Treehouses at Cheekwood

I took the boys to Cheekwood today to see the treehouses they just finished building.  Today was the first day they were open.

It was miserably hot but we still managed to have fun exploring.

One of the first things we did was have a picnic lunch.  The boys never actual sat down though.

Each treehouse is completely different.  The first one we visited was called "The Giver".  Rylan went down the slide on this one and came flying off.  He landed in the sand with a thud.  But he laughed it off!

One of the boys favorite treehouses was "The Jolly Roger" (of course!).

As we walked around, I tried to get the boys to sit for a few good pictures.  

Rylan was having none of it though and while Carter wanted his picture taken, he wasn't into looking at the camera or smiling.

My favorite treehouse was "The Rainbow Fish" which was covered in thousands of CDs.

If you look close, you'll see Rylan looking through the eye in this picture ...

And Carter looking through the eye in this picture ...

Luckily no one fell in the water at "Ocean of Notions".  It wasn't built around a tree but it was tied to several trees around the pond.

Finally, a good picture of Carter!

The last treehouse we saw was "Conch House".

There was a sandy area on one side of the treehouse and the boys played in the sand for awhile before we headed out.

We were all beat as we left.  Rylan passed out in the car immediately but, miraculously, Carter stayed awake.  I put him down for a nap when we got home and both boys are still sleeping.

Photo Dump

I always end up with some random photos that don't seem to fit in other posts.  I need to just start doing some "photo dump" posts to share these random shots.

Rylan found the Woody cowboy hat on Monday and wanted to pose for some pictures while wearing it.  I love the look he's giving me here ...

Rylan loves to stick out his tongue and do a raspberry sound right now.

We had a picnic lunch outside on Tuesday (before it got hot later in the week) and watched the construction of the last house going up behind us ...

The Frog Prince

This was Carter's second week with no school and I'm getting used to having both kids all week again.  I had gotten used to doing a lot of my errands on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I only had Rylan but I'm getting used to shopping a lot quicker again since keeping two happy is a lot harder than just one.

This week was Carter's last week of gymnastics, we went to friends' pools twice, went to the Brentwood Library storytime, and have run lots of errands (oil change, browsing for new furniture for Carter's room, looking for party ideas for Rylan's upcoming birthday party, grocery shopping, etc). 

Today we went to the Nashville Library downtown to see a production of The Frog Prince.  It's a musical play featuring marionettes.  Both boys were mesmerized by it the entire time.  They watched with 100% attention (never asking for snacks or getting frigidity).

Here are a few pictures and a video:

After the play, the kids got to go up to the stage and see the marionettes.

Mother's Day

I've been meaning to post about Mother's Day for a few weeks but am finally getting around to it.  We didn't do much, but the boys made me a card while I slept in until 7 am (that's when Carter came running into our bedroom with the card yelling "Happy Mother's Day!").

Brian did a good job of having the boys help!

He said that Carter pretty much wrote his name on his own (I think Brian was helping him hold his hand steady though because I've never gotten him to do this well, especially with R's).

Anyway, like I said, we didn't do anything special but we did get a lot of stuff done around the house (like hanging our TV above the fireplace and installing a ceiling fan)!  We had originally hoped to go hiking but it rained most of the day so getting projects completed was good with me!

Disney 2012 - Day 6

On Friday, we went back to Magic Kingdom.  We decided to just do Disney this trip because the difference between a four-day and six-day ticket is $16 per person. That meant we could do two of the parks twice (and also not feel stressed to try to do everything in one day).  We definitely knew that Magic Kingdom would be one of the parks we'd do twice.  Carter's favorite thing to do was the rides (his favorite thing about all of Disney World was "Goofy's Rollercoaster".)

The boys slept in on Friday to 6:45 am - so nice!  We got to the park around 8:30 am and then took the ferry over to the gates (the monorail line was insane).  However, when we got over there, it was definitely less crowded than Monday when we were there last.

When we got in, we headed straight to The Barnstormer (or "Goofy's Rollercoaster").  Unfortunately there was something wrong with the ride and they weren't running it yet.  Since we were right there, we went on Dumbo the Flying Elephant instead (neither boy had ever been on this ride because the line is usually really long).

Rylan was his usual unhappy self until he figured out we could go up and down and he was a little better.

Next up was the Mad Tea Party.  There was absolutely no line and we walked right on.

Brian went with us (and he gets motion sickness really easily) so we spun only a little.  But both boys LOVED it and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Since the boys liked it so much and there was no line, I wanted to go on the ride again.  Carter did too until he realized that Brian wasn't going a second time (once was all he could handle).  We ended up having to trick him by Brian going with us through the line and once Carter was in a tea cup, Brian went to an exit.

Luckily Carter then didn't seem to mind.

We spun a lot this time and Carter loved it.  A little ways in Rylan stopped liking it.  His eyes started going back and forth a lot and he was not happy.  I'm guessing he takes after Brian a little bit with the motion sickness.

After the tea cups, we tried to do some of the rides we had missed on Monday.  We got a Fast Pass for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and then did Snow White's Scary Adventure.  The line was short and I really wanted to do this one because I've heard they are closing it soon permanently.  It was a little scary for the boys but good preparation for our next ride, the Haunted Mansion.

