Our sweet Ben Ben celebrated his 3rd birthday this month! We love this little guy to pieces! His actual birthday was a Tuesday, so it was kind of lame because we all had to be at work/school/daycare and then Jamie had to teach his adult art class that evening. But we still managed to make it special and Ben seem just tickled the whole day.
Happy Birthday, Ben!
Daddy made some special pancakes for Ben
Working on his new Lego set before Jamie's class!
We went through the whole birthday song, Ben surprised me by knowing most of the words!
One of his bigger gifts was an excavator (or "excabator" as Ben calls it), and I had a really hard time prying him away from it. He's really into construction equipment lately, and is getting pretty good at knowing all the names (mom is proud). Still working on the difference between a loader and a dozer though!
Time to dig!
While a bit big, Evie really loves this thing too!
We had the family over for a party on the weekend. The kids got hard hats and went to work constructing toothpick structures. I was just trying to keep them busy for a bit, but they were surprisingly into it! Maggie even made more structures the next day!
Future engineers?
Ben was perhaps the smartest kid, opting to skewer and eat marshmallows rather than build!
They all did a great job!
Maggie and Luke combined their work to make a mega-structure
Violet getting her hard hat ready with Frozen stickers
Will got there late, so he appointed himself judge (and helper)!
It was great to have the family together, and we all took turns stealing baby Jane for some cuddles!
Grandma with her oldest and youngest grandbabies
Jane hanging with my mom
Talking with Grandpa
Lots of gifts for this kiddo!
Let them eat cake!
A construction party requires a dirt cake (with larger than life worms)
Family!
Cousins in a box
Ben's new toybox! Yes!
Stair-Ball! Intense game.
Here's a few other photos:
The girls started piano lessons and are loving it!
Spoiled by Aunt Jody, Grammer and Grandma on V-Day!
Well after almost two years of delay (thanks, COVID), we finally took our big Disney trip! Ben was a few days away from turning 3, so we took advantage of his free entry while we could!
Disney World 2022
Ben took his first plane ride there. He was very freaked out at the very beginning, but settled down after takeoff. Delta screwed things up (or did they?) so that one parent was sitting alone and the other sat with the three kids. Jamie took the hard path. This is romance at 38.
My hero
Must touch all the things
Ready for the subway
We stayed at the Art of Animation resort in a Lion King suite that was perfect for us. Each girl had a bed and we rented a crib for Ben - plus Jamie and I had our own room and bathroom! I was the cheap mom who packed a bunch of food, which I highly recommend since my kids will happily eat my $0.50 peanut butter sandwich as much as a $9 kids meal!
Scar does not intimidate her
Hanging with Rafiki
Hakuna Matata
Ben liked the "Cars" portion of the resort
We had three days of great Florida weather, and two days of chilly-ish weather - worked out great for us!
Jamie basically made every minute of our vacation count - he made amazing game plans every day and strategically got us through the parks with very few waits. While I'm normally a detailed planner, I have a hard time caring when my brain is in vacation mode, so he totally saved us.
First trip on the Skyliner - these things were an awesome way to get to some of the parks!!
Yes, that is the sun rising. There is no "sleeping in" at Disney.
The first day was Hollywood Studios, aka Star Wars heaven. Jamie was literally tearing up when we saw the Millenium Falcon. In the words of Dwight Schrute, it was "perfectenschlag." The girls each made a droid and Jamie made a light saber... they ran out of the protective cases, so he had to carry it around the airport (slightly embarrassing, but also a really great tool to flag down mom when she picked us up!).
Jamie is in his happy place
Act casual
Our kids had lots of time to practice their patience (and test ours)
Slinky Dog dash
This was as close as we could get to Olaf. Pictures are lame with the masks, but Ben was tickled.
Goofy made a surprise appearance!
Ben really liked Pluto, even got himself a Pluto stuffed animal for his special gift!
Evie decided on this bubble maker, which is actually pretty cool. And she very maturely let Ben play with it a lot to keep him occupied!
I like cars. No big.
Making their droids
They had to use the force to power up their droids:
Feel the force (on your pocketbook)
MVP of the trip was our umbrella stroller which "converted" to a double stroller as needed
I took Ben and Evie back to the resort towards the end of the night, and Jamie and Maggie stayed to get on the Rise of the Resistance ride, which had a 2-hour wait... and then broke down at the end of the night. Jamie went to guest services to complain, and they gave him an extra hopper ticket for him and Maggie plus lightning passes to come back a couple days later... Disney customer service is insane!
The second day we did the Magic Kingdom and went on all the cool rides. Ben went on his first roller coaster and LOVED it! All the kids are really into rides! We stayed late to see the fireworks, which were pretty amazing.
Classic
Love you boo
Ben loved Dumbo!
Ben's first rollercoaster - the Barnstormer!
Thick as thieves
Desert "painting" at Beauty and the Beast's castle... most expensive lunch my kids never ate.
Best picture ever? We did not get the sword out.
Kids are suckers for the carousel
Love this boy
Ben was star struck when meeting Mickey
Socially distancing from Mickey
Third day was for relaxing at the resort! Jamie and Maggie went back to Hollywood Studios for a few hours and I took Evie and Ben to the pool for some fun! We went to Downtown Disney which was about as boring as I remember, but at least we had a really lovely dinner!
Jamie confirmed that Rise of the Resistance is the coolest experience ever
You can see the joy in his eyes
Conned Dad into an extra treat
Pool time
Splash pad fun!
Cupcakes before dinner, because it's vacation
Lego store had some impressive displays
Chewy and Rae
Date night = 1 hour of beers with a sting ray while the girls watched a movie in the room and Ben slept.
Fourth day we decided to do Animal Kingdom. The safari was as cool as I remember from last time, and the Avatar ride was insane... I am not a big roller coaster fan, but that was truly awesome. We went to the bird show which was really impressive and were pretty much done with everything by mid-afternoon. I'll spare you the details, but Jamie somehow still had a hopper pass for him and Maggie, so we bought one for Evie and he took the girls to Epcot for the night. I stayed back at the hotel with Ben, our poor sleep-deprived kiddo. I'm a little sad I missed Epcot, but a few hours of peace and quiet was also pretty fantastic!
Tree of life
Parters
Growing up too quickly!
These two
My favorite animal from the safari - a bongo
We all did a step by step animation tutorial. I did this! I'm overly proud of myself.
Pretty good work from this girl!
Hanging in Pandora. Evie is giving Ben bad habits.
I love these smush faces!
Ben's beloved Pluto
Epcot!
Hanging with Renoir's boating party
They all loved the Test Track!
Epcot's show did not disappoint!
Our last day we packed up, rode on the Skyliner for fun (Ben really loved it), then headed home. We made it back around 9:30 on Sunday, threw the kids into bed to get ready for school on Monday. Jamie and I took the day off to deal with groceries, laundry, unpacking, etc.
Bye bye, Disney
All in all, it was a really great vacation and I think the kids had an amazing time. Wearing masks was a little annoying, but not a big deal. I definitely think the Disney "magic" is lacking right now because the cast members aren't wandering all over the parks to interact with people. All the special little touches that made us totally "drink the Kool-Aid" last time aren't there, but it was still a very fun and memorable trip!
