Mickey and Disney Stuff

I was able to snap ONE picture of Tommy in his Mickey hat so far.  You can tell he's aching to take it off as soon as possible. 

 Most of the time he keeps his Mickey hat on top of his humidifier.  That's a good place for it.

 Glory be to the highest, we have FINALLY moved on from the Cars movies.  Tommy has taken an interest in LION KING.  WHOO HOO!!

 He loves dancing to "I Just Can't Wait to be King" but you can see that he is wearing his Lightning McQueen gloves in both pictures.

I have to fast forward to the songs.  The kiddo is still not interested in sitting through a whole movie just yet. Andrew says, "He is the only kid I know who would rather stop watching a movie to go read books."
We're crossing our fingers that we'll be able to take him to see Planes in the theater this summer.  I mean, they sample White Zombie in the trailer.  Hopefully it's worth the price!

Another Purdue B-Ball Game for Tommy

Tommy doesn't go to very many games.  They are usually during nap time or too late at night.  We have to get a babysitter most of the time.  But today it actually worked out that he could go.  Every single person no matter how small must have a ticket.  So we just buy the cheapest one we can find and let him sit on our laps.  It equals out to the price of a babysitter though.  Oh well.  

 Tommy had a great time sitting on Grandpa lap.

He also got to see Purdue Pete, give him a high five AND HOLD HIS HAMMER.  In the fourth picture you can tell Tommy is treating like, "Um, yeah I've held hammers before. Whatever." 

Then Purdue Pete was like "So can I have my hammer back?"  

Tommy was like, "Oh wait, this old thing? Yeah I guess."  

Adventures in Eating Part 2398429729

Let me preface this by saying, it's ALWAYS an adventure when eating at a restaurant with Tommy with his milk, egg and peanut allergies.  But we found a new restaurant that's near us that has an allergy menu.  Whoo hoo! It's TGI Fridays.  I read online that they have an allergy menu available inside so I went in and asked to see it.  I looked through every single damn menu item to see what Tommy could have.  He could have TWO things in the entire restaurant.  Spaghetti from the kid's menu and a half rack of ribs.  YAY! It's something! So we decided to eat there.  Tommy loved the "flair" on the walls.

 Once he got bored with the crayons and the kids menu, he asked to use my phone to take pictures.  I'm not kidding when I say the kid took 30 pictures... of himself.  Mostly just his forehead.  Maybe it's bad that the iPhone 5 has a way faster shutter. :) (Heehee, look at that little smirk smile.  Cute.)

Then he wanted me to take pictures of him.  I took a few but the flash is out of control bright.  None of those turned out.  

 Then the spaghetti came.  Holy moly, it was a complete and total MESS. But he LOVED it.  He also loved the fresh fruit.  YUM.

Awww, little spaghetti man. Such a cutie pie.

So now our restaurant list for Tommy (places that have allergy menus) is:
TGI Fridays
McAlisters
Burger King
Firehouse Subs
Chipotle
Chick-fil-a 

Places we haven't been to yet that do have menus:
Red Lobster
Ruby Tuesdays (this menu sucks because it's separated by allergen. What if someone has more than one? Too much work. Plus we don't have one here.)
Culvers

I just found this link to tons of restaurants links.  Looks like we have lots more to try! Sweet! Can't wait!

Dinner with our friend, Brian

A couple weeks ago, we had the opportunity to go to dinner with Brian Cardinal.  Some of you readers may not know who he is (because I'm WORLDWIDE, Folks!!).  Brian was a player at our ol' Purdue University.  Then he went on to the NBA and played for few different teams before retiring to a more regular life in Indiana just recently. 

