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Latest & Greatest News, November 2014

Recent Happenings

casademurphy

Remember me? It’s definitely been awhile….this momma was sick these last few weeks & honestly, the thought of sitting at the computer (for anything other than what I had to do for work) was just not appealing.

In the meantime, life moved on, as it always does, right?!?! LOL…I just tried to keep up. Thankfully, I had Mr Murphy there to help and lucky for him, he didn’t get it. Liam got a touch of it, but I’m happy to report that we’re all feeling much better now.

So, here’s what we’ve been up to the last few weeks….

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Halloween was so much fun! Liam was ALL about it! He was allowed to dress up for school, but yes, I was afraid his costume would get messed up soooooo he wore a back-up {go ahead & laugh….it’s ok}. He had a great time sporting his ‘Sheriff Woody’ costume all morning. We even saw from the cameras that he kept his hat on! — way to go, dude! 🙂

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Halloween night, we went over to our friend’s, the Bengels, and hung out for dinner {delish homemade pizza!} and then the kiddos trick-or-treated together. The ‘Hulk’ made his appearance for this main event!

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Getting ready to hit the neighborhood! Liam walked the entire trip. Such a little trooper! He loved going up to the doors & saying, ‘trick-or-treat’ …he’s still talking about it, a few weeks later 🙂

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The next night, we headed back out to gather with our friends for a 2nd Annual S more’s Roast. It was the 1st cool night of the season, so it worked out perfectly! The adults attempted a roasted marshmallow Kahlua shot….pretty tasty, I must say.

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The kiddos had a blast roasting marshmallows & making s more’s out back once it got dark.

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Last weekend, we headed downtown for the Touch-A-Truck event. This is a community event where the kiddos can explore various big trucks, construction vehicles, and public safety equipment. Liam LOVED it!

Here he is checking out a steam roller.

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There were a few mini monster trucks there. He thought they were the coolest things ever.

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We even got to squeeze him into the driver seat of one. Such a big, little man 😉

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Fire Truck!

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Saturday evening, we headed over to Mimi, Papa D & Aunt Heather’s to celebrate baby cousin, Sierra’s very 1st birthday ❤

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Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

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On Sunday, I got a little creative while daddy was watching football & made this turkey with Liam. I asked him for 5 things he was thankful for to write on each feather….He said: mommy, daddy, timber, rainbows, & letters ❤

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It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving will be here next week, but we’re definitely excited & looking forward to it.

Until next time, friends! 🙂

~H

Latest & Greatest News, October 2014

Week-In-Review

casademurphy

Last week was such a fun week at gymnastics! Liam overcame his fear of flipping upside down and did his pull-over on the un-even bar with Coach Elyssa! He was super proud, as were we! Even more exciting was that his coach sent him a ‘star student’ certificate in the mail later in the week to recognize this awesome achievement 🙂 …that really was such a sweet gesture from her! Much appreciated by this momma & daddy!!

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We enjoyed a busy, but super fun weekend, as we geared up for the upcoming Halloween celebration. The festivities kicked off on Friday evening with our annual bash at the Bengel’s. Liam sported his costume and looked awesome!!

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Lisa had the house all decked out and I was in love with her ‘floating candles’ in their family room. Great touch!

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The kids decided to break out some pretty sweet dance moves. Liam definitely has some moves of his own, people….so cute!

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On Sunday, we took our little guy out to UCF for ‘Trick or Treat on Greek Street’. This was the 1st year we made it out there, and it was fun for him. He definitely was happy about the early trick-or-treating, and he did pretty good participating in a few of the games that they had set up.

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Trick-or-Treating is hard work 😉 …..water break!

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Sunday evening, the boys did a little pumpkin carving out back. Even the fur baby got in on the action 🙂

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Posing with his finished ‘jack-o-lantern’ …the smaller pumpkin is a fake one but he insisted that it was ‘the baby’ and that the one Stephen carved was ‘the daddy’, so they had to stay together….LOL!!! Too Funny!! What an imagination!

