Reed Bradley 7 months old

Reed Bradley is 7 months old!! And yes I'm am going to say it because I say it every month. I just can't believe he is another month older!!! This past month has went by so fast! He got to see all of our family with the 4 Thanksgiving Dinners we attended and we went on our first family vacation.

Reed brings so much joy to our family. He is always smiling and loves when his brothers and sister talk to him. He is started to make so many noises and the other kids love it which makes them laugh so he does it more and more! He has been army crawling and boy is he fast! I can no longer leave a room when he is playing on the floor because he will manage to get into something. Reed is still taking 2-3 naps and sleeping 12 hours at night!! He is doing so good. We had a little hiccup in our sleeping while on vacation but we've gotten everything all back to normal. He is still only getting the boob juice!! We might start homemade baby food when I get back from my trip with my mom and sister in Jan.

When we were on vacation during our nightly ice cream run we all sat at the table and danced. It was something we did every night. Reed started to catch on and now when he hears music he dances.

Destin Pictures

Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time (for the handful of people that actually read this blog) I still hope to tell my view on vacation. But here are a few pictures (over 150 LOL)!

Click here to view them!

Click here to view pictures from our phones!

Vacation day 7

Friday, December 3: Day 7

Interesting things happen psychologically when you travel. For instance, the trip from Evansville to Nashville feels so much longer when Nashville IS the destination. When it’s merely a landmark barely a third of the way into your trip, it comes so much quicker. Similarly, I can have the attitude all week that “I don’t want to go back home” until the final day. It’s on that final day (today) that I think the exhaustion and the discomfort of being away from home finally sets in. I think that’s how we all felt today. We had a fun day and enjoyed our time together, but as evening came, attitudes began to decline and it became very clear that we were all just ready to be home.

This morning, Amanda woke me up around 5:30am (after having gotten up with Reed) and asked, “do you want to watch the sunrise with me?” I was pretty well knocked out and, to be honest, my initial thought was “are you kidding me?!” But, I sucked it up and rolled over and watched an amazing sunrise. Shortly after 6:00am, the kids all joined us in our bed. I did my best to avoid getting out of bed as Amanda fed the kids a light breakfast (just to hold them over until the real breakfast). Once I finally got up, everyone got ready and we officially began our day. The plan today was to do just a little more shopping in the morning and then take advantage of the warmest day of the week to spend some time at the beach and pool.

With everyone ready to go, we decided to have breakfast at Panera. This was a foul against our standard rule of not eating at a restaurant that we have at home. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on where we are) it’s getting harder and harder to follow this rule as Evansville’s been getting so many of the “big city” restaurants. Anyway, after breakfast at Panera, we ran by target just to take back the Leapster that turned out to be a battery. After that, it was back to the outlets. Amanda started by going into Gymboree by herself while I stayed in the car with the kids. After that we parked the car and went back to Banana Republic (that’s the one store that I can always find something in). After BR, I think we just figured we need to be done shopping. It was 12:00 at this point and rather than have lunch, anticipating an early dinner, we just stopped for some Mrs. Field’s cookies. From there, it was off to the beach.

We got back to the condo and got all of our stuff together to go to the beach. At the beach, Amanda hung out away from the water with Reed and Cooper (who still refused to put her feet in the sand). Avin, Parker and I played in the water and built sand….things. Between Avin and Parker, it’s amazing where one is brave and the other struggles with fear. Avin couldn’t seem to get far enough out in the water whereas Parker was perfectly content to just stand in a place where the waves would occasionally reach his feet (it was a good thing he had his floaties on). Generally, Parker is the “fearless” one and Avin tends to be a bit more cowardly cautious. After an hour or so at the beach where I got to play and Amanda got to fight two kids that desperately needed naps, we packed up. Amanda took Cooper and Reed up to the Condo for naps and to begin the packing process while I stayed at the pool with Avin and Parker. It’s amazing to me how long two little boys can stay entertained in a massive pool without ever leaving the 3rd step. Avin would cross the pool from time to time but he spent most of his time clinging to the wall. Avin did have a bit of a milestone today though. At one point I told him it was time to get out, but, he could earn 10 more minutes of swim time if he would put his head completely under water (this is still the most difficult kid at bath time because he hates when the water gets in his eyes). He agreed to do and proceeded to put his head under. But, the deal was that his head had to go COMPLETELY under. All of his hair needed to be wet. So, on the third try, he got it. He was so excited and even dunk his head (partially) a few other times just randomly. After another 30 to 45 minutes of swim time at the pool, it was time to start getting ready for our evening.