He tweeted a picture of us.  We felt super cool. He told some great stories about Gene Keady and playing for Purdue.  He was a really funny and extremely nice to us nerdy fans.  :-) 

I'm keeping this short because I could go on and on with super dorky anecdotes but that might bore you.  The only thing you need to know is that he can take a good ribbing and give it right back to you.  Also, he was nice enough to come over to our seats during the Purdue game and say a casual hello.  I couldn't go to the game that night but boy, did Andrew enjoy that.  Everybody sitting around them said, "OMG, that's Brian Cardinal."  Our seat neighbors must be asking "Who ARE These people?" after seeing us sit in the gold seats, have a fully uniformed officer come over to talk to us every game, and being visited by Brian Cardinal.  I guess we're just something special. :)

I don't have time to talk about all the funny articles I found on Brian Cardinal, I will just link to them so you can read them in your spare time.  This one is possibly true on how he got a big contract.  This is about his twitter presence getting him in trouble.  This post has a super quick reference to his foul shot ritual.  Sadly, that was the ONLY thing I could find on that.  Oh wait, just kidding.  Here's another one from a former Ohio State player talking about the foul shot ritual. Hilarious.  We know why he did it!!!! Oohhh secrets!!

Anyway, super exciting night for true Purdue fans.  Plus he was a really interesting person to talk to.  Double bonus! Thanks for dinner, our new friend Brian.  (I totally hope he googles himself and finds this, by the way. :-) 

Bears Jammies

Tommy got Bears Jammies from Aunt Cait for Christmas.  Today he picked them out to wear for a lazy Sunday.

I asked if I could take his picture in his jammies and he expressed his displeasure.  

 For a long time.  But OMG, look at that little Bear tail.  Ridiculous!

 He eventually gave up on throwing fits when I would try to take his picture.  He grabbed some snacks out of the cabinet and chilled on the couch.

 You caught me! Yes I caught you scarfing down snacks, little stink pot.

When we tried to put him down for a nap today, we took his hood off and laid him down.  Andrew left the room and Tommy threw a fit.  Andrew went back in and Tommy was sitting on the end of his bed. He had found his hood and put it back on his head.  He REALLY must like these jammies!

Tommy's Second Flight

So after the first horrendous flight, we learned a few lessons which we put to good use for the second flight. 

 Our flight was in the morning so we had to get up super early (early for Tommy after sleeping in all week) to make it to the airport in time.  Tommy is enjoying his early morning car ride.

The first lesson we learned about the airport is to not use the stroller for its intended use.  Instead we piled it with all our carry ons and carried Tommy.  It worked WAAAYY better to do it that way.  Then we didn't have to struggle with carrying tons of bags while maneuvering our rolling suitcases and keeping Tommy happy in his stroller.  WAY EASIER for some reason.

 The Orlando airport has a train.  Tommy was SUPER excited about it!  I think Andrew was a bit MORE excited though.

Second lesson we learned.  Have a sucker for Tommy to eat while descending.  We found some suckers at the airport outside of security.  They were at a Disney store and expensive so we decided to wait until we got through security.  Once we got through security, they didn't have any suckers in any store.  ARGH.  So I had to go back out, buy the suckers for freaking $10, and then go back through security.  But after our first flight, I was willing to pay any amount of money to keep him happy on the flight. 

Boy, was he happy! He was also a complete MESS.  Look at his shirt.  That's ALL slobber.  Disgusting! But who cares? We also learned not to let him sleep on this flight so that he wouldn't wake up so upset.  It WORKED! He was super happy with his Mickey suckers.

He was also super happy to watch Mickey on the iPad.  Look at him living the life!

 We had a VERY Successful flight this time.  He was a super good boy.  There was hardly ANY crying at all and he was able to sit through the entire flight without too much squirming.

Here is Tommy after being in our car for literally 5 minutes.  He was out.  Being a good boy is exhausting!  Or maybe it was the week long Disney vacation that was exhausting.  Either way, kiddo was pooped.

Way to go on your first successful flight, Tommy T! You did it!

Keiper Family Christmas Vacation: Part V

The last few days of vacay we really took it easy.  We slept in (awesome) and didn't do a whole lot. 

