Discovery Kingdom

Yesterday we dropped Simon off with my mom and  headed to Vallejo to take the big boys to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Mitch had taken them there last year with his sister and their cousin (while I was stuck at home with awful morning sickness), but this was my first time going with them. It was SO much fun! It was freezing cold and cloudy when we got there, but after lunch the clouds burned off, and the weather was a perfect 74 degrees. We spent the whole day there until we were all so exhausted we could hardly walk anymore! I agree with Sawyer when he said it was "the best and most fun day EVER!" Maybe next year Simon will be big enough to join us too!

Waiting for the tiger show to start

Safari Jeep ride

Frog Hopper ride

Playground

Playground Show Off ;)

Watching the dolphins swim

Butterfly Pavillion - the camouflauge on these huge butterflies look like owl's eyes!

Butterfly Pavillion (we were all soaking wet from the rapids water ride we had just been on!)

Checking out the penguins

But it wasn't all just kiddie rides and animals...

After we all rode The Cobra (a small rollercoaster), Sawyer decided that he was ready to tackle the Boomerang with his dad. He actually wanted to go on a couple of the other big rollercoasters, but this was the only thrill ride where he just met the minimum height requirement.

Sutton and I were happy to be waiting at the bottom...but if you zoom in on that track up there...

...you'll see my two brave daredevils in the very front car! Mitch said it was pretty funny because Sawyer really had no frame of reference as to what was going to happen. The cars get pulled to the very top of the left tower, released to go through a corkscrew and loop series, and then back to the top of the right tower where they're released to do the loops again backwards! 

Sawyer said it was a ton of fun, and he was grinning from ear-to-ear when he got off the ride...but later on he admitted that he's not going on any more rollercoasters until he's a little bit older! ♥

Chompers

Look at all those teeth! Not the most attractive picture, I realize, but I swear this is all I get these days! I can't take out my camera or my phone without Simon instantly attacking me and climbing all over me to get at it. So all the pictures I've been getting are these weird extreme close-ups of him making strange faces. At least I'll be able to remember that he had this many teeth at 10 months, right? Because naturally I haven't taken the time to fill out these kind of things in his baby book...the last kid always gets those things overlooked, right?

In other [but still about Simon] news...he is walking! Yay! He's been taking about 5-6 steps at a time mostly, but this morning he did one big 14-step venture in the kitchen. Last night he impressed his brothers by walking from his bedroom doorway and down the hallway to the bathroom door. He's well on his way to being a full-time walker very soon! I can't believe it's already time to start getting ready for his first birthday (and his cowboy birthday party!)!

4th of July {Photo Overload!}

This was the first 4th of July in years that we didn't have plans to get together with my family and spend the day in the pool. We could have done that, but since we had already had a long weekend (more photos from that to come!) we were excited to stay at home and let the day unfold naturally.  We pitched in with our neighbors and rented a waterslide bounce house, and the boys spent the earlier part of the {SUPER} hot day playing with their friends in the water.

 As night began to fall Simon fell fast asleep, and Mitch and Don set up the "Tripod of Doom" at the end of the cul de sac - 3 ladders with platforms in between for the fireworks. Between all of our neighbors we ended up with well over $600 worth of fireworks!

Sutton proudly wore his tie-dye firework shirt that he had made earlier in the day.  

 Sparkler Time!

 Mitch kicked back with an icy lemonade and took on sparkler-lighting duty. The kids had a blast writing their names on the street with the sparklers (am I the only one who never knew you could do that!?!), and since there were so many of us we had a TON of sparklers and snaps for the kids to pass the time until the big fireworks show.

 This kid (not one of mine!) thinks he's fireproof. No joke.

 If you've ever seen a fireworks display put on by my hubby, you know that it doesn't take long before one firework at a time turns into numerous fireworks in multiple locations!

 See that burst in the sky up top? Yeah, we had some fun illegal fireworks too, thanks to Jonathan. He set off a few bottle rockets and roman candles to add to the show.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that a street-level fireworks show can't be as exciting as the aerial ones!

Even lighting several fireworks at a time turned out to be too long of a show for my boys since we had so many to do, and they were pretty exhausted from their day of fun in the sun and bounce house. I took them home at 9:30...just in time to put on jammies and watch the McBean aerial show from the playroom window. I had such a great 4th of July just staying home and enjoying the company of family and neighbors! :)

Food, Finally!

Look at all those teeth! He has 4 teeth, soon to be 6 or 7 since the new ones are just about to pop through too!

 I've been slacking on the family blog lately (sorry Grandma!), but we've been a bit preoccupied with passing an awful cold/flu combo back and forth between Mitch, Simon and myself for the past few weeks. Luckily the big boys never got it, but it managed to take on practically every different type of incarnation it could between Mitch and I! Yuck! Mitch is finally feeling better after a course of antibiotics, and I'm on the upswing (slowly, but surely) after deciding to forego yet another expensive trip to urgent care in favor of just letting this thing run its course.