It was about 3:00pm and we were all getting cleaned up and ready for dinner in Grayton Beach at the Red Bar. This was yet another restaurant that came highly recommended by several people. At around 4:00pm, we were about half way to Grayton when Amanda decided to research this restaurant a bit. As she looked at the menu online she began to get concerned that the very limited menu would not serve our kids very well. On top of that, they only accept cash, and we didn’t have enough on us for a meal. So….we turned around. Just another, “we planned for here and ended up there” night. We ended up at Baytowne Wharf (after all we hadn’t been there yet today). Baytowne has so much that you could truly spend an entire week here and never go anywhere but there. Baytowne has several, quality restaurants so we knew we would find something that would please everyone. We walked around for a while and read menus until we made the decision to eat at Rum Runner’s. It was 5:00pm and once again we had the place to ourselves. Rum Runner’s is a piano bar in the late evenings. We sat right next to the pianos with a view of the rest of the wharf area through the windows. The waiter was great. He had kids of his own so he was patient and understanding of what it takes to eat out with kids. Of all the meals this week, tonight’s was one of my favorites. Amanda felt the same way. I had a blackened Mahi-Mahi sandwich and she had coconut shrimp. Dinner was where everything started to go south with the kids, particularly Avin.

Lately, we’ve been struggling a bit with Avin and his attitude. He tends to be the type that you could take to Disney World and ride every ride but one and, at the end of the day, he would be upset over the one ride he didn’t get to ride. Tonight we dealt with a lot of that. “But I want to go here…”, “But I want to do this…” It was extremely frustrating. We did our best to be patient with him and to pull him aside and talk about it but it just didn’t seem to do any good. Side note….Avin really struggles, more than any of the other kids, when he is tired. His behavior and attitude can really turn ugly when he’s tired. After dinner, we did the ice cream thing at Kilwin’s again and he didn’t like the flavor he chose. We told him we weren’t going to buy anything else and he didn’t like that. When we got back to the condo after ice cream, we got all the kids ready for bed and I asked Avin to go back to his room with me to have a talk. I thought it was going so well. I tried to explain to him the concept of thankfulness and what it means to be selfish. We talked about how mommy and daddy have to make decisions a lot of times for the good of the entire family rather than any one of the individuals in it. We talked about thinking before you thinking before saying anything that would be complaining or whining. I thought it was sinking in and I loved on him through the entire talk. At the end of our talk I told him that I was going to give him some quiet time to think and read in his bed before the light went out. He responded by throwing a fit because he couldn’t watch TV. UGH! So, I told him, this is exactly the kind of attitude that got him in trouble in the first place. I gave all the kids some time in their beds to read (or, in Cooper’s case, to yell at Parker). Then, it was prayer and lights out.

I hate the feeling, after having to punish my kids, when I battle the fact that sometimes, in order to be a good dad; you have to raise the intensity level a bit. I don’t want my kids to ever feel like I’m a mean dad, but I do need them to respect me.

With the light now out for the kids, I did a few small things to help clean up the condo in preparation for our departure. I then sat on the couch and read through some of the entry’s in the “Thank You” journal left in the living room. I contributed my own entry thanking Alan & Sharon (the owner of ICI and his wife) for allowing us to share this condo.

We’re still up in the air as to what the plan is for traveling tomorrow. I’m leaning more and more toward trying to push through and get all the way home in one trip, but I really don’t want to push the kids to the point of misery. So, we’ll see what happens.

