That time we went to Florida in February!

So it's only been 3 months since we went to Florida, not bad! (sigh) What the heck, I'm like so busy lately!

In a nutshell, we took a 4 day mini-trip to Legoland and Ponce Inlet to visit Poppy and Mema. First, LEGOLAND - heaven on earth. A gorgeous day, we stayed right at the hotel next to the park, and it was a weekday over non-school-vacation so we nearly had the place to ourselves. On some of the rides, they just let us stay on and keep going around because there were no lines! Everything was made out of Legos and the sculptures/installations were crazy! Plus there was a show where Lego guys waterskiied and fought pirates. The boys were a perfect and I mean PERFECT age for this place and we had an amazing family day.

All plugged in and ready to fly!

Hotel arrival

Hotel lobby: 

The entire place was designed for kids. Big Lego pool in the front while the parents check in and general entertainment, and in the back there is a big castle that kids could play in. And just out of sight in this picture is the bar. For like, the parents. Every night they did a big pajama party at the castle while the parents just watched and drank. GENIUS this place is.

Themed hotel room:

Full day in the park!

 

You can't even grasp some of these Lego sculptures! Look behind me in this one:

This one is made of 211,000 bricks and took 640 hours to build.

Lifesize giraffe:

Rainbow and dinosaurs:

City of New York

It went on and on, I just can't do it justice. Legos everywhere, SO impressive!! I mean, as you'd maybe expect at Legoland, but still. 

Back at the hotel, there were even Legos in the pool.

You guys, it just went on. Kind of like this post. I just can't say how amazing it was and these are only 20% of my pictures. 

So we were at Legoland 2 nights, 1 day in the park, and then we hopped in the car....DESTINATION PONCE INLET. It was gorgeous when we got there and naturally we took our pasty selves straight to the beach.

For the rest of the time, the weather wasn't really in our favor :( But we still managed to hit the pool (brrr):

And mini-golf:

And everyone got a hole in one except Poppy. Just seems unfair considering he paid ;)

We also went up in a terrifying lighthouse,

It was HIGH. And we puttered around the 9 hole chip and putt at the Links.

Not pictured: lunch at Boondocks, manatee hunting at Blue Springs, and the sea turtle rescue hospital! I guess I don't have to have photographic evidence of everything we did, but I take pride in my documentation :-/  So, big fail on those components.

Florida, your weather could improve, but we had an action-packed 3.5 days and a total blast anyway! Thank you Poppy and Mema and Lilli for having us :D And to Alamo Car Rental who didn't have a choice but to give us the brand new Expedition to roll around in (a whole other story). Already seems ages ago, which means it should be nearly time to go back!

Alex is FIIIIIVE! Part 2

If you call Qtips "Q-sticks", making a basket "getting a hole in one" and calculators "calcalaters", you're Alex Nill and you're five! Let's discuss.

Alex is, before anything else, a little fresh and audacious. He loves to joke around but he's got this edge to him sometimes and he can be super moody. If anyone triggers the eggshell walking in our family, it's Alex. Although at his parent-teacher conference a couple weeks ago, Mrs. Bernard told me "Well, we just love Alex. He's the sweetest, kindest, funniest boy! He's friends with everyone, he shares, he's thoughtful, he takes turns being a leader and a follower, and he focuses on whatever we give him for work/projects, etc. We will be sad to see him leave for kindergarten! You know, he's basically perfect." So, hmmm. I'm glad he's great in his school environment and is only temperamental at home haha.

So what else about Alex besides his school review. He graduated from speech - he had been going once a week to Lilja for 2 years to get services for articulation. At his IEP meeting in March, we all determined he had met his goals and that was that!

Another huge development is that he's up on his bike now - no more training wheels! Video footage -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbC1XMS1z8g&feature=youtu.be (no sound, no idea why)
He's still too afraid to get on the bigger (more properly sized) bike but hey, one step at a time :)

Yet another huge development is that Ashton and Alex now roll around the neighborhood together without me. They take off to see their friends or to the circle where the good climbing trees are...it's an unbelievable turning point that a lot of the other neighborhood kids their age are getting to as well. The first time I told them they could go out on their scooters by themselves, they nearly bubbled over with the excitement of it all.

Anyway, let's get to Alex's stats!

Hair: Blond and wiry. You can mold it pretty much however you want and it stays there.

Eyes: Hazel
Height: 45.5 inches (3' 9.5") -> 92nd percentile
Weight: 48.5 pounds -> 89th percentile
Hearing and Vision: Pass and Pass
Shots: DTap/IPV and MMRV
Shoe size: 12
Clothes size: 5, some 6
Bedtime: 8:30 pm
Favorite snack: Larabars

Lovey: Pluto.

Pluto was a Disney World souvenir from the Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop. Two years ago. Who would have thought.

Favorite TV show: Garfield. Alex loves Garfield so much that the other night I made lasagna for dinner (Garfield's favorite food). Alex rated it "medium".

