Happy 5th Birthday Mr. Pickles

This year we celebrated Wyatt's birthday at My Gym. He decided he wanted to invite all 15 kids from his preschool class so we had to find a space big enough to accommodate this request. Wyatt was all smiles and the kids all seemed to have a great time.

I can't believe what a big boy Wyatt has become in his first five years. His favorite activities are skateboarding, skateboarding and more skateboarding. When he is not skateboarding he is playing with his mini "tech deck" skateboards or watching skateboarding videos at Gigi's house. He also likes to play fireman with Malcolm and loves drawing pictures of sharks and, you guessed it, himself skateboarding.

He loves listening to music - Lady Gaga and Rihanna are favorites - but even with those singers on its hard to drag him on to the dance floor. He has grown in to quite an adventurous eater. (I honestly never thought I would ever get to say that about him.) He loves to eat sushi (avocado rolls, tuna rolls, miso soup and edamame are his favorites). He also LOVES pizza and has recently developed a taste for salmon. We also recently discovered that he loves powdered sugar doughnuts, like his mama.

Wyatt looks very forward to going to school (he now goes four days a week 8:30 am - 1:30 pm) and hanging out with his best buddies Edvin and Allistair. While there he tells me he likes to work on his "writers notebook" and the water drop lesson. He doesn't have a girlfriend at school this year because, "they are stupid." Yup, he's a five year old boy alright. (Obviously we discourage the use of the word stupid to describe anyone but, those are his words from our post-dinner discussion tonight where he told me, he and his friends just don't play with girls, as if there is really no other way to put it than, they are stupid!)

Wyatt also told me that they celebrated his birthday at school on Tuesday. Because he'd had another birthday, he claimed that meant that he was already five and a half! I tried to correct the math, but I'm pretty sure he is still convinced of it. Happy Birthday(s) little guy. We love you!

First Trip to Disney and Seaworld

This past week we went to visit Gregree and other family members in Orlando and to take the boys to Disney for the first time. They loved it.

Their favorite part of the trip was visiting Shamu at Sea World, where, despite Wyatt's better judgement and pleas to move away from the tank for fear of getting splashed, we got soaked by a vindictive orca whale. Luckily Wyatt, who took the brunt of the freezing salt water, recovered quickly. After initially screaming and crying and yelling at his parents for not listening to him, he decided the incident was actually hysterical and had a good laugh about it...the rest of the trip.

Highlights of the Magic Kingdom included the race cars which we stood in line for many times to ride again and again. They also loved the many parades and seeing all the Disney characters, especially "the real Mickey Mouse!" They loved the outdoor rides like the roller coaster in toon town, the jungle cruise and Aladdin's flying carpets. They also loved the classic Its a Small World. But, following Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh, Wyatt quickly picked up on the formula Disney uses for most of its rides which includes moments of happiness combined with something going terribly wrong and darkness followed by bliss. He was fed up with it and refused to ride any other indoor ride that involved "a dark scary cave" So, my personal favorites, Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain, were out of the question. Despite being relegated to only outside rides that didn't have dark scary caves, they had a blast!

We also visited Animal Kingdom and went for a safari ride.

All in all a great trip!



We settled in to a nice routine of hitting the park all morning and afternoon, leaving for an evening nap in the car and then swimming/hot tubbing and dinner at the house. Luckily the kids stayed on West Coast time so this was possible.

New Skateboard Trick

Wyatt's still skateboard crazy - we've been skating every day while on vacation. Here's a little video of his latest trick.

Silly Scubas

Wyatt and Malcolm take their scuba diving very seriously -- complete with back tank and mouth piece, they take turns exploring coral reefs in the bathtub. They are inspired by the scubas in the tank at the Academy of Sciences that the go see weekly. For the record, the boys think they are called scuvas.