Catch the Moment: Week 19 (Disney Style)

Posted on May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 by mommyinthemidwest

I haven’t forgotten about this project and I haven’t lost any steam – we’ve been on a 9 day vacation to Walt Disney World. So get ready to be inundated with pictures from that magical place this week and part of next. My last post was only 6 pictures so this one will be 8 to make up for it, then back on track with 7 each week. I can’t believe our trip, that we’d been looking forward to for so long, has already come and gone. I plan to write a series of posts regarding our trip while it’s all fresh on my mind, but for now – just a glimpse. In other words, stay away from here if you are anti-mouse. Just sayin’…

Linking up with Mindi at Stavish Stills Photography, Carrie at My Life, Our Journey, and Stephanie at Behind the Camera and Dreaming.

126/365: Wednesday, May 6th. We arrived in the afternoon and made a beeline for the Magic Kingdom. The best part of the night for me was walking up to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, nervously anticipating the cast member measuring Dexter’s height, and seeing that he was indeed tall enough to ride everything that I’d hoped he’d be able to (so that WE’D be able to, as a family). I do have a picture of him getting measured (with a big grin on his face) but I decided to save that one for a separate post once I start my vacation recaps.

127/365: Thursday, May 7th. My birthday! It’s no coincidence that our vacation was scheduled the week that spanned my birthday, Mother’s Day, and Dexter’s 4th birthday. What better place to celebrate? We went to EPCOT. We’ve gotten a picture with Donald in the World Showcase 2 trips in a row so maybe it will become a tradition.

128/365: Friday, May 8th. Back to the Magic Kingdom for a full day of fun and wonder.

129/365: Saturday, May 9th. We arrived at Animal Kingdom 90 minutes before park opening for our character breakfast dining reservations – which put us way in the back of the park before park opening. Ryan and I each rode Expedition Everest with no wait times before I realized that Theo was tall enough to ride as well. When we discovered this, he and I couldn’t wait for Ryan to get back so we could share this news with him. He rode it with me and he LOVED it. I love him. It was a big moment for me as a mom and for him as a kid. How did we get here in 5 short years? On one hand, it’s really exciting, but on the other hand, it’s kind of sad. My baby is truly not a baby anymore. He’s a thrill-seeker!

130/365: Sunday, May 10th. Mother’s Day. We were definitely ready for a break from the parks after hitting them 4 days in a row. On Mother’s Day, we swam in the resort pool and then spent the evening at Downtown Disney picking out some souvenirs. (Despite our sun-screening efforts, Dexter did get a tiny sunburn at the pool that was gone the next morning… but it’s not as bad as it looks in this photo, I promise).

131/365: Monday, May 11th. We spent the day at my favorite park (and former employer), Hollywood Studios. Meeting Baymax and Hiro from Big Hero 6 was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for Theo and Dexter. One of the biggest highlights for me was watching them spontaneously hold hands and excitedly talk about the experience as they ran ahead of us when we left the Magic of Animation building. They were on Cloud Nine. Melted my heart and made the 80 minute wait (our longest wait the entire trip) 100% worthwhile.

132/365: Tuesday, May 12th. We took another break day from the parks and played mini golf, grabbed lunch at a different resort, then swam the rest of the afternoon and evening. Dexter got Ellie (yes, he named him and yes Ellie is a boy) at Epcot and carried him around the entire trip. This was the last time my little sweet boy fell asleep as a 3 year old.

133/365: Wednesday, May 13th. Dexter’s 4th birthday! We enjoyed breakfast at ‘Ohana inside Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort with Lilo, Stitch, Pluto, and Mickey. It was adorable and delicious. The boys get so excited when they come face to face with these larger than life characters from the movies. We spent the day at Magic Kingdom afterwards.So now I’m all caught up on Catch the Moment – time to start wading through my recap posts in the upcoming week or so.

