Meeting Nikolas

We were so excited for a new addition to our extended family. Chad's sister Amanda and brother-in-law Justin just welcomed their first child at the end of March. We wanted desperately to visit them in the hospital, but Griffin was sick so we didn't want to expose them to anything. Luckily he was all better a few days later, and we were able to finally meet him on Easter Sunday. Baby Nikolas (Niko) Antony Fortner is a gorgeous, gorgeous baby, with long legs and tons of hair. He was also super sweet and seemed like a pretty easy-going baby.



Griffin and Cooper were SO excited to meet him. Amanda didn't find out the gender before he was born, and the first thing Griffin asked when we told him she'd had the baby was, "Is it a boy or a girl?" When we told him it was a boy, he said, "YES!" I was really pleasantly surprised by Cooper's reaction. He studied him for a few seconds and then broke into a game of peekaboo. It was so sweet. He also tried to give Niko the toy train he'd gotten in his Easter basket. Awww!

Baby Nikolas with Cooper's train


I am so, so happy that my boys have a local cousin to grow up with. They have another cousin, my brother's little girl Ella (who is also absolutely beautiful and fabulous, of course!). And Griffin especially fell in love with her at Christmas. But they live in Dallas and we don't get to see them anywhere near often enough. So I am thrilled that my boys and Niko will get to be good buddies growing up. Welcome to the world, sweet baby Nikolas!

Loving these boys...most of the time

Five things I am loving about Griffin right now:

1) He tries so hard to be a big helper, especially if he can do something without my even asking and surprising me (like cleaning up a mess Cooper made while I'm out of the room)

2) He is such a big boy now! This makes me sad too, of course, but lately I catch myself shocked by just how grown up he's getting. We took the training wheels off of his bike this week, although he can't do it by himself yet!

3) He is trying so hard to be a sports fan (and I think it's working!). We are huge into March Madness around here, especially with Duke still in it. And Griffin has really gotten into rooting with us. He asks who the "good guys" are, and then cheers his little heart out, often using pom poms. We were pulling for fellow ACC team Maryland the other day, who came thisclose to a miraculous comeback. When they lost, he got so distraught he started to cry and had to run up to his room for awhile! Poor baby!

4) He's totally comfortable doing nerdy things. Take, for instance, the trip to Target we made the other day wearing his Clone Trooper costume. Awesome!

5) He's learning so much, so fast. We play Dinosaur War all the time, and it has helped tremendously with his number recognition and simple math. He's starting to really take an interest in learning to read too, and I think he finally has the motivation to learn. I loved school and I really want my kids to love it too. Even though he complains some days about having to go, especially if Cooper doesn't have to, he has a blast everyday and does so well at school. I can't believe my baby is going to kindergarten next year!

Five things I am loving about Cooper right now...

1) He is totally into the Wiggles right now, and while I am tired of them, his love for them is pretty darn cute to watch. His favorite joke right now is to pretend to be asleep, so we can all yell, "Wake up Cooper!" (like they do for Jeff-obviously you are all huge Wiggles fans and already got that reference!)

2) He loves to wear pairs of my sunglasses everywhere he goes. He eats lunch in them, wears them in the rain...cute!

3) He has an unbelievable knowledge of trucks and construction equipment, given that we don't really tell him the specific names. I'm not sure where he got that info, but he cracks me up..."Oh, skid steer! Oh, bulldozer! Oh, excavator!" The way he says excavator makes it even cuter!

4) As evidenced above, the way he says, "Oh!" whenever you surprise him is hysterical. He has awesome reactions.

5) He is a total mama's boy, and I don't ever want that to change. He still loves to snuggle with me, still likes me best of all. Only recently he won't let me sing to him after we read, before he lays down for bed, and it breaks my heart! But at least I'm still his favorite!

What are 5 things you are loving about your kids today?

Christmas (Better late than never!)

Yes, I realize that Christmas was two and a half months ago, and we're almost to St. Patrick's Day. You've heard of Christmas in July, right? Well, how about Christmas in March?

