Valentine's Day

This day is my absolute least favorite holiday.  I have always thought so.  Am I the only one?  Seriously, who thinks that it is a good idea to wait 3 hours at a restuarant that you can walk right into tomorrrow?  Who thinks that you should spend as much money on one dozen roses as you would buying them once a month the rest of the year?  And really should we have to create a day that requires our significant others to tell us that they love us?  Shouldn't they do that every other day of the year?  People used to tell me that I hated it because I didn't have a boyfriend, well people, I have been with Joel for 17 years now and I still hate this holiday!  I think what topped it all off was these stupid cards I have to address for the boys' school parties.  Serioulsy so dumb!  In Tyson's class we didn't even have the names of his classmates to put on them so I sent 20 generic stupid cards with his name on them.  Really, what's the point?  The only good thing about this day is that every year my awesome in-laws send us each a box of chocolates.  I do love getting mail and eating chocolate even if it is for Valentine's Day! :)  Whew, I feel better!  Now I am going to eat all the candy the kids brought home from school because I can ...

And just because it's a cute picture...

Charlie's Birthday

I really cannot believe that Charlie turned 4!  How has it been 4 years?  Time seriously flies these days.  I can't lie and say that I haven't been looking forward to this day for quite awhile.  I had it in my head that once they turn 4 they magically become a well behaved child.  I have always said 3 is harder then 2, so once they turn 2 I can't wait until 4.  But here we are, he is 4.  But I am sad to report there has been no magical change yet.  But I am still very hopeful! 

He is very much a handful, but he also makes me laugh everyday.  We always say when he is having a good day he really is fun to be with.  And nothing beats that smile, nothing!  As difficult as he can be I would not change a thing.  (well, maybe the hitting :) )

I was reading a friend's blog and she had a quote that really hit home for my Charlie:

"It is my firm conviction that the strong-willed child usually possesses more creative potential and strength of character than his compliant siblings, provided his parents can help him channel his impulses and gain control of his rampaging will." 

Rainbow cupcakes for his party at school!

Happy 4th Birthday!

He LOVED being the center of attention!

My Favorite Book

Here is a brief summary of one of my favorite books I have ever read about autism.  And believe me, I have read a ton of them!
Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Autism

A Couple More Videos

Pixar Parade


Charlie Pretending to be in Parade

Days 6-9

I really need to finish the posts on this trip so I am putting the remainder of the trip in one post.  Joel decided that since we were already in Florida we may as well add a couple days at Disneyworld.  I personally thought he was crazy.  I thought the cruise was pushing our luck and then to add the craziness of Disneyworld, yep, he had officially lost it.  But with some convincing I thought "why not?"  We were extremely bad at taking pictures at Disneyworld, but we got some great videos I will try to get up soon.  Can you even imagine our two boys at Disneyworld?  Are we crazy or what?  Large crowds, loud noises, long lines, you name it, not a great mixture for our kiddos.  But, as with most of our family experiences, it went MUCH better than we ever thought it could.  I am going to tell you a little secret and I hope that no one ever takes advantage of this secret because we absolutely would NEVER have been able to do Disneyworld without it.  We got a note from our boys' doctor that explained their diagnosis and were able to get a pass that allowed us to skip all the lines.  In case you don't know, children with autism do not understand the concept of standing in lines.  Our boys absolutely CANNOT wait in line.  There was one line that we did not get to pass everyone and I promise you that if you could ask the people around us they would completely agree.  Let's just say it was terrible.  If our trip would have been anything like that we would have walked right out the exit and never looked back.  But we had the pass and it was wonderful!!

The first day we went to Magic Kingdom.  The boys absolutely loved every ride that we did.  We went on so many rides!  We were at Magic Kingdom for about 11 hours that day so you can imagine we got to ride just about everything there.  We watched the live shows they had outside the castle, we watched the parades, and we saw so many characters.  The best part about doing the cruise first was that we were able to get pictures and autographs on the ship so at Disneyworld we could just wave and the boys were completely satisfied.  Probably the funniest story of the day was we had debated on taking them on the Haunted Mansion ride.  We decided to try it and if it was the end of the day we would be fine with that.  Tyson rode with me and laughed almost the whole time.  He was not scared at all.  Charlie rode with Joel.  He got really quiet about half way through and Joel thought for sure he was scared to death.  At the end of the ride Joel looked over at him and he had fallen asleep!!  He may have been the first toddler to fall asleep on that ride!  The only complaint of the day was that Charlie never wanted to get off the rides so every time I would get him off he would smack me.  Other than that it was a fantastic day.  By the end of the day the best way I could describe them was that they had been "disney'd"!  They loved it!

