December 1 - Universal Adventure

Universal Day 1 - Amazing Day!

I started planning this trip several months ago and I was initially thinking Disney (as Jillian can go on several rides there). However, Disney prices were outrageous and the kids prefer Universal anyway, so off to Universal we went. Our first day was just our family and we had the option of the regular parks or the new water park. The kids wanted to go to the regular parks so off we went. Jillian and I walked from the hotel to Island of Adventure (IoA) while JD and the kids took the water taxi. Jillian and I made it there in approx. 7 min, while the rest of the crew took over 30min. Walking for the win! After meeting up on the bridge, we entered and it was...ride time! It wasn't busy at all and we got through a lot of rides. After a quick pizza lunch, JD took Jillian back to the room for a nap while I continued on with Julia and Luke. Julia is now tall enough to ride almost everything by herself, which was fantastic because Luke is still small enough that he requires an adult for almost every ride. It worked out perfectly! 

crazy milkshakes

After spending all day at the parks, JD and Jillian met us at City Walk and we had a delicious dinner at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium. If you find yourself in Orlando, give this place a try, even if it's just for dessert. The inside has a steampunk theme and the desserts are incredible! 

So, after being at the parks from about 10am-4pm and then dinner....nope, the kids were not tired. We headed to the pool for swimming. After swimming for a few hours, we headed back to our room for showers and to get ready for bed. Around 8.30pm, the NC Cook's arrived and the hotel hooked us up with adjoining rooms, so fun!!! The kids were so excited for day 2 of our adventure..!

mmmmm dessert

Hogwarts!

November 27 - Stomach Bug Attacks

 The kids were counting down the days until vacation for months and were finally in the home stretch. On Tuesday, I went to school and had Thanksgiving lunch with both kids. That evening, Jillian threw up some water and I didn't think too much about it. Around 10pm, she started projectile vomiting all over her room, bathroom and JD (I have never seen so much vomit in my life). I was giving her a bath around 10.30pm and Julia ran into the bathroom...also throwing up. Not idea. JD ended up going downstairs with Julia and she was sick every 20-30min until close to 6am. Jillian threw up one more time and while I was rocking her...I ended up getting sick starting at 1am. I was up from 1-6am sick.

makeshift bed for sick Luke

Three of us at one time, what are the chances?! Wednesday was a tough day trying to work and take care of tired children. Wednesday evening, I realized Luke had not eaten any snacks after school (unusual to say the least) and he didn't eat any dinner. He was otherwise acting fine but when we told him to shower and go to bed at 6.30pm and he was sound asleep by 6.45pm with no complaints, I knew he had it too. He started throwing up around 7.30pm and was luckily done with it by 11pm. We packed up on Thursday afternoon and were off.

We drove to Gulfport, MS for the first leg of the journey and had an uneventful trip. The next day we drove into Florida and got to the hotel by 8pm. Needless to say, we were all excited to be healthy and on vacation!!

Thanksgiving at School

We made it to the hotel, Jillian loved the trees!

November 14 - Good Luck Luna Lovegood

After just over 2 months with our family, Luna Lovegood will be going to her forever home in Connecticut. The rescue picked her up this afternoon and she is being transported tomorrow. She will be joining a family with a large yard and a female Labrador (hopefully the lab is younger than Amelia and wants to play). Best wishes to Luna, I hope she loves her new family and they love her. 

November 10 - Plaid

In case you are wondering how Texas kids dress for picture day.....here you go:

Plaid. I let them pick out their own outfits and this is how they came downstairs. So cute. And yes, Luke is rocking long hair for his picture this year. Waves!!

Happy Friday everyone!

November 8 - Baby On the Move

smooch!

Little Jillian is officially a walker now!! She's been taking a few steps here and there for awhile now, but starting last week she made the transition to full-time walking. She is so cute and getting faster by the day.  She's already trying to squeeze behind the TV stand and loves opening up the drawers in my bathroom to get into my toiletries. She's obsessed with the clock in Julia's room and likes to take it and carry it around. Another thing she's found in the last 2 days? A baby doll! She LOVES holding her and carrying her, she even slept with her the other night. So sweet!!