We had a very nice holiday. Both of my brothers came with their wives, and we were super excited to meet our first niece/cousin, Baby Ella. Griffin was absolutely in love with her!



The boys must have been good last year, as Santa, mommy and daddy, grandparents, and aunts and uncles spoiled them rotten! Griffin's favorites were all the Star Wars things he received, and Cooper loved his new kitchen and all his new trucks. They were very happy boys, as Santa got them most everything they asked for.

Our living room on Christmas morning before the kids began digging in:


Griffin with some Star Wars vehicle-a good guy one (as specific as my Star Wars knowledge gets!):


Cooper opening up his new Geo Trax-love the expression!:


The boys all dressed up in one of the biggest hits-Star Wars dress up clothes!:

Trying this blog thing again...

Alright, so I am truly the world's worst blogger. I admit it. See, the thing is that I feel like every entry should be replete wih pictures and importance. But I don't always have pictures or anything of importance to say. So I am officially giving up on those things, and instead I'm just going to aim for having something, anything, to say. You may have noticed how pretty my blog looks. My BFF Jen fixed it for me, because on top of being a lousy blogger, I am also super technologically un-savvy! So, pretty blog, new resolve...my mid-March resolution to be a better blogger starts today!

Brothers...

Typical interaction between brothers, at least in our house!

"I think my brother is so funny!"


"I love him so much I will give him a kiss!"


"...and chew on his tummy!"


"...and lick his face!"


"Come on, let's play chase and have lots of fun!"


"Until I push you down and make you cry!"

Disney, Day 1 continued!

Oops, start with the post below!

We arrived at our room around 11:15 am, and the kids were wound up! We'd promised them swimming and lunch, then a nap. We really wanted to stay through the Spectromagic parade at 9 pm that night, since it would be our only chance to see it. My hope was that if we all took a rest for a couple of hours, the kids would make it.

We had signed up for a fridge swap, so the grandmas took the kids to start swimming while Chad and I got the fridge from the nice gentleman who had it before us. It was kind of a pain, we had to check out a cart, wheel it back to the room, drop off the fridge, then drop off the cart. Whew...worth it for a free fridge though! While we were doing all this, we realized the pack n play we requested wasn't in the room. So Chad went to the front desk, and I went to help the grandmas with two very hyper boys.

I met up with them at Goofy's Splash Fountains, which were really cute.




After a little while, we headed over to the kiddie pool. Can I just say that my boys loved this pool all week? Perfect for their age, cute, and they loved the water jets shooting up. They had a blast!



When Chad got done retrieving the Pack n Play, he and I went to get us and the kids lunch, and bring it back to the tables by the pool. We figured this would avoid meltdowns about having to stop swimming. We told the grandmas we'd be right back. Well...that food court was insane! It was 12:15, prime eating time, and it was so chaotic and crowded. Plus it was our first meal, so trying to figure out what was a counter service credit was a little complicated. Eventually we did figure it out, but we were both exhausted! I got the Chicken Penne Alfredo with Tie Dye Cheesecake for dessert, Chad got the Shrimp Lo Mein and a blueberry muffin, and we got the kids a kid's cheeseburger meal to share. It was all really good. It took us so long the grandmas thought we'd been abducted, but eventually they got their food as well, and we all sat and ate poolside, which was nice.

Around 1 p.m. I took the boys back to the room for a nap. This was where the first meltdown of the day (mine!) was about to occur. Chad was going to stay by the pool and relax-I wanted a nap! Well, after the winding walk back to our room, I discovered that the luggage people had plopped our suitcases immediately in front of the door (not so cool when you're pushing a stroller into the room), and Chad had dumped the pack n play onto the bed without setting it up. So I had two wet, tired, cranky boys, I wanted them to take a nap so we could go to the MK already, and the room was a disaster. Oh, and Chad was off sunning himself by the pool. I got cranky too! After moving stuff, setting stuff up, and finding them clothes, I went to put them down, only to discover that they were absolutely wired! Like literally bouncing off the walls! I could see the whole plan going down the drain for the day, so I turned into Mean Mommy. You know, the one who yells at her kids for having too much fun at Disney World? It wasn't pretty, but by 2:15 they were both out. I rested a little, but Cooper woke up at 3:30, waking Griffin up too, of course.

I called everyone to get ready. My mom had rested in the connecting room next door, and Chad and his mom had relaxed by the pool. My plan had us getting to the Magic Kingdom at 4 p.m. (what I thought was a reasonable goal), but it was 4:25 before we even left our room! This was when I quickly realized that planning only takes you so far, and I needed to just let go of my Type A ways and go a little more with the flow. I really did very well with this for the rest of the week. At least, that's what I say!

Finally, we were on our way to the Magic Kingdom!

Disney, Day 1!

Well, we did it! We survived (and mostly thrived) our first family trip to Disney World. We stayed at POP from 9/7-9/14, and enjoyed 7 days in the parks with free dining. We were blessed to be joined by my mom, Grandma Kathie, and Chad's mom, Grandma Sue.

And we're off! Sunday we tried to tucker the boys out as much as humanly possible, in the hopes they would sleep well that night. It mostly worked. Once they were asleep, I worked on packing up the last of things, and then Chad brought what we could down to the car. This was our room that evening.


Our alarm went off bright and early Monday morning at 4:30 am. We had both woken up on our own around 3:30, which actually made getting up easier. The plan was to do as much as possible, then ease the boys into the car and maybe get them a little more sleep. Not so much...Griffin woke up at 4:45 and came in to see if today was finally the day! He was very excited to hear that it was! One thing I am so glad we did was dress them in their clothes to sleep the night before. In the morning, Griffin just had to potty, and we changed Cooper's diaper when we got to the airport, so it was super easy getting them out the door. We loaded them into the car, then drove the 6 miles to my parents house. We picked up my mom, and my dad took over to drive us to the airport-our minivan was packed to the gills! We had originally thought of driving to WDW, and seeing the car packed up convinced me that it was the dumbest idea ever. So glad we flew!!

We met Sue at the curbside check-in, got our checked bags taken care of, and were off to security. We found out that somehow Sue had paid for 3 bags instead of one, so we were able to check two of our carry-ons. This was a nice surprise. Security was super easy, and I was surprised that they said we could take the kids' sippy cups of milk through.

We ate Munchkins and donuts while we waited, and a short while later, we heard the boarding call!

The flight was uneventful, which, when you're traveling with small kids, is perfect! Griffin sat with the grandmas, and Cooper sat with Chad and I. He was a little bored, and would have done much better with his carseat (we didn't want to haul it just for the plane). He watched a DVD about firetrucks for a while, and kind of hung out. Griffin was an angel. After only 2 hours, we were in Orlando at 9:17 am!!

We stopped to potty, and Griffin had the first of our week's tears when he banged his head on the stroller and cut his temple somehow. I put a band-aid on him, which was a lovely addition to our pictures the first couple of days! We found the Magical Express easily, and were ushered right onto a bus with no wait at all. Awesome!
Griffin and Grandma Sue

Grandma Kathie

Chad and Cooper

Me (taken by Griffin, who did pretty well!)

The ride was great and the kids liked the video. Around 10:30 we pulled into POP and went off to check-in.

I had done online check-in, and we had no wait at all to check-in. I had faxed some room requests a few days prior, and we were thrilled that all of them were honored. I hadn't specified a section, just top floor, quiet, connecting rooms that were hopefully ready early. All were met, and we were put in the 90's section, rooms 8422 and 8423. I wasn't thrilled with this since they were so far away from Classic Hall and the bus stops, but we quickly learned that if we walked through the parking lot, the walk wasn't bad at all. I got the water I had ordered from Costco, and we went off to find our rooms.

A long, meandering walk through several decades later, we made it to the big laptop icon and found our building. Our rooms were great, clean, and we had towel animals waiting in the windows.


I was able to take a couple quick pictures before the kids destroyed the room!

Up next, Crystal Palace, Spectromagic, Wishes, and two whiny kids!!