Alexander Salamander Turned ONE!

Cookie!

Whenever Andrew uses the potty, Alex chases after him, climbs on the stool, and watches himself in the mirror

enjoying some steak and watermelon 

licking that plate clean!

Alex had a good birthday.  At least I think he did.  He liked the cake so that means it was a success, right?  We invited some friends over to eat cupcakes and ice cream cones.  Two of our friends with kids Andrew's age ended up not being able to come because their kids were sick so Andrew moped around about wanting his "frens to come to azander's party" :(  It was actually pretty pitiful!  But the cupcakes and ice cream cheered him right up!  Alex wasn't too sure about everyone looking at him and singing but he dug right into his cake and ice cream.  Andrew helped him blow out his candle and open presents.  Andrew kept telling me that day that Alex wanted to share his birthday with him.  He was also so excited about the party that he couldn't fall asleep for a nap.  Funny kid.  Alex got a new cell phone, camera, car keys, and a car.  I think we set a pretty high standard for his 16th birthday!  Andrew picked out some finger puppets to give to him as well and was really excited to give them to him.  I also finally printed off some of his scrapbook pages and put together his book.  We had fun looking through it and realizing how quickly his first year went by.  Xander Mander is such a fun kid to have around.  He's starting to figure out walking and holding his own with Andrew.  Their personalities are so different but they love to play together, and fight, then play, then wrestle.  I'm sure there's lots more of that to come!

Andrew being the life of the party

and not holding still for a picture!

the cutest cake covered kid ever!

Joy School/All About Andrew

We are three weeks into our Joy School adventure and so far so good!  All Andrew thinks about during the week is if it is a school day or not.  We are only doing it on Tuesday and Thursday so 3/5 days during the week he is disappointed :)  We try to go to library story time, the park, a friend's house, etc on the other days of the week.  Andrew sure isn't a homebody!  One day we even spent a total of FIVE combined hours at THREE different parks!  We went to the park by our house from 8am to 10:30am, another park in our subdivision while I had a meeting from 3:30 to 5:30 pm, and then as soon as dad got home from work we walked to the school playground across the street from 6:30 to 7pm.  And I think that 75% of his time at the park was spent swinging.  Man that kid loves to swing!

With his new BFF Hunter on their first day of school.  I teach one week then the other mom teaches the next week at her house.  I think I have just as much fun preparing and teaching the lessons as the boys do participating in them.  Favorites so far have been finger painting with chocolate pudding, singing Joy School songs at the top of their lungs, and visits from "Joy Boy" (a very hideous looking hand puppet that I made).

Whenever we play at the elementary school playground he tells me that he and Hunter are going to that school when they get big.  He absolutely loves going to Hunter's house too.  He has a trampoline and a sand box.  What more could two little boys ask for?  

My work of art.  Well, more like Sandee, Mollie, and Avery's....they did all the work :)  When the boys are ready to listen and learn they get to "open" their window by turning it around to show their picture.  Hunter's mom took it to their house after school on Thursday (because we are going to their house next week) and Andrew has been missing his school house.  He keeps asking if we can run to Hunter's house real quick and get it back.  Today he told me that if I would drive him there, then he would just run in real fast, grab the house and come back out and they won't care because they are probably sleeping.  haha

We went to one of Robert's mission companion's wedding reception a couple weeks ago in Denver.  Andrew loaded his pockets with M&Ms then we went to the theater to see "Planes."  I brought a t shirt for him so he didn't have to go to the movies all dressed up.  Robert had free tickets and a voucher for popcorn and drinks.  Andrew was in hog heaven watching the movie and eating popcorn.  All Alex wanted to do was climb the stairs so I spent most of the time out in the lobby.  Good thing it was free!

Riding his "space port" aka rocket ship bike.  He's getting pretty speedy!

Mommy, take a picture of me!

We were at the library and he went over to the kid computers while Robert and I were talking to a friend.  When he sat down I saw that there was a Dora and Diego game on the screen and when I looked back at him a minute later he had pulled up an excel spreadsheet.  Like father like son!

A cookie and a car at King Soopers

And a ride on the horse.  Grocery store trips are much more fun with dad- he pushes the bulky car cart and stops at the ponies :)

Robert flew to Provo last week for a PwC event at BYU and brought home some BYU stuff.

