Thursday, March 30, 2017

Day to Day in March 2016

This was definitely another fun month to look back on!  I forget how much I love to blog.  It's so much fun to be able to write and share so many great memories, even if it's just the grandparents and us who read it :)

Here are the highlights from March 2016 (only a year behind 😄)

Daxton continued to take great care of his plant from our neighbor Luigi.  He also loved receiving letters from Grandpa and Grandma Adams getting us ready for the Adams Family reunion.  He continued to wear a baby sized storm trooper costume (which pushed me to buy him additional costumes...in his size.)  Daxton also finished another great swim session with his best buddy Jack.  It totally wasn't planned for them to be wearing the exact same swim suit for the medal ceremony, but April and I were pretty ecstatic about it!

March brought on the major prep for Daxton's 4th birthday.  Everyday a couple Amazon packages would show up at the door and we would embark on the next project for his party.  Daddy was a serious trooper and helped with the prep on the weekends.  Although, "help" usually turned to wrestling and play pretty quick!  Dallas did such a great job making all the light sabers for the party.  We bought several pool noodles of all different colors, cut them in half, and then used silver and black duct tape to design the bottom.  It was super easy and they are still going strong a year later!  I want to make more so we can all battle together.

We also went to a really fun St Patrick's Day park group party.  Kimberly seriously rocked it!  She had leprechaun masks for the kids to decorate and then an awesome treasure hunt for them to do.  There were beaded necklaces, rainbow ribbon dancing, learning an Irish Jig, and collecting gold balloons.  Needless to say the kids had a blast!


After the big treasure hunt, the kids all got to eat lots of yummy treats and play in the park with their buddies.  It was a pretty great day!

Another fun highlight from March, was having a special one on one playdate with Daxton's buddy, Joey.  Dax loved getting to have Joey's undivided attention!  I took them to Dania beach where we played for near 5 hours.  These boys were the absolute sweetest!  They played so well together, never fought or complained, and literally laughed for almost the entire 5 hours.  It was pure magic!

These boys ran and jumped in the waves for hours!  
They are both such cute little fish.


Ah man...their faces say it all!
It was a purely magical day!


This is one of my absolute favorite pictures from our magical day.  These boys laid in that calm ocean water laughing and giggling for hours.  They pretended to fight off bad guys and then later pretended they were cooking meals with muddy sand.  I watched their imaginations work and loved every minute of it.

And to top it off...on our way home we picked up yummy Chick-Fil-A.  I loved hearing the squeals of excitement from the backseat as both Daxton and Joey exclaimed, "This is the BEST.  DAY.  EVER!!"

Another highlight was babysitting Daxton's other best buddy, Dean, and his little brother, Max.  Arianne was working the boat show in Fort Lauderdale and needed help watching her boys for one of the days.  Dax and Dean had a BLAST and spent the whole day in best buddy bliss.  Max, on the other hand, was not very happy about being separated from his mommy (note the below picture.)  He did however love the massive amount of goldfish crackers I gave him and the opportunity to watch an endless amount of Star Wars lego shows.  For the first part of the day, I blew up the kiddie pool and filled it with water for them to have free reign in the back yard.  The water table was a big hit with Max who was not a fan of the floaties I made him wear while in the pool.

The boys spent at least a couple hours playing in the water, shooting water guns, and pouring water all over the bricks and grass in the back yard.  Needless to say...they had a blast.

Perfect example of Daxton, our little fish!

After spending the majority of the morning outside, I brought them inside for lunch, iPad, and relaxation time.  It was pretty fun to crack out our old high chair from when Dax was a baby too.  Can't believe how fast time flies!

The rest of March was pretty great.
We ended up leaving the pool outside for a week and spent a lot of fun hours relaxing in the back yard and enjoying the Florida heat.

We also went to a super fun Easter party at our friends' house.
They live right along the waterways in Fort Lauderdale and have such beautiful views from their back yard.  We love having our annual park group Easter hunt there!

