What a vacation!!

It was too short...I miss Florida already...*sigh...* Well, we're back in Iowa! We had a great trip, and now we're back to the grindstone. Joseph left early this morning for classes, and I'm at home enjoying some quiet time while Jake is sleeping (it's 9 o'clock in the morning and he's STILL asleep! He's obviously exhausted).

Our trip started out with Jake's first plane trip ever, which he LOVED, and Joseph's worst plane trip ever, where he threw up twice in the air and once in the car ride after, and yes, he took Dramamine before we took off.

Ben picked us up from the Orlando airport late at night and we woke up early the next morning to go to Disney World!!

We met up with our friends the Whiteheads and had a blast together on the rides. This picture was taken on "Pirates of the Carribean" and it would have been great if Jake was looking!!

The evil Emperor Zurg!

Joseph killed me on the Buzz Lightyear laser game, my high score was 25,000, Joseph's was 220,000.

Jake was terrified of the characters. This was the first and only attempt we made to have his picture taken with them.

We didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked at Disney World because the kids were absolutely exhausted. We took them back to the hotel to take a nap and go swimming. Later that night, Joseph and I went back to Magic Kingdom to watch the fireworks show and catch some of the rides that we didn't get to earlier.

The next day we went to Daytona Beach!!! It was SOO much fun, but Jake was terrified of the sand! He wouldn't get out of his stroller unless we were holding him, but he did seem to like just hanging out there.
Yes, we all got sunburned (except for Jake of course, who was in the shade of his stroller the whole time).

On Sunday we went to church that was across the street from the Orlando Temple. We had never seen the Orlando temple in person, and it is absolutely gorgeous.
This is a random building that we saw in Orlando. It is called "Wonderworks" and it's an upside-down building! Crazy!!

We all had an awesome but exhausting time. Here is Jake on the plane coming home.
Alright, I know what you guys are all thinking. So did we use the leash or not??? Well, folks, it seems as though I need to swallow my pride and hand it to my husband. No, we didn't use a leash! Our friends had them on hand in case we needed them, and I'm not gonna lie, there were times that I really wanted to use one. If I had been there without my husband I would have taken it out, but Joseph was determined and it ended up that Jake was good enough without it that we didn't have to use it. We all ended up having a great and safe time. We decided that we're going to make it an annual trip. Now what do we have to look forward to? Summer break!!!

P.S. We have a lot of video from the vacation where Ben and Ursula are in it, but for some reason we don't have any pictures! I need to get a little better about taking pictures. But I promise they were there and they showed us a great time in Florida with their family. Thanks again Ben and Ursula for everything!!!

Orlando here we come!!!

And we're off! It's finally here, we'll be in Orlando for the weekend and next Monday I'll let you know how the trip went...I know you're all just sitting on the edge of your computer chair waiting to hear whether or not we broke out the child safety harness. I'm anxious to find out how it goes myself. Have a great weekend!!!

Frosty the Snowman

I know it's a little out of season...ok, a lot out of season...but the other day Jake and Joseph were just so cute together that I had to blog about it. One of Jake's favorite books is Frosty the Snowman. My dad got it for him for Christmas and he asks us to read it to him at least once a day. Of course, when you read the book to him you really just end up singing the song and he just laughs and laughs (partly because he likes the song and partly because he usually ends up getting tickled during it). So the other day, Joseph was reading the story to Jake and they were just laying there singing and laughing together.

I just love these boys!!!

You'd think I would learn...

Jake is a great little boy. Energetic, yes, but really a good kid. One of the things that I love about him is that he is very curious. As a mother, I try to foster this love of learning and exploring by not telling him "no" all the time, so I guess you could say I'm a little more lenient when it comes to the things he can play with around here. For example, I don't stress out too much about him getting into my cupboards and pulling out all the pots and pans. I know that he enjoys banging on them, no one gets hurt, and it keeps him happy. I don't mind if he takes all the books off the bookshelf because, again, no one is getting hurt and he seems to enjoy it. However, I, like every other mother I'm sure, have a breaking point. Pots and pans I can handle. Vaseline, I cannot.

"Vaseline?" you may be asking yourself. Yes, a whole canister in fact. Let me explain... I was sitting here at the computer checking my blog, ironically enough, when this all went down. I knew that Jake was in his room, and he had been in there for quite some time. It was quiet, and I could hear him taking all the books off his bookshelf (why do they find this so amusing?). He does this often enough that I wasn't worried about him, and I continued checking my blog. Then it got extremely quiet. I thought to myself "awww...he's reading in there!" and I, again, went right on checking my blog. I know what you're thinking..."Jake is 14 months old, he can't read!" Alright, true, he can't actually read the words, but he does sit in there with all of his books around him and flip through the pages looking at his pictures.