I got a cheap set of croquet at....you guessed it!  Goodwill!  We've had fun playing in the evenings.  The last time we played Andrew set up the wickets for us all over the lawn.  It ended up being really fun!

What would we do without our spunky, chatty, energetic Andrew?  Things sure would be dull around here without him!

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Finally uploaded pictures from the camera.  It's been fun to look through them but sometimes I wish time would slow down and the boys would stop growing up :)

Andrew teaching Alex to sword fight with kitchen utensils.  Alex can hold his own.

Hanging out with Grandpa, Gran, and Uncle Bubba

Justin filled Andrew's pocket with some change and now he's the coolest person on the planet.  He used it to ride the pony at the grocery store and stashed the rest for who knows what else.  Motor home, maybe?

It's fun to watch his little imagination.  He told me he was fishing.

And then there's this little squirt!

He got to where he could be halfway up the stairs and standing on the landing in two seconds flat.

Then I would wonder where he went and say "Alex?"

And that cute little face would pop around the corner, all grins.  

We ruined his life and put a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  I can now turn my back for two seconds without losing track of him.  He stood at the bottom of the stairs shrieking and shaking the gate.  Poor kid.

Showing off his reward for "taking care of business"

Robert has gone to "Pencil-bania" a couple times and Alex has been so happy whenever he comes home.

Driving "Lightening McQeen"

I think they were having a chocolate chip party

zonked

not zonked

I don't know if it's the fact that Andrew started Preschool/Joyschool today or what but man have I been feeling sentimental about him growing up.  First day of kindergarten will sure be rough.....for me!  He is such a smart kid and loved singing songs and reading books today at "school."  He walked around for the rest of the day like he was the most grown up kid on the planet and so proud of himself for getting to start school.  He sure is a good kid!

And Alex turns one next week.  Can someone please push the pause button?  

Birthday Boy!

Disneyland Day 3

Okay, last Disneyland post and then we can all get on with our lives :)

We definitely made up for leaving the park early the day before and got our money's worth on our last day at Disneyland!  Tuesday morning was a "Magic Morning" (which we got and entrance ticket for since we bought a three day ticket) meaning you could get in an hour before the park opened.  So we left our hotel a little after 6am to get into the park at 7am!  Crazy, I know.  Sadly, when we got to the parking lot that we had parked in the two other days, it was closed!  We tried to find signs for another parking lot but were having zero luck!  Google maps wasn't finding anything either.  I searched on line and we finally found one.  We parked, grabbed all of our stuff, and rode a tram to the park entrance only to be completely disappointed to see long long lines to get into the park.  By the time we got in it was 7:45.  Our Magic Morning ended up not being so magical after all :(

But I'm not complaining because this ended up being our most fun day of all the three :)

Outside Cinderella's Castle

I spotted Prince Charming :)

Our goal for that morning was to ride all the fun little kid rides in Fantasyland.  Some were super cute, but others were beyond creepy/weird!  Creepy/weird ones included:  Alice in Wonderland (the movie is weird, but this ride was far out.  We got off and thought, huh, what was that?  A bad dream?  Which is probably what they were going for?  We rode on a caterpillar through scenes in the movie with characters and psycho music and lights.  NOT a fan of that one!).  Pinocchio's Daring Journey was pretty psychedelic too.  Black lights, neon lights, creepy music, the works.  I guess I'm not really a fan of the older Disney movies anyway.  Andrew spent that whole ride with his head burried in Robert's lap.  Who comes up with that stuff?  Then there was Snow White's Scary Adventures.  The lack of a line should have been the first sign, but I went on it anyway.  Luckily Robert had taken Andrew to go on Dumbo again because this one would have scarred him for life!  Alex was luckily oblivious :)  There were dungeons, skulls, the creepy witch, and lots of other voodoo nonsense.  NOT a good kid's ride!!  This was in another part of the park but it ranked up there with the bad rides for the day, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.  Long line, black lights, creepy music and scenes.  But enough being a negative Nancy, the fun rides more than made up for the bad ones!!