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By the time the candle burned out on this guy on Sunday night, I was exhausted….such a busy weekend, yet so much fun…..and, so many wonderful memories! Lots more Halloween fun to come this week. We are looking forward to sharing with you soon.

Until next time, friends!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, October 2014

Green Meadows Farm

casademurphy

Last Sunday, we headed out to Green Meadows Farm with our Sunshine Babies group for another fun-filled fall adventure! It was an absolutely gorgeous day & we had the most perfect weather 🙂 …so thankful for that! You can look back on last year’s fall trip, here {so cute to see how much little man has changed / grown up }

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Our 1st stop was the hayride around the property. A nice, easy way to kick off the morning.

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How cute was this sign?!?! For some reason, I didn’t see it last year, but we got him to stand in front of it this time. Yeap, we’re clearly at the 3 foot mark 😉

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Oh, the goats! He wasn’t as thrilled to pet them this go around, but this little guy was a cutie! He was one of a set of twins that was only ELEVEN DAYS OLD!! ❤ ….we were saying HI  to him, here.

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Definitely got a kick out of feeding the goats! Look at the joy on that face 🙂

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Ponies for days!! I think you can tell by the sweet expression on that face that he was IN LOVE!

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Well, hello there baby duckie!

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Ah, the pumpkin patch! One of the perks of heading out to Green Meadows during October is that each paying guest can take home a pumpkin….sooo, we filled our wagon with 3 lovelies that the boys will be carving up this weekend. It was MUCH harder {compared to prev years} to get this lively 3 year old to pose and/or stay still in a way that suited my photo-crazed ideas….the out-stretched arms with a cheese  was the winner of the afternoon. I’ll take it ❤

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Another one of my stolen moments….searching for the perfect pumpkin for Liam {he wanted one of the smaller ones}

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Loved this one!

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Last but not least….I was super excited to see the same SPOOKY  sign this year, as we had come across last year….so, I attempted to re-create last year’s shot. You can DEFINITELY see the difference in how much this little man has grown.

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It was a great day with our friends from the Sunshine Babies group! Liam had an awesome time exploring around and checking out all the animals. It’s, for sure, one of our favorite places to visit during this time of the year.

Until next time, friends!!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, October 2014

Welcome October :)

casademurphy

Happy 1st week of October, friends! With temps here in Florida dipping below 70 for the 1st time this season over this past weekend, it finally felt like fall was whispering in our ear. It was definitely enough for this Murphy family to throw open every stinkin’ window in the house we could 😉

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When we hit the end of September last week, I realized that I skipped Liam’s teddy bear picture last month. Granted, not a huge deal. Especially, since I did remember for his birthday, but I had wanted to do it because we didn’t go for his 3 year check up until the end of August {oops!}….oh well! Catching up this month 🙂

We kinda knew {expected} that little dude had grown a ton since last year, but I was down right shocked to hear his doctor say that he grew THREE inches and gained SEVEN pounds. WOW!!! Quite the growth spurt, right?!?! 😛

So thankful that all checked out a-okay. Every kid learns & develops in their own time, but on the average, he is doing just fine. He really is getting into the imaginary play. We LOVE to hear him play with his toys and make up stories as he is playing. It is fascinating to watch. We are working on teaching him to pedal his little tricycle that Santa brought last year, and I would like to focus over this next year on learning what educational activities and crafts we can do together that are fun but also help him learn……especially since he will be in Pre-K at this time next year (yikes!!).

The sense of humor he is developing truly seems to be a combo of both Stephen and me…..this may prove to bite us in the a$$ down the road 🙂 …..already I hear sarcasm and have seen slight eye rolling {omg! lol} …For example, he has already picked up on the fact that I will call him by both his 1st & middle name when I am trying to get his attention. At Publix, on Saturday, after calling him in this manner, he looked up at me with a very matter-of-fact tone of voice and stated, “Mommy, my friends call me, ‘Liam Murphy’.” …well, excuuuuse me!!

