More February Fun

February is almost over and I had a few more pictures of our fun from this month worth sharing...

"Mama, take my picture holding Jude." :)

They sang "Happy Birthday" to James at Awana and gave him the Birthday crown. We also let him pick a birthday balloon from Publix. We told him that he could pick one while we were in Disney World but we never got around to it with everything else going on. 

Stephen and I don't usually exchange gifts for Valentine's Day, but try to make something if we do anything. We usually get a little something for the boys, but with us just coming off of the Disney World trip we didn't this year. I made love-themed food for breakfast and lunch for the boys this year. And Stephen cheated and got me a Willow Tree figurine of two brothers, but since it was so sentimental I was okay that he cheated!

I packed Stephen's lunch with all these fun (and, yes, cheesy!) little Valentines sayings. :) But he loved it!

Heart shaped waffles, strawberries, and even bacon. Jude and I were waiting for James to wake up, and when he finally did I discovered that he had pink eye (Jude had already had it a few days earlier!). 

Sitting up in the bath like a big boy now! 

I made brownie cupcakes to take to Chuck E Cheese's where we celebrated James with Nana and Grandpa after our trip...

They are loving the jump-o-lene from Nana and Grandpa.  Perfect for these energetic boys!

I brought Pin the Headlight on Mater to Disney but we never got a chance to play it. James enjoyed playing it last night! I told Stephen we had to do it before February was over :) I guess this has just been a whole month of celebrating James! 

Interview with James at Four Years Old

I really enjoyed "interviewing" James this morning and hearing his thoughts on all his favorites. Most of his answers were pretty accurate, and just the delivery of his answers made me laugh throughout. I like that I'll be able to look back years from now and reminisce about what four year old James was like. :) I thought I'd share them here on the blog as well.

Interview with James at Four Years Old:

What are your nicknames? "You know... Baby, James-y, and James-y Bear."

How old are you? Four

What are your favorite colors? blue, green, and purple

What is your favorite animal? giraffes

What is your favorite book? Mama, Will You Hold My Hand and Steam Train, Dream Train

What is your favorite TV show? Chuggington

What is your favorite movie? Planes and Cars

What is your favorite song? Father Abraham

What is your favorite food? Peanut Butter and Jelly, Watermelon, "Sticks" (veggie straw chips), hotdogs, tacos, hamburgers, brownies, and doughnuts

What is your favorite drink? chocolate milk, apple juice, and orange juice

What is your favorite breakfast food? orange rolls

What is your favorite snack? fruit snacks and apples

What is your favorite shirt? race car shirt from Nana and Cars shoes

What is your favorite game? Hungry Hippos and Disney Find and Seek

What is your favorite toy? "Zig the Big Rig, the Mouskedozer that Jude gave me in Disney World for my fourth birthday, Remote Control Dusty. I like all my planes. I like all the toys I have...I don't want it to take forever to write down every toy that I have... And I like my rocking horse."

Who is your best friend? Mama, Daddy, Jude, and Cody

What is your favorite thing to do? go to the park with Cody

What do you like to play outside? soccer and ride my scooter & tricycle at the tennis courts

What is your favorite holiday? Valentine's Day and Christmas

What do you like to take to bed? "Popcorn (stingray) and all my guys (stuffed animals)"

Where is your favorite place to go? Disney World

What is your favorite restaurant? "Chuck E Cheese's because it has games"

Where do you want to go on vacation? "Disney World...again...because I love it so much."

What do you want to be when you grow up? "A worker that goes at church." (I asked him later what he was going to do there and he said "play the guitar like Daddy." And then a few seconds later he said "I actually am going to play the tuba. Can you buy me a tuba?"

What did you do for your birthday? "I went to Disney World. We did one ride and then we did the other ride!"


And a few other fun facts:
Wearing: 4T Clothing; smaller shorts but needs 4T for his length

Weight and Height: I'd guess around 34 pounds and 41 inches, but we'll know an exact measurement at the doctor in a few weeks.

Personality: Somewhat reserved and cautious still but becoming more outgoing, stubborn, smart, witty, and full of nonstop energy

Appearance: long and lean, his hair is becoming a little darker and is more of dirty blonde now, and big blue eyes still.

