Our Little Buddy is FIVE!!

Only 4 days after our trip to Amelia Island did we get to celebrate again - this time for Nathan!!  :)

Our little Bud-ster turned FIVE!!  

Daddy & I decorated his door with streamers so the celebration would begin as soon as he woke up!  

Official birthday pancake!  

Fielding birthday phone calls, I honestly think this is his favorite part of his special day.  Last year he notified his callers that they could sing to him and this year he had a list in his head of who had and hadn't called him.  He would periodically let us know who hadn't called yet!  :)

In his birthday streamers with his Green Lantern undies on.  Once when Nate was visiting with his cuzzies, Claire and Nick, he found out that Nick sleeps in his undies.  Since then Nate has to "Sleep like a Nick!"

Present time before heading off to summer school.  

Nate did a great job of reading his cards by himself this year:

Mads got Nate the Turtle Shell he's been eyeing up!  :)

Nate's big present from Mommy & Daddy - a new bike!

With his Turtle Shell on:

We had quite the predicament this year.  Nathan's birth time is 8:14AM and I've always taken his official birthday picture, but this was the first year he's been in summer school and it starts at 8AM!!  So this is his pseudo-official birthday picture at 7:56AM before sending him off to summer school:

After summer school was out we headed to Janesville for our afternoon of birthday fun.  Up first was Nathan's movie choice - Inside Out!

It was in 3D too!

 Then birthday dinner at Red Robin!  Nate got his birthday balloon and sundae!

He was all smiles during his birthday song!

 Yummy!

 He's a full hand!!  

 We put whipped cream on Nate's nose - he wasn't a fan!

 When we got home Nate found a card in the mail - he opened it up and read it before bed.

 Dash even gave the birthday boy some snuggles at bedtime!

Since we were busy in Janesville on Nate's birthday he wasn't able to try out his new bike until another day.   This bike fits Nate so much better!  :)

Weeeeee!

Video:

I can't believe Nathan is FIVE already!  I'm obviously in denial, when I went to buy his #5 candle at the store I picked up a #3 and walked halfway to the checkout before I realized I had the wrong number candle!  :) 

Happy Birthday to our funny little Nate - you light up our lives with your jokes and fun sayings!  We love you!

Amelia Island Trip - DAY SEVEN - June 20th

June 20th was the last day of our trip, and mostly a day of travel.  We were up early to pack and get to the airport on time.  Not as early as our trip to Florida, though!  This time our flight out of Jacksonville was at 9AM.

We said goodbye to Villa 1A:

 and our zippy rental car!

We got to the airport, dropped off the rental car, and found our gate.  It was then that I realized just how tan the kids got - they also picked up some freckles across their noses!

JAX --> DTW

Seasoned pros handing over their boarding passes:

We had a nice flight from Jacksonville to Detroit.  It was long enough to almost watch a whole movie.  Mads and I watched Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  Daddy and Nate watched a movie together too.  

When we got to Detroit we didn't have much of a layover and our plane to Milwaukee was in a different terminal.  After confusion on my part and insisting we NOT take the Tram (when we should have - Andrew as right) we flew down every moving walkway as fast as we could with kids in tow and made it to the next plane just as they began to board!

DTW --> MKE

 Daddy grabbed some snacks for the plane.  Good thing, too, since the flight to Milwaukee was so short that they didn't have time to bring out the snack cart!  Daddy and Nate shared some Combos!

 While Mads enjoyed some chips!

 We made it safely to Milwaukee, grabbed our bags and off to the shuttle we went!  The kids were big helpers pulling their luggage!

We got back to the van and drove home.  We got home by 3:00 and stopped to see Amelia at her spot.  We had a couple presents to drop off for her:

We found her spot decorated wonderfully!  

The dozen roses came from Gramma J!

  We brought Amelia a pink dolphin that says Amelia Island on it!  :)

 Happy Birthday Sweet Babes!  :)

After telling Amelia all about our trip we headed home and then it was time to do the laundry from vacation!  Amazing how quickly the relaxing vibe of vacationing disappears, isn't it?  :)

Overall we had an absolutely fabulous time on our trip.  We made the trip special for everyone and made sure to celebrate one little Angel's birthday the best that we could!  Happy Birthday Sweet Amelia, we hope you enjoyed your birthday vacation!

Amelia Island Trip - DAY SIX, Part Three - June 19th - Family Photos

When we booked our trip to Amelia Island I knew that I wanted to have our family pictures taken on the beach.  I figured it would be one way to have our entire family together, the four of us here, plus Amelia in spirit on the Island with her name!  

How do you go about finding a photographer in town you know nothing about?  Well, you start with the internet!  I asked the owner of the condo that we rented for a suggestion and when I reached out, they never contacted me back.  I did a little more searching and came upon m.bee images on Facebook.  I looked at her portfolio on her website and contacted her to see if she would be available in June for us.  She was so nice in her messages and I felt totally at ease with her.  I told her Amelia's story and the reason for why we were vacationing on Amelia Island, also why I wanted June 19th as our session date.  Melissa was so understanding and compassionate - I know that I was led to her!  :)

As our vacation unfolded Melissa became our unofficial tour guide!  She lives in Fernandina Beach and gave us suggestions of restaurants to try (Arte Pizza!) and things to do (Sunset Cruise!)  

When it came to the afternoon of our session, a thunderstorm started rolling in.  We actually lost power in the condo for awhile when the kids were napping.  You could hear the thunder in the distance and I was worried that we were going to get rained out.  Melissa contacted me and asked my thoughts on the weather situation.  She offered to meet us earlier than our scheduled time in order to make sure we got a few photos taken.  We all rushed to get dressed and Melissa dropped what she was doing and we all met at the pier 20 minutes later!  We are so thankful that Melissa was so accommodating as our flight was out of Jacksonville the next morning at 9AM.  We didn't have time left in our trip to reschedule.

Melissa was so fantastic with the kids.  Mads was super happy to make a new friend while Nate, on the other hand, wasn't too happy about being woken up from his nap.  He was a grump-master and a lot harder to win over!  BUT - Melissa brought bubbles, Skittles and a giant umbrella - all which won Nate over!  :)

As always, pictures are worth a thousand words, but truly look at how wonderfully Melissa captured our family, on our once-in-a-lifetime trip!

Quick!  Everybody assemble on the pier!

 Such a gorgeous girl! - Who are her parents?  :)

 See...  Grump-master!  :)

 Nathan finally got himself happy!  :)

 We think this is when Nate was telling Melissa all about the Ninja Turtles!

 So serious!

 A photo that I will treasure forever - 

Looking at all of my favorite pictures brings tears to my eyes again.  Melissa's work is absolute perfection.  Thank you so much for helping our family capture amazing memories of our vacation on Amelia Island!