The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

The GJ Fan Club

Who’s the leader of our fam and loved by you and me?

It’s GJ! It’s GJ! It is our GJ!

gj birthday

Hey there! Hi there! Ho there!

She’s as awesome as can be.

It’s GJ! It’s GJ! It is our GJ!

gj bday

It’s GJ! (Birthday girl!)

It’s GJ! (Birthday girl!)

Today we hold our birthday banner high high high!

So come along and sing a song and join the jamboree!

gj bday

It’s GJ! It’s GJ! We love our GJ!

Obviously you should be singing that to the tune of themesong for the Mickey Mouse Club! Guess I’m still in the Disney spirit!  🙂

disney

Happy Birthday GJ! We sure do love you and are wishing you a magical day!

Want to revisit some cuteness? See the other GJ birthdayday posts here – 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010

Disney

After a fun day at Legoland, we made the quick drive over to Orlando and were happy to check into the Grand Floridian! There was a little hitch with our reservation and they didn’t give us connecting rooms which was far from ideal. Happily, they made it beyond right by giving us a 2 bedroom suite! Woohoo! It was the ideal setup for our crew and gave Robert a great place to watch the AL game that night! Roll Tide! While sorting out the room situation, Samantha was having a ball in the hotel lobby and even met a princess!

disney

Things were going great and, miracle, all kids had gone to bed early and were sleeping great…until 2:30am when I hear this thunk thud aaaaaaahhhhhh! Spencer fell out of bed and hit the nightstand WITH HIS MOUTH. There was plenty of screaming, blood, busted lips, and messed up teeth. Oh boy. What is it with me and mouth injuries?? We got him cleaned off and calmed down and back to bed. It then took me another hour to get Baby back to bed! The next morning, Spencer’s mouth was pretty swollen and I was able to text the dentist and get an antibiotic called in for him. Trying to avoid the dreaded gray tooth! Despite it all, Spencer was SUCH a trooper and ready for a day of fun at the Magic Kingdom – as we all were!

disney

Our first stop was Barnstormer and then we hit up Dumbo and Ariel…

dumbo

and the Teacups (which Samantha loved)…

teacup

really LOVED!  🙂

teacups

We then took a little frozen lemonade break. Refreshing in the scorching heat!

disney

It was then time for our Seven Dwarfs Mine Train fast passes…the best ride!

disney

disney

Keeping up with Samantha in the park is a challenge. She either doesn’t want to be in the stroller and wants to be held, or doesn’t want to be left behind when her brothers get to ride rides! GJ nicely volunteered to take Samantha with her to pick up Spencer’s medicine and then hang out at the hotel. Robert and I got to enjoy the park with the boys for the rest of the day while baby got to have a relaxing “air conditioned” lunch!

disney

The boys and I had some lunch and then headed over to Splash Mountain. The wait was long but we decided to go for it. Spencer was SO excited that he was finally tall enough to ride!!

splash mountain

They both obviously loved it and it was well worth the wait!

splash mountain

We then headed to Main Street to watch the parade and eat some ice cream.

ice cream

disney

We then sat through the Carousel of Progress and ended the day with Buzz Lightyear!

buzz

buzz

Of course, before we could get back to the hotel, we somehow ended up getting talked into buying Light Sabres! Oh well, they were fun for all!

disney

More Disney Monday!

Legoland!

Because you only turn 6 once…and because we’re a little bit crazy…we took the kids to Legoland last weekend to celebrate Maxwell’s birthday a little more! We planned this trip a few months ago, long before we knew Hurricane Hermine was going to hit Florida the day before we were supposed to go! But, other than a delayed plane flight out, we had no other problems and barely even any rain.

