Surreal Morning

I'm so thankful that Harrison' birthday fell right in between both of the boys being sick.  Davis has had bronchitis 3 times in the past three months and now has pink eye and an ear infection.  Harrison has had a stuffy nose and is now feeling nauseated.  He had a really hard time sleeping last night so I figured I would let him stay home so he could rest and catch up on some sleep.  I know its been a rough winter for a lot of families this year and we just can't wait for some warmer weather to get here.
Two sick brothers snuggling up on the couch

We had such an unusual morning, but leave it to a five year old to find a way to make you smile!
I had to run a few errands with the boys this morning, so we stopped at Wendy's to eat some lunch.  We sat in the back of the restaurant, and when the boys were done eating, I let them play with their toys at the table.  While they were playing, I picked up the garbage and took it across the restaurant to the garbage can. When I got up, I had noticed a young girl working, who had walked over to the table next to ours with some cleaning products to clean a few tables.  I threw the garbage away and when I turned around, my brain couldn't initially put together what was happening.  The boys were sitting quiet as a mouse at the table, and the girl was lying on the floor.  The restaurant was busy but no one had noticed.  I freaked out and ran to the counter to get the manager to help.  I had a hard time finding the words to explain what happened b/c I knew I needed to get help but my mind was also spinning at the thought that my kids just saw this happen.  Thankfully the girl was okay.  The manager was very nice and sat next to her, getting her to wake up and just kept talking to her.  Another gentleman (unlike me) calmly walked over and asked if she had a medical condition.  She said that she was hypoglycemic and was able to tell someone who to call on her cell phone.  I was thankful that we were there to see her and help her and I was also thankful that there were others who stayed calm in the situation.  I took a CPR class a few months ago, and it didn't dawn on me until after we left, that I didn't really take any of the steps that I learned in the class.
After we left the restaurant, I explained to the kids that she was okay and that her tummy probably got a little too hungry and she felt dizzy and kind of fell asleep for a few minutes.  I told them that I was proud of how calm they stayed when they didn't understand what was happening, but they should always yell "help!" as loud as they can if they ever see something like that again.  Harrison sat there for a few minutes and then said, "Mom, is it kind of like she was shot with a poison dart??".
I laughed out loud and if you have ever seen Madagascar Three, you will remember that there is a scene in the end where one of the animals gets shot with a poison dart.  That is Harrison's favorite part of the movie, and I was relieved that he was able to find something that he could relate to in the situation and bring a smile to my face in the midst of the chaos. 

Harrison's 5th Birthday

Lance and I got back from our trip and had a few days before Harrison turned five.  The boys had such a fun time with their grandmommy and granddaddy and were sad to see them go.  The morning that they left, I caught this picture which perfectly illustrated the week:
Davis apparently was glued to my dad's side and Harrison was my mom's little shadow.  We are so thankful for their help and hope they were able to recover after all of their early mornings at our house!

This year, for Harrison's birthday, we decided to have it at Monkey Joe's instead of at our house.  The kids had a fantastic time and I was overly thrilled with how easy the staff made it for us.  We had a "party concierge" and he literally did everything for us!  This may just be the norm, but as our first experience having a party away from home, I was just amazed.
I thought Lance was going to be a little late due to work, but he made it just in time to get a family picture before the crowd arrived.

The kids had a blast and I think Harrison got to play with all of his friends...

Davis and his buddy Sam

Longtime buddies!

The birthday boy was loving his birthday chair!

The ladies...

The 2nd kiddos!  Its hard to believe how big they are all now!

This reminded me of a picture that we took at the aquarium when all of our oldest ones were about to turn two...

Lance had a really busy work week when we got back from our trip so he didn't have time to make Harrison a cake.  I told him that Harrison would be thrilled to go to Publix to pick out his own cake, and boy was he!  He wanted a monster truck cake but they didn't have all the pieces, so we settled on Batman.

 Happy birthday big boy!  Ahhhh!  I can't believe I have a five year old!

The boys loved the arcade games that Lance let them play...

Grandma and Granddaddy were so nice to come to the party!  They were such a big help in keeping track of these guys!

The party was actually the day before Harrison's birthday.  When Harrison woke up on the big day, he was so excited to find this

He said he thought Santa put them there.  As soon as he was up, he wanted to open presents.  We let him open a few before breakfast and the theme of the year was Legos!

