Mission today: make children happy!

Kind of like this. These were actually taken yesterday, when I had about an hour respite from my work and we ventured out into the backyard in the 40ish degree weather. How did we keep warm? We (well, mostly Caleb) ran around a lot. And why don't we have coats on? Because we were optimistic about the temperature out there and well, just generally had no clue. It actually warmed up when the sun was shining, but even so, just under an hour was enough for me!
(Caleb, on the other hand, could have stayed out there all day.)

What is he so excited about? The 40 degree weather, no doubt!

What is he doing with that baby walker toy, you ask?

Not sure. I was going to get rid of it and he found it outside.

It made him happy, though!

The sun was actually bothering Ariana's eyes.

Success as a mother: making your baby smile.

He's in a ditch. Stuck with his walker.

There's this huge ditch at the edge of our yard. Erosion? Yikes.

Gotta go do more of that today.

The many faces of our 7 month old

She turned 7 months old while we were at Disney.

Happy belated 7 months, Ariana!

Disney 2010 - Animal Kingdom

Here's the first installment of pictures from our vacation to Disney World. There are four parks, and Animal Kingdom is the newest one (it did not exist 12.5 years ago on our honeymoon). We spent almost a whole day here, staying until closing (it closes earlier than the other parks), after which we headed over to Epcot. This is where Caleb got to meet Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore for the very first time (that night he also met them at Epcot). You don't see the Pooh pictures, because he was a little shy at first, but by the time he got to Eeyore and then Tigger, he had warmed up considerably, entertaining everyone by the end. Ariana slept through the whole thing.

We saw lots of animals, including a tiger that came up to the glass to say hello and just stood there staring at us (weird!) - I quickly took a picture with my phone. This was in Asia and the architecture that contained the animals here was beautiful. We had lunch in Asia, then headed over to Africa for a safari, which was really neat and enjoyed by all (a little bouncy at the end when we were trying to escape from the poachers, but the baby slept through that too).

The lion on this safari was really roaring! I think it was close to his feeding.
(Our guide said that she had never heard the lion roar before.)

Here's the tiger - up close and personal.

Lunch.

Ariana eating in the highchair.

Taken during the 5 minutes that she actually stayed in it.

Afterwards I had to get really good at balancing my coconut shrimp on my fork

with a very bouncy baby.

Tree of Life

Dinoland, USA

Riding with Daddy

You may have heard that there were some problems with this child.

Yes, yes - while the problem with other children is that they tend to run off, our child's newest antic was to stop in his tracks and not move an inch. On a few occasions, no amount of pleading or command would budge him. Exhaustion, overstimulation, a cold, and what proved to be a developing stomach bug were the culprit - at least the ones we know about.

Several times we would ask ourselves, who is this child?

But here - here, he was completely himself -

our humorous, goofy, entertaining sweet boy making a scene of THE GOOD KIND,

demonstrating perhaps to all how absolutely exhausted we were by the end of the day

each and every single day.

Good times.

Surveying the loot

We are back from Disney, sunkissed and exhausted and it will take me at least a few days to sort out all my pictures before I upload them here. This picture was taken the morning after, when we unpacked all of the toys that came back with us (and before the vomiting began). No worries, the vomiting is over now, but it sure explains the uncharacteristically non-compliant behavior of our firstborn during our trip. We thought it was just exhaustion and overstimulation, as well as the sickness he was just getting over, but as it turns out he was also coming down with a stomach bug. That also explains why he had no appetite and why a child who is normally sweet, agreeable, and reasonable beyond his age would start acting in such strange ways. Thankfully, today we have our normal, easygoing son back.