Maggie is 5!!

 

 

 

Wow - ANOTHER 5 year old! I can't believe that Maggie is 5! It seemed crazy when Jackson hit 5 and now my second child has turned 5! Can you tell that I'm a little shell-shocked? :)
We had a little party with Maggie's best friend and her family. We finally made Maggie a cake and gave her the rest of her presents. Matt and I built that dollhouse bookcase - we gave her some barbies and clothes to play with in it. Later on it will just be a bookshelf. The cake was really easy and turned out cute. I love that. :) I also made the apron and chef hat for her. I love that we are doing so many things while at this house. I want to make things for the kids though - rather than working on completing house projects..... maybe because the smaller things I make I can do with minimal mess and involvement - I can walk away at any point and pick it up later. That's now usually true when we get into a home improvement project.
Maggie is a great kiddo. She loves school and is sad when there is a day off for some reason. She is not looking forward to summer vacation! Funny girl. She loves to make things - cards, pictures, presents....... I love that creating is something she enjoys. She also loves to play outside with Hailey, Jackson and the neighbor girls. Especially on the swings. She will also climb trees with the others. She is getting braver and will put her head underwater on her own now. She loves to help in any way she can but gets overwhelmed with big assignments. She loves to be around us and loves hugs. She also really enjoys going to cubscouts with Jackson and will always chose that if it's an option :)I can't believe that she will be in kindergarten next year. It's an all day program here. I will miss having her around!

11 months

 

It's hard to believe that Caleb is 11 months old already. Although he has his own individual personality he also has similarities to the other kids. Funny how that happens :) He is an active, determined, HAPPY little guy. Just like the other three - he's not timid, or careful..... He's going to be in the water, on the trampoline and going down the slide with the others in no time. He already tries to bounce while sitting down when we put him on the trampoline. He was standing up on that spin toy then carefully raising both arms into the air to stay balanced while standing on it. Sheesh.
His siblings absolutely love him - he does not always love the attention..... especially if it is keeping him away from a ball - his favorite toy. He will roll and a ball back and forth with us already. He will over, around, under, or through anything to get to a ball on the other side.
I love that the girls are starting to get along a little better. They still fight quite a bit but now there are nice playtimes thrown in too :) Two extremely strong personalities that don't give in...... whew, I'm sweatin' the teenage years already!

almost....... WALKING!!

 

For a little while now - Caleb will stay standing when you set him down. He will also let go of things and just stand there for a little while. The other day when Matt put him down he actually took a few steps!! It won't be long before he's on the go like the rest of them :) He crawls all over the yard already. His favorite thing to do is play in the sandbox. He also turns around to go down the little hill in our backyard.
When Jackson was little and cranky - you could fix anything by taking him outside. For Caleb - it's climbing the stairs. He LOVES to climb up and down, up and down the stairs. He's starting to go backwards now so he can do it fairly well on his own.

When we were taking pictures and videos of Caleb taking some steps the girls wanted in on the attention so they 'pretended' to walk and fall down too. They thought that was hilariously funny.

Busch Gardens

 

 

 

When the shuttle was cancelled - they were hoping they could reschedule it for Monday - so we decided to stay a day later than planned. Then the shuttle was pushed even further out so our extra day was spent at Busch Gardens :) The kids LOVED it!! We learned a few things though to make our next amusement park trip even more enjoyable. Jackson is tall enough to go on a number of bigger rides but to take him on them means the other kids are just waiting around and it takes a long time to walk around the park with everyone. He still likes the smaller rides so it would have worked out better to stay where there was smaller rides. The kids love water - anywhere, anytime. We should go to a very kid friendly water park - since they are also fearless.
We had a great time at Busch gardens. We also caught a few of the side shows the park put on. The kids were pretty impressed. Maggie fell asleep within seconds of getting into her carseat...... we pushed her pretty hard to keep up with us. She did a really good job. She was big enough to go on a couple of the bigger rides and I thought she might be a little nervous but she loved it!! Except the BIG roller coaster that went upside down..... she didn't want to do that one again. She wanted to do the drop one again and again with Matt though.
Gram and Papa came with us. It was nice to have a couple more adults around. They took Jackson on some rides and also watched the littler kids so Matt and I could take Maggie and Jackson. It would be a lot of fun to live close enough to a park to have season tickets. It's also much cheaper per visit that way :)

