Tuesday, May 28, 2013

A Magical Trip


Many months ago...back when it was still freezing cold, Man said he wanted to go down and visit his mother and grandmother.  They live near West Palm Beach.  Although I am admittedly geographically challenged I do happen to know exactly where Mickey Mouse lives.  So, I told him to give me the dates and I would set it all up......and that we could not possibly drive right past Mickey Mouse and not stop in to say, "Hi."  Right?  It really didn't seem unreasonable.  He gave me the "Oh my word, here we go," look.  To which I responded with my, "You aren't convincing me otherwise look."  (We have this figured out after 10 years.)

The one thing we immediately swapped blood on?  The girls could not know.  I have to live with them 24 hours a day and I was not counting down to Mickey Mouse for the next 4 or 5 months.  There is not enough chocolate in the world for me to survive that.

We laid out all of their clothes the night before with some treats for Disney!
They were VERY surprised!


After lots of hugs and kisses and thank yous and I can't believe its, we were off.


When I found Florida resident tickets for super cheap but included three days, I couldn't pass them up...or the extra day.  So, we drove straight to Disney and spent several hours the first night at Hollywood Studios.






Hollywood Studios is not particularly bent towards smaller children.  While they have some expereinces for them, it is mostly for Olivia's age and up.  So, it was the perfect place to spend just a few hours.  I will say though, I think they have the BEST "parade" of all the parks.  It occurs on water, at night, and is Fantasmic ;)  Slightly scary for small ones so we passed on it this time for Allye's sake.










The next morning we planned in swim time at the hotel for all of us.  Nate's sister came over after lunch and went with Nate and the two big girls to Magic Kingdom while Allye and I took a nap.


This was the.way.to.go.  When I met up with them a few hours later they had conquered many of the rides already.  The age split for our girls is three years and lots of inches.  So, this often means Olivia can ride everything and Addison can not.  This allowed them to split up and not have anyone out of sorts waiting on the big/little sister to finish a ride.  We then rode lots of things together and everyone came out happy.  Thank you Aunt Kayley.

This was Allye's first character sighting.  She wasn't having it.
Much happier now!




And, well, you can't leave Disney without seeing the fireworks.  Even if it means you give your kids a big fat ice cream and don't make it to bed until midnight.










Of course.  There is always a price to pay.  Our next venture was into the wild at Animal Kingdom.  Bright and early.  I was not the most popular person that morning....until we found face painting.


Allye had a blast on the drums...


but continued to freak out within 20 feet of a character.


I loved the safari themed parade...this might have been the girls favorite thing that day.


Of course, no park is complete without the mouse who started it all.


This was a wonderful trip for our family.  We are so fortunate to live close enough to this magical place and even more fortunate to be able to share this experience with our girls.  I would not trade the looks in their eyes and the excitement in their voices and hearts for anything.  Through their eyes, that is the best way to be young again.

...........................................................

Friday afternoon we jumped in the car and rode another two and a half hours to West Palm Beach.  We had a great time visiting with Nate's mother and grandmother.  The view is always lovely from grandmother's patio.


I could live on the patio...forever.

We spent Saturday playing in the pool and celebrating Daddy's upcoming birthday.



Sunday, well, we drove 8 hours home.  It took more then 8 hours.  Enough said.

..................

We have officially kicked off our summer travels.  We will be going non-stop from now until September.  Let the adventures begin!

----The Mama


Sunday, May 26, 2013

Snapshot Sunday - Project 365


Words cannot describe just how busy our lives have been the past two weeks.  Tonight I will let the photos do the talking and will catch you up to speed this week.  Hopefully.  Life is definitely in full swing around here and we are having a ball!




























I can't wait to share all of the details with you!

--The Mama

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Snapshot Sunday on Monday - Project 365


I gave myself the day off yesterday because I wanted to sew more than I wanted to blog... and it was Mother's Day, so that made it even more ok.

It is officially 10:32 p.m. on Monday night and my computer does not want to upload not one.single.picture I have just spent an hour editing and captioning.  I think I will go to bed.  It must be a sign. 

.......................................

 Tuesday morning - 8:28 a.m. - Let's try this again. :)








---The Mama

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

A Restaurant Chair


When you almost double the size of your home you might say that more seating is of the essence.  I didn't really appreciate this until we moved in to our new home in Florida and could barely seat our own family at the dinner table, let alone guests.  I also needed seating at a new art center we made (more on that later) and for Olivia's room, at the desk I bought in Texas right before we moved so Man could wonder why we were doing such a thing when we had to move ourselves.

I knew how I wanted to do this.  I thought it would be easy.  It has not been easy.  I was simply going to go to Goodwill and purchase an eclectic group of chairs and have Man paint them and finish them to my liking.  Have I mentioned he is good with a can of spray paint?  I will rent loan him out to you when he is done here.