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If you would like to check out the last few posts of these ‘teddy bear pics’ I had posted, please see here,  here and here.

Happy Fall, ya’ll 🙂

~H

Latest & Greatest News, September 2014

Recent Happenings

casademurphy

Where have these last few weeks gone? Can you believe we are creeping into October this week?                              Good grief….ya blink, and time just flies ahead.

We have had some fun around here, lately, and the calendar is not letting up anytime soon. That said, I better get my bootie up-to-date with these posts, eh?!?! 🙂

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We are continuing gymnastics, once a week. Liam really looks forward to it and shows much enthusiasm. However, it has definitely been a learning curve for him to get used to a structured learning environment outside of daycare, but overall, we believe this will end up being a great experience for him from all angles — physical, social, and emotional. It helps that he has a friend in class with him, and here’s a sweet pic of the two of them hanging out after class. LOVE the expression on Liam’s face while he’s looking at Kenadie…..priceless!

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Two weeks ago, it was PIRATE WEEK!! So much fun! Liam did activities all week long at school to keep in the spirit. We also visited the Orlando Science Center on Saturday (9/20) & part of the activities that day were in celebration of Pirate Week. They had this awesome wall mural below up in the KidsTown area. I had to capture a pic 😉

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I am so fortunate to work for a GREAT office at UCF that allows me the flexibility to go to special events at Liam’s school, like his Pirate Parade. It was so cute ❤ …he made me hold hands with him as we walked through the school {heart.melted}

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This was a cool little play pic they had a the Science Center. Now, ya know, I had to get him taking his pic in it, right?!?! 🙂

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The main purpose of heading out to the Science Center early that Saturday was to check out their new Bats Exhibit. YES, there are REAL.LIVE.BATS! It was actually kind of cool because we got to see them chow down on some melon and avacado just after I snapped this pic (no flash, as that would disturb them). As soon as Liam realized we were in the same room that the Curious George Exhibit had been in, and that it was NOT there anymore, he was less than impressed. The kid cracks us up!! 🙂

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He LOVED this jet flight simulator in the Science Park Exhibit area!

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Down in KidsTown at the Orange Grove Factory

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We finally made our way up to the DinoDigs Exhibit on the top floor. Liam said, afterwards, that this is his favorite part of the whole center.

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He really enjoyed playing in this fossil area. It was pretty cute.

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I told Stephen I am always the one “behind the camera”, so he snapped this pic of me & Liam….Liam is fixated on the moving dinosaur next to us. I think he thought it was real 😉

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This was hysterical! Our little meteorologist at the Science Station – WFTV Severe Weather Center 9.

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Last week, at Liam’s school it was Community Helper week. They made these really cute projects. He was so proud of them!

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They also had a Sheriff’s Officer come see them with his police car. He thought that was pretty cool. He said he got to sit in the back of the car, too 😛

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Last Friday, it was my mom’s birthday, so Liam & I headed down to her house and spent the day hanging out with her. We had a nice time 🙂

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We capped off the weekend with making the house Halloween festive! Hooray!! So much fun! You have probably heard me say this hundreds of times, at this point, but each age with Liam it just keeps getting more & more fun. He had a ball helping with the decorations! It’s brings me happiness to see the excitement in his eyes as we do these things together. Love him!!

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Whew! That was a lot of catching up, right?!?! ….sorry for the all the posting! I told ya I was behind. HA!!

There was so many more fun pics, so head on over to my Instagram to see the rest of what we’ve been up to {@casademurphy}.

Enjoy the rest of your week, friends!!

Until next time….

~H

Latest & Greatest News, September 2014

Happy Fall!

casademurphy

Hello, Friends! Today, I am over on the Orlando Moms Blog with my very 1st post as one of their new contributors {whoop, whoop!! SO EXCITED!!}.

