Our Very Own Dr. Dolittle

It appears Aidan inherited his Daddy's animal magnetism. First, a little background: Sean has always had this gift - if that's what you call it - for attracting pets. Something about him makes most peoples' cats and dogs flock to him...even the ones "that never like anyone".

Aidan has the same attracting qualities. Both of our pets ADORE their Aidan, and he adores them. He is so sweet when he pets them! He also likes to sneak Cooper some table scraps when we're not looking. Aidan will even get down on his belly to be eye-level with them.

Here are some pics Daddy snapped one afternoon when Aidan was giving some love to two of his favorite boys:

Take a number!:

Ava and Aria Say Goodbye

We recently had to deal with Ava's first experience of a friend moving away. Ava has become really good friends with our next-door neighbor, Aria. This past weekend, Aria and her family moved out of state. I cannot tell you how sad and hard it was for us to tell Ava what that meant.

The kids got to have one more night of playing before they left...

Ava's First Swimming Lesson

We took Ava to her first swimming lesson this past weekend. She loves the water and isn't afraid of it, but when it comes to getting her pretty face wet or too close, she becomes a diva (who can blame her - I wouldn't want to compromise my face if I looked like that!).

She really did a great job! She was a good listener for her teachers:
She was brave and practiced blowing bubbles:

Using the kick board:

Learning how to hold her breath...wait for it...

...so she can go under water!!! I cannot tell you how proud of her I was at that moment! The one thing we cannot get her to do is go under water. I was so happy, I seriously almost cried:

She has five more lessons in this session - we'll keep you updated on her progress :)

King's Island, Part 7 : Closing Time

All good things must come to an end, and our King's Island trip was no exception. On the way out if the park, we stopped off for a visit to the top of the Eiffel Tower (much to Mommy's chagrin...For some reason, I am not too fond of heights lately).

After the tower, we stopped to gaze at the fountains lit up for the night. And the last stop was to a gift shop to pick out souvenirs. It was a GREAT day, and we can't wait to do it all again next year!

Meanwhile, Mommy stood firmly up against the wall:
My two handsome guys:

King's Island, Part 6 : THE FOOD!!

One of the things Mommy and Daddy were looking forward to most was the FOOD! We hadn't been to KI in about 5 years, so we were really starting to crave the usual suspects:

• Potato Works fries (the big fat ones)
• Smurf / Dino Delight / Blueberry & Vanilla swirl ice cream
• La Rosa's Pizza

And we ate them all...

King's Island, Part 5 : Aidan Rode Some Rides

Unfortunately, Aidan was about a 1/2 inch too short to ride most rides by himself. He did have some fun riding a few. And also equally unfortunate, the rides that he rode by himself, we don't have many pictures of because he rode them while Ava and Mommy went to ride the log ride. It is difficult to multitask for Daddy...

Nick Jr. Drivers - he looks like such a big boy:

Isn't this face priceless? Sweet boy:

King's Island, Part 4 : Ava's Rides

Ava was able to ride every ride in Nickelodeon Universe - with the exception of a suspended roller coaster and some weird ride we have never seen anything like (probably next year). In addition, she was able to ride the following "grown up" rides:

• Viking Fury
• Scrambler (twice - once with Daddy and once with Mommy)
• Monster (the "nice octopus" as she called it)
• Wild Thornberry's Adventure (aka: log ride)
• The Fairly Odd Coaster (aka: The Beastie - this is technically in kiddie land, but it is a pretty serious coaster for a 3 1/2 year old)

One of the funniest things Ava said that day was when we were exiting Viking Fury, "I didn't like that ride, it made my stomach feel funny".

The kiddie bumper cars (this was HILARIOUS to watch, because hardly any of the kids knew what they were doing, and basically kept spinning in circles and not really "bumping"):The Scrambler with Mommy (her favorite ride of the day):
Blue's Skidoo (notice she chose the car that best complimented her outfit?): Talk about perfect timing! I was able to snap this as Ava was turning and doing her pageant wave:

King's Island, Part 3 : The Kids Rode Some Rides Together

Swiper's Sweeper was probably Aidan's favorite ride. He got to ride it once with Ava, and then again later in the day all by himself.

The straight-away is pretty slow and lame:
But the cars whip around the corner with such blazing speed - and the kids LOVED it:

Aidan and Ava driving their own cars (these were cool, because unlike your typical cars, there wasn't a gas pedal the kids had to push):

Diego's Jeep ride was the old-school cars that go around in a circle with the padded steering-wheels and horn that buzzes...brought back lots of memories of riding this type of ride as a kid:

King's Island, Part 2 : Family Rides

We were able to ride a few rides as a family...

Ava and Mommy rode together on the Sportacopters, and Daddy and Aidan rode in their own:
The whole family piled into the Dora-themed "La Adventura de Azul" train ride:

And we all rode the grand carousel. Well, the kids did, while Mommy and Daddy stood beside to make sure they didn't slide off:

King's Island, Part 1 : Meeting the Characters

Since lots of fun things happened and we got tons of cute pictures from our King's Island trip, I decided to go with multiple posts...the following is part 1...

First of all, when we got to the park, all Aidan kept saying was, "Happy! Happy! Happy!" We were hoping that was a sign things would go well that day.

The first thing Ava said she wanted to do when we got to KI was give Scooby a hug...and that's exactly what she did:
We knew Aidan would bolt if we set him down, so Mommy got to pose with Scooby too:

We also got to meet some more of the kids' favorites - Dora and Diego (if you look closely, Dora's costume comes complete with her trademark flesh-belt):

Our ONLY family pic that was snapped in the entire 11 hours we were there - we think it's actually pretty cute, and most importantly, everyone is looking at the camera!: