My five senses right now:

SEE:

Zachary is playing Angry Birds on the iPad and keeps asking me to help him with various levels that are a little too tough for him. They are sometimes a little too tough for me, too. ;) I also am editing some of the photos that I took last night. Zachary was playing with his Legos and I had to capture the moment!

HEAR:

Since Zachary just put the iPad down to do something else, it’s now quiet again – for the moment. I’m listening to the soft hum of my computer and the distant sounds of birds singing outside.

TASTE:

I’m drinking some yummy coffee. Every fall/winter I buy extra of whatever my favorite pumpkin coffee is, so that I can save it for summertime. This time it was the pumpkin coffee from Fresh Market. It’s sooooo good, and I’m so happy I saved some of it again to enjoy right now. It is my special treat!

SMELL:

Definitely smelling the aforementioned coffee. It’s soooo yummy smelling!

TOUCH:

Touching the keyboard. LOL. But, I did just give Zachary a hug and stroked his soft hair and skin.

–

Here’s one of the photos I took last night, to make this post extra-cute! ;)

I mentioned a while back that we have been doing some work on the house. Most of that work will be completed by FRIDAY!! Since the bedroom that Zachary is in right now is too small for two little boys, and my home office is much bigger, I am swapping rooms with the kids and taking the smaller room for my office. We chose paint colors and carpet styles a few weeks ago, and this week everything is being painted in both rooms (as well as a revamp of our Florida Room/patio) and the new carpeting is finally being installed!

All of Zachary’s current furniture is going in his new room, along with Zachary’s old crib, which will now belong to the baby. I’m looking forward to the extra storage space we’ll have in that room, since his old bedroom does not have a closet and the new one does! Finally, a place to put all of the toys and extra clothing! Adrian and I planned the room layout and I’m really excited to get everything set up this weekend. For now, the entire contents of my office are now living in the dining room, as will Zachary’s furniture for a couple of days until the carpet is installed at the end of the week.

As far as a theme for the bedroom, I originally wanted to do a fun vintage travel theme. But… then I realized that would work much better if it was solely a nursery. Since a baby will sharing a room with an almost-four-year-old… well, the room is just going to be a combination of whatever things my kids are into! I allowed Zachary to choose the paint colors (celadon green and a darker olive green), but other than that, I am not going with a solid theme.  Zachary already has Thomas, Toy Story, and Angry Birds sheets for his bed, which constantly get alternated out. Once the baby is big enough to enjoy the same things, I’m sure we’ll have lots of posters and other memorabilia relating to whatever the kids like the best at that moment. At the moment, I’m on a hunt for a small Angry Birds poster, since we absolutely love those games.

Here are the paint colors that Zachary chose. The colors are from the National Trust for Historic Preservation collection with Valspar at Lowe’s. The artist in me is very proud of him for selecting such a great color combination! Now that the room is painted, I’m even more excited – it looks fabulous!

Zachary is very excited to move into his new bedroom this week after the carpet is installed, and understands that he will be sharing it with the baby after he arrives. I’m looking forward to putting the crib back together (it’s still in toddler bed mode and currently used as seating in the play room), and putting it in the new room. Of course that means I’ll be replacing the seating in the playroom with a new loveseat! I just love the yellow KLIPPAN sofa from IKEA, though I don’t think the yellow will really match the walls. :) Thankfully it comes in other colors – like black – which probably will be more stain-resistant. The other sofa, the SOLSTA, would go great in my new office. We had an old loveseat in my office for years, and when I needed to take a break or plop Zachary down with the iPad, I really enjoyed having some plush seating. The SOLSTA has an added advantage of being a sofabed in case we ever need space for a guest, so hopefully both of these are as cute in person as they are online!

In addition to Zachary and the baby’s room, I also get to design my new office! All of the office furniture we had here in the house was pointless after Adrian got his office space, as the office he’s in is furnished. Our office furniture was many years old and starting to fall apart anyway, so we opted to just get rid of it, and I’ve been scouring the IKEA website looking for a desk I like, among other items. I found these desks online on IKEA and like both of them. The MALM desk on the right, though, is half the price of the first one, the HEMNES desk. So, we’ll see which one I like better when we go to the store!

