Watch Me Grow!

It's NOT a good idea to mentally prepare to have a baby early, even if your first baby is almost two weeks early, and all four of your sister's kids were 2 to 2 1/2 weeks early. All of that means NOTHING. I'm ready for this baby.

In the mean time, I made a collage of my pregnancy pictures.
Have fun watching me grow!

Fun Times with Friends

As we're still waiting for baby sister, we're still trying to keep busy. Ty has had several play dates with friends, and we've been so lucky to have some really nice days!

Ty and Luke Coplen

 

  Ty and Elizabeth Newson at the Butterfly Pavillion. We also met up with Henry Forsyth and Nicholas Cantinella for some cool butterfly viewing.

We even got to have a sleepover with "Ty's doggie" Quakey. Ty had a blast the entire time. I'm not sure if Quakey had the same experience. Either way, they are cute friends!

Winter Fun

I've tried not to be anxious for this baby to come, and really enjoy time I have alone with Ty. Here are some of our adventures:

 Denver Museum of Nature of Science with friend Elizabeth

 

 

 

 They have a new children's area and Ty loved the water.

 After the dinosaur exhibit, you can see the real work being done on dinosaur bones. The window was open and this man was talking to the kids. Ty wasn't shy at all. He asked "Are you cleaning the dinosaur bones?"

 

 Below is a floor with lights that made it look like a stream. The kids enjoyed chasing the fish that would swim around.

 We went out for frozen yogurt one night when Ty found these glasses among the games. He looked pretty cute if I do say so myself!

 The weather here has been pretty great. We have had many days in the 50's (and even a few in the 60's!) with a few snowy days mixed in. We have definitely taken advantage of the warm days.

Okay, it's been fun, so now I'm ready for baby sister to come. :) I hope she doesn't wait much longer.

Baby Shower

 I have some great friends here in Louisville. A few weeks ago, my visiting teachers Mindy Hoffman and Emily Wright threw me an adorable baby shower!

Mindy and Emily (below)

 We played "The Price is Right" with baby items and had guests fill out advice on these cards below. The number on your card was advice for being a mom to a child that age.

 I received so many wonderful gifts. Cute toys, blankets, and much needed girl outfits.

 Great friends!

Valentine's Cookies

 I got ambitious one day and made sugar cookies for Ty to decorate. Though he didn't want to put the frosting on himself, he sure enjoyed the sprinkles. It was another nice day, so we even made it to the park!

Disneyland Day 1 (1/7/15)

If you haven't been to Disneyland, or haven't been for a long time, there is one thing you should know. It really is the Happiest Place on Earth. There are families who live hours and hours away, yet purchase annual passes to take their families multiple times throughout the year because it is that fun (my sister is one of them). And it is addicting. My family started meeting up for Thanksgiving at Disneyland a few years ago, and we love it. This year when we didn't go for Thanksgiving, I missed it enough to plan my own family trip. 

We started thinking about it because Ty is completely obsessed with Disney's Cars, and with a baby on the way, we knew we wouldn't get to do anything big for a while, especially as Tim graduates this summer. We used our hotels.com free night and Skywest credit card miles to save a little money, then added some money and gift cards we received for Christmas to help fund our trip and headed out to California!

Ty's bag was packed and ready for our trip:

 Daddy and Ty at the airport:

 We made it!

 

My sister, Mindy, who recently bought season passes, brought Katherine for a few days for her third birthday. They were only able to spend a few hours with us before driving back home, but we were so happy to get to see them! We started in Fantasyland with Peter Pan, then did the tea cups (yes, Mindy and I both did them!) We made the kids go with Tim to spin a little more.

 Dumbo!

 We packed in a few more rides before Mindy and K and to leave. Ty and K didn't have too much time to really warm up to each other, but they'll be friends soon enough.

 The boys on the bridge at the Tarzan Treehouse

 Once we left Mindy and K, we explored Toon Town. Ty loved all of the cars there.

 This is a picture of a picture, so it's not great quality, but we got to meet Mickey!

 The highlight of Toon Town was when we sat down to eat lunch and Pluto, Ty's favorite Mickey's group character, came up right next to us. Ty was so excited!

 When he came back to us, he said "Budo is the best dog in the world!"

 We walked back to our motel for naps, then spent the evening at California Adventure. We arrived just in time for the Pixar Parade. Ty was still a bit sleepy when it started, but he perked right up when he saw Lightning McQueen and Mater!

After the parade, we went into Cars Land (Radiator Springs). All of the neon lights were on and the street looked just like the movie. Ty was riding on Tim's shoulders and he just heard Ty say, "Whoa, dis place is a-mice-ing!"

Because Lightning and Mater were in the parade, Red the Fire Truck was greeting people at the Cozy Cone. We didn't even have to wait in line!

 We ate a delicious dinner at Flo's Diner, then got to actually meet Mater and Lightning!

 Ty was a little too star-struck to smile for the pictures.

 

 We did the Flying Tires ride, then Mater's Junkyard Jamboree (below), which ended up being one of our favorite rides (Daddy and Ty did it twice!). The tractor drives in a figure 8 while the trailer behind swings side to side. At first, we thought Ty was scared, but all of a sudden he just burst out laughing and laughed on every curve!

We walked around the rest of the park a bit and rode the Little Mermaid ride (one of my favorites) which concluded our first fun-packed day!

Disneyland Day 2 (1/8/15)

 Our three-day pass included one Magic Morning at Disneyland (where you get to go one hour earlier than when the park technically opens), so we started early. Just as we were walking in, we saw Chip and Dale and were second in line to see them. Too bad Ty looks like he's being kidnapped in the picture we snapped. 

As we walked up to the castle, we saw they were filming something. If you can't tell from the picture, it looks like it is a carriage from Cinderella.

 Our next time passing, we found out it was for Wheel of Fortune and below is Vanna White and Pat Sajak.

We used our magic morning riding rides in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. Ty was ecstatic to ride the race cars at Autopia. He even got to drive! (He's below, but you can barely see his head.)

 ...okay, so maybe Tim did most of the driving.

 After a few more rides in Tomorrowland, we took off to the great frontier (ie Frontierland) and got on the riverboat!

 

 Next on the agenda was Tom Sawyer Island where we ate lunch. Mommy rested while Tim chased Ty around.

 Where is Ty?

 Take another look:

 Cute boys.

 We headed back to the motel for much needed naps then went back to the park for the evening where we did the last of the rides on our agenda, and some of them twice! We ate dinner while watching the Mickey's Map Show which is our favorite.

Our walk back to the motel goes through Downtown Disney, so we stopped at one of the big Disney Stores on our way home and let Ty use some of his Christmas money to get a gift. Unfortunately, his top pick was this huge Mack Hauler that cost over $60. He ended up settling for a Doc Hudson car for $8.