Loves listening to: Drake and DJ Snake (Turn down for what)

Dream job: YouTube channel host. Alex LOVES to record himself and play it back. He could watch videos of himself forever. Sometimes I'm flipping through my camera roll and find surprise pictures and videos he has taken on selfie mode. He always wants me to record him while he tells me what he is doing (like this one, when he tells you how to eat a stuffed shell on a piece of toast, and this one, where he teaches some kind of dance). He turns into this weird character, like "yeah man, today we are going to _____" and I know it's because of the shows on YouTube kids he watches. Somewhat alarming.

Speaking of technology: Alex gets it. He doesn't let a little thing like not being able to read or write stop him from using iPads or iPhones, let me tell you. The other night he was pestering me to put on the song du jour in our house (see above) and because I was cooking I couldn't type it in on Apple Music. I kept saying "I will in a minute Alex, hold on" and finally, annoyed, he threw his hands up and said "WHY CAN'T WE JUST GET ALEXA?" And then grabbed my phone, held down the home button, and said "Siri, play the Drake song In My Feelings." And she did as he sauntered off.

As I said, Alex has an attitude lately. He's also not afraid to tell you when he's bored or if he finds something boring. I swear, Jason and I are left just standing there sometimes. 

School: Alex is wrapping up at CNS in May. He's all registered for Kindergarten in the fall and he's sooo ready.

In fact if there were any real time left in this school year I might up him from 3 days to 5 days - he's pretty under-stimulated on Tuesdays and Thursdays when he's home and that's when we see the attitude the most.

Sports: Alex wrapped up a successful hockey season (well, skills clinic) in March.

In swimming he has the beginnings of a front crawl down pat and he absolutely cannot wait for his Little Laxers lacrosse clinic to start this spring.

Brotherly love: For the most part, Ashton and Alex are BFFs. Ashton is excited about pretty much everything in life and it passes easily on to Alex. They are honestly happy coloring a box together.

They play and play and can be quite, er, enterprising. It's not uncommon to find them like this:

Yes. They stuck a football under the rug to more accurately simulate a putting green's topography.

Alex thinks all of Ashton's ideas are good and wants to be friends with all his friends. And this works out most of the time considering Ashton is such an amazing big brother (really).

So age 4 on the left, age 5 on the right:

It's been a big year for Alex! Literally: he grew 3 inches and gained almost 6 pounds. There is so much more to know about Alex in the day-to-day so if I think of anything else I'll keep updating this post.

I'll leave you with his HBD video - YAY FIVE!!

Alex is FIIIIIVE!! Part 1

Some of you might remember the crazy party I threw for Ashton on his 5th birthday. Welllll...yeah Alex didn't get anything like that. BUT, I mean, it's March, and in my defense, Alex never really said a word about wanting a big thing (granted, I didn't suggest it either, but...) THE POINT IS, it didn't stop Alex from loving turning 5 :) Callie and Holden were visiting for the weekend, Crosby and Elijah came over for pizza and cake, and Alex finally stopped asking how many days until his birthday. Wins all around.

Making cupcakes to bring to his class:

March 16, the day in pictures!

Breakfast...

Presents, naturally...

A little fuse beading...

 Bounce-housing...

And pizza and caking.

We had planned to go to the ice rink but open skate was cancelled so that was a bummer. Generally though, the fact that Callie and Holden were visiting made it feel extra special and Alex was just happy to be in the spotlight, however small the audience ;) 

I'll be back next week to post his stats and all about what makes Alex Alex. In the meantime, happy 5 Rory! (Golf reference lol. Long story.)

Quick Before and After: Guest Room and a bonus!

Our house used to be a traditional cape and as such, the original (or, what I presume to be the original) master bedroom is on the first floor at the base of the stairs. It's gone through a lot of iterations including changing paint colors, window treatments and art over the past 3.5 years since we've lived here. But, I literally have ONE true before picture, from the listing photos when the house was for sale.

What it looks like now:

Opposite wall before

Generally this space is tough to photograph when you only have an iPhone - here's a panorama attempt...

Last couple:

So in this room we swapped out the fan, painted (twice), added crown molding, and the main feature is that Jason white washed a bunch of planks and we made an accent wall behind the bed. It's a very subtle detail that makes the room feel pretty cottage-y. I totally don't mean to minimize how much work that wall was but frankly it's been like a year since Jason did it and I just want to move on from this post haha. Sorry honey.

Another exciting update is that we finally put a runner on our steep, death-trap of a staircase! Before and aftersssss

The true color is a lighter gray than it appears. Anyway, overall it makes me feel like I live in a grown-up house. I can't explain it. We used AJ Rose on Route 9 and it's just so professional. But of course now the rug in the foyer doesn't match so I need to pick a something more complementary. Sort of like how we just re-did the living room fireplace and it was like great now we need all new furniture. But that's a whole other post! The house stuff rolls on!