Anyway, blog slacking aside, we've pretty much just been up to the same old things around here. The biggest news of the week is that we finally got Simon to eat a bit of solids - yay! Sawyer and Sutton both loved baby food purees and finger foods, starting at around 5 months, and they were both greedy and eager eaters. Simon, not so much. He hates purees, and finger foods trigger his overactive gag reflex resulting in a vomit eruption of epic proportions every time. I figured he would just grow out of it in time, but since he's now 9.5 months old and still not eating I figured it was time to try some new tactics.

A few days ago a friend recommended that we try Baby Led Weaning, which (among other things) allows the baby to try larger pieces of food instead of purees and finger foods. The goal is that the baby will be able to learn their own gag limits (so we can expect some more vomiting in the beginning as he's testing it out, but it's to be expected) and then learn to take small bites and chew on their own instead of being spoon fed. Naturally, you have to watch them to make sure they don't end up with choking size pieces, but because a baby's gag reflax is much further forward on the tongue than an adults it's not really a huge concern as long as he is supervised. Luckily Simon has a mouth full of teeth already, so he's pretty keen on biting into things and chewing them up...we just need to work on the swallowing part.

On Saturday morning he looked pretty interested in the pancakes that I was making for Sawyer and Sutton, so I figured what the hell...let's give it a shot. 

I gave him his own whole pancake, and he went to town on it! At first the little bites he took made him gag,  but I sat next to him cheering him on and calming him down when the gagging started to freak him out a bit. After awhile he stopped gagging and actually started to chew and swallow little bites of his pancake! Most of the pancake ended up in small crumbs all over everything, but he definitely chewed and swallowed about 1/4 of it!

Success! Happy baby! :)

I decided to try to keep up the successful streak with a whole strawberry since he loves to gnaw on them in his mesh feeder. At first he wasn't sure what to do with it, but after inspecting it for awhile he put it in his mouth for a little taste test. I wish I had gotten a picture of the grin that he flashed when he realized what he was holding!

He managed to eat about half of the strawberry before he gagged himself and threw up all the strawberry and most of the pancake too. Oh well, it's to be expected as he's figuring out his limits. I'm just truly impressed that he managed to eat ANY of it in the first place!

We also tested it out last night with a slice of avocado at dinnertime, which he loved. He wasn't all that interested in holding on to the avocado (maybe because the texture is different?), so I held it and he bit it. He ate about 1/3 of a slice without throwing it up at all, so I'm calling that one a success too. Baby steps, right?

I truly feel so lucky to be one half of the team that gets to guide these sweet little guys through life. Every day they're growing, changing, learning new things and impressing me with how much they know. It's been an amazing journey already, and I can't wait to see wht the future has in store for us. ♥

Happy Birthday Hattie!

Happy Birthday Hattie Alice in Wonderland! {LOVE} these silly photo booth pictures!

I have a few more pictures to post later from Hattie and Stella's birthday parties, but Hattie's Auntie Lolo just sent this one to me, so I had to share it! I really hate how the new Blogger photo layout makes all of my pics seem blurry, but if  you click on it to make it full size it looks a lot better! :)

Preschool "Moving-On Ceremony"

Sawyer (center, in blue) had his preschool graduation today. Many Montessori schools have a tradition called a Moving Up ceremony when the children graduate to the next level of schooling. Since our school doesn't extend beyond the primary level they call it a Moving On ceremony, which I think is really sweet. Today there were 10 kids that will be moving on to kindergarten in the Fall.

Sawyer will actually be attending the 6-week Summer session, so it was a little bit strange to both of the big boys that we were celebrating today if he's not really moving on until the end of July. Luckily, they were easily lured back to school on a non-school day by the promise of a build your own ice cream sundae bar after the ceremony :)

Receiving his rose from Ms. Amy. He was a little bit embarassed about all the attention!

The boys both got roses, and Sawyer got a special certificate.

He could barely hold still for a photo...all the ice cream goodies were being set up in the distance!

This guy could hardly wait! Seriously, Sutton knows that he'll be back for the Summer and another whole year, so he was really ONLY there for the ice cream LOL!

Finally! Yay! Cupcakes, brownies, cookies, strawberries, marshmallows, candies, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles galore!

Vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, M&Ms and a red velvet mini cupcake. Yum!

Simon spent the hour just like this, slowly drinking a bottle and people watching.

I can't believe I'll be sending my baby to kindergarten in just a couple of months! ♥

One More...

This is a terrible camera phone photo of the actual photo, so it's not totally in focus, but you still get the idea! I {LOVE} this one (but if I knew it was going to be a photo day, I would have made sure they'd done their crazy hair beforehand!)! Now I just need to dress Simon up in some silly garb and snap a few goofy pics of him too!