Disney World Feb 28th - March 4th 2011

Well I guess it is time to finally update my blog with what we have been doing this year.

At the beginning of March we got to take the kids to Disney World. We went with another family of friends, which explains the extra child in the picture.

Our first day we went to the Magic Kingdom.

The kids loved the rides.

We then had dinner with the characters of Winnie the pooh.

The kids didn't so much like the characters.

(Going through these pictures I was very surprised with how many Jamie is in, the girls would cry.)

One girl not so sure about Piglet.

One boy getting hugs.

Sliding at the pool!!

The second day we had lunch with the characters from the Little Einsteins.

These characters really caused cries, but they were not familiar with them at all, but that didn't stop them from dancing with them!!!

While there we visited Hollywood Studios. The kids really likes some of the shows like Disney Junior, but got tired of the shows that were shorten disney movies - to many scary parts.

Jamie was even scared of these two characters, but was brave enough for the picture, Lizzie however did touch them.

Near our hotel was the Disney Boardwalk. We went there one evening and treated ourselves to a dinner at a restaurant of Cat Cora's (Iron Chef). Our friends who had been to DW many times were very impressed with the good food. They had always had meals with characters for the kids, or course.

These are the kids waiting for dinner, wearing their friends hats.

After the dinner we walked around the Boardwalk and watched some of the fun shows that were out there.

Even Chloe liked them!!

The next day we went to Animal Kingdom, and I finally got to meet Rafiki. I wanted to have dinner with him, but it was probably good that we didn't, he greatly scared my kids.

However, some of us did get eaten by a shark.

"People are friends not food."

We did find one character that the kids liked, no crazy costume.

Every night at out hotel they had a marshmallow roast. On our last night we finally were home earlier enough to attend. Lizzie and Brian loved it.

Even Chloe got to enjoy some.

We finished the trip with a lunch in Germany at Ockoberfest. Every hour they come out and do a program and the kids could go dance. Lizzie and her friend loved it and I enjoyed getting some German food.

The bushes at Epcot are amazing. This one for Snow White.

This was a great little scene from Tangled.

The Tower

The Village

The Train

We had a great time and today when I asked the kids what they remembered most it was the pool, but they sure liked some of the rides especially the Toy Story Ride.

Hopefully we can take them back again some day.

Happy Two Year Anniversary!!!!

I was two years ago this week that we bought our house and moved in.

Within a few months I had decided to make curtains for the windows and bought all the material and the sewing machine.

I altered some curtains for two of the windows in my room. I decided to make roman shades for the other six bedroom windows.

I have finally finished the kids shades and I am very proud of myself and my work!!!

Snoopy ones are for Jamie's room.

(It has gone from Jamie's room to Chloe's room back to Jamie's room while I have been working on them.)

The Girls room gets some wild animals!!

These curtains are blackout curtains and I put them up on Thursday. That night Lizzie woke up and got scared that wild animals were coming after her. I am not sure she likes having such a dark room. It was great this morning though as the kids let us sleep in until 9:00!!!!

Hopefully, next month I can get done the other four roman shades for the house, two in my room and two downstairs!!!

The Littlest Monkey Turns 11 Months

Well my baby Monkey is turning 11 months tomorrow, so I figured it was long pass due to do an update on my little girl. I think the last one I did was for her turning six months and oh how things have changed since then.

She enjoys eating anything she can get her hands on. Here are some older pictures when I would have her on the counter while I would be cooking. She is always hunting for her food.

A banana from the fruit bowl.

October 2, 2010

I thought this was a picture of her eating some eggplant that I gave her, but looking at it more closely she is actually eating swiss chard that she hunted off of the counter on the same day.

A month later she found some collard greens on the counter and decided to try those.

And now for her favorite place to go hunting, the floor. My dad went to the Consumer Electronic Show and wrote to the family "We saw several self powered vacuums, that is ones that wander around the floor picking up dirt with on one controlling them." I instantly thought "I have one of those!" Here she is at work on a specially cleaned floor, and with many comments from the banana gallery.

For a while she decided not to eat anything that she couldn't pick up herself. I had to give up feeding her anything except yogurt or oatmeal. Even when the rest of us were eating soup, she would have none of it, but now she will eat soup, sometimes. Sadly she no longer will eat anything that she can pick up though and have become somewhat of a picky eater.

Here is a movie of her actually eating soup. It shows how she asks for more food by clicking her tongue. I was also trying to get her to answer if she liked the soup by shaking her head.

For Halloween we were the Incredibles. Here is out female Jack Jack.

Over Thanksgiving we went to an Aquarium. Chloe loved looking at all the fishes, even though it was very hard to get a picture of her and the fish, this is the best that we got.