I hope the mamas out there had a good Mother’s day and have a special place in my heart for anyone who was hurting on or because of Mother’s day for some reason. I feel incredibly lucky to be the mommy of these two little boys and that we were able to spend 3 special occasions together. More to come!

xo,

~C~

a family fun weekend with my sis

Gallery posted on March 25, 2015 by mommyinthemidwest

My sister Cher and her family were not able to make the trip from Tennessee for Theo’s 5th birthday party. Instead, they came up the following weekend. I was initially disappointed that they couldn’t make it, but this turned out to be quite the blessing in disguise. They are so involved in their church and school and sports that when we visit them, they are often running between spending time with us and upholding their other obligations and schedules. Since they came the weekend after the party, we had nothing planned and were able to really soak up the time together. I loved it and have thought about them and missed them that much more since they went back home. We had such a wonderful visit of uninterrupted quality time together.

They arrived late Friday night. The first order of business on Saturday morning was to head an hour east to Richmond, IN to visit our grandma and the kids’ great-grandma. They’re so lucky to have a great grandparent still living. I hope they all cherish the time they have with her. The big kids, Malachi and Isabella, wanted to ride with us in our car.

Part of our day was spent at Veach’s Toy Station, a toy store that Cher and I visited as kids before we moved to Tennessee in 1987. It was so much fun and a really cool and unique toy shop.

Hanging out at Grandma’s.

I know this is so, so grainy and not a great picture but I couldn’t resist – big sis cuddles to heal Penelope’s boo boo.

And a little daddy-daughter down time.

Snuggles with “mamaw.”

Finally, it was time to head back to Indianapolis and we had some beautiful scenery in the sky to help make the drive more interesting.

Sunday we grilled lunch at home before visiting the Indianapolis Museum of Art to take advantage of free general admission (until April 7, local peeps!). By looking online, you’d think that the IMA is pretty kid-friendly. We only found one area where we really felt that way (Star Studio), but we made the most of it and tried to ignore the staff that followed us around and warned us not to let the children touch this or touch that or get too close to this or breathe on that. It was a little frustrating but we did find plenty to laugh and smile about during our adventure.

We breathed a sigh of relief when we saw this outdoor space with GIGANTIC numbers 1-10 in lovely primary colors. Perfect, an opportunity for the kids to run and climb!

Well, that lasted about 2 minutes before an employee darted right out and started barking at us to get off the art. Whoopsy. (What did you expect though, seriously?) We did find the Star Studio eventually and loved it. We spent the majority of our museum time in these 2 rooms, creating, touching, and having fun. Who knew, Dexter LOVES watercolors! We’ll have to get him some for home.

One huge, awesome lite brite!

It was a gorgeous day and one of the reasons we decided to go to the IMA was that we wanted to explore the 100 Acres park adjacent to the museum. Well…that was a bust. It looked amazing, from what we could see, but there was nowhere to park. At all. So we went to a park closer to home. Afterwards, it was too late to cook dinner so we went to the pizza place across the street. The boys were in bed early after having their sleep schedules out of whack for a couple days. I had to work Monday so my sister and her family met me for lunch before heading back to Tennessee. It was sad to see them go, and I’m already looking forward the next time we get to spend together.

xo,

~C~

Theo’s 5th birthday celebration

Posted on March 21, 2015March 21, 2015 by mommyinthemidwest

You all- I took over 400 pictures between Friday, March 6th and Monday, March 9th while we were celebrating Theo’s big FIFTH birthday so bear with me. Getting this post down to less than 40 pictures is quite an accomplishment!

We think turning five is a pretty big deal around here. A lot happens with turning 5. Kids go to Kindergarten, start reading, (hopefully) Theo will start riding his bike, can start losing teeth, and all other sorts of big kid things. It’s just like…he’s a kid now. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s just grown up so much in the past few months. He’s little, but he doesn’t seem like a little kid sometimes. He’s got a teenager’s attitude, says things to hurt our feelings when he’s mad, and can turn on the charm to get what he wants. One thing’s for sure, he keeps us on our toes.

