Our new house is under renovation. Well, I should say, it is being somewhat demolished and we’re still waiting on the permits to build it back up again. But the boys have been taking full advantage of the woods of our “house in the woods.”
We hit stuff with sticks
We play king of the hill
We feed the deer with corn
And then watch to see them eat it
And come home exhausted
Sweet boys
I took Aiden for his 5 year old check up last week. He got a clean bill of health, thank God. He is still big which will probably catch up with him soon per our family doc. He’s 3 feet, 9.25 inches (89th percentile) and 44.6 lbs (73rd percentile). He has grown about 3 inches in one year! Amazing! Afterwards I took him to Krispy Kreme as a treat for being such a generally healthy kid. He doesn’t usually want dessert after dinner, he eats like a horse, always finishes his milk, takes his hypothyroid medicine without a single complaint everyday, and makes a habit of just randomly busting out some burpees or pushups each day. So I’m proud of that healthy boy of ours. Hope we don’t use up all of his healthy living days in the first few years of his life!
This is the series of photos Aiden wanted to take to rub it in to Big One that Aiden got a doughnut and Big One was at work with no doughnuts.
For Christmas this year, Scott and I arranged to take the kids to Disney World. So this past weekend, we made good on our gift! We took a long weekend and spent three full days at the Disney parks. It was truly magical! The kids are at a great age for all things Disney. Everything was REAL to them. They were wide-eyes each day. My favorite thing was how the boys surprised us on the trip. I didn’t think that Aiden would like the characters but he absolutely loved them! I thought that Court would be scared of them, but he loved them as well. I thought that Aiden would like the rides and he did. However, I thought that Court would be terrified of the roller coasters. To our surprise, he couldn’t find a ride fast enough for him! He rode every ride that his little 40 inch frame would allow him to and after every ride, he’d say, “That was a short one! Can we do it again?” They were both rockstars all weekend. Disney is overwhelming and you constantly have lights, sounds, sparkly things, people everywhere, etc. We woke the boys up early and made them stay up until the parks closed just to get our money’s worth. And they never melted down. However, if we had stayed another day, I’m pretty sure they would have out of pure exhaustion. And to Scott’s surprise, I think I even convinced my bah-humbug husband to love Disney as well. We’re all musketeers now!
We stayed at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. It was super cool – great pool, camp fire with marshmallows every night, and a boat that rides you to the gate of Magic Kingdom.
These guys welcomed us to Magic Kingdom
Waiting for Mickey Mouse to open the doors for us 🙂
This was one of my favorite moments of the trip: when Aiden first saw Mickey get off the train to welcome us to Magic Kingdom when they opened the park. Aiden screamed “Mickey! Mickey!” and then said “Oh, Mom, Mickey waved at me!”
Court’s first ride at Disney – the carousel.
At Cinderella’s castle
We got to meet Tinkerbell!
Court wanted to meet Anna and Elsa from Frozen. We waited 20 minutes for this. Seriously? Oh well, I have known people to wait 4 hours to see these girls. Court and every little girl in America wants to see them so I waited with him. He totally folded and wouldn’t talk to them but at least we convinced him to take a picture. Stunned by their beauty I suppose.
Court and Elsa. I love Court’s face – hilarious!
On the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Look at those brave boys!
This little one held his hands up on every ride he rode!
Court and Scott on the Astro Orbiter
Aiden and Mama on the Astro Orbiter
In line for the Buzz lightyear ride
Aiden rode Space Mountain (which is pitch black almost the entire roller coaster ride) THREE times in the same day!!! He LOVED it!!
Scott and Aiden on Space Mountain. Aiden had his hands up THE WHOLE TIME!
Scott and Court rode roller coasters until the park closed while Aiden wanted to see the amazing fireworks over Cinderella’s castle.
The kids couldn’t stay away from the pool so we let them play for one hour each day and then hit the parks again in the afternoons.
At Epcot
We got to meet Mickey!
And Goofy
And Minnie
Later that night en route to meet Chip and Dale, Mickey, and Pluto for dinner
Animal Kingdom
Aiden and Scott on the Expedition Everest ride at Animal Kingdom
Court got so close to a giraffe on our safari that he could have touched it!
Me and my converted Mouseketeer!
Warning: this is what 3 days in Disney will do to you!
On New Year’s day, Aiden turned 5 years old! We had 12 of Aiden’s friends over that morning for a teenage mutant ninja turtle party. Then we crashed for a nap. After our slumber, we woke up in time for a family party that evening. What a wonderful day of spoiling the coolest 5 year old we know! Aiden is such an amazing kid in so many way, brave, independent, creative, receptive, and very thoughtful (when he wants to be). He takes my breath away sometimes with what he accomplishes at the wee age of 5. I can’t wait to see what this year holds for him and what more he has to teach us!
We started the party by all the kids decorating a TMNT “car”
The ninjas in training awaiting their ninja training instructions
Tunnel crawling
Sword fighting skills (strictly on an individual basis)
“Mama said knock you out” drills
Balloon tennis (a great idea from my friend Kelley in Cali)
Pizza box carrying relay races – they were huge for those little arms!
Kieran was the only friend at the party who is not in Aiden’s class at school. K was a rockstar and fit right in with all the other ninjas! Love that kid!
