Birthdays & Thanksgiving

November has been a busy month for us with two memorable birthdays and the start of the holiday season.

We celebrated Elena's first birthday with one of her favorite meals - spaghetti and meatballs. It has been so amazing to see her personality really reveal itself these past few months. She has such a zeal and passion for life, she loves books, loves Noah, loves to investigate and get into all kinds of things (all kinds of trouble!). She's still a climber, likes to stand on Noah's tricycle seat, has no fear and thinks she can do anything Noah can. She is a firecracker! We definitely have our work cut out for us and we love it.




For Noah's birthday, we hosted a low-key birthday party at our house with family. We were fortunate enough to have warm weather and all the cousins were able to play outside. They busted up a treasure chest pinata, went on a treasure hunt and found miniature personalized treasure boxes. It was so much fun to watch it all! Noah always loves playing with his cousins, and to top it all off, we had a great dinner and then the most amazing train cake!




We were so grateful to have my parents and niece Kim in town for Thanksgiving this year. My grandfather, who Noah has taken to calling GrandBob also came into town to spend the holiday with us. What a fun full house with all of us together! Noah kept telling Kim that she was his "very best friend ever." They really are all so sweet and kind to each other.

We spent the week eating, catching up, shopping, crafting and playing with the kids. We also went out to the newly re-opened Opryland Hotel to see the Christmas decorations, Dave and my dad ran a 5 mi. Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, and I got a nasty 24 hr stomach virus on Thanksgiving Eve, but I'm thankful that no one else got sick. After everyone went home, our kids had a hard time re-adjusting back to life with just the four of us. Noah has told me several times since Thanksgiving that he would like Nana and Poppy to live "close enough that we don't even have to drive to get to their house" and that he would have fun "riding bikes with them everyday." Too cute. Thanks for a great visit Nana and Poppy!

Around the House

Here are some pics of us just around the house...












And this one gets filed under, "I can do anything you can do!"...


Here's what I found them getting into... Tortilla chips!

Our Fireman and Lion

This Halloween we had a handsome fireman and a cute, cuddly lion in our house! They both enjoyed dressing up and Noah really got into the candy aspect of it all this year. We went to our church's Trunk or Treat and we also went Trick or Treating in a nearby neighborhood. Here are some of the pics we took during the festivities...

The Pumpkin Patch

We had Nana and Pop Pop here for the weekend and squeezed a lot of fun into 3 days! We spent Saturday morning at a local pumpkin patch. We saw cows, chickens, roosters, turkeys, sheep and goats. We went on a hayride, played on a jungle-gym, dug and played with dried corn in a big trough and so much more, just at the farm!

We also blew bubbles, went to the park, the mall, our favorite TJ Maxx, saw some new houses, ate out and had a great time together. Thanks Nana and PopPop for a great visit! We miss you already.

Flamingos

Well who would have thought that flamingos would make such an impact.

Earlier this week, I had a spontaneous moment at breakfast and announced to the kids that we were headed to the zoo. It's an odd day that I set aside my to-do list for something so spontaneous, but I'm glad we did.

We haven't been to the zoo in several months. I tend to avoid it during the summer when it's so hot and crowded. This week we chose a perfect day - it was cool and cloudy with a chance of rain. When we get there, I think we were one of three families there. We spent a good amount of time in the reptile building where Elena enjoyed watching the fish.

I had heard that the zoo had just installed a new flamingo exhibit, but it didn't strike me as anything exciting. If you ask Noah what new animal he would like the zoo to add, he usually responds with hippo or rhino. However, both Noah and I were somehow captivated by the flamingos. I'm not sure what it was about them, but we spent a lot of time there on the little bridge over their water and watching them. We had a great time with those amazing birds!

Fall is Here

Fall has arrived! The weather has been incredible lately, so we've done a lot of outdoor activities. We went to Heritage Day where a local catholic school celebrated 150 years in Nashville with an outdoor festival, taking us back 150 years with old-fashioned games, a horse & carriage ride and of course, the authentic old-fashioned magic show! :) Here they are waiting on the show to start ...



Then the next weekend, we enjoyed the Celebration of Cultures which is Nashville's one-day festival where a local park gets turned into a mini-Epcot with exhibits, games, entertainment and food from the many cultures that are represented in Nashville.



Last weekend, we had a great time with Bryan, Ashley and Emma at the park. Noah and Emma were tough to keep up with! We got them to slow down just a bit for these shots...





We've also enjoyed playing more outside at home now that it's a little cooler. Noah is enjoying his Big Wheel and t-ball set and Elena loves the climbing slide in the backyard. She is still fearless and I can't turn my back on her when she's near it, which I of course, learned the hard way. She likes to climb up the slide and then stand precariously at the top. The other day, she somehow went down the slide all by herself like a bullet - on her belly, face first, with her hands up at her side. I got to her right as she landed at the bottom of the slide with a faceplant into our grass and she just stood up and giggled and laughed! Here she is climbing up the slide and then a few pictures from around the house...

Disney!

David recently had a work trip to Disney World, so we thought it would be great for the kids and I to tag along. We've been several times over the last 5 years and the last time was with Noah, but we completely underestimated the time and patience it would take to navigate the parks with 2 little ones.