Friday, March 6th. Theo had his birthday celebration at school. It was super hard to get pictures without his classmates’ faces in them so I just have a couple to share. Dexter and Theo were both very excited that Dexter was able to come over from his class to join the festivities. All of Theo’s grandparents were there, too.

Theo held a little globe and walked around a wooden sun on the floor 5 times to represent each of his trips around the sun on Earth. With each year that passed, we stopped and shared a picture of what he looked like and talked about his likes and dislikes each year as he grew. Afterwards, Theo passed out bat signal-shaped rice krispie treats. They were a hit!

Saturday, March 7th. Our immediate family came over for pizza before his big party. We decided to let him open family gifts beforehand to cut down on time spent opening presents during the party. He loves this step-by-step drawing book from Nana and Pop Pop.

Another of his favorite gifts was a Lego chicken suit guy from Aunt ‘Chelle, Uncle Bob, and Spencer. It was his first Lego, ever (given to him by Spencer a couple years ago), which has been lost for a long time. He’s been saying he wished he still had it for some time now and Aunt Michelle delivered! He was overjoyed.

The money wasn’t terrible, either.

Theo’s party was from 1-230pm at a local gymnastics facility. Since there was a ninja skills training component included in the party, we went with a TMNT theme. Ryan’s mom made the cupcakes. She set up the table while my mom put together tabletop cardboard decorations. What would I do without family when I am feeling frazzled on these very exciting days??

Hey, Dexter…who do you think you are? Pretty sure Theo was not the one that blew out those five candles.

Sunday, March 8th. We still had not given Theo a gift. I’m sure he noticed, but he hadn’t mentioned it. When he came in our room in the morning and after we’d said “happy birthday” to him and given him a million hugs and kisses, I said “did you realize mommy and daddy hadn’t given you a gift yet? Well, I had an idea…” and we told him that we were leaving that day to go to Legoland Discovery Center in Chicago. He was very excited and ready to pack up and go! But not before Grammy (my mother) took us out for a big birthday breakfast – chocolate milk and all!

About 3 hours later, we rolled into Chicago.

My favorite thing at LDC might have been the HUUGE Lego model of the city. The detail! It was seriously impressive! The boys were in Lego heaven every minute we spent there.

I have to brag on the staff at LDC. They were super nice. Three different staff members went out of their way to give Theo a little something special for his birthday. It was an awesome place to spend part of our day.

Afterwards, of course we asked Theo what his favorite part of LDC was and he said … the store. LOL. Well shoot, we could have gone to a Lego store without driving 3+ hours and staying in a hotel overnight! He was super pumped to give this guy his OWN birthday money for a nice new Lego set.

We didn’t have a plan for dinner but we wanted to go somewhere that had cake. We’d thought about Maggiano’s because it was close but by the time we left Legoland, there was a 45 minute wait. Theo acted whiny about it and said he didn’t want cake anyway. So Ryan and I set out to find something that we didn’t have in Indianapolis. I’d seen people on Facebook who frequent Chicago talking about Portillo’s so that’s where we landed and it did not disappoint! The food was amazing and Theo was thrilled to end his big, special day with a mint chocolate milkshake (that he split in half with Dexter). Ryan may have been on sugary drink overload.

Legos before bed…

Legos when we wake up. It’s really no different from being at home, is it?

After enjoying breakfast and some hotel pool swimming, we made it back downtown and explored Navy Pier before heading back home.

It had to be the first nice day this year in Chicago. There were still piles of snow all over the place but it was 50 degrees and super sunny. No wind at all…I suppose the water being covered by sheets of floating ice had something to do with the lack of wind. It was perfect. Totally perfect.

That dimple was one of the very first things I noticed about Theo, within seconds of him being born. It still gets me. I can’t think of a better way we could have celebrated little Theo’s BIG fifth birthday!! Happy memories to last forever…

xo,

~C~