The crew was excited to fly out Friday afternoon…

legoland

and we were all excited to meet up with GJ and Daddo and get to the Legoland hotel Friday night! Everyone loved the disco elevator and the cool pirate Lego room. It only took the boys about 3 minutes to figure out the code to open the treasure chest!

legoland

The hotel really was neat and the kids had fun the next morning playing with all the Legos in the lobby…

legoland

and then we walked down the path to Legoland!

legoland

We started out in Miniland visiting all the cities made out of Legos…

miniland

and then we raced cars, drove boats, saw Lego friends, and road rides!

legoland

legoland

legoland

legoland

We also melted because it was SO HOT and SO HUMID.

legoland

There were a few little rain showers but nothing too long or bad. Our favorite ride was the Dragon roller coaster that both boys could go on. We did that one twice! By lunchtime we were hot, tired, and ready to go. We stopped off at the Lego store (of course) and then grabbed lunch before heading out. We conquered Legoland and had another adventure to go on…to the happiest place on earth!  🙂

Avengers Assemble!

We celebrated Maxwell’s 6th birthday this year with an awesome Avengers party here at the house. He drew the invitations…

invitation

and we emailed them out to all of his old friends plus his new kindergarten class – 33 kids in all! We had a big group but thankfully we also had a beautifully sunny (and hot!) day for them to all play outside, jump in the bounce house, get their face painted, get a balloon made, bust open a piñata, and enjoy cupcakes!

We had the house all decorated…

6th bday party

We had treats for everyone…

6th bday party

And we had a very happy birthday boy!

6th bday party

6th bday party

6th bday party

6th bday party

Of course we couldn’t have pulled it off without the help of GJ!

6th bday party

6th party

The only hitch of the day was when they came to deliver the bounce house and we realized it was too big to fit in the backyard! Uh oh! We moved to Plan B and put it in the driveway and I think that worked out even better. The face painter was Maxwell’s favorite part and the balloon man was the surprise hit of the party! My smartest move of the day was hiring 2 high school girls to be helpers!

face paint

6th bday party

Maxwell had no problem blowing out his candles…

6th bday party

6th bday

6th bday party

and the piñata was a hit! Literally! Even if Robert did have to finish it off to finally get it to bust open!

piñata

piñata

6th bday party

Everyone had a great time and we all loved getting to party with Maxwell!

6th bday party

bday party 6th

bday party

I also have to brag on Maxwell because he had all his thank you notes written in 3 days!

thank you notes

It was a super fun party for a super awesome kid!!

6th bday party

I sure do love celebrating Maxwell!

Things

Catching up on things around here the past week or so…

A huge thank you to Susan for the awesome birthday gifts! Captain America, Hulk, and Cinderella!  🙂

susan presents

Another huge thank you to GJ for making the incredible Avenger masks! The Captain America and Wonder Woman masks were the party favors at Maxwell’s party. The Hulk will be used for Spencer’s part in October and the Wolverine and Iron Man were just for the boys. GJ’s the best!

masks

We loved having all of our favorite people in town last week to celebrate Maxwell!

family

In other good news, Samantha’s teeth are still white!! Woohoo! After the unfortunate fall, I was really worried her front teeth were going to turn gray but, we’re past the 2 week mark and they are still white so we should be in the clear. We went back up to the dentist this week and he was able to get an x-ray and good look at them and said they looked great. Phew!

dentist

In other not so good news, Samantha’s second day of school did not go so well. 🙁  She was having plenty of fun with brother before we left…

red shoes

and she looked awfully cute in her new red shoes…

red shoes

but she just didn’t have a good day. She was crying when I left and the teacher said she was just very clingy to her all day and could never really get happy. She didn’t even eat her lunch! They were worried that she was maybe getting sick but, nope. She was fine by the time we got home. When I picked her up at school, she didn’t even smile when she saw me but actually started crying – it was almost as if she was just overwhelmed with everything and was so relieved to see me that she just couldn’t hold the tears in. Break. my. heart. Oh, sweet baby. I guess the only way to get her to like school is to keep going – so, we’ll be back next week and will be hoping for a better day.

That’s it around here. Have a wonderful long weekend!