It’s been a fantastic trip overall and we truly feel blessed to have had the opportunity to come here. We look forward to many more trips like this in the future.

Vacation day 6

Thursday, December 2: Day 6

With only a few days left in this vacation, the pressure is on to make the most of it. One of the challenges of this trip has been to quench the desire to “accomplish all we can” while maintaining our patience with the needs of our kids. It’s not fair to expect our kids to behave and listen the way we want them to if we are pushing them to miss naps or stay up later than they normally would or force them to do things that WE want to do. The end result has been a great one. Each day, we’ve gone to playgrounds and ate at restaurants that may not have ever made our list of desirable places to eat. We’ve even done our best to stay within a reasonable distance from the condo so we could get back for nap times. Yesterday, I admitted to being frustrated at a “lack of freedom” but today I realized that these things have a.) made my kids a whole lot of fun to spend time with when they are awake and b.) helped me to ultimately accomplish what I wanted most out of this trip…relaxation! Each day, we’ve had several hours just hanging out around the condo. I’ve been able to read, which I never do. I’ve laid on the couch and even napped. In the evenings, we’ve just hung out. Just writing this daily journal has been therapeutic and necessary for me to appreciate not only my time here with my wife and kids, away from the daily distractions and responsibilities but also to, in many ways, recuperate from a pretty exhausting few months.

At around 5:30am, shortly after Reed had started crying, I heard Avin calling out from the kid’s bathroom. I got up to see what was the matter and he had gotten up to go to the bathroom and was basically standing in the bathroom (next to a crying Reed) shouting his announcement that he had, in fact, gone to the bathroom. I quickly quieted, congratulate and guided him back to his bed. As I left the kids room, Amanda was dealing with Reed. With everything seemingly under control, I headed back to bed. I slept on and off for the next hour or so and then came out to join the rest of the family. The kids had all had a small breakfast snack as Amanda was trying to hold them off for a bigger breakfast back at Another Broken Egg at the Baytowne Wharf. Once we were all clean, dressed, and ready to go, we headed back across the highway. At the restaurant, we shared a plate full of their signature “biscuits” which weren’t really biscuits at all. They looked, and tasted, more like pieces of funnel cake and they were awesome. For the main course, we all shared 3 large, warm cinnamon rolls. After breakfast, we went to Jubilee Island. This island is just down the street from the wharf and it really neat. Off the main road that winds through the resort is a gravel drive that leads to a bridge open only to foot traffic. This bridge takes you to a small island with a pirate them. On this island, there are all kinds of trails that weave and cross. These trails lead you to a small pirate ship playground, picnic areas, large viewing stands (or pirate roosts), there’s even a small playhouse. Once again, we had the place to ourselves. It felt like we were on our own private island. We explored for a while. Avin served as the tour guide and would constantly say, “does anyone have any questions?” We would try to ask him questions like “what kind of plant is that?” or “where will this path take us?” He wasn’t much of a tour guide as he didn’t have answers to any of our questions, but he certainly did a good job of leading the hike.

After the hike, we went back down the street to the wharf where we let the kids play on the playground for a few minutes. From there, we went for a stroll around the wharf (we’ve been there every day but never actually went anywhere but the playground and Another Broken Egg). The place was full of shops, restaurants and entertainment. There was a giant checker board, zip lines, ropes courses, an outdoor ice rink and a stage. Near the stage was a courtyard with a large Christmas tree where we just let the kids run around for a while. We could tell that during the prime seasons, this place was probably bustling with activity.

