Walt Disney World!!!!

We always said we'd never go until the kids were older - at least older than 5.  We always thought it was beyond ridiculous to take/haul around/pay for a child who would never remember such an important, exciting and expensive trip (although both of us went when we were "older" and we had a hard time remembering a lot of things at the parks, so that made us feel much better about taking Noah so young!). We always said we'd probably try Disneyland in California first just to see how the kids would like it and how the trip would potentially go at Disney World. We always wanted to go, just the two of us, first.  We always flat-out said "no" and "it's definitely gonna be awhile."  Then.... sparing you the long story, things changed awhile back and we made plans to go and take Noah the third week in April 2014.

Well.  Guess we ALL know why we had to change our plans to January, huh?  ;)

So..... we just got back from the happiest place on earth - Walt Disney World!!!!  We hit up Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney.  We had the most incredible time and made so many fun memories.  Noah is just so stinkin' easy and the trip really couldn't have run any more smoothly than it did.  We absolutely didn't have an agenda or a schedule, went with the flow of things and couldn't have asked for a more perfect vacation.  Really.

There's no way we'd have enough time to sit here and blog in detail about all the fun we crammed into our 7 days there and there's definitely no way we can successfully post the almost 500 pictures we took, so..... we'll just highlight the best parts - which, get ready, may be a lot!  ;)

This sign will always make us remember Noah, practically screaming, "LOOK!!!  MICKEY!!! MINNIE!!!"

Toy Story Mania ride!

Our little Padawan getting ready to fight Darth Vader up on stage!

Fighting - and winning!  ;) He has talked non-stop about this little experience.

Sitting in cars, having lunch at the drive-in theater.  Some of THE best milkshakes we've ever had.  Ever.

So cute in Darth Vader ears.  =)

Hollywood Studios!

Oh, this picture.  He sure has our hearts in a big way!

Riding Dumbo! Not sure if this was the first or the 10th time.....  ;)

Driving a race car on the speedway!

Magic Kingdom!

Half the reason we came to Disney World was right here.  Pineapple ice cream.  The only other place you can get this little cup of goodness is actually IN Hawaii at the Dole Plantation (well, and Disneyland).  We may have eaten till we got sick.  ;)

Some of us chose Mickey ice cream instead.  ;)

Parade!

Epcot!  Definitely our least favorite park out of all of them, but even getting drenched in the rain that day, we still managed to have fun and make some pretty neat memories.  

Driving yet another car.  =)

Starbucks.  Disney style.  These just may be the best Starbucks cups we've ever had a drink out of.  ;) Aren't they CUTE?!?!

Downtown Disney. This place was quite a bit of fun.  =)

Once he saw there was a Lego store, he wouldn't let us go anywhere else.  Him and his Daddy had a blast building their own little men to take home, playing with a table full of Lego's and then buying half the store.  ;)

Hands down, THE most fun and entertaining restaurant.  We'll definitely go back.

Our Magic Bands - aren't these adorable??  =)

Breakfast with the characters.  Oh my.  This was TOO much fun!!

Animal Kingdom!

Digging for dinosaur bones.  ;)

This one is for Uncle Brian.

Another super fun lunch - Rainforest Cafe!

Finding/meeting characters.  Noah would squeal with delight when he'd spot someone.  So cute.  

Breakfast at our hotel.  And what could be finer than a chocolate chip Mickey waffle (almost every morning)?  

That about sums it up!  Noah's already asking to go back because "he loved it there and had SUCH a good time!"  =)  We told him we'll tentatively plan another trip when his baby sister is around 4 and that we'll go try Disneyland and see how he (and she) likes those parks!  That seemed to make him happy, but 4 years is a long time to wait.  We'll see how long we actually can.  ;)

And She Will Be Called....