This is my little monkey showing off her teeth. At eight months she had eight teeth. However, she has yet to get any more!!!

Here are a few pictures of my little monkeys together; relaxing, eating and playing.

Chloe is hanging out with her cousin when he came to visit for a night.

She really likes to stand up these days. She is really enjoying entertaining her siblings (and parents) by letting go of whatever she is holding on to while standing. She will stand up for a second and then fall on her bottom. She thinks it is great for everyone to laugh and clap.

I recently found matching PJs for my girls. Yes, those are monkeys on them. My boy got some monkey pajamas to but I haven't yet got a picture of all of them together yet.

Here is my little monkey getting around by almost crawling.

Here she is crawling around.

And here is her newest trick, she has finally started walking around holding on to furniture. This is from last Friday when we had sick kids and was watching a movie and eating popcorn.

We sure love our little monkey even if she is crazy and wants to be on the move as much as she can.

Well this is my update on my littlest monkey and in a few short weeks, I will be doing another one as she starts walking, maybe that will even happen before she turns 1.

Winter Fun

My wish for snow this winter came true, perhaps a little to much so, but it was fun in the beginning. It started on Boxing Day, Dec. 26. Nothing for Christmas, but they made up for it!!

This is the neighbor's car after they cleared off the top, of course.

Here are the kids ready to start shoveling the driveway.

The kids in front of the snow pile.

Brian and the kids had fun making steps in the snow pile, so that the kids could climb over the snow.

Or they could just slide down.

We then decided that we might actually need a sled this year. Our front yard made a pretty good hill for the kids.

The next day we had some friends over to enjoy our sledding hill. This year was the first time that my kids really enjoyed being out in the snow, that made all of the snow very nice to have. Even if they did always want hot chocolate when they were done, at least we could get out of the house and have something fun to do!!

Now time for a video!

Our friends also helped us make a snowman as tall as me!! (But it is all melted now.)

We got another good snow storm about a month later, Jan. 26th. Brian was in Chicago when it came and he was unable to come home that day, it snowed for the whole day, these pictures are from the next day. I got to try and shovel all of the heavy wet snow. This is the driveway/car after at least an hour of shoveling. It would have been out there all day if it wasn't for some kind neighbors with a snowblower.

This is my neighbors house with snow all the way up to the mailbox!!

Here is Lizzie showing how deep the snow is, notice how the bush is bending under the wait. This snow was so wet and heavy that it was getting harder to play in and that is when I get tired of snow.

And then about a week later, Feb 2, the ice came. It made for some great pictures.

But didn't work so good for the sledding aspect, which the kids still wanted to do, just about every day.

Notice how they are just walking on top of the snow. Even I could walk on top of the snow, so thick was the ice, and this was a few days later. I am so happy that my kids have found the joy in playing in the snow and I have be able to enjoy it as well. Perhaps next year they will get to try skiing. But now the fun of winter is ending as the snow is dirty and icy, and no longer nice to play in, and it is time for spring to start!!!

This last week we have thankfully had some warm days, even getting to nearly 70, and now this is what the front yard looks like. We do have grass, I didn't expect to see that for a few more weeks. The warm weather has been great though as we have been able to get out a little. We even went to the zoo on Friday.

It makes me hopeful that spring is on its way, but this week we are back to 30's and 40's. The joys of changing seasons!

Update:

The next day, Feb. 21, we got about 6 inches of fresh clean snow on the ground and I actually like seeing snow again. The kids got to sled down the front yard a few more times, which they enjoyed. By now, the 24th, the yard again looks like it did in the above picture.

I also forgot a part of our winter fun. Just before Christmas Brian took Lizzie ice skating. Here are some pictures of her skating with her walker.

Here is a movie of her skating around. I think that she is expecting a still picture to be taken so she keeps the smile on her face very well the whole time.

It was so much fun for them that the whole family went just after Christmas. It is great to see them skating around and trying new things!!!

Happy Winter!!!

My New Tortilla Maker

For Christmas I got a tortilla press and have been enjoying making tortilla ever since. Well today I found out that I might have someone else to take over that job. It was so nice to have Lizzie work on the extra tortillas so that I could make the rest of our yummy enchiladas for dinner. It was so cute I just has to take a video of her hard at work!!!

How Many Cows Licked your Head Last Night?

One day this week while brushing Jamie's hair Brian mentioned that he had a cow lick and asked him if a cow had licked his hair in the night.

So on Friday when Jamie woke up with hair looking like this,

I asked him how many cows licked his head last night?

His answer "Four."

I think he guess about right!!!

(The night before I went to a RS meeting where there was a lesson about photography and light so I was also playing around with the light coming through our front windows. It does add a little more drama to the look!!)