photoblog

Catch the Moment|wk.21

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Shew, I’ve been busy this week – putting up a record 3 blog posts since my last Catch the Moment. In case you missed it, I wrote about Day 1 and Day 2 of our Walt Disney World vacation as well as the boys’ last day of pre-school.

Linking up with Mindi, Stephanie, and Carrie for week 21 of Catch the Moment.

141/365: Thursday, May 21st. Because when you work from 9am-10pm, this is all that’s left to photograph. I hadn’t planned to work so late but Ryan was already on his way to pick up the boys when I got a call from their school. Both had fevers and were falling asleep on the playground. Neat! I knew I’d need to take off Friday so I worked until I hit 40 hours. 05-21-2015

142/365: Friday, May 22nd. Both boys woke up without fevers but Theo woke up crying that his ears hurt in the middle of the night. I made an afternoon appointment to get him checked out before the long weekend…verdict: double ear infection! Weird since he’d never had one in all of his 5+ years. Off to Target for antibiotics and we stopped by school so he could tell his teachers and friends goodbye on the last day. So sad that he wasn’t able to attend. By the time we got home, they were tired and not in the mood to take last-day-of-school photos.05-22-2015

143/365: My sweet and wonderful friend Erin is days away from welcoming baby number 2! I wasn’t able to attend her surprise baby shower the week before so we had our own little celebration at a yummy Italian restaurant close by. So fun to have the evening (and conversation) to ourselves without little voices interrupting every train of thought. Ha!05-23-2015

144/365: The new water park opened in our town for Memorial Day weekend so of course we were in line to check it out on Sunday at noon with some of our friends. Excited to have this nice amenity so close to home. The water was FREEZING, but we expected that so early in the season. The boys loved the kid splash area and the lazy river.05-24-2015

145/365: Monday, May 25th. Memorial Day. We stayed home on the holiday and worked on some house projects. Ryan worked on the grout for our tile backsplash while I stained some neglected replacement windows and primed a red wall that I never liked in preparation for painting it the same color as the rest of the room. 05-25-2015

146/365: Tuesday, May 26th. Our sweet neighbors John and Katy sure know how to make my day with their son’s leftover party treats! Thank you!!05-26-2015

147/365: Wednesday, May 27th: Ryan and I took advantage of the boys spending the night with Nana and Pop Pop and went to a movie. We saw Tomorrowland so I had to represent with the Mickey shirt I wore at Disney on my birthday (because when else am I going to wear it again?). For me, the movie was entertaining but not something I need to see again. Too futuristic. I’m not mad though- I mean…it’s called Tomorrowland. It paid tribute to Walt in a pretty cool way at the beginning which is what I really wanted to see. Disney geeks unite!05-27-2015Now that we are a few days removed from sickness and 13 hour work days, I can say we’ve had a great week! Let’s keep the trend going…

xo,

~C~

 

#mcdanfamloveswdw: Day 2

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Click HERE to see the photos we shared on Instagram from our trip. 

Click Here if you missed Day 1.

Day 2: Thursday, May 7th. My 35th birthday!

I chose May 2015 for this trip for several reasons. February would have been nice but I was afraid of flight delays since Indiana winters historically reach a level of extreme misery during February. Ice, blizzards, and sub-zero temps are nice to get away from, but what if you can’t? Ideally we would have waited until September because crowds and rates are lower. Summer is not on my WDW radar because of the heat, crowds, and rates. With Theo starting Kindergarten this fall, I decided to follow my conscience and avoid going in September. I’m not personally against taking your kids out of school for vacation, but part of me feels guilty for thinking about it. Especially right after school starts. February, too unpredictable. September, school’s in. Those two times also have the lowest resort room rates. Next best option happened to be May. School’s still in session so the crowd levels are okay. Bonus – Dexter’s birthday, my birthday, and Mother’s Day all fell within a week. Sounds like a heck of a celebration to me. Why not? All in all, it ended up working out well for lots of reasons.

I had never been to EPCOT during the Flower & Garden Festival so I was excited to see all of the character topiaries and flowers in bloom.

002 004

Both boys were big enough to ride Soarin’ and we all loved it! Unfortunately we only got to ride once because the wait times were long by the time we were able to get back to it. Soarin’ is my favorite attraction at EPCOT and I was excited to learn that additional capacity is being added. We used a FastPass+ on Test Track and we couldn’t get one for each attraction. Test Track was a big hit, too. I rode with Dexter and he said “mommy, pretend this is the batmobile and we’re going back to the Batcave, okay!?” See, he’s not ALL Disney.005

I had to take this picture because I knew it would perfectly represent Dexter in every single line. Theo was kind of following his lead here, but we could barely keep Dexter off of the railings, ropes, or chains in queues. He is such a busy body and has so much energy. When he’s not tired, he has to be moving. And guess what? When he’s tired, he has to move even more. “Dexter! Get down!” We must have said that 100 times a day.007 008

So pretty! I need the landscaper that designed this to come to my house.012

Kidcot stop in Mexico as we entered the World Showcase. They still have these puppets or fans or whatever you want to call them. 013

Tradition! We got a picture with Donald in Mexico last time so we had to recreate the memory. 017 018 021

First souvenir purchase! Dexter picked out this elephant in China and so cleverly named him …. Ellie. Yep. He carried him around and slept with him every night. It was cute, cute, cute.025 027 032 034

Hurrah for short lines to meet cool characters!035 036 038

Between France and the UK lies a walkway to the Boardwalk and Yacht & Beach Club Resorts. One thing I knew I wanted to do for my birthday was to visit Beaches & Cream, a full service restaurant and soda and ice cream shop within the Beach Club Resort. We opted to eat outside and daydream about staying there one day while eating our Mickey mini kitchen sink sundae. It was DELICIOUS and gone in about 5 minutes. Perfect break in the middle of a fun but long day on our feet. 039 040