Dax and Dean hugging before the hunt began.

Our friends have the best yard for an Easter egg hunt!
The kids had so much fun searching under and in all the different bushes.  Although, Dax and Dean may have gotten a little distracted with play time in the middle of the hunt.  They figured eating a few of their eggs and riding bikes was more than enough fun.

After all the eggs were found, several of the kids set up camp down by the water to watch all the boats go by.  They loved eating all their candy and waving to all the people on their yachts.

Our whole group
That's a pretty cute group of kiddos!

Most of March was spent preparing for this cutie's Star Wars birthday party.  I spent hours on pinterest coming up with ideas and then lots of "quality" time with my hubby executing them :)
I was super happy with how the light sabers turned out and even more happy with how easy their little jedi robes were.  I made 12 matching jedi robes from material found at Michaels.  They didn't require any sewing and were very quick to make.  I cute the material into long rectangles and then cut halfway up the middle.  That's it!  Then into darker brown material fashioned belts for all of them.  They turned out so cute and Dax was very excited.

The cutest little jedi model ever!

We also ordered Dax some classic Star Wars costumes that actually fit him (Darth Vader and storm trooper.)  He didn't take them off for days!

Easter Sunday was pretty great.
I still can't believe that we brought him home from the NICU on Easter Sunday 4 years prior.  What a sweetheart and blessing he's been in our lives.  And look at all those golden curls!

Easter Sunday morning looking through his Easter basket and ready for church.

Daddy was pretty busy doing branch president responsibilities, so we took an Easter family pic without him.  I sure miss those golden curls on Dax!

That night we had a super fun BBQ at our cousins' house with an Easter egg hunt included.  Robert, Thomas, and Jaque were so sweet to hide all the eggs and then help Dax search for them later.  Daxton definitely LOVES his cousins!

After a VERY yummy meal, Easter egg hunt, and lots of play time with cousins, we celebrated one more time for Daxton's birthday.  I had made a stormtrooper cake for his birthday party the day before, but we ended up only using the Star Wars cupcakes instead.  We dug into his cake the following day.

Playing with some of his fun birthday surprises.

The week after his birthday party, it was my turn to teach preschool.  We worked on a couple different word families (-og and -at).  The kids did pretty well and had a lot of fun with the activities we had planned.

We sorted words into different word families.
The kids loved playing in the playroom that was still decorated like space from Daxton's birthday party.

We did a fun Spring art project with their feet and made cute carrots.  The kids thought it was pretty fun to paint their feet!

We also did a fun stamping art project using potatoes.  I cut several potatoes in half and then carved out different designs on the bottoms.  Then the kids used whatever paint colors they wanted to cover the potato bottom before stamping their papers.

They turned out so cute!

After our first day of preschool that week, Daxton's best buddy, Joey, stayed over for a fun playdate.  Joey had gotten sick that previous weekend and wasn't able to attend Daxton's birthday party and was SO sad about it.  We thought it'd be fun to celebrate again with Joey!  They had so much fun together.  They played dress ups with all of Daxton's new dress ups from his birthday (fireman, policeman, construction worker, stormtrooper.)  They played "don't touch the hot lava" from the party and also Star Wars Operation game.

Joey got his own Jedi robe and the boys chased bubbles with their light sabers outside.

Playing "Don't touch the hot lava!"
We were so glad that we got to celebrate with Joey!

Our last day of preschool that week we continued to focus on -og and -at word families.  We sorted popsicle sticks into the correct word families and read from the Dr. Suess book, "Go, Dog, Go!" which the kids LOVED.

They also used great team building and problem solving skills while creating their own obstacle course in the back yard.  They loved hopping from brick to brick.

For our last Easter craft, we made marshmallow bunnies, but the kids mostly liked eating all the little marshmallows throughout the activity.