The teacups were soooo much fun!  We could have gone on that one over and over and over!  Andrew and Robert loved Dumbo too and went on that one several times but my all time favorite was Peter Pan's Flight!  I don't like that movie either, but the ride was so well done!  We all rode together in a ship and I was totally not expecting it but after we sat down and pulled the bar down over our lap, the ship took off and sailed through the ride!  We sailed through Wendy and the other children's bedroom while the dog barked at us, we sailed over London (we didn't see Sam, but we did see Big Ben :), then sailed into the night sky with the moon, stars, and clouds.  Then we flew down to Neverland and over a volacano and waterfall, then sailed through scenes from the movie and saw the lost boys, indians, pirates, captain hook, and then back to London.  We were in awe the whole time and so sad when we realized the ride was over!  So fun!

Another great one was Casey Jr. Circus Train.  I'm not sure if it was from a TV show or what but we all enjoyed the ride on a miniature train, through the mountains, with music.  I think that one was one of Andrew's favorites!

And what is a trip to Disneyland without meeting princesses?!  There was this cool little castle thing that we went inside of with guards, people dressed in cool court attire.

Aurora!  She was so friendly and nice and Alex kept staring at her and grinning.  So cute!  Andrew wanted nothing to do with the whole thing, as you can tell by his death grip on Robert!

Then we walked to the next area and met Ariel!

Then Cinderella!

I know these pictures are all out of order but I'm so sick of sorting through them that this will just have to do!

The boys fighting over the steering wheel outside of Mr Toad's Adventure.  We rode on a car like that one through the ride.

And King Arthur's Carousel!  I lost track of how many times we rode this one.  Maybe I'm just a kid at heart but I loved every time we rode it just as much as Andrew did!  That's pure joy on his face right there!

A glimpse at what the lines were like.

Riding dumbo with Dad again!  There was a control stick inside of each one and you could make your elephant go up and down.

Riding in the monkey cart of Casey Jr.'s Circus Train, how fitting :)

Tea Cups!

I wouldn't let him spin it, because it made me sick, but he still enjoyed it

Merida!

We went back to Toon Town and went inside of Mickey's house to meet him!

Andrew loved all the silly little things to play on.  It was super cute and fun to walk through all of the cartoony rooms in the house.

Then we got to actually meet Mickey!  Andrew was so excited to have him sign his book.  He gave him high five and just stared at him in awe.

Then Andrew asked to go on a little kid roller coaster that he saw.  I'm a wimp and was more nervous than he was.  It wasn't too intense but it scared him a little.  But he was so proud of himself for being brave enough to go on it and has told me several times since that he is a big boy and went on the roller coaster with mom.

Catching a glimpse of the Tangled show during the "I Have a Dream" scene

Hey Robert, say, "I love princesses!"

oh the cuteness!!

Having so much fun was exhausting!  So we found a shady place to sit and eat and feed the ducks.

We walked to another part of the park but were still too tired to do much of anything (we did get up at 5:30 that morning!).  So we went inside a building and watched a western show, snacked, drank water, bought Andrew some french fries, and rested.  

The park just kept getting more and more packed so we left the park and walked to downtown Disney (a bunch of stores, restaurants, and the disney resort hotel).  It was so nice to get away from the crowd.  We had packed all of our food but planned to eat one meal while we were there (boy that saved us a TON of money).  The boys had fallen asleep and we found a nice restaurant attached to the super nice Disney Resort Hotel.  We chugged and chugged ice water and enjoyed the comfy seats and air conditioning and sleeping children while we ate.  

Cool stuff made out of legos outside the legos store

all legos!

We rode the mono rail back into the park and were rested and ready to go!  We felt super bummed about missing out on our magic morning so we decided to stop by the guest services building and whine.  We were kind of embarrassed to complain but we dropped a lot of money to go so we figured it was worth a shot.  It was worth it and they gave us a couple of passes to go to the front of the line on which ever rides we wanted.  Score!

We chose to ride the Finding Nemo Submarines again as well as Peter Pan's Flight.  Awesomeness!

Alex was mesmerized

Andrew found Nemo again!

Pizza Port.  Kind of like Pizza planet on Toy Story

Riding the carousel...again!

That night we watched Fantasmic, a huge show with Mickey Mouse, fireworks, tons of disney characters and lots of music.  We had planned to watch the big fireworks show after but they cancelled it because of wind so we rode...you guessed it, the carousel again and then watched Fantasmic...again.  Andrew loved watching Mickey save the day!

The castle was so pretty all lit up at night.

The only picture I took during Fantasmic.  We didn't leave the park until well after 11pm.  It was such a fun day that we weren't ready for it to be over.  

oh, and we ran into the mad hatter :)