaving on New Year's Day, he said, "Why can't we go today?"  We counted down for the next week...and we finally left for Orlando on the afternoon of January 1.

We stayed at one of the new Cars suites at the Art of Animation resort.  That part was a surprise for Griffin until we checked in.  He couldn't believe the cars parked outside of the hotel or the decor inside our room.

We spent the next day at Magic Kingdom.  The first and second thing Griffin wanted to do was the speedway.  He's had quite a bit of experience with driving on the Wii, but he was nervous to get behind the wheel of a "real" car...until I explained that it was on a track and he couldn't really get off course.  He loved his first rollercoaster experience (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad) saying, "That was crazy...I loved it...I could ride that 1000 times!"  However, the feeling changed when we rode Space Mountain!  He said that was the only thing he didn't like about Disney World.  Here is a very tired boy riding It's a Small World--it was one of the very last things we did during our 12-hour day at Magic Kingdom.

The next day, we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios.  We started the day with breakfast at Hollywood & Vine with a few of the characters from Disney Junior.

The biggest highlight of the whole trip was Griffin getting to participate in Jedi training and fight Darth Maul.  He also loved the Star Wars ride--we did it three times.  Griffin also really liked the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground and Toy Story 4D ride.

We took a break from Hollywood Studios for a little while in the afternoon.  We went back to our resort so Griffin could swim in the Cozy Cone pool and attend a drawing class led by a character artist.  Here he is with his sketch of Mickey Mouse.

We went back to Hollywood Studios after dark so we could see the Christmas lights and do a few more rides.

On January 4, we only had the first half of the day before heading to the airport to come home.  We went to Downtown Disney where we spent most of our time at Lego Land and the enormous Disney Store.