Having spent a good deal of time at the Wharf, we headed back to the Condo around 11:30 to eat lunch and let Cooper and Reed take their naps. While I ate my sandwich, I decided to FaceTime Drew. Poor guy was sitting in an empty conference room in Terre Haute where we had schedule some Medicare seminars only to not have a single individual show up. So, I added salt to his wounds by showing him my view of the beach. The temperature was about 60 and Avin and Parker had been dying to go swimming, so Amanda took them down to the pool (which is heated). For the next few hours, she hung out poolside while the boys basically sat on the pool stairs and I hung out on the patio of the condo. For the first time all week, I had a little interaction with the office. I had to take care of some very small issues. It’s really been a great week to be away as I really didn’t leave much undone at work and I’ve had very few emails and even fewer calls from the office. In addition to talking to a few individuals at the office, I got to talk to Rena as well. Reen couldn’t believe that ICI (or any company for that matter) would offer such a perk as a free condo stay in Florida. I acknowledged what a blessing it truly is to work for a company that puts such high value on not only their employees, but also the families.

After those few hours of swimming, napping, working and chatting, we headed back out. Something worth mentioning here…As we prepared to leave, I discovered Reed has got a groove thang goin’. I began to create a beat and move my head from side to side and Reed would mimic. It was awesome and we all made him do it all night. Moving on…we headed to the outlet mall, primarily to go to the kids clothing stores. The first store we stopped in was the one we spent the most time in. It was crewcuts. This is J.Crew’s kids store. All of our kids are growing out of stuff pretty quickly and they really had some good deals on some cool stuff for each of them. The most difficult part of that experience though was boy’s discovery of ties. This store sold boys ties that actually tied. I thought it was comically since most grown men don’t know how to tie a tie these days. To make matters worse, they were all really cheesy looking and had things like candy canes or ginger bread men on them. We left that store with a bag full of clothes and two very upset little boys that didn’t get ties. I tried my best to explain to them why buying something like that wasn’t a good use of our money and how they really wouldn’t have many opportunities to wear a tie. At our next stop however, we found cheap, decent looking, no-tieing ties and we bought them. Avin and Parker were so excited they insistent on wearing their new ties the rest of the night. After we hit a couple of other stores, it was time for dinner.

At about 5:00pm, we headed toward the Hard Rock Café at Destin Commons. We figured the kids would probably enjoy the atmosphere there. Unfortunately, after entering the restaurant, we were told that they were hosting a private event and we could stay. That’s kind of been the story of the week, get the kids all excited about something only to get shot down. Needing a solution quick and knowing that they would love pizza, we decided to try Red Brick Pizza there at the commons. It was good and the kids enjoyed having a TV there at our table.

After pizza, it’s was time for our nightly ice cream. So, it was back to the marble slab. We each enjoyed our ice cream creation and headed back to the condo. This was our latest night out of the week but the kids needed some wind down time before bed. So, I let them all have just a few minutes of reading time in their beds before I came in to read about some new dinosaurs. Then, it was highs of the day followed by prayer and lights out. I held off my journaling for a bit tonight as it’s caused me to miss out on the short window of time between when the kids go to bed and when Amanda falls asleep. Unfortunately, Greys and Private Practice were one so it would have been a good night to go ahead and type while she enjoyed her shows.

It was another great and beautiful day here. One more full day of vacation left and we plan to make the most of it. Until then…

Vacation day 5

Wednesday, December 1: Day 5

Today was a bit of a roller coaster ride. It started early for Amanda once again as she was up with Reed around 4:30am. Apparently, at about that same time, the alarm clock in the kids room went off (the result of Avin & Parker playing with the clock when they should have been sleeping). Usually, I wake up before she does when any of the kids are awake but apparently I was out cold this morning. I woke up to a beautiful sunrise around 5:30 and then drifted in and out of consciousness for the next hour or so. When I joined the party around 7am, I was pleased to see that Amanda had made pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast. We all gathered at the table and enjoyed a great breakfast together.

