Toddler Travels

We are finally going on our first family vacation! We've been out of town for 3-4 day trips but typically we had other reasons for going like lot's of weddings. This will be our first 1 week, summer fun family vacation and we are stoked! The only goal is to have fun as a family! Jon and I are very giddy and are getting the kids super excited. My parents will also be joining us for a couple of days and hopefully my bestie Megan will be as well. In 3 days we will be headed to San Diego to show the kids the beach, take them to the San Diego Zoo, Seaworld and anything else fun we come across. 

As excited as we are, I am extremely nervous about a 6 hour car ride with two 2 1/2 year olds. I have spent hours and I mean hours scanning mommy blog after mommy blog for ideas. One thing I knew for sure was I would continue my mom's tradition of giving gifts every hour or so in the car, if you remember she did this for the kids last September when we went up North. The hard part is finding activities that young kids can do in the car that will also entertain them for more than 3 minutes. Here are the activities and/or toys I have wrapped and ready to go:

1. Color matching with pom poms: All the pom pom's have magnets on them so they hopefully won't be rolling everywhere!
   
2. Popsicle stick puzzles: These also have magnets on them!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Fishing Game: I can't find the awesome blog that gave me this idea but I'm curious if it'll work. I made fishing poles with yarn, dowel rod's, and magnets. Then I printed images of fish, whales, starfish, sea turtles, etc, cut them out and added magnets to them. I plan to throw these all over the floor of the car and then the kids can "cast" their fishing pole to the bottom of the car and see what they catch! 
4. Window clings: I'm nervous their little arms won't be able to reach the window's so we'll see if this one works.
5. Lap tables from Amazon: Of course I got one in pink and one in blue. I will let you know if they live up to their 5 star reviews! 
   
6. ID Bracelets from Amazon: I was reading a Yahoo news article about a woman that lost her child at Disneyland and at the end she suggested an ID bracelet or a kid's GPS tracker. Since my kids are not old enough to know that my real name is not Mommy or remember a phone number I thought this was a great idea. I choose these bracelets because they cannot be undone with 1 hand so the child cannot take it off. My kids love bracelets so they are going to think it's a neat gift and I can be contacted if we get separated - win win! Another cheaper idea is to write your name and phone number on the tag inside the child's shirt. I decided against that since it's not as easily seen.
   
7. Snacks: Lot's and lot's of snacks but I wrapped up some of the cheeze-its, oreo's, chips ahoy, and teddy graham's that are found at registers for $1.
   
8. Fart noise cups: Kid's love making funny noises especially fart noises - we will either love or hate this one by the end of the trip!
9. Play dough
10. Shape matching: All the shapes have magnets on them!
11. Map to track our progress: I loved this idea. It's hard for little kids to grasp the concept of a 6 hour drive so this gives them a visual. While I was writing this update I thought of a cool idea to add. I'm going to make magnets with their faces on them so I can move it along to show how far we are! I forgot to take a picture of this one.
12. Quiet Books: You remember the creative book I made, right? I'm bringing that one and one my mom made. They've been hidden for awhile so hopefully they seem like new to the kids!
13. Pipe cleaners: Kid's love random things, pipe cleaners are one of those. They can bend them into all sorts for shapes!
14. Crayons
15. Plastic Animals
16. Sticker books

I am hoping that is enough activities along with some sing along time, looking out the windows, if we are lucky - nap time, playing at a park in Yuma, potty breaks, and stocking up at Chile Pepper. 

Wish us luck - 3 days and counting :)

Big Kid Beds

I've debated about ending my blogging days since our family is now a forever family. After all, the reason for starting the blog was to keep family and friends informed of our adoption journey. I have changed my mind, although my updates will no longer be about where we are in the adoption process, they will now be about where we are at in the parenting/growing toddler stage.

My kids have been in cribs much longer than other kids their age. In fact, I've been wondering if I was waiting too long but they never tried to climb out and actually seemed to enjoy being in their cribs when it was nap or bedtime. Hearing other parent's horror stories of kids not staying in their room for bedtime and waking them up at 4am; I decided to stay in my crib-bliss home for as long as possible.