Here are a few pictures I took of James before church recently. I'm hoping to get a few more pictures (and maybe one that's frame-worthy) out at the park this weekend!

Jude at 8 Months Old!

I have had a lot of catching up to do on the blog, and one thing I needed to do was to write an 8 month update for Jude's baby book before any more time passes. He'll be 9 months old in about a week!

Wearing: 6-9 month clothing; size 3 diapers

Growth: A rough home estimate is around 20ish pounds at the 8 month mark and between 27 and 28 inches, but we'll get an official measurement at his 9 month appointment.

Sleeping: He takes 2 or 3 naps during the day with the longest one in the afternoon when James naps. He sleeps 10-12 hours at night. He may wake some but quickly resettles. I will continue to nurse him at nighttime if he wants to until he weans, just like I did with James. It's what works for me/us.

Eating: cereal, yogurt, and stage 2 or 3 baby food. He seems to like everything. He eats baby food at least twice a day, and he has been eating lots of finger foods at lunch as I introduce them. The finger foods include pasta, small pieces of waffle, cheerios, gerber snacks, carrots and peas from vegetable soup, and soft fruits such as banana, watermelon, blueberries, strawberries, and mandarin oranges. He looks for little crumbs under the table and on the floor as he crawls around during the day.

Personality: He continues to be content and laid-back. He is starting to show some signs of separation anxiety and fusses a little more than he used to about things he finds upsetting. He is happy, active, and loves to interact with us and especially James. He seems pretty fearless as well.

Teething: He still just has two teeth on the bottom, but I'd be surprised to not see more (it looks like on the bottom) very soon.

Look: He continues to have a lot of similarities to James with his own look too. Right now he has the most squishable cheeks and the shortest little legs. His eyes are dark brown and his new hair is growing in much lighter although we'll have to wait and see if he gets that same blonde hair as his big brother. We continue to think that James has more of his Daddy's look and that Jude has more of mine (and that's what most people typically say), although there are those that say the exact opposite on occasion too. I honestly think they are both a pretty good mix and see us both in each boy at different times and in different ways. His hair definitely seems to be showing some potential for curls, and the humidity definitely helps with that. So, we'll see... :)

New "Tricks": super fast crawler, pulling up, getting into everything, can stand for a few seconds when he's still and not bouncing, definitely cries for "Mama" now, seems to be trying to move his fingers to imitate waving

Happy 8 Months, Jude. I am so thankful for our sweet, stinker baby! You bring us so much joy! I love you forever, my Jude-y Bear!

Disney Recap: Day Five in Magic Kingdom...again :)

On our last day in the parks, we chose to go to Magic Kingdom again. We hit some of James' favorite rides from the first day again, and we covered some new ground too. James rode two roller coasters (both twice, once with Mama and once with Daddy, thanks to the switch-off option). It was his first experience with roller coasters, and he loved them. So, I'd say that The Barnstormer and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad were the highlight for him that day.

A few more pictures from the trip:

This is from earlier in the week, but James loved listening to his special birthday message from Mickey and Minnie all week long. He even called the front desk by mistake one time...oops!

We started the day out with race cars again.

Jude really was here and in the carrier!

Dumbo!

Teacups!

It really is a small world. Our friends Walt and Catherine found out we were also in Disney through twitter so we were able to meet up for a few minutes.

Jude "picked" a Dumbo stuffed animal with his gift card.

We came back in the afternoon to use our free arcade vouchers (notice his dinosaur prize) and a nap to be sure the boys would last until fireworks.

Balloons from the hotel staff!

Stephen managed to capture a picture of James and I on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

One of our Fast Pass options was to watch Wishes (the firework show) in the rose garden. It was an amazing view!

We caught a little of the electrical parade before the bottom dropped out!

Cold and wet after the parade, we used our last snack on a venti, decaf coffee. James got a white hot chocolate! He thought he was something else with his "coffee."

 Wishes was the perfect way to close out such a magical vacation:

The morning we left Jude turned 8 months old. We stopped by downtown Disney to use the rest of our gift cards and use our last meal credit at The Earl of Sandwich (highly recommend it!) before hitting the road!