After the ninja training wore the kids out a bit, we came inside for a TMNT “movie” which was really just two television shows from the 80s (thanks for letting us borrow, Jeana!) We have been telling Aiden he could watch TMNT when he turns 5 and he wasted no time!
All the kids drove up their TMNT “cars” to the movie premier! (Thanks for the idea Jen Newton!)
And what do the turtles love to eat? PIZZA!
The birthday feast
Trey (AKA Leonardo) and Max (AKA Raphael)
Turtle (carrot cake) cupcakes requested by the birthday boy
Red velvet cake. What 5 year old needs 2 cakes in one day?!
Court and Lindsay at the family party later in the evening
Lots of wonderful gifts for this kid including a new bike which was long overdue!
We love you, Aiden. Happy Birthday!!!
Doesn’t this photo taken by Scott just say Christmas Eve?!
Playing with Aunt Sandy, Uncle Larry, and cousin Hunter’s gifts on Christmas Eve.
Aiden and Court getting to open their gifts to each other on Christmas Eve. They gave each other swords. Heartwarming.
“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”
Christmas Morning!!
Kimmie and Bruno in their Christmas duds
Big One’s new hedge trimmer from the boys.
Now we just need some snow!
Amazing homemade aircraft carriers with fighter jets from Grandpa Wolford
New Carolina gear!
These big boxes held a bunch of Disney balloons to give the boys their gift from Big One and Mama.
We’re going to Disney World! They were totally underwhelmed by being told they were going to go to Disney but loved the balloons. Pretty sure they’ll love Disney once they get there 🙂
Don’t forget about the stockings!
New mugs from Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Ken
Bruno’s new favorite bone
Trying out our new running gear from Santa!
Bruno’s shirt says “Sorry, Santa. I ate your cookies.”
Aunt Cheryl’s Christmas pies were almost too pretty to eat.
Hope your Christmas was filled with family, laughter, and lots of love!
The weekend before Christmas, we hosted Mike, Cara, Ryan, Lindsay, Roger and Chris Watson, and Grandma and Grandpa Wolford for a brunch to celebrate Christmas a little early. Everyone brought scrumptious food including fruit made to look like the grinch and like a Christmas tree (from Chris), the best homemade cheese danish I have ever had (Grandma), a cherry danish in the shape of a candy cane (Chris), more pancakes than an army could eat (Scott), and the most delicious variety of Christmas cookies (Cara). After we all stuffed our bellies full, we opened Christmas gifts and then played with some of them. We couldn’t play with all of them because there were too many!! What a wonderful way to welcome in the week of Christmas!
Aiden had a basketball game earlier that morning so he was famished and stuffing his face with all of the goodies
Lindsay has been on a bit of a hunger strike recently but she ate well this morning!
Here come the gifts
Court was very excited to be an elf and bring everyone their gifts
Ryan couldn’t wait to start opening!
Grandma reading tags for Aiden.
We told the kids that they could’t open gifts until they posed for a photo. A little bribery never hurt anyone, right?
Teenage mutant ninja turtles!
A bow and arrow
Bruno got some good treats for Christmas
Target practice for Lindsay
Court was great at retrieving Linsday’s arrows. He just adores that cousin of his.
Grandma, Grandpa, and Lindsay look great – the rest of them, well, we did our best.
And thanks to Uncle Mike and Aunt Cara, this is what our evening looked like – new PJ’s and slippers!
Breakfast with Santa at Baby Camp:
Making silly faces while waiting for Santa
Aiden is waiting to talk to Santa (the one in the red vest)
Court kept a safe distance from Santa and hung back for selfies with Mom. He was very interested in Santa but didn’t think it safe to get close.
Singing songs with Santa
We convinced Court to pose for a photo with Santa as long as we used Aiden as a buffer. The look on Court’s face says not to trust that man with the beard.
Gingerbread houses with Grandma Wolford:
I convinced Grandma to help make gingerbread houses with the boys and me. Once I saw the mess we were making I was SO glad to have a second set of hands!! By the end, both boys were just squirting icing straight into their mouths – hilarious!
Court and Grandma’s house
Aiden and Mama’s house
Dinner with the youth:
The youth group that Scott and Dave led a few years ago came to our house for a little reunion and dinner. There are all Sophomores in college now and such a wonderful group of young people. And man oh man, do those girls spoil my boys rotten!!!
Christmas with the Williams family:
The Sunday before Christmas, Bub and Pop hosted Pop’s side of the family at their mountain house. It was so great to see all the cousins playing so well together. Here are A and C playing with Dalton, Remedy, and Peyton.
Peyton just jumped right in to play with the boys new power tools!
The Polar Express:
I wanted to take Aiden and Court to ride the Polar Express at the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad in Bryson City, TN. We even convinced Bub, Pop, and Kimmie to join!
The boys got golden tickets just like in the book to ride the train
They took us through a whole town beautifully decorated like the North Pole with Santa Claus, Rudolph’s house, the post office where all the letters to Santa come, Mr. and Mrs. Claus’ house, etc. It was so well done!
We all wore pajamas – even Big One!
Court LOVED the hot chocolate!
And spilled said hot chocolate all over his shirt 🙂
Santa even made an appearance on the train.
I was shocked that Court spoke with Santa and even took a sleigh bell from him without hiding behind me. He was braver than he thought he could be!
Williams Family Blog 