Since we welcomed the start of the fall season yesterday, I thought it would be fun to share a bucket list of activities we can do “Florida Style” 😉 …check it out here

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Latest & Greatest News, September 2014

Week-In-Review

casademurphy

I am that mama who always has the camera in hand (or within reach), and is ready to take a picture at a moment’s notice. I am not ashamed of that, and I literally have thousands of pics of this amazing little man, at this point, in his young life. One day, he may think I am a crazy mama, and I am totally OK with that:)

That said, yes, I am also THAT mama who has been stealing moments at gymnastics. I can’t help it. It is just too cute….and we’ve only just had our 2nd lesson! I am SO in trouble! Last week went much better than the 1st….in that, I mean, Liam was much more comfortable with the class & listened well. This class focused a lot on the balance beam. He was not a huge fan of that, but we were really proud of him for giving it a 100% effort. You can really see it on his little face….how focused he is & how hard he is trying. At one point, he came over to us and said, “I can’t do it” …*sigh* break my heart…we are softies, this is true…but, we stayed strong and told him, “Yes, you can. Just go back out there & your teacher will help you.” And, she did help him. She held his little hand as they walked across the beam. Then, he “beamed” because he was so proud of himself and jumped up & down and said,

“I did it, I really did it!”

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On Saturday, Daddy had to work {bummer}, so Liam & I decided to go check out Bithlo Park. Umm, hello…..this place was so cool! A park AND a splash pad! Liam had a blast! There was hardly anyone else there and at one point, it was just us in the splash pad area. Awesome!!

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The splash pad was so big! He called that feature in the middle the “shower” because of how much water it dumped on you….it looked like a shower to him 🙂 ….He literally ran laps around this place.

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Under the “shower”…lol!

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Had to get some swinging in before we headed back to the car.

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On Sunday, we decided to get a bit creative with our grocery shopping outing to Publix. Lately, Liam has boy-cotted any kind of ride in the shopping cart. He wants to walk. MR. INDEPENDENT! — OMG! It definitely has made shopping….umm, challenging? Getting him to hold my hand while Stephen pushes the cart or vice versa doesn’t always work. Usually, one or both of us would end up completely frustrated by the end of the shopping adventure. For some reason, we glanced at his shopping cart Sunday morning on our way out the door and thought, yeah, why not take this with us? He could push it and it would keep him busy. He was game for it, so we went with it.

It ended up being a great success! He loved it and pushed the cart around the entire store. He also loved ALL the attention he was getting …people thought he was just THE.CUTEST.THING …..I thought his little head was going to explode by the time we were done. Such a little hamm!

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We also got some power-wheels fun in this weekend. I did not realize how long it had been since Liam had drove his Jeep until he sat down in it….Wow, he looked so much bigger sitting in it. We practiced with him to show him how to steer this time, instead of just driving in circles. He did pretty good!

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Sunday night, Daddy & Liam baked cookies. Yummy! Don’t judge, peeps, but yes, they were “break & bakes”…lol! That’s as fancy as we were getting up here in Casa de Murphy this weekend! Ha!

Liam loves the Macadamia Nut cookies so that was the flavor, but it was hilarious when he blurted out & called them “Mouskadamia” cookies. It was too cute for us to correct. So that’s what we’ve been calling ’em!

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Until next time, friends!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, September 2014

Week-In-Review

casademurphy

Last week was a busy one in Casa de Murphy, but we had some super good fun 🙂

If anyone follows me on FB, then you know that I posted a few weeks ago that we had a challenging week at daycare with adjusting to Liam’s new teacher. As an update, that teacher unfortunately decided his school wasn’t a good fit for him & peaced out. I like to believe everything happens for a reason, so I am trying to take this as a good thing. The good news is that this turn of events hasn’t seemed to phase little man {pic below is of him playing at school last week}. The really good news is that the teacher filling in for his room is probably my most fav teacher at his school right now, so I can rest easy while at work knowing he’s in the best hands. I just know that all the ladies in his dept are working overtime making up for the extra time needed to take care of all the kiddos, so for that, I am grateful 🙂 …fingers crossed they find an awesome new teacher for Liam’s room soon!