About a month ago, Jaycee showed me that she could indeed climb out of her crib. I stopped her before she got out but that started the conversation of when we should make the switch. We are in the process of purchasing a new home so I debated about waiting until we moved but a couple days later Jaycee woke up screaming "I have to go potty!". At that point, Jon and I decided it was time. We didn't want to be woke up every single time she needed to go to the bathroom. That also happened to be the week of our 4 year anniversary and we had scheduled a babysitter for Saturday. We decided the transition would occur on Sunday so the babysitter wasn't subjected to trying to keep them in their beds.

As everything in life goes....our transition date was 1 day too late. At naptime on Saturday the kids were being destructive in their room but as long as they stayed in there, I was fine...until I heard a loud THUD and then nothing. I ran into their room and Jaxson was on the ground, his face was bright red, and he was about to scream but still trying to catch his breath from the fall. I picked him up and rocked him until he calmed down a bit then I assessed him for damages. A large knot was forming on his head so we got some ice. For as awful as it seemed in the moment, it was almost gone the next day.

Sunday was Easter and we made the transition to big kid beds and my plan worked like a charm! I figured between Easter baskets in the morning, Easter egg hunts at my parents house, lunch, then Easter egg hunts at Jon's brother's house, then dinner - they'd be too exhausted to realize they could run around their rooms instead of sleep! 

Easter with Aunt Lisa

After all the festivities we put them in their respective beds, they went right to sleep but in the morning we found them like this:

 And every night since then they both climb into Jaxson's bed and go to sleep together. Melts my heart every single time.

ADOPTION PARTY!

As promised, we threw our 2nd biggest party (the first being our wedding of course) to celebrate becoming a forever family on December 3rd, 2015! Honestly it was more than I ever could have asked for, everything was absolutely perfect. We had numerous friends travel from out of town, some as far as Wisconsin to celebrate with us. I know I shouldn't be surprised by our support system after the last 2 years but I am still delighted and surprised that I had so many people come out to celebrate with us!

The party was at McCormick Stillman Railroad Park - a big, big thank you to Jeff and Jenn for booking the party for us (Scottsdale residents get a pretty large discount)! Jon's sister, Amy, did all the decorations. When she offered I was hoping for a couple streamers and balloons, what I got was so much more that can't be explained in words. 

The guest book - I love her homemade table runner!

Homemade tulle balls hanging!

Love It, Cherish It, Take It!

Somehow I missed taking a picture of the beautiful entrance with balloons on each side and a "Lyons" banner.

She also made an awesome photo booth!

My sister's family

College friends

Our Forever Family!

A huge thank you to Amy for outdoing all expectations I had on the decorations, we got so many compliments!

My sister also outdid herself with the cake. I asked for something similar to this. This is what she took from that picture:

It's all cake!

Details - down to Maggie's different colored eyes!

Thank you for the amazing cake, Lisa!

Jon and I both had speeches to thank everyone for all their love and support over the last 818 days. The kid's lawyer even showed up! The kids had a blast riding tricycles, jumping in the bounce house, and riding the train! Even some adults joined in the bounce house and train riding fun!

Grandma jumping with Jaxson!

The party flew by too fast for me but I had more fun than I could have imagined! Since so many people came from out of town, we had a small after party at our house after the kids went to bed. The plan was to have s'mores but as usual time got away from us so we just sat around the fire, reminiscing and drinking. It was the perfect end to the most perfect party.

Purple Drinks

Panda costumes = great night!

Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us. Thank you for everyone who helped throw an awesome party. Thank you for your love over the last 2 years! We hope we can raise these two children to make everyone proud!

ADOPTION DAY!

The day I had been waiting 818 days for had finally come. December 3rd - Adoption Day. I woke up in the morning and got the kids situated with their breakfast next to the Christmas Tree. Jaxson (that feels nice!) has been infatuated with the Christmas Tree since we set it up and every morning he runs to turn the lights on. He couldn't eat breakfast the first couple days because he would just stand and watch the tree lights so we told him Thursday was a special day and he could eat in the living room and watch the tree. In fact the whole family sat at the little, itty bitty kids table and ate cereal. It was a perfect start to the day.