We went to the Magic Kingdom first and I quickly realized that I would have to re-adjust any expectations we had of our trip. It is in my nature to "get our money's worth" and stay at the park until we've seen it all or at the very least, hurry from one thing to another to cram in as much as possible. I went into the trip realizing that my usual tactics were not going to work. I had no expectations of seeing the park myself or riding any rides I wanted, and I was okay with that. I wanted to help facilitate Noah's enjoyment of the park and Elena's experience of being in such a vibrant place, but it was more difficult than I expected and I didn't know just how much I was going to need to dial back.

First of all, Noah has no idea who any of the characters are. We don't necessarily have an aversion to Disney movies, we just really haven't introduced them to Noah yet. So he has no idea who anyone is - Mickey, Minnie, the princesses, Cars, Nemo, etc. You name them, he just doesn't know them. I didn't realize how much of a detriment that could be at the park. He had zero interest in riding Dumbo, Aladdin's Magic Carpets, Winnie the Pooh, or any of the other character-centered kids rides. They were all super kid-friendly and I think he would have loved them, but the characters kind of threw him off and he just wanted to stay away from them.

It's also kind of embarrassing when you're at the parks and workers interact with him. While we were sitting on a park bench at Epcot, a friendly worker came over to Noah and asked if he liked stickers. This got his attention. The interaction went something like this:
"Do you like stickers? Who's your favorite character? I have a bunch. Let me see if I can find your favorite. Do you like Mickey?"
Noah: Nope.
She went through them all and Noah answered either "No" or "Who?" to all of them until I said, "Just give him the chipmunks."

We quickly learned which kind of activities Noah would like and worked to steer him towards those. He liked exploring the fort and bridges on Tom Sawyer Island, walking through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House and of course, the carousel, which we rode multiple times. We also rode around on park transportation (not really rides) multiple times just for fun - the Magic Kingdom Railroad, the Monorail, the buses to get to parks, etc. I think Noah may have liked the transportation getting in and around the parks more than the parks themselves.

At Epcot, there is a large aquarium that he loved as well as the exhibits in the Innovations part of Epcot. It's a Disneyfied version of some things you'd see at a state fair - educational exhibits and activities on fire safety with a real fire engine as part of it, an exhibit on recycling that had a real garbage truck and miniature garbage trucks to drive around, etc. All the stuff that you see on the map and wonder, "Who comes to Disney for stuff like this?" is the stuff that Noah liked. And for the most part, these areas were all indoors and air conditioned so how could we complain?

Elena stayed in the baby Bjorn for a majority of the time and she just seemed happy to be along for the ride. However, she really had a great time when we found nice open spaces for her to walk around in. Overall, it was a good trip, but I don't think we'll go back until the kids are a bit older!

We were so busy wrangling with the kids and all our gear we had to tote around, we didn't get a lot of pictures, but here are some of them ...

Beach Vacation

We took the kids to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida a few weeks ago. We had a great time last year and were anxious to introduce Elena to the beach. Just like last year, it was beautiful. We saw a few clean-up crews, but David was the only one to see any tar balls and said there were just a few. We tried to spend as much time as possible down at the sand, but also logged a fair amount of time at the pool!




Noah's favorite activity was digging in the sand. He built sandcastles and enjoyed burying our feet in the sand. He was also on the look-out for sea creatures. We saw a several sand crabs, a few larger crabs in the water, of course fish in the water, a jellyfish and David even saw a shark swim by! The lifeguards tried to be reassuring and told us that there are always sharks in the water, but we only see them on days when the water is clear. It wasn't really as reassuring as they intended. Here are some pics of Noah digging in the sand...




The first few days the water was crystal clear, the wind wasn't too strong and it wasn't terribly hot. As the week progressed, storms moved in and the water had more seaweed in it and the waves were a bit more choppy and harder to play with the kids in it. We're so glad we took advantage of the water when it was unbelievably nice. We still went down to the beach each day the rest of the week, but we didn't get into the water as much and we got rained out a few days. In fact, the last day we ended up having to run through torrential rain twice (you think we would have learned the first time) and Elena giggled and squealed the whole time I was running with her, both of us getting drenched. It was the happiest I saw her the whole trip!

Elena spent most of her time at the beach under the umbrella in my lap. She was a good sport, but didn't really seem to enjoy being out in the sun or in the sand or even in the water that much. Looking back, we think she was sick those first few days because the last day she really came around and acted more like herself. Here are some pics of her under the umbrella...









The first day on the beach we got inundated by a few nasty beach flies (and they bite). We didn't last long out on the sand before we decided to head to the pool. I think Noah had just as good of a time in the pool as he did out on the sand. Here are some pics of him playing the pool throughout the week ...





There were some other activities we could do within the complex and one afternoon Noah and David played a bit of shuffleboard. Here's Noah in action...


I think Noah's favorite part of the condo was the bunk beds. He slept on the lower bed, but enjoyed climbing up to the top one to "explore" and then once it was fully explored, he used it as a get away from Elena. Here he is enjoying the space to himself...



For some reason, Elena loved these vertical blinds the whole week ...



I tried to get a picture of Noah and Elena together on the beach, but it just wasn't happening. This is the only shot that I got!