Epcot: Day 3

The start of our day.

Talking with Crush was awesome. We kept thinking how much our boys would love it.

Walking around the World Showcase--the Epcot ball in the distance

Mexico

We saw Donald Duck in Mexico!

China

United Kingdom

More fun characters

Matt + Goofy = match made in heaven

The lines picked up on Friday, so we used all our fast passes on this day. We still got to ride all the fun rides at least twice. Sum of All Thrills was okay. Soarin' was a really neat experience, but not a thrill ride. We still did that one twice. Matt really enjoyed Mission: Space, the intense option. We did it two times in a row, and Matt was game for more. The spinning was a little much for me after riding it twice.

We enjoyed Test Track.

We ate dinner that night in Canada at Le Cellier Steakhouse. It was our most favorite food of the whole trip. I loved their pretzel rolls!

There were a lot of fun things to see in the World Showcase and the fireworks were amazing that night. Since Matt and I really enjoy roller coasters and thrill rides, we were a little disappointed with the rides which were more of an "experience" than a ride. It was still a very enjoyable day, and we stayed for the magic hours so it was our longest day out of the 4. We did 14 miles of walking on this day!

Magic Kingdom: Day 2

Day 2 we headed to the Magic Kingdom early to take advantage of the magic hours. Unfortunately it sprinkled rain for about a half hour right at the start, but cleared up for a beautiful day! Magic Kingdom was our least favorite kingdom of the 4 simply because it's geared more towards kids, but I can understand why kids love it! We did most of the rides and thought about how much fun we will have with our kids when we visit again.

There were a lot of mosaics in Cinderella's castle.

It's a Small World--this song is forever ingrained in my head

Mad Tea Party

Matt was not nice to me on this ride

Tomorrowland Speedway

The attention to detail on this ride and so many others was amazing!

Fantasyland, Belle's Village

Posing with Stitch

It was nice to put our feet up and take a break on the People Mover

Singing and dancing was wonderful

We rode this one 4 times in a row. Fun ride.

We ate at Tony's Town Square Restaurant for a late lunch then enjoyed the parade.

Swiss Family Treehouse

The script that the tour guide says on the Jungle Cruise is hilarious.

There were so many rides that we can't wait to take our kids on! Big Thunder Railroad was pretty fun; we know Caleb and Carter will love it. We were pleasantly surprised with the Haunted Mansion ride. I was so impressed with the creativity of Peter Pan's Flight. Pirates of the Caribbean was a lot of fun. I bet Under the Sea is really popular with kids; it was fun to see the story of The Little Mermaid. Unfortunately the rain picked up again around 5pm, so we went ahead and called it a day since we felt we had covered the park pretty well.

Disney World: Day 1

We've been debating about saving up and taking the family on a vacation to either Disney World or Disney Land. It's so tough to plan for the right ages though. You want all your kids to be able to remember it, but you don't want the oldest to be too old to really enjoy the whole essence of the experience. Right now was definitely not the right time with a one-year-old, but circumstances led Matt and I to decide to go by ourselves for a few days! We were fortunate that my parents were willing and able to watch our kids.

We had a blast and ran around from ride to ride like kids in a candy store! The week before Thanksgiving was a great time as there was very little wait time for each ride, and we rarely used a fast pass. Here are pictures from the first day at Hollywood Studios.

Standing in front of the Tower of Terror

We loved this ride!

Another fun one

One of my favorite shows in the park.

Indiana Jones was another great show

Star Tours ride

Our favorite ride in Hollywood Studios! We wished we could have ridden this one several times. This was the one ride in the whole park where there was a 60 minute wait all day long! Luckily we were able to use a fast pass and save some time.

One of our favorite dinners. Yum! We ate at the Brownwood Derby.

Cheesecake for dessert :)

The Fantasmic show was enjoyable. It almost got rained out, but luckily the rain stopped just in time. We got pretty wet waiting for the show to start.

Zombie Walk

I took this video right before his bedtime, so he's pretty cranky. Notice the tongue sticking out as he walks. It's a recent new behavior. Tongue is out pretty much all.the.time. Maybe something to do with the new tooth coming in up top?

(I've been meaning to post this for awhile but wanted to figure out how to fix the video first--I give up!)

Piano Lessons

I started teaching Caleb piano lessons when he turned 5. He was progressing fairly well, but more and more often we were just butting heads. It was difficult to separate practicing from actual lessons. We were both getting pretty frustrated because he would say he couldn't do things that I knew he was capable of doing. It was a fight every day to practice, and it progressively took more and more bribery because he wasn't intrinsically motivated. 

I finally decided that we would try a different piano teacher to see if it would help. It's just what Caleb needed! He went from a boy who complained every day about practicing (and sometimes it just wasn't worth the fight on my end) to a boy who wanted to practice the piano every day. No more complaining!! Caleb is very motivated to learn his pieces well and listens a lot better to me now when we practice. I love hearing Caleb practice all by himself randomly during the day because he wants to. He was assigned the piece, "Happy Birthday" right before Bryson's birthday. It was a huge motivator to learn the piece well in order to accompany everyone singing Happy Birthday to Bryson. I hope he always appreciates this talent and loves music all his life.

Birthday Boy!!

Bryson turned 1 year old on Saturday, Nov. 2nd. I say this every time, but I'm always amazed at how fast that first year goes!

For me there was something magical about child #3 where I felt like I just enjoyed him all the time and through every stage. I was a lot more confident and worried a lot less.

We were very fortunate and did not have to take him to the doctor at all this first year other than his wellness check-ups. What a blessing! When I took him in for his 9-month check-up, I had to see a different doctor than I have in the past, but one whom I like just as much as my children's regular pediatrician. (He's the one that helped us with all of Caleb's staph infections.) The doctor said he could tell he was a breast-fed baby because of how healthy he has been thus far. I'm sure there are lots of exceptions to this observation, but I'm grateful that all my babies have been healthy and I'm grateful for the privilege to breast feed. I love nursing; it comes with many challenges, but I love the bond I've had with each of my babies. I've been weaning down the number of times I nurse to get ready to quit completely in the next week or two. Quitting is always a bit of an emotional roller coaster...grateful to be done and have my body back, sad to lose this special time with my baby.

Bryson has made great strides on walking this last week. He took two steps last Monday, 4 steps on Tuesday, and is slowly getting his balance the more he practices each day. Still not quite there yet though.

One odd quirk about Bryson is that he really likes to be upside down. If I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor, he will come over and put his head down in my lap to indicate that he wants me to lift his legs in the air. He'll do this over and over again and just giggles and giggles.

He's very fascinated with things up high as in airplanes, ceiling fans, light fixtures. He likes to raise his hand up as if pointing to whatever he's looking at. At church this past Sunday, I was out in the foyer with Bryson for the majority of the Sacrament Meeting. (One of the downsides to never training Bryson to take a pacifier is we have nothing to plug him up with during church! He can get a little loud.) He was perplexed by the noise coming from the speaker on the ceiling and just wanted to stand under it with his hand up in the air. It was even funnier when Bryson heard his Daddy's voice come over the speaker because Matt was bearing his testimony. 

As I'm working through transitioning Bryson to real foods not blended up, Bryson loves soups (especially minestrone with lots of veggies), pancakes with a little syrup, and macaroni and cheese. He is not taking well to breads or sandwiches. He still loves his baby cereal and homemade baby foods.

Opening presents on his birthday 

(I wasn't going to get him anything because honestly he doesn't need anything! Then I started to feel guilty and got him some bath toys since he hasn't been enjoying his baths lately.)

My family joined us Sunday night. I went simple and the boys and I made rainbow cupcakes for Bryson's birthday. This is the look on Bryson's face when we put a candle in front of him but wouldn't let him touch it!

He got over it quickly though.

Caleb played "Happy Birthday" on the piano while we all sang to Bryson. (I'll post an update on Caleb's piano progress soon.) 

Opening presents

He'll get more and more confident with this toy.

Bryson and his cousin Lili not looking too happy, but they really do love each other!

So grateful for this little boy in our lives! I've especially enjoyed watching the older boys with him. Caleb says all the time, "He's just the cutest baby ever!" I couldn't agree more. :o)

Halloween 2013

Carter wore several different outfits for Halloween this year. He dressed up as a firefighter for our preschool Halloween party, a pilot for actual trick-or-treating, and then chose a lion costume for this picture. Caleb is Nate the Great, and Bryson is a lovable dinosaur.