We had our 3D/4D ultrasound done today!!  We are still marveling at the amazing technology these days.  =)  The appointment seemed to fly by.  We knew it would.  Because seriously, how old could it possibly get looking at your baby!?!? (Jen keeps asking Greg for an in-home ultrasound machine.... but you can all probably guess how THAT conversation goes....)  ;)  Anyway..... Greg took the day off for this appointment and we brought Noah in for it as well.  He seemed to be totally in awe and excited to look at his baby sister, although maybe not 100% sure what was going on.  ;)  (the little stink pot kept moving around and getting annoyed with the ultrasound tech, so we didn't get the best of images like we did with Noah - either way, some pictures are better than none!)

So here she is.  Just plain adorable.
Say hello to Emma Lynn Fulkerson!

If you'll remember a blog post from a loooooooooooooong time ago, we had said that it was a challenge to pick out a boy's name for us, but that we had already picked out a girl's name.  Well, 4 years later, we still loved that name!  We did go through some baby name books and "top 100" lists, but even after writing down a couple of others that we thought were cute, we always came back to Emma and could never picture her name as being anything else. So.... Emma it is.  =)

6.5 months along! Feeling big, but so very happy these days!

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart...." - Jeremiah 1:5

Four Years Old!

4 years old.  On 1-4-14.

So, what do we make of this turning 4 stuff?  Well.... the date is cool, but other than that, we don't like it very much, that's for sure.  4 years have gone by WAY too fast for us.  4 seems like way too big of a number for him. 4 (more than 3, 2, or 1) has made his mommy cry a few times.  4 means Pre-K. 4 means he's really not a baby anymore.  4 feels like 40 to us.  4 has brought about a few nice changes in his little life though.  ;)

So, about our 4-year-old's celebrations this year..... we did a Cars themed birthday party since he's very much into all of that these days.  =)  We had his party at our local YMCA again, but this year we booked a bounce house party complete with scooters, basketball, car decorating, racetrack car racing, a tattoo station and quite a few neat Cars themed snacks!  This little boy of ours was red-cheeked, sweaty and never stopped grinning and laughing the whole afternoon.  He kept telling us, "I love my party!"  The crazy snow and some sickness brought about some cancellations of a few of his friends and family, but we still had a great time and he never seemed to miss a beat!  (We're just thankful we didn't have to cancel completely!)

After his party, since it was still early enough in the evening, we did another separate party and dinner with just the family back here at our home.  We had such a good time celebrating our boy.  He is most definitely a pleasure to celebrate, that's for sure.  Can't believe the next time we have a birthday for him, he'll be 5.  5!!!

Happy Birthday, gorgeous boy!  We love and treasure you so, so, so, SO much!  My how these past 4 years have flown, but we can't wait to see what life holds with you and to have many, many, many more years celebrating YOU!  =)  You are hands down THE BEST little boy we've ever met and can't imagine life without you.  You are such a gift to us!  We always tell you that you are our "best boy" and based on how you live and love life, you must think we're pretty special, too.  ;)  Thank you for loving us almost as much as we love you!

Welcome 2014!

Happy New Year!!  And what a wonderful start to the new year we had, too! 

After sleeping in, making breakfast and lattes, we headed over to Bob and Cheryl's in the late morning.  Our good friends, Kyle and Maddy, are here for a quick visit and we just had to go see them!  Noah is absolutely in love with Maddy and he has quite the fondness for Kyle, too. They played planes, made the toys fight and did all kinds of boy things that Noah is into doing lately.  =)  Noah probably wished that Kyle lived with us.  ;)

After that, it was lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then sadly saying goodbye to them for another 4 months. We miss them muchly and really hope they move back here someday.

After heading home for a nap and a little regrouping, the plan was to head back out to our new Bass Pro Shop here in town and take Noah bowling for the first time with some of our dearest friends, the Mortons.  Well, as we were getting ready to head out the door, Trisha texted and said that they had beat us there and found out that they were booked up for the rest of the night!  Boo!  So... off to Brunswick they headed (and us trailing not far behind)... only to have her text us again and say there was an hour and a half wait!  Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!  Thankfully Matt has a military ID and could get us onto the Air Force Academy - where he called and found out that there was NO wait!!!  Yay!!!  =)  So off we went.  Third time's a charm, right?  ;)  Noah had more than the time of his life.  If only we could have somehow captured every single little moment of his sheer excitement.  And those little bowling shoes of his.... goodness. Never thought bowling shoes could be so.stinkin'.CUTE!!!  =)

After all the excitement, it was dinner together at Cheddar's.  Then we went our separate ways, headed home and crashed.  ;)

Whew!  What.A.Day!  What a WONDERFUL day!  =)

Christmas Happenings

A lot has been going on with us during this holiday season (surprise!).  In a way, it feels good to be done with the hustle and bustle and just sit down and enjoy each other again with some quiet nights at home. 