 Here's Tommy taking it easy.  He's still wearing his pajamas at lunch time and he's double-fisting water and milk.

 That evening we went to Disney's Boardwalk.  It definitely is Disney's best kept secret.  There was no one there! It was so nice. We could walk without bumping into strangers every five feet.  Fantastic.

Disney's Boardwalk is basically a super classy jersey shore, if that's possible.  It has nice shops and restaurants.

We looked at the map we were given to find a restaurant for dinner.  We found a restaurant that said it had a "character breakfast and dinner".  I tried to call and make reservations and the automated system was a no go.  So we just decided to try and walk in.  The receptionist gave us the run-around.
"Are you staying at the Swan or Dolphin?"
"Neither."
"Are you guys staying at a Disney Resort?"
"No."
With a snarl, "Are you guys local?"
My dad pipes up, "YEP. We are local. That's us."
She says, "Fine" and leads us to a table.  Sweet! Not sure what the big deal was but we felt like we got away with something.

The restaurant was super nice!! That night was a super nice Seafood Buffet. Mom got sangria.  Yum!

 I got boring ol' wine.  But it was de-lish.

The desserts had the name of the resort on them! Aww, cute.

 The place was so cool.  This was the ceiling.

There was a flipping TREE in the middle of the restaurant too.  What the what? Now that's cool.

 Then it was time for the characters to make their rounds. Pluto! Tommy was so excited!

Then he totally got over Pluto when he saw Goofy and started pointing at him.  Poor Pluto.  I hope his feelings weren't hurt.  

Hey Chip! Tommy is only semi-impressed with Chip I think.  

 He did give him a high five and knuckles though.

 Apparently he wasn't into Dale at all.  Poor Dale.  He was like 'Let me eat me my nuggets in peace, chipmunk!'

Then Goofy finally make his way around to see us.  Hooray!

But he couldn't be bothered to stop eating for the picture.  In his defense, he was munching on Oreos for dessert.

 Chip and Dale kept coming by our table to flirt.

 I can totally tell them apart now.  Chip has a black nose and Dale's nose is red.  When we were trying to figure them out, Andrew goes, 'Wait, are you Chip or Dale?'  He held up one finger.  Andrew said, "Ah, you're Chip." He shook his head yes.  Ha!

We walked around the resorts and the boardwalk a little bit more. I bought Tommy some Mickey Ears which he refused to wear.  This picture shows him wearing them but we are distracting with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and holding his other hand down.  It wasn't long before he ripped them off his head.

It was raining when we left.  Tommy enjoyed playing with my umbrella.

 He looks like he's about to bust out some Gene Kelly choreography with that umbrella.

As the week came to a close, people starting leaving our vacation house.

Adam and Steph left first on Friday.  I don't have a picture of them leaving so I'll just leave you with this.  (Yes we teased them all week.  Those poor love birds.)

 Brandon and Desi left next on Saturday.  They did not want to leave, hence Desi's sad face.

 The kids were already in travel mode, it looks like.

On Saturday we went to Old Town Kissimmee.  There was a car show my dad wanted to check out so we walked around the shops.  There was an old-timey arcade that Tommy thought was pretty cool.

We won 21 tickets playing games.  With our tickets we were able to get one twizzler, two dum-dums and a tootsie roll.  Jackpot!

We kept the last dum-dum for dinner that night.  It took some time to get our pizza at Giordano's (because where else do you get Chicago style deep dish pizza but FLORIDA!).  Suckers are an excellent distraction for him.  So incredibly messy but fantastic for keeping him busy.

Our vacation was disastrous but amazing.  We had such a great time.  Tommy was really quite the good little boy for all he went through.  Way to go Tommy for making it through your first Disney vacation!  Thank you to my mom and dad for putting together an awesome week with our family in the magical land of Disney.

Now all we have left to cover is the flight! Did Tommy have a better flight this time? Stay tuned!