Back to EPCOT for a little browsing.041 042

They had a Monsters University themed playground set up for the Flower and Garden Festival. Out of all the fun attractions, sights, sounds, and tastes – some of the boys favorite things at the parks were the play areas where they could run, climb, and act like little boys.045 049

Before our trip, I shared on The Affordable Mouse my concerns about Theo poo-pooing on our fun by constantly worrying and thinking about what souvenir he was going to get and when. Well…we had to have a little talk at EPCOT on day 2 of the trip after I’d heard him ask the same question one too many times. We had talked about it before our trip but he just couldn’t help himself. What did he want? A little $6 mystery pack of tiny characters…which happened to be the same pack he got a year and a half earlier. I thought he’d blow up but he had a great attitude and said you can’t have too many Ursulas, Oogey Boogeys, or Scars. I wish we’d bought the darn pack first thing. The rest of the trip, he was really good about it.

Dexter and water…oh the boy loves water. At Disney World, there is water everywhere! We made a lot of pit stops to look at various fountains, waterfalls, creeks, lagoons, lakes, and canals. I had to remind myself over and over that this is his vacation and this is what he loves. 050

Tradition of trying all the sodas from around the world at Club Cool.051

Dexter’s second souvenir closely followed his first. He had to have a stuffed Bruce (from Finding Nemo). He loves water and he definitely has a thing for sharks! Earlier in the day when we visited The Seas, we hunted and searched all of the aquariums for sharks with no luck. I finally asked a cast member who pointed us in the right way. He was mesmerized! I’m not sure when this love of sharks happened, but it was cute. So later in the day when he asked for Bruce, we talked to him about it  – told him he couldn’t get souvenirs every day – he understood. He still wanted Bruce. He got Bruce.054 056 058 060 062

After a long day, the buddies were tuckered out. I tucked them in and ended my birthday with a big smile on my face. 063When you check in, a cast member will ask if you are celebrating anything. If you are, they will give you a pin. I got to wear a pin on my birthday and had a lot of fun hearing “Happy Birthday Candice!” all day. I’d recommend celebrating your birthday by embracing your inner child to anyone.

xo

~C~

last day of pre-school 2015

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

We got home from vacation with one week of school left. I was excited for the boys to finish out the year with their friends and teachers. Then Sunday morning Theo woke up with a fever and laid around all day. Monday he laid around even more and ate and drank almost nothing. He felt a little better but still stayed home Tuesday because he had no energy. By Wednesday he was ready to go back to school. Thursday morning Dexter begged to stay home but didn’t have a fever and I really couldn’t afford to miss work since I was planning to leave work early Friday due to their half day. I felt terrible dropping him off but hoped he could make it through the day. He made it – they both did – until 415pm when I got a call that they were both falling asleep on the playground and had fevers over 101. Well crap.

Ryan was already on his way to get them so I decided to work until 8 or 9 or until I ran out of work to do since it was clear I wouldn’t make it to work at all on Friday. At 10pm I hit 40 hours for the week so I packed it up and went home, exhausted.

I said all that to say that I was beyond sad for them because they wouldn’t get to participate in the last day of school festivities and especially for Theo because he wouldn’t get to tell his friends or teachers goodbye. Theo woke up in the middle of the night Thursday crying in pain. This was odd – my boy has never had an ear infection in his life. I gave him some pain reducer and put him back to bed. By morning he said his ear felt a little better but I made an afternoon appointment for the pediatrician (who confirmed he has not 1 but 2 ears infected). Dexter’s fever never came back and Theo seemed to feel pretty well too so we decided to swing by school to check the lost & found and say goodbye – for mommy, this meant getting those much anticipated last day of school photos.

Taking last day of school pics makes me reminisce back to their first day(s) so I put together some collages (because how else would I cope with the fact that my firstborn is 10 weeks from KINDERGARTEN, y’all?). Bittersweet. Theo is so ready and excited and confident about going into Kindergarten. On vacation he mumbled to Dexter under his breath “I have soooo much homework to do when we get home,” like a teenager in reference to the Kindergarten readiness packet we received at registration (he’s right though, it is a lot). He loves it. I will have him do 2 pages and he’ll ask to do 4. Or 6. Hopefully his enthusiasm doesn’t fizzle out too soon.

Shut up, Candice. Just get to the pictures. Yep, I talk to myself. On my blog.

Can you even believe how much he’s grown? He’s learned even more than that. Kids, man.theocollageWe will all miss his wonderful teachers, Miss Holly and Miss Darci. theo teachers may 2015

Brothers. They make my heart all poofy.Ribbet collage1

I am proud of Dexter – the transition to pre-school hasn’t been so easy on him. He doesn’t have as much confidence as Theo does. But with his teachers’ guidance, he came a long way. The first part of the school year, he spent a lot of time watching other students, hesitant to pull jobs from the shelf. By the spring, he was doing multi-step jobs with little help. He went from being completely potty-trained the summer before pre-school to a major regression both day and night. It’s taken the whole school year, but he’s back to having no daytime accidents, hurrah! He loves his teachers, writes his name, talks about his friends nonstop, and doesn’t need 500 “one more hug and kiss”es when we leave. I can’t believe how much he’s changed. Ribbet collage2

He is looking forward to spending another year in the Maple Room with Miss Pavitra and Miss Jama.dex with teachersI know one day too soon I will be looking at their High School graduation photos and wonder where time has gone. For now, I am trying to enjoy the moment and revel in awe at how much they are learning.

xo,

~C~