I'm not sure how Carter really did because he sat with Brian (of course), but Rylan didn't get scared at all.  Once when he saw a crow on a gravestone, he just yelled "Tweet, tweet!"

I didn't remember this ride terribly well from a few years ago but thought it was really well done.  It's relatively long with lots of different scenes to check out.

Our next stop was It's a Small World, but they had just shut it down for some reason so we moved on.  We used our Fast Pass for the Pooh ride (which was just okay) and then tried The Barnstormer again.  It was running now but the line was way too long for us (45 minutes).

Friday was really hot and humid and we'd been hitting up rides back to back to back, so we did Tomorrowland Transit Authority Peoplemover to take a break and just sit for a few minutes.

When we got off, I saw the short line to meet Buzz Lightyear so the boys and I headed over there while Brian got Fast Passes for Buzz Lightyear's Space Rangers Spin.

I posted about meeting Buzz here.

Our next stop was lunch at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Diner and then we did the Buzz ride.  Rylan was so much more into this ride this time.  He was actually trying to shoot his gun the whole time (he still got 0 points though).

Here are pictures of Brian and Carter (it's kind of hard to make them out in the black light) ...

Next we headed over to the area in front of Cinderella Castle to get a good seat for the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It parade.  We were there early so we got a seat on the curb and relaxed for a bit.

Before the parade got to us, we could hear all the music for awhile.  Rylan LOVED it and danced and danced and danced!

Again, the boys loved seeing all the characters and Carter pointed to each one calling out their name.

Even Rylan joined in with some pointing and screaming.

Neither boy had taken a nap yet so we decided to walk a little after the parade.  We went over to Adventureland and got a Fast Pass for Jungle Cruise.  Rylan (as predicted) had fallen fast asleep.  The Enchanted Tiki Room show was starting then so we decided to grab him out of the stroller and head in.  He slept through the whole show.  And when we were done, we put him back in the stroller and he continued to sleep.

While Rylan finished his nap, I took Carter over to see Pirate Goofy again.  He loves him some Goofy!

And Goofy liked the guitar on Carter's shirt!

Once Rylan woke up, we rode the Jungle Cruise and then took the Walt Disney World Railroad from Frontierland to Fantasyland.  We tried to get onto The Barnstormer but the line was still really long and we were pooped.  Carter was a little disappointed but no one had the energy to stand in line.  Instead we went over to Tomorrowland and did Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor.  It's an interactive show with audience participation.  Luckily none of us were picked.

When we got out of the show, we could see storms about to roll in so we hustled to the car.  We made it there around 3:30 right before the rain got really heavy.

We went back to the hotel and chilled out for about and hour and then went over to Red Lobster for dinner (we've had a gift card for a few years now and decided to finally use it).  After that we went over to Downtown Disney to do a little souvenir shopping.

We normally don't get souvenirs because we are cheap and once you start buying things, the boys start expecting you to buy something every time and then there is a lot of whining when you don't.  However, since Disney World is special, we decided to get the boys each a stuffed animal.  Carter picked out Goofy and Rylan picked out Mickey (with a little encouragement from us).  They are still obsessed with them!

We walked around for a little bit but it was chilly from the rain (and we didn't have coats anymore) so we didn't stick around for long.  We did check out the Lego Store though and their giant Lego constructions.

The boys' favorite was the Toy Story display.

Carter had to have his picture taken in front of it.

And because Rylan has to do everything that Carter does, he had to have his picture taken too.

We headed back to the hotel then and got everyone to bed pretty early.  The boys were exhausted with their short and no naps so they passed right now.

Lack of Posts

There have been two reasons for my slacking with posts the last few days.

Here is the first:

I have been staining our screened porch since Thursday.  I took off all the screens so that I could get all sides of the spindles.  That alone was insanely time consuming.  It didn't help that I was always watching the boys at the same time.  They have been generally great though.

I love how big the porch is but, wow, it takes a long time to stain.  I have one more section of the floor (I need to move the couch to the part I did today) and the bottom of the exterior.  Next is the deck but I'm waiting until we have our hardscape installed in a few weeks.  It's going off the deck and we are having the side opened up so it steps down to the hardscape.

And the second reason for the slacking:

We started Insanity on Monday.  And it is insane!  I hurt everywhere - but that's good.  During the week we were waiting until the kids went to bed to workout (that is killing our free time in the evening though).  We tried working out while the kids were up this weekend.  It was more difficult (we had to take a few breaks to change a diaper and break up fights) but we managed and still got in a good workout.  I think we are going to try to do our workouts first thing in the morning this week.  The boys are up early so we'll have to do it when they are up (I'm not getting up at 4 am) but it'll be nice to have some time back in the evening (which should give me more time to blog).

Carter "worked out" with us yesterday.  He tried to do several of the exercises.  He was so funny having to have his sippy cup of water near by so he could keep getting water.  Today he told us several times that he wanted to work out again.  When I was doing my workout this afternoon, Carter did a little with me.  When some of the guys on the DVD were taking off their shirts, Carter decided he needed to as well - so funny!