James Update

A few things that I love about James lately: 

He is such a good big brother. He loves his "Moo Moo" so much and now that Mac is getting older, they are actually spending more and more time interacting and playing together. I love it so much.

James has become fascinated with all animals. He loves learning facts about them and has an alarmingly good memory. He will often bust out random facts throughout the day that always surprise me. The other day at lunch, James: "Mom, did you know rhinos and ox peckers have a symbiotic relationship?" Me: "Uh, do you even know what that means?" James: "It means they help each other." And then he went on to list all of the animals he knows that have symbiotic relationships. 

He is still loving his Legos and his Lego mini figures and is really into making his own creations and putting on Lego shows for me. This is his "Bubba car" creation with policemen that put on a very in-depth show for me that combined circus acts and crime fighting. This kid does not lack imagination, that is for sure.

James is so sweet lately. Tantrums and whining are pretty few and far between and he truly is a pleasure to be around. He is constantly telling us how much he loves us by assigning random numbers and units of measurement to his love. Example: "Mom, I love you eighty ten pounds today!" "Does Macky know I love him all the way past all the houses and mansions in the world and past all the animals, thirty seven ten miles?" This morning he crawled into bed with Mac and I and snuggled in and said, "I love my family!" Seriously, heart-meltingly sweet.

4 has been a pretty awesome age for James so far. What a sweet, smart boy we have!

Mexico-The Long Post

Dave and Steve have been saving up their reward points on their business credit card for years, which benefitted all of us when Dave decided to use them up to take the whole family on a vacation. Amberly was our travel planner and picked out the all inclusive resort we stayed at in Mexico and booked everything for all of us, including our airline tickets. All we had to do was get the boys' passports and show up. Count me in! Traveling with the whole family could not have worked out better. James and Mac had their cousins to play with, there was always someone to hang out with for everyone, and there were always people willing to watch the kids so everyone could enjoy themselves and relax. It was truly an amazing vacation and we are so thankful to have been treated to such a wonderful trip. The pampering started immediately with welcome cocktails for everyone!

As I said before, James phrase of the trip was, "This is so FANCY!" He loved the robe and slippers in the hotel and wasted no time in trying them on the second we walked in our room.

 Just like at home, Mac was an early riser so we hit the beach nice and early each morning and had it to ourselves for awhile. He loved every second of the beach and ocean.

As he always does, James also loved every second of the beach. The resort was situated in a protected little cove so there were hardly any waves and the ocean was super clear and really shallow so it was very safe for the kids and we were able to relax while they played close to the water without hovering right over them.

 Mac could happily play in the sand for hours with a pail and shovel. He face planted on purpose numerous times daily coming up with a face full of sand and he didn't seem to mind one bit. At times he even ate spoonfuls of sand right out of his shovel.

I discovered on this trip that Mac is the King of accessories. He loved wearing his sunglasses and also loved Taylor and Chloe's headbands. If they were wearing one, he would rip it right off their heads and put it on himself.

We spent most of everyday on the beach and would then head back to the rooms for late afternoon naps and meet back up for dinner. The restaurants at our resort were great and everyone went out of their way to make whatever the kids wanted to eat.

 Enjoying the view from our balcony.

The resort had a bungee trampoline, floating trampoline and floating climbing wall out in the ocean. James was our resident dare-devil and tried them all!

Does it get much better than an oceanside bar with swings instead of seats to drink your fruity frozen drink on? I vote no.

The swim up bar was another personal favorite.

All 4 of the kids played so well together and had so much fun spending so much time with each other.

 Amb and I soaking up some rays in the pool. Amberly is about 31 weeks pregnant and was such a trooper traveling while that pregnant (especially while not being able to drink at an all inclusive resort)!

Mimi watching over sleeping Chloe and sleeping Mac on the beach (they are each laying in the shade of the chairs).

James was seriously in heaven on this entire trip. Being able to walk up to the poolside bar and order an ice cream cone whenever he wanted was just icing on the cake.

The resort had a Kid's Club that James, Taylor and Chloe could go to whenever they (or we) wanted. They did activities on the beach, crafts, watched movies at night on the beach, and had a bunch of other fun stuff planned each day for the kids. James and Taylor expecially loved it and made some new friends! This is the kids with their group after building a giant sand heart for Valentine's Day.

What a fantastic trip, we are so lucky! We are ready for High Country Beverage to keep racking up those points so we can do this again-ha!

Mexico Preview

We just got back from an absolutely amazing vacation in Mexico with the whole Nichols family. It was so relaxing and over the top indulgent-we were all spoiled! James and Mac absolutely had the time of their lives. James said, "This is just so FANCY!" about 17 times a day. I have about a gazillion photos to go through, and need to get everyone elses pictures too before I do a full marathon post, but thought I would post a few of my favorites for now!

Addicted to Instagram

Snow Day!

Today was the perfect snow day: James did not have school so we were not wasting a day of school we already paid for (am I the cheapest mom ever or what?), the boys snuggled with me in bed until nearly 7 (heaven compared to their 5:45 wake up time as of late), Tim pulled up to the house at about 8am after spending the night in Denver and having the clinic he was supposed to work at in Boulder close for the day, we had waffles for breakfast, we shoveled and played in the snow all morning, we met friends for lunch at Noodles for a fund raiser for a local little girl, we took naps, made soup, and James had his first "drop-off" birthday party this evening. We only got about a foot of snow in Longmont (although it is snowing again now). Just enough snow to make it feel all winter wonderlandy but not enough to really snow us in. This was Mac's first snow since he started walking, so he actually got to explore a little bit. He did pretty well walking around in his clunky snow boots and enjoyed his time outside. 

 James went to work right away on shoveling. He didn't make too much of a dent in our extra-long driveway.

 We also got out the sleds and made some runs down the driveway before clearing all the snow off.

 James moved to the front yard as we shoveled and jumped off the porch into the deep snow repeatedly.

 Mac hit his walking in snow threshold after about a half hour and got transferred into the Ergo on my back for the rest of shoveling.

We were so happy to have a day together as a whole family! I fully admit to being 100% spoiled the past 3 years in terms of Tim's work schedule. His new schedule of working 5 days a week and typically only seeing the boys in the evening for about an hour or less before bedtime has been tough to get used to for all of us. We have a fun family weekend planned as well and head to Mexico in a week, which we are very excited for! Happy snow day to all our friends in Colorado!