Because it was barely 50 degrees out, we thought we would do some more shopping hoping that it might warm up enough to swim later, so, after breakfast, we all got ready and headed out. By the way, we found the song that Cooper loves, it was #2 on the cd. Our first destination was no further than the entrance of the resort. There is a store that we’ve been eyeing all week because it advertises brands like The North Face and Birkenstock. When we went in, we were surprised to see a large stock of cold weather apparel. I asked the saleslady about it and she said it was because they get a lot of people that come in there before they head to their cold weather destinations to ski. I also seized the opportunity to finally try on a pair of vibram five fingers. I think I need a pair. Moving on…

After a quick stop in Starbucks, we made a quick pass through the outlet mall. Amanda ran into one store and came back out demanding to go back later because the deals were so good. So, we went down the road to Barnes-n-Noble. We told the boys we would get them a new dinosaur book. After going through the one they had the night before, I didn’t really care for some of the evolution references that it made. So, I picked out a book that stuck more to the specifics of the different types of dinosaurs. At first, Avin said he didn’t like the book. I honestly think he didn’t like the amount of text in it. I took him aside and told him that this was a book that we would have to go through together and that it would be a good one to learn more about the various dinosaurs and then I read him a few pages. Since then, it’s all he can do to put it down. We also got another book that I’m anxious to go through with Parker and Avin. It’s called “The Book of Questions and Answers” and it basically just a book of all different types of, you guessed it, questions and answers. It also has little quizzes on each page.

We had every intention of doing a big lunch today but after we left the bookstore, we realized that all the kids were too tired to trust in a restaurant. So, it was back to the condo for naps. I’ll be honest; I was pretty frustrated at this point. I was in the mood to be out and have fun and really wasn’t eager to sit the condo. I know it’s not fair to the kids though to expect them to be able to go the same pace that I want to. So, I relaxed and read my book while Amanda went back to the outlet mall. All the kids slept except for Avin. He read his new dinosaur book and did some of his learning games on the computer.

It was about 2:30 and Amanda had returned from shopping with some new clothes for the kids that she got dirt cheap. Once we got everyone up and ready to go, we decided to head to The Back Porch for dinner. Once again, several people had recommended the restaurant because of its good food and location on the beach. They also have a playground set up on the beach. Again, we were practically the only ones in the restaurant and it was a good thing. The kids seemed to be particularly difficult tonight. Dinner was…mediocre. I’m pretty confident it was more to do with our poor selections. After dinner, we walked out to the playground to find a crew of workers working on the building in the same area as the Playground. Needless to say, when we told the kids we couldn’t play on that playground, they were upset. So, we drove to the Baytowne Wharf playground for the 3 rd straight day. It was getting darker and colder so we didn’t stay there very long.

After play time, it was time for ice cream. As we were making our way to the Marble Stone Creamery, Amanda remembered that Bass Pro was doing pictures with Santa. Upon deciding to take the kids there, I got nervous that one of them would say something to Santa about how he wasn’t really real. But, once they saw him, they got excited and no one made mention of his in-existence. From the North Pole, it was on to ice cream.

At the Marble Stone, we struck up a conversation with the owner. He asked me what I did for work and proceeded to comment on the fact that he couldn’t believe we had 4 kids. Then he asked, “do you have any idea how much each one costs annually?” Amanda and I just kind of looked at each other. We discussed that we never really looked at it that way and that we’ve made choices to sacrifice and alter our lifestyle where necessary for the sake of our kids. Despite that one awkward moment, it was a very interesting conversation ranging from business ventures to schooling our kids to what to do in Destin.

It was getting late and almost time for the kids to hit the sack so we headed back to the resort. The kids all got their PJ’s on and we read a few pages of the new dinosaur book. As we usually do, we said our favorite part of the day, then prayed and it was lights out.

We’re hoping for warmer weather tomorrow so we can do some swimming. Until then….goodnight!

Vacation day 4

Tuesday, November 30: Day 4

Our little, 7 month old alarm clock went off this morning around 4am. While Amanda got up to tend to Reed, I struggled to fall back asleep due to sinus pressure and my head cold that kept me coughing continually. I did finally fall back to sleep while Amanda was up for the day. At about 7, I was up with everyone else.