November 6 - Halloween Recap

School dance, swim meet & new hammock from Uncle Jay

Dimpled munchkin fans, please accept my apologies. October proved to be one of the most challenging months of my life. Sometimes, when you try to do something good, things don't turn out as planned. That is life and I'm trying to stay positive and look forward. Sorry for the lack of blog updates, I will do better this month. So, without further ado, let's jump into Halloween. 

I volunteered in Luke's class for 'Pumpkin-ology' and I was in charge of the 'science experiment' station. I put a small cup of hydrogen peroxide and dish soap into the center of a hallowed out plastic pumpkin. When we mixed yeast with warm water and the kids had to guess what they thought would happen. I then poured the mixture in and we watched as a foam mixture exploded out of the pumpkin's mouth. So fun!! The kids loved it! All I had to do for Julia's class was bake pumpkin muffins, so that was very easy. 

The Friday before Halloween was the school's costume ball, always a huge hit with the kids. Luke was so excited, he was dressed (as a ninja) as soon as he got home from school. Julia donned her devil outfit and we were some of the first people to make it into the gym for the party. The kids had a blast dancing and running around with their friends. 

The morning after the party was swim meet time. We had a cold front come into Houston and it was literally in the high 30s. We normally set up for swim meets outside but they notified us that there would be limited seating available inside. The coaches recommended we get there by 6.45am to get a spot inside. JD and the kids left our house at 5.45am and got to the pool at 6.30...they got one of the last spots in the hallway! Jillian and I got there around 9.30am, just in time to see Luke swim. Both kids did amazing and Luke placed top 8 in the 25 free and won a glow in the dark medal!!

He dropped several seconds off his free and back (from the summer) and successfully swam the butterfly for the first time ever without being disqualified. Go Luke!! Julia did her first ever 100 IM and 100 free and did a fantastic job. Great job kids!

On Halloween eve I realized...we forgot to get pumpkins!! Oops. We went to the local pumpkin patch and were shocked to find it packed. Apparently, a lot of people waited until last minute this year. The kids picked out their pumpkins and we can back home to carve. I forgot to get pictures of the finished product but they came out very cute. Julia's had a huge mustache and Luke's said "Boo!" 

On actual Halloween, we had a big crew together for trick-or-treating. We headed out at 6.30pm and were back by 8pm. Great evening for all! 

Pumpkin patch fun

Halloween

I couldn't resist the puffer vest

October 27 - When I Grow Up...

"When I grow up, I'm going to have four kids. The first will be a girl and I'm naming her Bella. Two years later I am going to have another girl and name her Ellie. One year after that, I will have two boys. They may or may not be twins, they'll be named Hunter and possibly Joseph. I definitely want a J name for the last one. The girls will each have their own room and the boys will share a room. We're going to have three dogs too. Bella will have the option of a golden retriever, black lab or German Shepherd. Ellie will get two choices, whatever Bella didn't and the boys will get whatever dog is left." - Julia


Luke, completely unprompted the other night (he was not in the room when Julia told me her child plan):


"When I grow up, I want to have four kids. Two boys and two girls. The boys will be named Boomer and Lightening. The girls will be Jay and Essie. We'll probably have some cats and dogs, my wife can name those." 


Hahaha! Love these kids. 