I also need a new storage cabinet for my dining room. Our home is a bit older and is short on storage, so finding different storage options has been a little bit of a challenge over the years. A few months ago it became apparent that I would need additional storage in my dining room. I’m torn between these two HEMNES cabinets from IKEA. Love the color and style, but can’t decide between full cabinet or cabinets with drawers. I’m leaning towards the drawers, but hoping they have some samples already built in the store so that I can see both!

So far those are all of the ideas I have, and I am really excited to implement everything before the baby gets here. I guess I am nesting in full-force now!! :) After a few more things are done, my mom has volunteered to help me with decorating – something she’s much better at than I am. Things are really getting exciting and soon we will be fully prepared for the arrival of Baby #2!

I only took a few photos with my iPhone from the actual Thomas Event, but they are pretty cute. These first two images show me, Adrian, and Zachary riding the tram that goes from the parking lot into the museum. The third is a cute shot of Zachary riding the train. You can see lots more pictures of the Day Out With Thomas event on my Part One post.

After we left the Gold Coast Railroad Museum, we were all super hungry! Adrian took a look on Yelp to see if he could find a good burger place nearby, but the one he was interested in was located in midtown Miami – about a half hour from where we were. I had hoped to find something a bit closer, but once he mentioned that the burger joint had a nutella burger…well, I was sold! The burger place is called The Filling Station and is located right next to Miami Tower and the Knight Center. I didn’t get a chance to take any snaps inside the restaurant, but it’s basically decorated like a bar/burger joint located inside a mechanic’s garage. Really cool spot. The food was very good (and yes, the nutella burger was simply incredible), and I look forward to going again!

We never go down to Miami for fun (I’m always there for work though), so Adrian thought it’d be a good idea to do some exploring and extend our family day instead of just heading home. We’ve never taken the Miami Metrorail or Metromover and we were delighted to find out that rides on the Metromover are free!!! After a morning of riding on Thomas, we were about to take Zachary on a different kind of “train” – a public transit tram through a major city! Once again, he was totally thrilled!

Zachary was so excited when the tram pulled up and even more so that he got to go inside. He was so good holding on to the rails and loved looking out the window. As he looked out the window, he actually sighed and said, “Mommy, this is my favorite!”  Our hearts melted! Adrian and I were both so happy that we had given our little boy such a wonderful day.

We took the tram up to the next station – Bayside and Bayfront Park. I’ve done a few photoshoots here so I’m very familiar with the area, but I’ve only ever been here once before on my own time. It was so nice to walk through the park and enjoy the atmosphere without holding my big heavy camera! I was thrilled to see there was a great looking playground at Bayfront Park, so we took Zachary over to play for a bit. I wish I’d taken a few more shots of the playground, but he was all over the place and really loved these slides! The happiness on his face is so apparent.

I never realized what a joy it would be to have a toddler! We are able to have so many cool experiences now with Zachary, and we can really see now what a great personality he  has. He is growing up so nicely and is such an amazing kid. We have so much fun hanging out with him. I can’t wait until our next family adventure!

Zachary was extremely excited about our family day together and we had a pretty fabulous time. Of course he came away from the event with some cool new trains, a new Thomas blanket, a beach towel, and a bunch of other stuff.

GCR has a tram that takes you from the parking lot to the museum. As we rode in, we saw the signs and Zachary’s smile never left his face. He was so thrilled every time he saw a train or a picture of Thomas! When we arrived into the park, I tried to get him to take a picture with me and Thomas in the background, but he simply could not take his eyes off of the famous “true blue engine”!

He was in absolute joy and could not wait to check out the old trains and take a ride on Thomas!

Being on the train ride was very thrilling. We got to sit up in the double decker section and Zachary thought it was so neat to see everything from above. He couldn’t stop looking out the window. Since the double decker seats are smaller and only fit one person per seat, Adrian and I took turns photographing Zachary from each side, since we were sitting in a row.

It was fun to hang over the seat and play peek-a-boo with Mommy. ;)

And even more fun when Daddy played along! My husband Adrian had a good time pointing out the different engines to Zachary as we rode through the train museum’s grounds and saw all kinds of old trains.

He was still a happy boy by the end of the train ride – I think we could have stayed on there for ages!

Here are a few of the old trains that we passed on our ride through the Gold Coast Railroad Museum.

