Day 4. Our second Disney park visit was to the Animal Kingdom. This was my favorite of the two we visited. So many cool animals to check out. We didn’t take quite as many pictures because it was more fun to just enjoy the park. (I did have to include a picture of my favorite animal, though…the elephant.)
Day 3. Lincoln said he would drive us to Cocoa Beach, so we took him up on his offer. 🙂 Well, sort of. We did go to the beach and the boys LOVED playing in the sand. It was a bit cool again, but the sun was warm and Jake actually ended up getting a bit rosy from it. The boys and I sported our 100 SPF sunblock, so we were in the clear. Jake made sure to enjoy a McRib on the beach (and rub it in by sending a picture back home to an old co-worker to create a little jealousy.)
Special thanks to Bri, Jason’s girlfriend, for several of these pics, including the group family picture we took at the end of our journey to the coast.
Day 1. Left for the airport about 7:30AM. Thankfully traffic was flowing nicely and we made it to the security checkpoint about 8:30. Once through security we stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s and then headed for our gate. Not surprisingly, the non-stop flight to Orlando was packed. Larissa traveled with us; she was such a big help! It was nice having 3 on 2 defense. Lincoln slept on my lap for most of the flight and Nolan chilled next to Jake while watching various DVDs. We were able to watch an in-flight movie, which made time “fly.”
Once we landed and picked up the boys’ car seats, we found our mini van for the week and headed for our home away from home in Kissimmee, just a few minutes from Mickey’s house. The place we stayed in was quite spacious – 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and enough beds for everyone, which was great! The kids enjoyed the over-sized bathtub almost every night of our stay. It was a treat to have so much space for the boys as well as a nearby park for them to play at. I can imagine I would have been a bit nutty by the end of the week if we had only been in a one-room hotel room all week.
Lincoln has started putting 3 words together to express what he wants. Our fine-tuned parental ears have been able to make out the following desires (or demands :))
“I wan cu!” (I want cup) and “I wan ba.” (I want ball) are two phrases we hear throughout the day. He will add in a “peez” (please) complete with sign language if we ask him, “What do you say?” It’s pretty cute.
Today’s phrase while driving in the suburban was, “I wan Jee jee!” Which when played through the Lincoln translator, means, “I want Jesus.” Further translation is required to know what the hidden meaning actually is. We have a CD of kids’ praise music in the truck and when Nolan wants to listen to it, he asks for “Jesus music.” Today, I guess it was Lincoln’s turn to ask DJ mom to select CD 4 from the set.
Christmas Eve was a snowy one. We woke up to a driveway full of light, fluffy flakes. After breakfast, Jake and I traded our “normal” jobs – I went out to snow blow the driveway and he stayed in and watched the kids and cleaned up the kitchen. After he was done, he dressed the kids in their snowpants, etc. and brought them outside. We dug out the sled and tried to make a path down the hill in the front yard. Several attempts were made to blaze a trail, some successful, some not so much. But fun was definitely had by all – except for the one time that Lincoln got white-washed. He called it quits after that episode. But Nolan, our neighbor D, and I continued to play for a while. If lunch time hadn’t closed in on us, we would have stayed out longer.
After lunch & naps, we went to 4pm Christmas Eve mass. Thankfully, my parents beat us to church and reserved half of a pew – they saved us from standing. From church, we headed to my parents’ house for dinner, presents and a birthday cake for Jesus. (This is one of the kids’ favorite things about Christmas. Ok, and mine too :)) Part of dinner consisted of turkey drummers for the boys to eat. Nolan first had one when he was about 9 months old. This go-around he made much more progress. Lincoln did quite well with his first drummer. Actually, he looked like a natural.
Nolan got to wear his pumpkin costume to school today and apparently do a little trick-or-treating. He came home with two little goody bags filled with trinkets and individually wrapped pieces of sugary goodness.
I think kids have a heightened sense of where sweet treats are located and an uncanny ability to figure out packaging that sometimes stumps adults. Case in point, Lincoln. It was good that Nolan had two bags of treats because my littlest Sheck was not letting go of the bag he acquired from his older brother until he examined its contents completely. Once we arrived home, I placed him in his highchair, untwisted the twist-tie from his bag, and let him check out what was inside. I opened a mini candy bar and he made short work of it. As I was getting lunch ready (thinking he was just playing with the eraser and kazoo from the bag) I turned around to find he had opened the purple Tootsie Pop and was enjoying it like a kid who has had a sucker before. (Today was his first.) And so, like any good mother, I grabbed my camera and took pictures while he loaded up on sugar before nap time.
Green monster teeth were another goody bag item. Look at those scary smiles 🙂
My baby’s straight, blonde locks have been growing for 18 months. The back has been bordering on piggy-tail length, so I called in Nana to trim things up. Lincoln did a great job sitting in his high chair once he checked out the tools that were being used to snip away the length. He looks just a little bit older now without his wispy ends.
Even though we spent a good portion of the day out in the porch with the toasty fire keeping things at about 80 degrees, we took a break for hot cocoa. Nana left the boys a special treat – Swiss Miss packets and chocolate covered spoons with Halloween Peeps stuck to them. The spoons were a big hit!