Disney Recap: Day Four in Hollywood Studios on James' Fourth Birthday

We chose to celebrate James' actual fourth birthday in Hollywood Studios (above all the other parks) for several reasons:
- I wanted him to enjoy the day's activities, but I wanted us to be able to enjoy a bit of a slower pace that day so that we could actually focus on the birthday boy and celebrating him and not just be busy, busy, busy all day long. Hollywood Studios does not have all the rides of Magic Kingdom, so we definitely had less ground to cover.
- I wanted to pick a park that had rides, shows, characters, etc. that were his favorite. Hollywood Studios has the new Toy Story Mania ride (definitely a highlight of the trip!) and a character greeting with Buzz and Woody, a character greeting with Lightning McQueen and Mater, a Cars stunt show with Lightning McQueen making a cameo appearance, and a Disney Jr. Show which was supposed to have the Little Einstein's - these are a few of his very favorite things (all in the same park) so it was the perfect choice for our James!
- A special meal/character meal (that we decided to purchase in addition to our counter-service plan) that would be in the park that we chose on his birthday along with a recommended bakery to purchase cupcakes on his birthday (since making them before we left and eating them four days into the trip was out of the question). We were supposed to have breakfast at Hollywood and Vine on his birthday and get to meet the Little Einsteins (he was so excited about this!) but unfortunately they replaced them with Sophia the First at the restaurant and the Disney Jr. Show just about a week before we came. This was the only wrench in our plan, but we were able to cancel that reservation and got reservations to eat at T-Rex in downtown Disney instead for a special birthday lunch and the food and experience were really great! I would highly recommend it. The bus driver told us which Disney bus to take that would put us at a resort within walking distance/access to downtown Disney and saved us tons of time (not having to transfer to multiple buses) that day.

It was a little challenging to plan a birthday celebration at a place that I was so unfamiliar with, but I couldn't have been more happy with how the day turned out for him. I wanted it to be so special for him (especially since we were technically the ones that decided to combine his birthday with family vacation), but he told us it was the "best birthday ever!" I'm so glad that our little boy felt as special on his birthday as he is to us!

Here are the many highlights of James' Fourth Birthday celebrated in Hollywood Studios:

I brought Cars decorations from home to decorate our hotel room for James' birthday.

Birthday Breakfast before heading to Hollywood Studios. James chose a chocolate muffin (a "snack" on the meal plan for his birthday breakfast!)

At the front desk at our hotel one of the cast members told James that he had a meeting with Mickey Mouse that morning and Mickey wanted James to have a few things on his birthday. He loved that!

A cast member named James took our picture inside Hollywood Studios. 

We had a fast pass for Toy Story Mania first thing that morning. The wait never got below an hour that day so we didn't get to ride it again. It was awesome!

Inside the queue line for Toy Story Mania

 Meeting Lightning and Mater!

The Disney Jr. show was so cute! James loved popping the bubbles and catching the gold doubloons that fell from the sky. Only The Little Einsteins could have made it better.  

 T-Rex for a special birthday lunch:

We sat in the ice cave that had meteor showers every 20 mins

They brought the birthday boy a cupcake after his lunch.

So thankful for the two that call me "Mama"

A picture with Buzz and Woody (made completely out of legos)

They let James choose anything he wanted at Starring Rolls Bakery for his birthday. He picked a brownie  with m&m's. We had planned to all get something but the bakery closed early and we were still full from lunch so he just ate in the stroller. He definitely had lots of sugar that day!

The Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground was so fun!

The Cars Stunt Show. James said "again" over and over after it was over. He loved it!

We ate dinner at Pizza Planet and Stephen's meal came with another cupcake! ha! The Sorcerer Apprentice Mickey is Stephen's favorite!

 Back at the hotel James opened his presents:

So sweet!

One of his gifts were the Disney Pixar Racers. I found them on clearance online before Christmas but I knew he was going to love them when he kept asking to buy them individually in every gift shop we entered all week long!

And we finally found a Pat Pat Rocket on ebay in the $20 range!