After breakfast the texts and the status updates started coming - there were so many I couldn't keep up! A couple made me tear up and I was sure it wasn't the last of the day.

After breakfast we dressed the kids and took them to take photos with Aunt Amy and Uncle Swaz. They went pretty well. Jaxson wasn't feeling well so he gave up on smiling pretty quickly and just wanted to be cuddled. I enjoyed every minute of it - normally he's so active and I only get cuddles in the morning when he's not fully awake yet.

Roaring like a Lion!

Snuggles

Tickles

I forgot to mention, I was very frustrated earlier in the week because Jayce got sent home from school on Tuesday for being sick and then Jaxson got sent home on Wednesday. On top of that I was battling a pretty nasty sinus infection. On Wednesday we actually had Jaxson at the urgent care for an infection. I was less than thrilled that my family was going to be sick on adoption day (Thursday) but at the same time felt like I couldn't complain - we were going to be recognized as a family!

After pictures we went home and just played with the kids until it was time to leave for court. My husband's awesome sister tagged our car so we got some honks on the way to court :)

We waited about 20 minutes before we were called in at which point I realized we didn't have Judge Cohen as requested. Judge Cohen made the decision to keep the kids with their family so we requested he complete the adoption. Unfortunately he was out on an unplanned medical leave. Oh well.....adoption day goes on except then the step in judge asks if we want to reschedule our adoption day because our lawyer was at the wrong courthouse and had all the paperwork. I almost broke down right then and there. Did she not understand how long we waited for this day? Did she not understand that 19 people had requested the day off work, been pulled out of school, or missed their nap time so they could witness our forever family moment? I was dumbfounded that she would even suggest such a thing! Luckily Jon jumped in and asked if we could wait for our lawyer to drive across town and just delay a little. The judge happily agreed stating the next case would take about 20 minutes.

TWO HOURS, numerous snacks, 50 runs through the courthouse halls, and 20 meltdowns later we were called back in. I had lost all faith that our forever day would ever occur and at that point just wanted it over because I felt awful making everyone wait at a courthouse that long. Ten minutes later we were declared Jonathan, Tina, Jaycee, and Jaxson Lyons! Worth the wait? You bet!

Afterwards we all came back to our house for a toast, dinner, celebration, laughter, and love. We are finally the family we always thought, we are the Lyons!

There's a date, a date, a very important date!

We FINALLY have an adoption date. On December 3rd our family will officially be recognized as the Lyons' Family.

Let's talk about some things we are looking forward to.

After December 3rd, we will no longer have to:

• Ask permission to cut our kid's hair
• Notify DCS when we want to visit friends in Arizona
• Ask permission to travel out of state
• Inform DCS of every single doctor's visit
• Inform DCS of the outcome of every single doctor's visit
• Waste an hour a month of our time with our agency
• Attend court hearings every 2-3 months
• Track all medicine's given to our kids
• File a report anytime we visit the urgent care or ER
• Waste another hour a month with DCS visits
• Stress that our children will be ripped from our arms
• Stress about the decisions that are being made by people that have never met our kids

But after December 3rd we will get to:

• Post pictures on social media
• Pay for daycare
• Sign authorization forms
• Travel whenever we want to wherever we want
• Set up college savings accounts
• Make medical decisions

We are so excited and all our immediate family has been invited to the court hearing to help us celebrate. Don't worry, we are already planning the celebration that will include everyone that has supported us over the last 2 years. Tentative date is being scheduled for January. 

Chugga Chugga Two Two

Recently the kids turned two years old. In true Tina fashion, I booked a camping trip the weekend before their birthday party. Two full weeks our household were planned down to the day to make sure we accomplished everything.

We decided on a train theme and I threw together some decorations from Pinterest all in one day. I got a lot of compliments so I think 1 day decorations are the way to go!

My sister, as usual, outdid herself with the cake - 

We kept the party small, just immediate family in order to save money for the HUGE adoption party that's coming! Jon made mostaccioli that absolutely was delicious! 

The kids got some amazing presents from roller blades, to an awesome homemade fort that throws over a card table, to an outdoor playhouse, and baby dolls and scooters and soccer balls! It's taken weeks for them to get through playing with them all!

Perfect party for our perfect toddlers!