These past few weeks, we've gone to some Christmas parties - church, work, friends, etc.  We also made great attempts to keep up with a bunch of our own little Christmas traditions.  We went and looked at lights all over town one night with some dear friends (and we even went out quite a bit and saw them alone as well).  We've still managed to sneak in a few play dates and get-together's with friends over the past few weeks.  We've also been shopping a lot for fun as well! 

We set up our tree a few days earlier than desired this year.  Mostly because we got a new one and we were excited to get it up.  We got a super tall one for our family room and Noah thought it was quite cool that he (and us!) had to stand on a stepstool just to decorate it.  ;)  We were gonna stick our old tree in the playroom up in the front of the house where all the windows are, but we just didn't get around to it this year.  There's always next year.  ;)

We made two sets of Christmas cookies this year.  Here is the first round:

Noah was in his first Christmas program at church!  He was beyond the cutest kid (ahem, cow) up there, and as cheesy as the program and his part was, it was super fun (and a bit crazy/surreal!) to be a parent sitting in the audience of a child in the program.  =)

We went and had Christmas with Greg's parents at their new home one night.  Noah could hardly sit still through dinner he was so excited.  And rightly so - he was spoiled like crazy and got some pretty cool gifts!

Noah set out cookies and milk for Santa again this year.  Although this year, he set out carrots for the reindeer, he (and Daddy) thought Santa might like chocolate milk instead of white,  AND he also colored some pictures for him.  Boy was he thrilled to see crumbs on the plate in the morning AND that Santa took home all of his pictures!  =)

We celebrated Christmas at our home with Jen's family again this year.  It was super fun to have a new addition to celebrate with - Noah still can't get enough of "his best buddy."  =)  Auntie and Bob came over later that evening to celebrate with us as well.  It was fun opening gifts, celebrating the holiday and enjoying them being a part of our family.  =)

We went to the zoo and saw the Electric Safari!  We'd talked about going last year and never made it, so we decided this was the year to go.  We're glad we did - it was neat!  And the weather was perfect, too!

Now that all Christmas activities have seemed to cease, we can focus on Noah's birthday and get that all planned and prepared for.  He's getting excited for his party next week - gonna be another fun one again this year!  =)

Friends and family, we hope your holiday was filled with lots of love and Christmas cheer.  From our home to yours, we hope for a wonderful New Year for you all!

Beyond Blessed

What a wonderful time of Thanksgiving we've had this year!  It always seems like it just can't get any better, and then every year surprises us with the fact that it does! 

We started the Thanksgiving weekend (and eve) off with celebrations at Jen's Mom's house.  We don't think we got out of our pj's for an entire 2 days - and it felt great, too!  It was also fun having Judah around to celebrate with us this year.  Such a precious little guy - he fits in just perfectly!

Then.... it was off to Estes Park with our little family of 3 for the rest of the holiday weekend.  It's our yearly tradition to head up there the day after Thanksgiving - one that we are SO glad to have!   We did our usual shopping downtown, trying out new restaurants, seeing their little cheesy parade, sightseeing and lazing around in our cabin.  It's so great to not have an agenda or a schedule and to feel a million miles away from "normal" for a few days.  =)

Now we're home.  Greg is still in the midst of enjoying 6 days off in a row!  Our plan is to finish decorating the house for Christmas, get some odds and ends done around the house, wrap presents and then ditch Noah for one of those days so we can get the rest of our Christmas shopping done (and even have a date night)!!  =)