Overall we had a fantastic time. Zachary continues to talk about his visit to ride on Thomas and asks nearly every day (seriously!!) if we can go again soon. If he still loves Thomas next year as much as he does right now, I’m sure we will be back. The Day Out With Thomas event here in Miami is a wonderful event for anyone who loves Thomas. Best of all, when you attend the event at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami, your tickets are good to come back again and explore the museum when all of the exhibits are open (since everything is pretty much shut down for the Thomas visit). They had lots of interesting trains to look at including a No. 1 military train. I would love to come back some time with the whole family and explore this fun place!

If you attended Day Out With Thomas this year, I would love to hear about your experience! I’m already looking forward to attending the event next year!

Since we scheduled our train ride for early in the morning (the 11:15am departure), we were finished early and decided to make a whole day of it and enjoy some quality time together as a family. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Day Out With Thomas adventure tomorrow!

Disclosure: I was provided with complimentary tickets for my family to attend Day Out With Thomas in Miami in exchange for a review of the event. I was not compensated in any other way. All opinions are my own!

He had an awesome Angry Birds party with our family and closest friends in attendance. Zachary absolutely LOVES playing Angry Birds (and we are eagerly awaiting Angry Birds Space coming out tomorrow, actually), so I decided to give his party a birdy theme. He was thrilled!

I had a lot of fun making everything for the party and at the end of the post, I’ll share some of the sources I used (almost everything was found on Pinterest) to create his Angry Birds Birthday eggggs-travaganza!

Angry Birds Cupcakes: Wal-Mart (they were surprisingly great!)

Balloon and Treat Bags: template here

Angry Birds Figurines – from Amazon, but no longer available

Birthday Sign – found on Pinterest

Angry Birds Plush – from Amazon

Inside the treat bags were Angry Birds Stickers and Angry Birds Coloring Pages (along with crayons and M&M’s!)

Angry Birds t-shirt – found on eBay (and no longer there), but similar to this one on Amazon

In a mere 3 months, our lives will be changing with the addition of our new baby… and I relish the time I get to spend with Zachary, just the two of us. Being pregnant AND spending a whole day with a preschooler can be exhausting at times, but I love doing things with him and having awesome experiences together.

At three years old, he’s definitely still a baby in so many ways, but he’s growing up so fast too. Doing things with Zachary is more like spending time with a little friend, rather than the tiny infant he was not so long ago. I can’t believe we’ll have that infant phase in our lives again in just a couple months. Zachary already adores the baby and is so looking forward to being a big brother. I can’t wait to see what life is like when the new baby is here and plan wonderful times for our family of four!

Until then, I’m trying to fit in as many great experiences with my little boy as I can, just having as much fun as we can while we’re still a family of three.

The weather has been pretty great this week, not too hot yet, so we’ve had time to play outside. Zachary loves his playhouse, and thanks to Daylight Savings, it’s much brighter later in the day, so we play outside late in the day until the sun sinks to the horizon.

Both images captured on iPhone 4s, Instagram

For Zachary, though, it was a totally different experience from the regular haircut place to see all of the barbers at work, and Zachary loved sitting in the special barber’s chair. He was so good during the cut and was very proud to get his lollipop at the end and liked sitting outside on the bench when we were done. I think I’ll take him to the same place again when he’s due for another haircut.

Where do you take your kids for a haircut? A kids place, or a grown up place? What do you like about it?

Today was Multicultural Day at Zachary’s preschool. It is a time for all of the kids to celebrate their culture and heritage with their classmates, so each family brings in a meal that represents their heritage, and family members can come and eat lunch with the kids.

Zachary is a mix of Russian and Lithuanian (my side) and Polish and British (Adrian’s side), so I decided to make Russian Tea Cakes, since I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like them, no matter what their culture! Plus, they are even known by different names depending on which culture you come from. The Russian Tea Cakes recipe that I made came from here, and I did not use nuts since Zachary’s school is nut-free. The recipe was easy to follow and make, and I look forward to trying it again some time again with the nuts.

I highly recommend this recipe and thought it was perfect. My husband and I tried some after he came home from work last night, and he told me that they were perfect! These little cookies really melt in your mouth and go fabulously with coffee or tea. From what I could tell they were a hit at the event since they were nearly gone by the time I got there!