No Longer a Decimal Point!!!

It is true…Corwin’s age no longer begins with a decimal point. He has reached an important milestone, his first Birthday. Of course, it meant the occasion had to be saturated with friends, family, and an overabundance of sugar. Corwin has had almost no sugar in his first year, but he made up for it at his party, eating enough cake and frosting to kill a rhino. Of course, he probably had 40% of it on his face and not in his gullet, but I’m sure he consumed enough, too.

While birthdays are markers, Corwin also experienced another milestone. He recently changed rooms at daycare and has moved up to the ‘older kids’ class. I’m certain he will like it, but it’s still a bit traumatic for Karen. It’s hard for her to see him grow up so fast.

The big “1” will come with some new expectations. After all, the ‘free ride’ is over now!...he he. We fully expect that he’ll be able to help with the dishes, mow the yard, clean out gutters, and everything else a free-loading one-year old should do. They should be contributing members of the family, right? Okay, that obviously not going to happen, but maybe he could shoot for at least making less of a mess at the table, waking up less in the middle of the night, etc.  Other than that, his primary job of looking cute will do the trick :)

We did notice some similarities between Corwin's first birthday and Sydney's first birthday.  Can you tell who is who???

In other news, Syd has regained her gills and is back in swim class. She has a lot of fun, and we like that she is getting skills that can help keep her safe.

For the rest of us...busy at work as usual, but we are looking forward to Halloween and Holiday Season to arrive!

 Happy 1st Buddy!!! We love you!!!

The World Part II

We have so many great pictures to share from Walt Disney World, I thought it would be good to use this post to show a few more.  Plus, Disney offers what they call 'Photo Pass.'  This basically means you pay a lot of money to get some good pictures, but the true benefit is that they have their professional photographers taking the picture...which means that no one in the family is stuck out of the picture having to snap it.  It's great to get some fun pictures with our whole travel contingency accounted for :)

I didn't mention it in the last post, but Sydney went into a new experience called Enchanted Tales with Belle.  It was sort of a story time, reliving the story line from the movie, but with a twist.  Instead of being read the story, the audience is actually part of the re-enactment for Belle.  Perfect for little girls, and not much of a 'must do' for strong macho dudes like myself.  But, it actually ended up a fun experience due to the level of engagement.  In an early part of the experience, they were assigning parts of the play to those in the room.  When the lady asked who could growl loud and play the Beast, little Sydney roared larger than everyone, so she got the part.  Others became the broom, or teapot, or cup.  And since Sydney was now a focal part of the experience, it became very fun.  I was honestly worried that she would be too shy to do her little part in a room full of people, but she didn't blink and eye.  When it came time for her part, the little blond girl let out another loud growl to Belle.  Of course everyone thought it was cute.  And wrapping up the play, Belle got to dance with our Beast and get a few extra pictures taken together.  All in all, we were very proud of her, and the video will be fun to watch for a long time to come.

I picked out a few other pictures that I liked.  The Halloween decorations in the Magic Kingdom were fun.  We also got several pictures of Sydney meeting a variety of princesses, such as Pocahontas below (although she liked meeting Monsters, too).  And it was great to be in pictures with my Momma, since it's usually her or I that are snapping away.  I do have the ability to go back and Photoshop myself into pictures, but in this case it was simply nice to be part of the experience and not have to do that work on the back end.  It was a great trip, so I hope you enjoy the photos.