So, considering I had my family stopping at every place that resembled a thrift store for weeks on end, you can imagine my excitement when I found not one but 2!!! chairs in the same week.  Of course he looks them over and and thinks man type thoughts but I saw b.e.a.u.t.y through and through.  Then I was so excited that I brought Mama Miranda over (A.K.A the best neighbor ever) to show her.  She takes one look at it and says, "Hey that is a restaurant chair."  Hmmm.  She was right (I love an honest woman!).  Now I had to worry about putting a restaurant chair at my daughter's desk and if people thought I had lost my mind when they saw it.  This called for a major makeover!  After I spent six 2 sleepless nights worried about the colors and fabric and sturdiness (thanks Man) I made.up.my.mind.  I took myself to Lowes with my three crazy kids and bought the supplies.  I parked my supplies on Man's workbench with instructions to which he might have wanted to tell me to do it myself.  Lots of taping and waiting was required.  ;)  I have to say, it was worth the effort and wait.

So, without further ado....

The Before.


The After.


 I love this.  It might be my favorite spot in the house...


And I always love these types of photos.... 


You can use it to study or read or eat....any way you use it, it was a steal that can't be beat!  

Don't you love a rhyme?  I am full of myself over this.  Can't you tell?

--The Mama

Saturday, May 4, 2013

I Took the Wrong Kid to the Doctor


Wednesday 

Wednesday evening, directly after dinner, in the mad rush we go through every week at this time...Olivia announced she had a headache.  Yes, two seconds before we were blowing out the door to Awana.  I poured some Tylenol down her throat and we were off.  It seemed a little odd that two hours later, upon pick-up, she still had the headache but I chalked it up to needing some sleep.  She never sleeps.  She will tell you so.

Thursday

I woke up Thursday morning to a groggy Olivia who still had a headache.  Upon kissing her sweet face it seemed she had a fever too.  I  immediately  started thinking of the hundreds of kids that she has just given something to  gave her another dose of Tylenol.  Then she told me that her stomach hurt too.  I gave her the normal line of hurting stomach questions and she informed me she wouldn't be eating.  So, I sent a text to Meme.  That is what you do.  You want the nurse to have all of the details from the beginning.  Then I had to text her 75.4 minutes later to tell her that we had two more down.  Three fevers, one house. 

After 14 billion requests for juice, ice, blankets, something to do, nose wipes, and hugs I survived the day.  Until I put Allye to bed with her runny/stuffy nose.  I will never understand how the nose works.  Not breathing well through the nose + not able to suck the pacifier = crying baby.  All.night.long.  I sent a text to Man to get some wall plug-ins on his way home from work.  He did.  At like midnight.  I know.  He's a dream.

I thought it would be wise to put myself to bed early so I tucked in at ten, only to fall asleep to her whimpers and moans.  Then I woke up every h.o.u.r after that because my body did not know what I did to it.  (It doesn't see the bed that early...ever.)  Then at 2:30 I awoke to sudden movements in the bed and lots of furry stuff rubbing on my feet.  We don't own a dog.  It was Man.  From what I could see with my night vision, he was belly crawling under the covers.  His feet were hanging off the side of the bed and then it happened....thump.  His head met the foot board.  I sat up in bed and with my best stage whisper said, "Are you all right?"  He said, "Yes."  I went back to sleep, until the next hour.  

Friday

I decided to get up early since I didn't have anything better to do.  I had also decided in one of my awake moments during the night that I was taking Allye to the doctor because it was Friday and we all know how that goes when you don't go and you wait and think you can make it to Monday.  I quickly met Olivia and Addison and their foreheads...that were slightly fevered.  No breakfast needed.  They weren't eating.  So as Man, Allye, and I ate some breakfast I figured I might want to know what was happening in our bed last night.  He informed me that he was told to shoot at a glass in our kitchen so he low crawled under the covers and got ready to take aim into our kitchen.  I am not kidding about this.  I was trying not to laugh.  He was dead serious.  This sooooo reminded me of when he slept walk for the entire month before we had Olivia.  He would put on his shoes and go to the back door then come back to bed.  He's going to kill me for this.

Anyway, I was off with Allye to the doctor that morning and after she was thoroughly investigated and all ears deemed well I was questioned further about the two big girls.  I explained their symptoms and I wish you knew Ms. Lela (our favorite nurse practitioner)  she looked at me and said, "I think you need to be gettin' those girls in here today to see me.  Sounds like they have strep throat."  It was as if she stamped Mother of the Year on my forehead.  I told her they would be here momentarily as they were already in route so their father could go to work.  She promptly had the charts pulled and asked me to take my sweet self to the lobby and sign them in.  I did it right away because you do what Ms. Lela says, no questions asked.  And when she looked into Olivia's throat she did that thing where you know you are in trouble as a kid and she said, "Uhhhhh, huh."  Two swabbed throats later and we were strep negative but apparently these mouths had the smell that only someone who has smelled something so awful knows about and they were sent home with antibiotics.  'Cause she knows better then any test.  Apparently.


So, once again I am up for Mother of the Year.  I took my "well" sick kid to the doctor in a frenzy and left my death bed kids well...on their death beds.

Saturday

Olivia announced this morning at breakfast (where everyone was eating once again), "it is a miracle, God healed us overnight!"  She did not find the humor when I added, "Yes, with the help of the Z-pak."  Can I get an Amen?

----The Mama
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