Birthday Season

These next three weeks are busy weeks full of Birthdays. We get to celebrate 3 birthdays at our house Dad, Jack and Jason.

Jack turned 7 on the 25th!

We started out the day with Birthday cake pancakes. 

Being my son he didn't eat them, he asked for cold cereal instead.

Jack was so excited to bring his cupcakes to school to share with all his classmates.

Jack came home with a birthday crown and a lot of fun stuff. 

We spent the afternoon facetiming family and opening presents.

Jack wanted to eat at the T-Rex restaurant Downtown Disney.

Mom, Dad and Jake joined us!

Instead of presents this year Jack asked for money so he could pick out a nice set at the Lego Store. After dinner we made the short walk to the Lego store to start the adventure.

It was the cutest sight to see Jack, and all the other boys, checking out all the possibilities.

Jack decided on one huge set that he has had his eye on for a long time. The Millennium Falcon with 1254 pieces and 6 mini figures. 

We now have three members of our family who work at Disney! Mom recently got a job at the Pop Century Resort in charge of the children's activities. Mom flashed her badge and got an awesome discount on Jack's set, which made it even better.

That was one happy happy boy!

 We went to say hello to Meredith at work and walked around the Polynesian hotel grounds. We got home late from our celebrations so we sang to Jack, he made his wish and went to bed.

Jack worked his little heart out on that lego set. He started Thursday right after school and completed it Saturday morning!

One of Jack's greatest accomplishments. 

I sure do love this 7 year old!

Dad's Birthday was the 21st. 

We had breakfast with the characters at Cape May at Disney.

Goofy, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck came to our table.

Jack had fun with them, his favorite is Donald. We kept trying to take a picture with him but Donald's bill kept bumping Jack.

Jack and Jake entertained us at the table. 

They both were eating with little arms, T-Rex Style.

Having fun with an old car on the resort property. Everyone took turns driving.

It was a great day celebrating a great man!

Glimpses

The last month it has been a little rough. The Florida storms are wearing and taking a toll on me. I am down most days due to extreme headaches, body aches and fatigue. People are always telling me I look tired and I even had someone tell me I sounded tired when talking to me on the phone.When the storms are not around I get little glimpses of me which give me a break mentally and physically. It is a frustrating and exhausting process. I really appreciate all the little moments of relief. 

Moments like sweet kisses from a sweet little boy.

Being outside in nature.

A trip to the beach, when I can do it sure is wonderful. I feel so much better and just love to float and keep cool in the water.

I drastically cut my hair. I have been so tired I needed to eliminate energy zapping tasks. It has been wonderful and really has made a difference.

Moonlight walks with Jason around the neighborhood.

 

One day I even felt good enough to go on a bike ride with the boys!

I haven't been up to home projects but Jake was nice enough to let me tag along to shop for supplies for his projects.

Being able to go watch Jack at baseball practice. He loves it and it makes Jason and I both happy he found something he likes to do. It's also really fun to see him run the bases, it's my favorite part!

I even dressed the part. This was not on purpose but was pointed out to me by Jack on the way to practice that I was wearing a baseball shirt!

Date nights. Even if it's spent playing hours of tennis and bowling on the Wii. It made me feel good to beat Jason at something.

Coming home and being in our house, day

or night.

First Grader

We officially have a first grader in the house!

 Jack comes home from school happy and so very talkative. 

He loves first grade and we are all so happy for him.

My favorite thing about the new school year. Watching Jason give a father's blessing to Jack for his coming year.

One thing on our supply list for Jack this year were some head phones. He put those things on and walked around the house dancing to his music. The teen years flashed before my eyes.

The first day of first grade.

Jack has had a growing Summer, he has gotten so tall.

I mean look at that handsome 1st grader.

It's hard getting back into the grove of things after a Summer of no schedule, no alarm clocks and endless playing. The first day is easier to get ready for but it's the second day that is hardest. The excitement has worn down. For that reason I  planned a dinner full of Jack's favorite things to coax him out of bed. I promised shrimp, meat and most importantly chocolate cake for our special dinner.

I made it while he was away and his face lit up when he saw the finished product when he came home. He couldn't wait for dinner.

We had Jake, Meredith and Mom and Dad join us for our back to school feast. I had fun planning the menu and preparing all the food. We never got a picture of it because I was too busy in the kitchen and I seem to be the documentor in our family.

Our Menu

Spinach salad with Pears and Cranberries

Chardonnay Glazed Carrots

Tomato, Avocado and Shrimp Salad

Steak with Red and Green pepper Kebabs 

Chocolate Raspberry Sour Cream Cake

We had themed drinks as well. We are all "Rooting" for you root beer. You are going to "Crush It" orange crush soda. Both in glass bottles because let's face it drinks taste better out of a bottle. Well at least I think so and just wanted the family to enjoy it as well.

Jack likes his new school and his new teacher.  The only thing we had issues with was getting back into homework. It is better now that we are two weeks in but that first day of homework was rough.

Really rough.

 

Boca Part 3

We spent 5 nights and 6 days in Boca. 

We spent our time relaxing and just enjoyed being together again. 

The resort had fancy robes and boy were they nice to lounge around in.

Swimming, We did a lot of swimming. One of the best ways to spend the Summer in Florida. Jack is a little fish. I had to drag him out of the pool once in a while so we could eat and so I could get a break.

Daddy came to take over as swim buddy and so I got to sit and relax.

Jason and Jack played a little baseball on the fanciest little courtyard. It was dusk so we had the whole area to ourselves. 

That is my favorite time of the day.

We went and saw the new Disney movie Planes one afternoon. Jack had been waiting for this movie for a while. After the movie Jack acted like a plane for days.

Each night we went out to dinner. The only option for parking at the resort was valet parking. There were some really fancy cars we watched come and go. It was a little overwhelming at how out of our element we were, it sure was nice to have a nice cool car to get into though. I had fun researching local restaurants in the area and we ate at some really great Italian, Mexican, Greek restaurants. That was one of my favorite parts of the trip!

One night we didn't get to dinner until late and Jack was finally wearing down.

They had fancy glasses with the water glasses.

 I enjoyed drinking my ginger ale out of them.

My view looking up from a poolside chair.

The boys played a good game of chess on one awesome chess board.

We watched the sunset while drinking frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity!

It was such a wonderful vacation!