Mason as Skippyjon Jones


Will doing his best Lone Ranger!


Haysie's rather impressive busted lip


This child loves dogs more than anything!


This is what happens when Hays gets one of Mason's markers!

Just thought I'd share a few pictures of the madness that is daily life around here. We have survived another long, rainy day, but I'm not sure how many more we can take!! If the sun doesn't come out soon, Mommy's running away to Fiji!!!!

I had such a fun afternoon with my boys today. We have a really big backyard, but it's pretty much rocks and dirt and patchy bits of grass. Because of the rather rough terrain, we haven't really spent any time out there with the twins. We play on the back deck a lot, but I've never really let them venture out into the backyard. But now they are both competent walkers- and Hays finally learned how to walk in his shoes- so I decided it was time to give the backyard a go. I took them out after nap this afternoon, and they had a ball! They were amazed by this whole new, uncharted territory. It was like they had just discovered a new world! They explored every inch of the yard and loved every minute of it. Well, not every minute. There were lots of falls, a few of which resulted in tears. At one point, Hays tripped, rolled down a hill and busted his lip. That resulted in lots of tears and blood, but all was well after a few hugs and kisses and a popsicle! Once Mason got home from school, we had even more fun. It was one of those all-too-rare idyllic afternoons. The kind of thing you see in a commercial, or the dreamy, perfect version you imagine an afternoon with three little boys to be (minus the split lip). Truly a great day.
We did have one little hitch. Mason has "character day" at school tomorrow where he's supposed to dress as a character from a favorite book. We were going to use the book "The Devil You Know" which is a cute story about a family that has a mischievous little devil that lives with him. He causes all kinds of trouble, so they hire someone to get rid of him, but she, in turn, causes much worse problems. The story illustrates the old adage "If you trade the devil you know for the devil you don't, you just might get burned." It's a really cute, clever book and we were going to dress Mason as the little devil. Well, when he got home from school he told me , "My teacher doesn't think my costume is a good idea." At first, I was mad. The story has no religious connotations whatsoever, and there's nothing offensive about it. But after thinking about it, I realized that only the kids in his class will hear the story. The rest of the school will just think that I sent him to character day dressed as Satan! So even though I thought it was ridiculous, I convinced him that it was probably a good idea to change his costume. So now he's going as Skippyjon Jones, a siamese cat who thinks he's a bandit chihuahua. We went to Party City and bought cat ears, and a bandit mask, and I painted a cat nose and whiskers on him. He looks adorable, he's happy with it, and no one will be appalled or offended, so crisis averted!

Mommy and Mason in a rocket

Our only family picture!

Checking out a fountain at Epcot

Mason taking Daddy for a ride in a racecar!

At the Undersea adventure in Epcot

Yum!!

Meeting Lilo and Stitch

Checking out a hippo at Animal Kingdom


Our Disney trip rocked!!!! It would have rocked more if it hadn't been 98* with about 150% humidity, but what are you gonna do? Mason had an awesome time and that's all that really matters.
We did the Magic Kingdom the first day, and that wore that little boy out! The combination of heat and a lot of walking had him ready to go by lunchtime, but we convinced him to hold out a little longer. We made the mistake of not getting the park hopper tickets, so we knew we only had one day at each park and we didn't want him to miss anything. The Magic Kingdom was closing early for "Mickey's not-so-scary Halloween party" (That I did not want to pay an extra $150 to attend) so we had to cram it all in. But we managed to do almost everything, so we don't feel like he missed anything too great. I was disappointed that he didn't get to see the big Spectromagic parade at night, but alas, you win some, you lose some.
We did Epcot the next day, and I think that was everyone's favorite. It's very laid back compared to the Magic Kingdom and the crowds were better. Plus, there are a lot of interactive things for kids, so Mason had a lot of fun. We left Epcot early afternoon and went back to the hotel for lunch and swimming. Then we went back to the park in the evening for the fireworks, which were spectacular. Disney sho' nuff knows how to put on a show!
The third day was the Animal Kingdom, which was my least favorite. It had a few cool things, but I thought a lot of it was kind of lame and boring. Although, that day was by far the hottest and most humid, and we were all quite tired, so I'm sure that had a lot to do with it! We did enjoy the safari ride, and we saw an incredible "Finding Nemo" show, but I think when the twins are old enough to go, we'll skip Animal Kingdom and go to Universal Studios instead. And we'll go in November when temperatures are better!
See more pictures below!

Lines are boring!!

Tired little puppy

Whoa, castle!

The jungle cruise was cool!

Arriving at the Magic Kingdom

Waiting in line

Riding a dinosaur at the Animal Kingdom

Meeting King Louie at the parade

I forgot to tell y'all that Hays is finally walking! He's walking all the time and climbing everything in sight. His new favorite thing to do is climb up on the kitchen table!

We had a scary thing happen with Will yesterday. He choked while he was eating lunch, which he's done several times before. But this time, we couldn't get whatever was choking him out. He got progressively more blue, so I called 911 while Matt kept working on him. It got to the point that he wasn't breathing at all and lost consciousness. Luckily, Matt was finally able to get the chunk of sandwich dislodged and Will was breathing again by the time the paramedics arrived. His oxygen sats were low, so they gave him oxygen for about five minutes. His sats came right back up, and he was fine. He was exhausted, but fine, thank God. Stupid peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You've got to watch out for sandwiches. You know it was a ham sandwich that got Mama Cass.

So that made for an exciting Saturday morning. Although, in all honesty, we've gotten so used to crazy medical drama with Will that the rest of the day went along like normal. I went to TJ Maxx, Matt cut the grass, just a regular old Saturday!

Now we're getting ready for DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!! We're heading out later this week and we can't wait. We're dumping the babies with the grandparents and setting off with Mason to the happiest place on Earth!! He is so freakin' excited. It is going to be too much fun to get to take this trip with our sweet boy. So now I have to go make lists of all the stuff I need to pack for everyone. Lots and lots of lists!! Back soon with tales of our awesome Disney adventure!