The forecast for today told us that it would be the warmest day of the week but that there was 100% chance of storms throughout the day. As we’ve learned from past trips to Florida, when the forecast says rain all day, it really means sunshine for most of the day and rain for part of it. Nevertheless, we decided not to attempt any beach or pool activities but rather, do some shopping. After a few hours hanging out at the condo, we headed west to Destin Common’s shopping center. We said we were going to shop, but we really didn’t do much shopping. Our first stop there was at Build-A-Bear where we let the kids (except for Reed) pick out new bears. Avin picked a new dog, Parker a dark colored teddy bear and Cooper got a cream colored bear. We kept it simple it opted out of all the crazy accessories. As we were checking out, we noticed a special they were running on Christmas bears with another bear purchase, so, Reed got one after all. They asked if we wanted the iconic boxes or just bags. Of course we wanted the boxes, isn’t that why you go to Build-A-Bear, to get one of the boxes.

After building our bears, we went to playground in the middle of the outdoor mall. The kids had a blast, and their new bears did everything they did. They worked up a sweat and we snacked on pretzel bites and lemonade while we all played. From the playground we walked down to the Bass Pro Shops anchor store. This place was awesome. We’ve been to these stores before, but there was something about this one that made it especially nice. At the back of the store, they had an area set up specifically for kids. It had a table to color and do crafts and it also had games like a car racing game and a target shooting game. Once they had their fill there, we headed back toward the car. We ducked into a couple of stores along the route, but never really did any “shopping.” At this point, it was around 1:00pm and Cooper was getting pretty tired, so we headed back to the condo.

At the condo, we ate a small lunch and all just relaxed for the afternoon. Avin and Parker laid in Amanda and I’s bed watching TV (new bear and dog laid with them) while we watched Something About Mary on TV and relaxed in the living room. As it got later, we began the discussion of what we were going to do for dinner. Amanda wanted to either order a pizza or go to the grocery to get something to make at the condo. I told her I couldn’t do that. As I mentioned on Day 1, eating out is a critical part of Seymore family vacations and to go an entire day without eating at a new restaurant was just against everything I’ve been taught. We also realized that, aside from ordering in, anything would require leaving the Condo, so we might as well go to a restaurant. So we did, and it was an extravagant one…Johnny Rockets.

We hadn’t ever been to a Johnny Rockets before. We enjoyed it, particularly because we literally had the place to ourselves. We ate burgers and hot dogs and Avin and Parker colored pictures of Bert & Ernie that caught hung on the wall before we left. After dinner, we went down the block to a place called Kilwin’s for ice cream. This place had every kind of sweet you could think of. After a sample of sample of their Cinnamon Crumb Cake ice cream, I chose the Emerald Coast Sundae with mint chocolate chip ice cream, fudge, crushed oreo and whipped cream in a waffle bowl. The kids got some Superman ice cream, peanut butter / chocolate ice cream and some fudge dipped marshmallows. After dessert, it was back to the condo.

For the second night in a row, the best time of the day was the just before bed. We all got our PJ’s on and brought all the stuffed animals, new and old, into the living room. The first order of business was to name all the new friends. Parker was pretty easy, since I like to call him P-Bear, I suggested we call his bear T-Bear. He insisted that the name be Teddy instead. My resolution, “Teddy can be his real name, but his nickname will be T-Bear”…”Okay dad!” Avin was difficult (which has been pretty common at bedtime lately). He wanted his old dog and his new dog to be “twins” so he wanted to name them both dog. I tried to convince otherwise but he just got upset. The final resolution was to name him “Dog II”… for a little added flair I altered it to “Thurston Dog II.” Avin helped me name Cooper’s cream colored bear “Coconut” or “Coco” for short. After naming them all, we played stuffed animal duck-duck-goose and then a bear neighborhood game Avin made up with the boxes.

Seven o’clock rolled around and it was time for bed. The kids, and their dogs and bears made their way back to their room. I read them a little bit of their dinosaur book (which led me to realize that we need to find a new, less evolution oriented dinosaur book). After a little reading, it was prayer, highlights of the day (which were all getting their new bears) and then lights out.

The weather for the rest of the week looks clear and a little cool. We hope to get some beach / pool time in the next few days.

Another relaxing day in the books!