As I was sitting at the computer desk listening to the quiet I thought to myself, "Maybe I should go in there just to make sure that he's actually reading his books," however, that thought was quickly trumped by, "No, his bedroom is totally baby-proofed...there's nothing that he could possibly get into." You see, if Jake is completely content reading his books then hears me come in, all of the sudden he's not so content anymore and would rather hang on me then sit quietly reading. And so, I continued my blogging and let him hang out in his room. Finally, after much more silence and many more thoughts to check on him, I finally gave in and went into his room. This is what I found:

Oh...you'd think I'd have learned by now!!!!!!!!!! Apparently there was a canister of Vaseline sitting on top of his shelf that somehow he reached up to get (he must have stepped on top of his books that were toppled on the floor).

Right after this incident I threw him in the tub. It's amazing how hard petroleum jelly is to scrub off. We can chalk this one up to "I should have known..."

The Great Compromise

Thanks guys for all of your comments!! This child safety harness/leash (circle whichever you prefer) debate has caused for some pretty interesting discussion here in the Dougherty household. I tell you what, sometimes this whole "seeing eye to eye" thing is harder than it sounds! However, Joseph and I have come to a solution that we could both live with - I like to call it the Great Compromise. The plan is for me to buy a safety harness for Jake to have on hand just in case. Joseph wants to try as hard as he can NOT to use it, but if all of us are miserable then that's when we whip out the leash, not for our own sanity, but for Jake's. And so, we both win. Joseph will have to deal with trying to keep Jake happy on his own by not using it unless (or until) he breaks down. Hopefully he succeeds and we won't have to take it out of the package and then we can return it when we get home. But, obviously, we're going to have to wait and see what happens.

And so, in exactly one weeks time we will be with these people:

Going to visit these people:

At this magical place:

And just in case with one of these :

We'll let you know how it goes!!

To leash or not to leash, that is the question

We have some big news!! Nope, not another baby, don't pee your pants just yet. We're going to be going to Florida for a little vacay in (gasp) 9 days!!! We got a fabulous deal on airfare awhile back that we just couldn't pass up, and since Joseph has Thursday and Friday off next weekend we're taking advantage and going to the Sunshine State! We're going to visit Joseph's brother Ben and his family and take a day to go to Disney World then visit the beach. This has been a very exciting time of planning and looking forward to spending time with friends and family, but it has caused a discussion that has turned into a heated little debate at our house. Here's the story:

I was thinking about how it's going to be taking an extremely active little one-year-old around Disney World. I have taken him on shopping trips to the mall and on walks and such, and although he will sit in his stroller for a little while, after about 30 minutes he's done and wants to get out and run around, which is what he really prefers. I want to be able to let him walk around on his own, but come on, this is Disney World! I can't just let him wander around, and he really doesn't like to have his hand held. So our friends who are going on the trip with us (who also have twin one-year-old boys) came up with the perfect solution - safety harnesses! I thought to myself, problem solved! We'll just get Jake one of these cute little monkey backpacks that let him wander around while we hold on to the "tail" so he doesn't stray too far.

Or at least I thought the problem was solved... After I brought this solution up with Joseph he gave me a firm "No way in h-e-double hockey sticks" response. At first I really thought he was joking, but upon further discussion I learned that he truly has an aversion to these "leashes". He says, "Leashes are for dogs, not children." He's pretty insistent that Jake will either be in his stroller, held (by Joseph, take note), or he will hold his hand, but there will be no "leash" on our child.

So the question is this: Are child harnesses really just leashes for the lazy parent, or are they a liberator that will give the child a little more freedom than the stroller while still keeping him safe? Please give us your thoughts, we need some outside suggestions to help us solve this little issue.

P.S. Joseph would like me to make an addendum to this blog post and tell you that he did NOT in fact swear when we were talking about it. That was my own interpretation of the conversation, and he would never actually use even light swearing in our conversation. Noted.

The jelly bean king

I can't keep food (or anything for that matter) out of this kids mouth. I turn my back for two seconds and he has about ten leftover easter jelly beans shoved in there. And these aren't the puny jelly belly kind (are you kidding? we can't afford those...) these are the giant generic brand jelly beans with the multi-colored speckles that we all have to dig to find in the bottomless pit which is an easter basket. How he got them, I have no idea, but, there they were protruding from his excessively stuffed cheeks. He looked like he was playing "chubby bunny". Of course, instead of just taking them away like a responsible mother, first I had to take a picture or two (alright, five). He was pretty cute. Don't worry, as soon as I took the pictures I took those choking hazards out of his mouth.