Saturday

 

We stayed in Daytona Beach again on Friday night so we could meet up with Matt's old boss on Saturday for lunch. It was great to see some of the guys that Matt really enjoyed working with. After catching up with them for a bit we headed off to Tampa where Matt's parents were staying with some old Michigan friends - the Potter's. They were nice enought to let us all stay at their house for a few days. They have a pool so the kids thought it was the coolest place ever. We swam a lot. The kids are all little fish!! Maggie is still the most cautious one but she was dunking her head under and jumping in which is a big step for her :) Hailey we had to keep a life jacket on - she would just jump in - anytime, anywhere!! Jackson was diving for stuff on the bottom of the 8' deep pool. As long as Caleb was warm he loved it too. There was a jazuzzi that he could "walk" around the sides in. We even swam at night with the pool lights on one night.
Gail Potter knew Maggie's birthday had been the day before so she made cupcakes and planned a little scavenger hunt for the kids. They really liked it. Maggie loved having everyone sing to her again and, of course, opening a few more presents.
We still one more party planned here at home for her. She really wanted a friend party like Jackson but it turned out her birthday would be during the Florida trip we decided to go with plan B. So we will have dinner and cake/ice cream with her best friends family. Lucky girl.

Shuttle

 

This little shuttle is in Cocoa Beach. We thought we would at least take a picture with a shuttle while we were there. Jackson was our photographer.

More BeAcH

 

We spent some time on Cocoa Beach right outside Cape Winds - the condos where Matt would stay when he traveled to Florida for work. Caleb LOVES the beach. He was pushing the sand everywhere and holding it up so the wind would blow it out of his hands. He got cold right at the end - and he was a little sand man. Jackson also got cold after playing in the waves. We kept having to tell him to come back in because he would go out too far. Maggie and Hailey played in the sand a lot and ran through the shallow water of the waves. Then everyone had to take showers to get all the sand off :)

April 29th - Maggie's 5th birthday!!

 

After the shuttle launch was cancelled and our schedule suddenly open - we went down to Cocoa Beach to have dinner with one of the guys Matt used to work with at one of Matt's favorite resturants. It was a lot of fun. Since the day of the shuttle launch also happened to be Maggie's birthday we had some chocolate cake at the restuarant and sang Happy Birthday to her :) Her birthday was spread out over a number of days and mini parties!!

Waiting at the park.....

 

 

Somehow- these were the only pictures we took at the park. That's quite sad. I would have loved to have pics of our kids with Tim and Amy's :(
Early the next morning we headed out to Cocoa Beach to try to see if we could find a good spot to watch the launch. Matt's parents recommended a park in Titusville - it had a playground and food nearby. So we planned to meet them there along with Tim and Amy + kids. We all managed to make it and we hung out at the park for a long time. We got there around 9am and the launch was scheduled to go off around 4 pm. However, at about 12:30pm the launch was called off. We were kind of bummed since the launch was what set the whole trip into motion in the first place but we were glad that we got to spend time with everyone. The kids had a great time playing on the playground, in the dirt and catching geckos.

FLORIDA

 

Whew. We are back from our trip to Florida so it's time to share some pics :) We took two days to do the 17 hour drive... the kids did amazingly well. So well that we really don't mind the idea of road trips anymore. There was a time that I thought road trips would just be out of the question because NO one would enjoy it, but the kids have proved me wrong - on our Christmas trip to Atlanta and this recent trip to Florida. We stop fairly often but it helps everyone to stay happy and sane :)
On the way down we stayed about an hour south of Charlotte, NC. Then we stayed in Daytona Beach, Fl. It was about an hour north of Cocoa Beach - where we would be going to see the shuttle launch. There weren't really any hotels available any closer..... they were expecting close to 700,000 people, which is probably 3 times what they normally have for a launch. Our hotel in Daytona was right one the beach so the very first thing we did when we got there......? Suit up and head for the beach :) The kids loved it. The water was pretty cold so Jackson was really the only one that got in. Caleb crawled all over the place on the sand and towards the waves. Maggie and Hailey played in the waves too but wouldn't go very deep at all. After that we went and swam in the - much warmer - hotel pool. Matt and I LOVE the ocean so it's fun to take the kids there and see them enjoy it too.