Thankfully I had a big helper to help make the breakfast feast that Harrison chose - pancakes, eggs and bacon. 

 

First he sorted

and then he built...project, after project, after project.  He spent the entire weekend (aside from baseball practice!) building Lego sets.

I then spent the rest of the week trying to figure out how I was going to organize the Legos!  Most of the ideas that I ran across involved sorting the Legos by color.  Great idea in theory, but come on...with a two year old and four year old, I just did not see that being our reality.

I ran across a product called the Swoop Bag which was genius, so I set out to create my own version.  I am still in shock at how well I recreated the bag!  The project was little more in-depth than I originally thought, but it came out exactly as I imagined.

To play, it opens to this:

And when you're finished it closes to this:

You can see we have plenty of room to expand and the bag creates a great play space to sort, build and create.

Harrison we are so proud of you for the big boy that you are!  You are a smart-as-a-tack, thoughtful, kind, fun, caring, enthusiastic, silly, silly, silly five year old boy!  We love you to the moon and back!  I asked Harrison a series of questions, that I hope to continue throughout the years, to keep track of his interests, and here they are:

 I should have expanded his final answer...he said that he wanted to be a fireman, then he said, "no, I want to be my daddy, so that I can go to work at Home Depot with him everyday"...break my heart!

Happy birthday buddy!

Colorado Trip

This month started off on a bittersweet note.  Lance and I left to go on a trip to Colorado to ski and to visit his sister and her family.  I was so excited to see everyone and to get back out on the mountains but I was having a lot of anxiety about leaving the boys for some reason.  I knew they were in great hands with nurse grandmommy and granddaddy, but it was just really hard on me this year.
We had a fantastic trip though, which started out on a high note with a rental car upgrade to a brand new Sequoia!  So fun!  I told Lance that my Pilot was going to seem like a mini cooper after spending a week in that car!  We ended up skiing 3 days and spending a day in Boulder.  On our day off, I found a great yoga studio, we hit up a few ski shops, shopped around Boulder, ate lunch and went for a little hike.  It was such a nice day and while it was only in the upper 30's, it felt like it was in the upper 50's...I assume because of the lack of moisture in the air.

 The scenery out there is just amazing.  I kept telling Lance that I felt like we were in a movie set.  His sister doesn't have too bad of view from her house:

I feel like we usually come back feeling tired and run down and while I had a hard time sleeping throughout the entire trip, I feel like we timed it much better this year.  We got lucky with skiing in that we got a lot of fresh powder for the first two days, so Lance and I were in Heaven.  Not only that, but since we were skiing mid-week, it was as if we had the mountain to ourselves on most of the back runs that we did.  We took a long lunch break each day which was the perfect time to check out these pics that my parents sent throughout the week:
(my parents had company coming in town over Harrison's birthday, so they had a special party at Chuck E'Cheese while we were gone - the boys are still asking to go back!)

happy birthday Harrison!

Fireman Davis riding his fire truck

 

Silly boys in the bathtub (my fav pic of the week!)

and a fun visit to Tellus!

 I had a feeling they might not want us to come back after all the fun they had!

We did find some time to enjoy ourselves though!

Jennifer and Anna joined us on Saturday for a day of skiing at Copper Mountain. 

(Lance and his big sis, Jennifer)

 

Anna spent the day in a ski school - it was amazing how quickly she progressed!  We are seriously thinking about taking the boys next year!

On our second day heading out to the ski resorts, we drove out to the most amazing sunrise.  The entire sky was  pink!  It was absolutely incredible.  My camera doesn't quite do it justice but you get the idea

We had so much fun skiing and getting to see all the girls, I wish we could get out there more than once a year!

Baseball Video

We are now in the midst of a busy baseball schedule for Harrison which has been more fun that I originally imagined.  He has a great coach and a great group of boys and families on his team.  The coaches set up several stations during practice so that the kids can practice all the different skills and rules of baseball before the games start in a few weeks.  Lance caught a video of Harrison learning how to catch a ball and then run and tag a player.  You can tell he is a little preoccupied!  Sometimes I just can't help but laugh at the innocence of him truly not knowing what to do.  He is picking it up quickly and it will be fun to see how much he knows at the end of the season!

Birthday pictures will be posted as soon as I can get my camera to connect to my computer...why do I always have camera issues???