Halloween 2013

This year we decided to go with a 'Wizard of Oz' theme for our family Halloween costumes.  Rocco of course was the cowardly lion.  Very fitting because even though he knows how to say 'roar' and 'trick or treat' he refuses to say anything at all around strangers. So trick-or-treating consisted of us saying it for him as we went door to door around our neighborhood. Our friend Pooja was in town and Scott's mom, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew also joined us for the festivities.  I have to say, it was the best Halloween yet!

Here's a photo of Rocco the Lion on the 'Yellow Brick Road' we found near Scott's office:

And a family photo from Halloween night:

First Haircut!

I finally had had enough of Rocco's crazy hair.  Yes, he finally has enough hair to warrant a haircut!  The back and especially the sides near his ears have just been a crazy curly mess lately.  So off to the hair cutting place we went!  He actually did great.  They had bubbles and videos to distract him so he sat still in his little firetruck car thing while the hairstylist cut and styled.  He looks like such a little boy now, but I think his hair looks a lot better.

Before (and no, we did not purposely do anything to his hair to make it look this bad - it would look like this every time he got out of his car seat):

During:

After:

Pumpkin Patch 2013

It's that time again - pumpkin patch photo!

I can't believe how much he has grown compared to last year!

Legoland!

My sister Misty won 4 free tickets to the Legoland theme park, so four adults and three children all went for the price of only one adult ticket purchased - pretty sweet!

For a new theme park, I was pleasantly surprised by how many rides they had. There were of course a lot of Lego displays throughout the park that were very impressive in both their intricacy and size.  They also had a trick-or-treat event going on while we were there which resulted in Rocco having more Smarties candies than could be possibly consumed by two grown adults, nevermind a two year old child.

We really enjoyed visiting Legoland but I don't think we will be going back anytime soon due to the fact that it is REALLY far from our house (relatively speaking compared to the other 42 bajillion theme parks in the Orlando area). Perhaps if someone we knew was visiting there we would make the trek, as we really did enjoy it, but otherwise I think we will stick to theme parks closer to home.

Rocco on a Lego camel

Scott and Rocco in front of a Lego pharaoh statue complete with ankh and cartouche, I was impressed! Also, this was in front of the funnest ride we went on (in my opinion), it's very similar to the Men in Black laser ride at Universal if you have ever been on that

Lorelei looking adorable, per usual

Ken and Kieran on the Lego safari ride checking out a baby elephant (huge mama elephant not shown in this photo, but it moved and sprayed water on people through it's trunk)

Scott and Rocco also enjoying the ride

Rocco's 2nd Birthday Party!

For Rocco's 2nd Birthday party, the theme was Sesame Street.  Rocco absolutely loves all the characters and probably has about 15 Sesame Street board books. Granted, he has only seen a couple episodes of the show itself and loses interest in it pretty quickly (can't sit still for that long!). However, he does love a couple Sesame Street YouTube videos, especially Elmo's Song and Elmo Ducks.

Here's the invite we had for his party:

Back

Front

The party decor:

Birthday Banner

Table setup

Backdrop for photos

View of the room

To go along with the theme we had Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes made. They were not only cute, they were delicious! Even Rocco agreed - you may recall that he wanted nothing to do with his birthday cupcake last year.  Definitely not the case this year!

Birthday Boy loved being sung the Birthday Song!

After eating his cupcake - he looked like he murdered cookie monster!

We really enjoyed having both our families celebrate his birthday with us! Here's some photos of the party attendees with the Birthday Boy:

Scott's brother and his family

Scott's sister

Scott's mother

My parents

My sister and her family

Please ignore my hair (it was the end of the party - it looked better and was not in a ponytail previously, I swear!), also Rocco was OVER picture taking at this point, also you cannot tell my shirt is Cookie Monster in this picture.  Oh well!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Two years doesn't seem like a particularly long time in the grand scheme of things, but when you have a child, two years is 730 days filled with hugs, giggles, cuddles, crying, sleepless nights, and the greatest joy I have ever known. So happy second birthday Rocco, you are loved more than you will ever know!