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On Wednesday, we started GYMNASTICS!!! whoo – hoo!! This is a completely new venture for us. Liam is doing a Preschool Level class and will be going with one of his besties from school, Ms. Kenadie….he is very excited.

His class will meet once a week & is about an hour long. It’s entirely structured so this will take some time for him to get accustomed to. He was kind of a rebel & kept trying to go off and do his own thing a majority of the time this past week, but I think he will catch on soon enough. This long trampoline was, by far, his most favorite part! ….there were MANY tears shed when it was time to get off 😉

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Saturday evening, I had some mommy time, and met up with the fab group of ladies I will be working with for the Orlando Moms Blog for our 1st meeting. It was a great night! I am super excited to be a part of this team and get started on this new adventure for me. Orlando Moms Blog is a part of The Moms Magazine, so if you haven’t checked out one or both, please do!! While you’re there, be sure to “like” their Facebook pages, too!

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On Sunday, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to take Liam to see Disney On Ice: Frozen! It was actually the first ice show for all of us {hee, hee!}. Nothing like a Disney show to bring out the kid in ya, right?!?! It really was an incredible show. Have to give HUGE thanks to our friends, the Bargnesi family for sharing the tickets they won through a radio show giveaway. Can’t thank you all, enough!! 🙂

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The show started with all the fav Disney characters skating out to say hello. You can imagine that Liam was over-joyed to see Woody & Buzz!

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Opening of the show…Arendelle

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Kristoff & Sven

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We got a popcorn & this is what you saw for the entire 1st half of the show. This kiddo was an eating maching…no joke! I have never seen him eat popcorn like that before. He just shoveled it in while being mesmerized by the show.

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Olaf!! {our fav!!}

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I wish I had video-taped him dancing to “Summertime” {Olaf’s little theme song} …it was so cute.

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The big finale at the end….Queen Elsa was bringing summer back 😉

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 Such a fun week, peeps! Hope you all had a great one, as well. Ooh, yeah {not pictured} ….I had my 1st pumpkin smear of the season from Einstein Bro. Bagels on campus….YUM! Could that mean that I am being persuaded that Fall is on it’s way?!?! …..maybe so 🙂 ….Now, if we could just talk to someone about this weather…..lol!

Until next time!

~H

August 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Recent Happenings

casademurphy

The weather in the evenings last week was so nice! We took advantage of the {slight} drop in humidity and went to visit our neighborhood duckies one night after work.

There is something about this quick photo I snapped of these two that I just love. Just a little moment stolen quietly between Daddy & son….they didn’t know I was “watching” 🙂

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Liam & I drive by this pond every morning on the way to his school. We always say ‘good morning, duckies’ as we go by. It’s just something I started way back when, and I can’t stop now…lol. So, he really gets a kick out of walking up to try to say hi to them in person.

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We decided it would be fun for little man {and us} to invest in a family pass to the Orlando Science Center. It really is an awesome deal, if you look into it. Liam LOVED it…and we didn’t even go through all the floors, yet. We are saving some for our next trip.

Lately, Liam has totally been into reading his Curious George book. Well, the Science Center had a traveling exhibit of Curious George, and he was over-joyed to check it out {as you can see from his face below}.

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One of the rooms had play trains, planes, cars, etc. Obviously, this choo-choo was a fav! I was trying to get him to say ‘cheese’…but instead, I got a ‘choo-choo’ 🙂

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Here are the boys playing with wooden derby cars on a huge track.

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Checkmate!

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Kidstown! was a clear winner to this little dude. In this area, there was a water table that was like a large rock. I love that they had plastic smocks we could put on Liam to keep his clothes dry. Awesome! You can imagine that it was NOT easy to pull him away. He and another little boy started playing together, and both began singing “Under the Sea” from the “Little Mermaid” movie….too cute!

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It was a great morning at OSC. We plan to go back again in a few weeks when they open up a new “BATS” exhibit, just in time for Halloween {yes, that’s coming…..omg}.

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Until next time, friends!

~H