March Madness...especially at Disney!

We had a beautiful, warm, sunny March...both here and in Florida!

Lewis read the scripture in primary for the first time this month. More correctly, he sang the scripture...from memory. What a clever boy! He is pretty amazing. If we put anything to music, he knows it after hearing it just a few times. He was very excited to sing it right into the microphone...loudly!

Lewis also had some special days at school. He celebrated "pajama day" with his class. A couple weeks later it was "beach day". And, at the end of the month we baked special cupcakes for his Easter party. What a lucky boy! Beau got in on the beach day action, and of course had his fair share of the cupcakes too!

Mike had some busy weekends this month. He met up with Trevor, Taylor, and Joel - three of his high school friends from Boise. They spent a Saturday touring around the city together. It was a very fun reunion!

The day after we came back from Disney World (see later paragraph if that got you excited!), Mike flew to San Diego for work. He worked all weekend at the National Dermatology Conference, meeting with doctors about Rogaine. Unfortunately it rained the whole time he was there, so we weren't too, too jealous!

The next weekend he ran a 1/2 marathon up by the city with Jake. They had a great time, and we were so proud of our amazing Daddy who was able to run it like a pro, even after having been sick for a while and being so busy with work. 

We ended the month with a quick visit from our dear friend, Matt Beecher. We love seeing our DC family and wish we lived closer!

The highlight of the month was our trip to Orlando and Disney World!!!
We found out in January that Mike had a work conference in Orlando in the middle of March. At the time, we were still in shock at being in a cold spell after having just been in the Southern hemisphere. So, we jumped at the chance to tag along! We invited our dear niece, Rachel, to come along as she hadn't been to Disney World before. Once the trip was booked, we had two months to introduce Lewis to all things Disney. Since we have no TV, he was clueless! We borrowed every fairy tale we could find from the library, and we did watch a couple non-scary Disney movies to prep him. As a result, Lewis was in the thick of a princess phase when we went down. He LOVED seeing all the characters and princesses there and loved the shows and parades. He and Rachel loved the rides. Lewis even went on Splash Mountain (he was just barely tall enough!). Beau was a trooper and was usually pretty happy to be along for the ride. It was a thrilling and exciting day for the kids, and a fun but incredibly exhausting day for me and Mike - probably one of the most intense days of our life! With how much Lewis and Rachel loved it, it was well worth it.

Beau really liked the Small World ride!

 

This is right before Lewis took off terrified! By the end,
he had warmed up and waved and even shook hands!

Cinderella was Lewis's favorite! 

Rachel drove our magic carpet!

Ready to ride Splash Mountain!!!

After being at Disney, Lewis found a new love for Mickey
that has replaced his princess phase!

We had a prime spot for the fireworks.
What a relief to sit at the end of this day!

After our day at Disney, we swam in the hotel pools for three days while Mike had meetings. It was perfect! Fun, relaxing, sunny, beautiful...bliss! Rachel was such an angel the whole trip. It was so fun for us to watch her help Lewis and be a mini-babysitter. But, she also just played with him and they both genuinely had such a fun time together. We were so lucky to have her with us!

Lewis LOVED pulling his brother around!

 

Mike even got to join us for a couple hours on the last morning!

 

First day in the pool...so happy!!!

Rachel enjoying her strawberry daiquiri!

Catching up on January & February

The winter blues are genuinely hard for me. But, I suppose this winter, I can't complain! We had the perfect sprinkling of snow to have fun in. And generally warm enough weather to keep jogging outside. Pretty good! I also loved the pace of life this winter for the contrast it was to the previous year. After coming back from Cape Town, we quickly fell into a nice, simple routine. It felt like the first time we really hit that stride since having Beau, and I ate it up! Our weeks generally felt something like this:
Monday: Plan meals, play, grocery shop
Tuesday: Pre-school, errands, play (choir)
Wednesday: Play, library story hour (church ESL class)
Thursday: Pre-school, zumba, play
Friday: Either play date or gymnastics, play, pizza night with dad
All that with some work assignments for me thrown in there, keeping the house ticking, and some busier patches with Mike's work schedule. It's been very nice!

Lewis started primary at church this year. Since he's a December birthday and they go on the calendar year, he's the youngest one there. But, he knows the words to every song and he sings them loudly! He's a very cute little sunbeam! He adores his teacher (Sister Bag-a-ley, as he calls her), and is so sad if he ever has to miss her class. And, having his Daddy lead the music in big primary is the best!

We did have a couple little snowstorms for the boys to play in! For the first one, Beau had only just started walking. So trying to walk in a snowsuit with boots on and in squishy snow didn't work so well for him. He wasn't sure if he was really into it. Lewis loved it though! Our second snow was light enough that Beau could just walk right on through. Boy was he cute!


































































Lewis visited the dentist for the first time, and he was a champ! He got to try out every machine and instrument, and he loved it. Actually, they loved him! The hygienist even called me personally afterwards to tell me again what an angel he was!

Lewis also...POTTY TRAINED!!! The first weekend in February was our potty training weekend. It was filled with an over-abundance of anticipation, excitement, and juice (which we normally don't have). By mid-morning, Lewis was literally running around and around in circles and peeing everywhere! ;-) He also happened to have diarrhea that morning, so he had plenty of opportunity to practice going #2 on the potty!
Mom and Dad survived  (especially after cutting off the sugar/juice supply), and by the end of the day, he basically had it! We were so proud of him! Now, lest you think we got off easy, he wasn't a miracle kid. He's done great, but it's two months later, and we're struggling with regression and him forgetting or not caring or fighting us on it or something!

We had lots of fun for Valentine's Day. Lewis took some very cute Valentines to school for his friends. (Mom was so proud!) I made my first full-size cheesecake...a red velvet cheesecake for the holiday. The boys got to enjoy licking the topping! And, Mike and I snuck out for a delicious dinner.

The other really fun thing we had for a couple months this winter was a Parent-Child dance class for Lewis on Saturday mornings. It was so cute! I took him to the first one, and he sort of took it all in. (He was a little surprised that he couldn't just do his cool moves, and wasn't so sure about some of the moves the teacher was doing!) Daddy took him to the second one, and after that, Lewis improved greatly. Turns out Mike is the task master, making Lewis practice his runs and leaps every week! It was a fun thing to do together!