Such sweet little buddies.  We love our preschool group!
We really are grateful for their kind and curious personalities.
(L to R) Julian, Joey, Dax, Levi, and Emily
(not pictured: Dean)

That sums up the day to day happenings from March 2016!  It was a pretty good month for sure.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Bryan's Family Visits: Butterfly World (February 2016)

After spending a super fun day at Hollywood beach, we decided to spend a relaxing few hours at Butterfly World before Bryan and family had to fly back to Washington.  There's such a special feeling at Butterfly World.  Not only do they have soothing instrumental musical playing in the background as hundreds of colorful butterflies circle around, but butterflies will forever remind us of sweet Mara, Bryan and Heather's oldest daughter who passed away almost 9 years ago.  I miss my niece and think of her often, especially when visiting Butterfly World.

Here are just a few highlights from our adventures at Butterfly World while my brother's family was in town...

The kids had so much fun looking at all the different butterflies in the butterfly aviary.  There were hundreds of gorgeous flowers in bloom as well.

Max was so sweet to let Dax follow him around and help point out items from the map.  I loved all the different orchids and tropical plants that are SO different from where I was raised.

Accompanying the several different types of butterflies, were gorgeous little birds that were so fast they were hard to get a good look at.  I brought my real DSLR camera and lucked out catching this little thing in movement!

Just some of the beautiful patterns...
We loved the angel butterfly all in white.

We found the COOLEST plant that curled at the moment you touched it's leaves.  They encouraged us to touch, so we could see it's reaction.  Daxton's mind was blown!
We were also able to see several butterflies emerge from their chrysalis!

Most of the time, the kids made several attempts at having a butterfly land on them somewhere.  I showed them the technique of approaching below very slowly, so the butterfly would simply walk onto their fingers.  This worked for the older kids, but Daxton could not slow down his three year old excitement and scared most of the butterflies away.  Look at those cute chubby little fingers though!

Katrina and Heather were both successful at holding butterflies!

Still trying to hold butterflies...so much concentration!

Sadie and Katrina holding more butterflies

I sure love this family so much!

After everyone had held multiple butterflies, this pouty frustrated three year old was quite done.  Max was the hero, though, and brought Dax his very own butterfly!  Max carefully placed the butterfly on Daxton's shirt where it sat for several minutes!

Max was even able to move the butterfly from Daxton's shoulder to Daxton's finger which definitely helped cheer up this moody toddler!

After looking at all the butterflies in the aviary, we explored the secret garden full of all sorts of passion flowers.  No matter how many times I see them, I'm still amazed by how unique and beautiful they are.  Sadie was a sweetheart and let Daxton borrow her camera.  I'm sure she had lots of fun looking through all the interesting shots he was able to get!

After all the flowers, we decided to feed the lorikeets!
It is always my favorite to see everyone's expressions as the birds start landing on their arms, hands, shoulders, and even their head.  Daxton did such a good job and was so brave.  I helped him hold the juice so he wouldn't drop it, but he didn't squeal or squirm at all.

Then all the kids took turns feeding the lorikeets as well.
I LOVE Natalie's expression below!

I love all the different beautiful colors in the Lorikeets' feathers.

As we were about to leave, the worker put one of the lorikeets on Heather's head.  I'm pretty sure she was just hoping it didn't choose that time to relieve itself!

We spent the rest of the time exploring the different exhibits, bug museum, running back and forth on the bridge, and then passing out from exhaustion.  The below picture of Daxton pretty much sums up our energy level at the end!

After having a great time at Butterfly World, we sadly went back to the house so everyone could pack their things.  As we were loading things into their minivan, we found a silly three year old trying to hide in their trunk.  Daxton was NOT happy about having to say goodbye to his cousins!  We loved being able to spend a few days with them.  We love our family so much and wished more than anything that we lived closer so we could see them more often.
Thanks for coming to visit us, Adams Family!
Come back anytime!  We love you guys!!

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