October 19 - White Group

Aquastar is the year-round swim program in our community (just like Schenectady Swim Club where we grew up). Julia has done Aquastar from approx. Jan-Jun for the last 2 years (I love swimming because not only is it affordable compared to other sports, but we can easily activate and deactivate with no issues). This year both kids are doing swimming in the fall and (probably) the spring. The exciting thing about fall swimming is...swim meets! The Jan-Jun was good because it got Julia ready for summer league, but there was only 1 meet in February. Well, the first Aquastar meet was this past weekend and Julia, along with the 'dream team' all competed (I didn't sign up Luke because this meet didn't have any 25s). They had a goal: Operation Get Out of Red Group." Aquastar is leveled by red (beginner), white (intermediate), aqua and blue. To qualify for white group, athletes need to have 3 50s in less than 50sec in 3 different strokes. Julia had her free time from a meet in Feb. This meet she was signed up for back and fly. She was nervous to swim 50s, especially the fly. It was her first event and she sprinted the first 25 and then kind of puttered out on the way home, but she did great and made it in 46 secs. Go Jules! Backstroke was next and she made that time easily, welcome to white!! Kennedy and Reese also made it!! Great job girls! Kimya missed it by 0.47sec but she had all best times and was super proud of herself. But the best part of the day? Lucy, Julia's teammate from diving came to cheer her on. We love our swim and dive families!

The next meet is in 2 weeks, both Julia and Luke will be competing!

October 16 - Celebrating 7!

 My little man is 7. SEVEN!! Wowsa, I can't believe it. We celebrated Luke's birthday on...his actual birthday! We surprised him with breakfast in bed (Starbucks hot chocolate and coffee cake) and then after a quick trip to diving with Julia and Jillian, it was time to get ready for the party. We had a bounce house/slide in the backyard, snowcones, appetizers and a delicious cake...complete with a Stampy Longnose MineCraft (thing? person?) on it. Luke loved it! We had a great turnout. There were several friends from his class at school, his class last year, swim team and neighbors. His favorite surprise was that his teacher, Mrs. McIntyre, stopped by with her daughter, Juliette. Luke was so happy!! Thank you to everyone who helped make his day special. 

Jillian has her first snow cone...and loves it

Jillian met a friend at diving on Saturday

earlier last week, I chaperoned a field trip with Luke's class to a theater downtown

October 10 - Walking! Kind Of...

watching diving is exhausting

Great news everyone-Jillian is walking..kind of. She will walk 5-6 steps in-between us before falling over. She stands all the time and is getting so close to taking her first independent step. Any day now!

I've been slacking on the blog for the last week so here is a quick update:

Jules
Julia is a busy little lady! She doesn't have any homework this year...which means they work really hard all during the day with barely any downtime. She made the robotics team (90+ kids applied, 24 made the team) so she stays after 2 days a week to work on her project (she is in a team of 4 and she's a programmer). The competition is in December and all the kids are working hard. She is swimming 3 days a week, diving 2 days a week and does a tumbling class once a week. She's busy, but because she doesn't have any homework, she is still able to play with neighborhood friends after school every day before activities. 

watching swimming is exhausting

Luke
Luke doesn't like to give me any details about school but he loves his teacher (especially when she reads stories to the class). His birthday party is this weekend and he's super excited about his party. We invited some of his friends from his class last year and his entire class this year. So far, we have about 8 kids coming. It should be a blast! Luke is also swimming 2-3 days per week and does a ninja class once a week. He LOVES the ninja class and doesn't want to leave the gym afterwards. 

Jillian
Jillian continues to be the best baby ever. She sleeps all night, loves the bath and is almost always happy. She had her first fever Friday night and Saturday (which meant she was super snugly) but she was back to her happy self on Sunday. She loves to eat and say "dog!"

3 of my girls!

Amelia
My first ever baby is hobbling around slowly. She still wants to eat and go on walks, so I take that as a good sign. She is also right under Jillian's chair when she's eating, so we've been calling her Miss Piggy! Her hearing definitely seems to be going, although JD is confident it's selective. I don't think so. I have come home from grocery shopping and literally unloaded several bags with her asleep in the next room. She doesn't budge or seem to notice I'm there until I go over and kiss her. 

Luna
Luna was spayed last Friday and has been rocking 'the cone of shame.' She is my shadow during the day (she actually stays closer to me than Karma, which I didn't think was possible) and she LOVES Jillian. Absolutely loves her. Last Saturday the kids and I went to Tammy's for an Oktoberfest celebration. JD took Luna for a walk and said "find the kids." She literally walked to Tammy's front door. This is impressive considering she has never walked down Tammy's road before!