That day was so great that the next day we decided to get a park hopper pass so we could enjoy multiple parks in one day.  We started at Epcot.  Joel told them it was Tyson birthday so they gave him a button to wear on his shirt so the entire day every worker that saw him said "Happy Birthday Tyson!"  He loved all the attention.  We had tested them the day before and nothing had seemed to bother them so we decided to press our luck and have them ride Test Track.  It is a ride that you get in a car and they test it for brakes, steering, etc.  The car goes up to 60 mph during the ride.  We even thought we were crazy on this one.  Again, no fear.  They got off and wanted to go again!  We also rode a ride called Soarin that makes you feel like you are flying through the sky on a hang glider and they loved that one too.  Nothing scared them. 

After Epcot we went to Hollywood Studios.  This was probably our favorite park.  We first rode on a ride called Star Tours.   I have never seen the Star Wars movies so I won't give it justice but it was awesome.  Then we went to the parade and it was all the Pixar movies so Charlie recognized all the people.  After the parade he walked around imitating the people dancing and giving everyone high fives.  (I have to put this video up because it was adorable!)  We got to see a Disney Junior show, Lightning McQueen, a stunt show, and more and they were all amazing.  We ended our time there with the one thing Tyson was dying to do since we entered into that park, American Idol!  It was like the real show with real singers and everything.  It was awesome.  We even got to vote for our favorite.  The winner got a free pass to try out for the real American Idol.  Tyson was in heaven!!  Then the park closed.  We would have spent much more time there.

Since it was our last day at the parks we decided to push our luck even further and head to Magic Kingdom one more time since they were open until 1am that night.  We rode all our favorites one more time and ended with the lighted parade.  Amazing!

So that's our trip!  Whew, I'm tired just talking about it again.  We had an amazing time and want to go back someday soon.  It went above and beyond all expectations that we ever had.  I love this little, crazy, happy family of mine! (oh, and the Packers lost their playoff game somewhere in there, boo)   

Outside our  hotel at Disney!

Some Videos

Here are a few videos of the boys on the cruise.  We have about a gazillion and I need to go through them all but I thought these were pretty cute ones.  Enjoy!

Charlie Loving On Minnie

Tyson Showing Off Artwork

Karaoke

Day 5 - At Sea

The last day of the cruise (don't worry we aren't done with our trip yet, we still go to Disneyworld) was at sea all day.  This was the day we probably worried about the most because we thought the ship would be crowded and that we would not have much to do.  We were wrong!  It was a great day on the boat.  People must have snuggled into their room or something but we tried to get all we could out of the last day.  The kids enjoyed the best dance party of the  trip that day.  The DJ was dancing around and spotted Tyson dancing.  He started copying Tyson's famous rock star move and encouraged all the kids to follow him.  Tyson got to go up on the stairs so everyone could see him and imitate his dance moves.  It was so awesome.  Charlie spotted a pretty girl and spent the entire dance party finding her.  It was so obvious that her husband said to me that she was like one of the characters to him.  It was pretty cute.   That night our show was called Disney Believe and it was the best on yet! It was incredible!

This picture is really bad but I could not get closer to get a better picture, but the place was packed and my kids were front and center!  Once I get videos figured out I promise to put one on here of them dancing.

Goofy, Max, Charlie, and Tyson

Early in the day we had walked in late on a family game show and watched them give a real trophy to the winner.  Tyson immediately thought that he deserved that trophy and wanted one really bad.  Joel and I are really bad about not getting him what he wants so we decided we would try it again in a few hours.  We were determined to get him a trophy!  So to kill some time before they did the game again we decided to go to watch karaoke.  Little did we know Tyson and Charlie would love it!  They got on stage and say their hearts out!  Charlie is a terrible singer and reminds me a lot of Joel when he sings. Totally off key and completely out of rhythm.  Tyson say "All-star" with me and then convinced the girl working, Lauren, to sing "Life is a Highway" with him.  We have some great videos of this so they will come later.  It was so fun to watch!

After singing our hearts out we went on to win the game show.  We were soooo close to winning the second time.  We really thought we won so we had to have lost by only a couple points.  Tyson was so bummed.  Luckily, Lauren watched us lose because she later sent up a trophy and two Buzz Light-year calendars to our room with a note saying, "thanks for being such great singers!"  Tyson was beyond excited. 

These were a couple of the towel "creatures" our hostess made for our room.  We thought they were pretty cute!

So that's our cruise.  We had a blast!