Aaron & Julia Waldron

I have not blogged in so long. Over a year but I figured I should do a little bit of catching up so

that family and friends can see what the kids have been up to and maybe it will help me stay just a little bit saner during these strange times. Right now we have been on "spring break" for the last two weeks which ends on Tuesday when Julian and Gretchen start their first day doing online school. They are excited but we will see how long that last:) We have been trying to think of special fun things that make "stay safe, stay home" more of a fun time and little less of a scary time. The first thing was getting a trampoline when we realized that a Disney trip was not going to be a reality for spring break, and now we are waiting for a mosquito net to throw over the top so that we can have an outdoor movie night on the tramp, and maybe even a campout. Please let me know if you have any fun ideas for different kid activities at home. We have also been having church at home through Zoom, here's the kids during primary. They had such a cool lesson today!

The kids have been having a lot of fun with their cats, that we adopted at the end of last year. Here is Doughnut taking it easy in the legos.

And here's Milly rocking her little bandana, ready for anything:)

Before things got a little more serious here in South Florida we had the parents here to visit us. My mom came the end of February and left beginning of March, then Aaron's parents came right after and just left last week. We decided to sneak in a visit to Lego Land with my mom and stay with family on the gulf coast and had a lot of fun just hanging out.

Clearwater Beach

And other fun stuff with my mom,

Then when Aaron's parents came we drove around a bunch to try to do some fun things that didn't include being around too many people.

We also had fun eating outside and lots of swimming

and in the Keys and

other fun places

I wish I had more pictures of this but one of our highlights was going to the Lion Country Safari and seeing two little baby cubs playing with each other and their mom. They were HUGE and literally the cutest thing I have ever seen!

Around this time the boys also had fun fishing with daddy and seeing a manatee and Gretchen had fun taking Aaron to her school's Daddy Daughter dance.

Till next time:)

Life has been speeding by and our kids are growing up so fast. The quick update is that Julian started second grade August 13th and Gretchen started kindergarten on the 14th. Julian grew over two inches this year and loves to eat all the time and make money. I have never seen a kid with so many money making schemes but he makes a lot of books, pictures, and food to sell:) Gretchen loves Kindergarten and all the friends that she gets to play with at school and at home in our neighborhood. Meanwhile Harry is getting so big and sounds like he should be in Kindergarten but is still trying to learn how to stop punching everyone all the time. He loves his little sister so much and loves to stay busy! He is so sweet and affectionate with her and everyone. We finally got a swing set for the backyard so being able to play outside more helps to get some of that energy out. He also says that funniest things like "are the dishes clean mommy?" before he grabs a cup out of the dishwasher and "seriously, I don't think so," and so many other things that I don't think a three year old would be saying... Meanwhile Milly turned 1 in August and is so sweet! She climbs into and onto everything like a little cat and will just perch on everything, or stand on top of her little car while she holds the handle bars shaking it around. She is also such a happy little girl. She has so many cute smiles and got in her teeth in July and August. It was so cute when she had just one matching top and bottom one and now she has four on top and two on the bottom with an impossibly cute gap up top. She just started standing up on her own two months ago and started walking at 14 months. She loves to blow kisses, cover her eyes, and jibber jabbers all the time. She is very good at getting what she wants with her gestures and everything that she does.

Over the summer Aaron and I celebrated our 10 yr anniversary by taking a family trip to Key West. Key West was such a blast! We had so much fun hanging out at the hotel, seeing the Ernest Hemingway house, eating a fancy anniversary dinner, and just walking through the shops. And if you can't tell from the pictures it was also SUPER hot! It was such a fun anniversary!

After we got back we went to Utah for a couple of weeks for work and fun. It was so so so great seeing and spending time with family and friends again!! We hung out with the grandparents and cousins and went camping and loved the mountains! Julian's highlight of the trip was fishing with grandpa and uncle Gary and catching 4 fish! It filled up our cup and we wished we could bring everyone back with us. It was good to come home to our beds though:)

Recently I just feel like things are going by too fast and I was looking through my pictures to help Julian with a school project and remembered that I forgot to blog about our trips to New Jersey and Florida last year and there are some gems in there (they were so fun I will have to document them some day:).

Next after starting school we celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving and lots of birthdays...

Julian and Gretchen's first day of school pics:

Then we celebrated Milly's first birthday. We made her a Minnie Mouse birthday cake and then went to Magic Kingdom for the day. Which was awesome because up to this trip Gretchen has not wanted to ride anything except like the teacups and the carousel so this time we got to ride all family rides as a family. We went up for one day but it was pretty rainy for part of the day so for once it was not busy and we really ENJOYED just waiting 5 minutes or so for all the rides. Happy Birthday Milly!!

Milly had fun too even though I think she hated her birthday present ;-)

Then we celebrated Harry's birthday with a pirate Halloween party because he has been obsessed with Peter Pan, Pirates, and ships... I made him a pirate ship cake which is actually one of the easiest cakes I've ever made but it turned out pretty cool and Harry loved it! He had so much fun playing with his friends and doing a treasure hunt. We all dressed up to a Peter Pan theme except Julian was a Pea Shooter from plants and zombies. Gretch was a mermaid from Mermaid Lagoon for the party and Moana for Halloween. We had fun at our ward's trunk or treat and Halloween night was awesome and the kids got tons of candy. I really miss our old neighborhood from Utah but it was nice to trick or treat in 80 degree weather:)

Then we celebrated Thanksgiving with lots of food for just our little family. It was our first Thanksgiving with just us but it was pretty relaxing and very yummy!

Now it is on to Christmas celebrating. We are trying to get into the spirit of the season because it is hard to convince ourselves that it is Christmas time. So trying to get to all the events and doing lots of decorating. Here we are at the Boca Christmas parade and we went to the Boca tree lighting ceremony which was like a city carnival with fireworks but it has been a really neat experience.

I am so grateful to have a little place to put down some memories and thoughts about my family to share with our friends and family and to share with Julian, Gretchen, Harrison, and Amelia when they get older. Life is precious and sweet and hard and remembering the good times always helps me to remember that there is so much more going on than the daily grind. There are a lot of little magical moments but I always forget about them if I don't write them down:).

Here's a few random pics from some activities we did over the summer

fun at the beach