Caterpillar Circle

I signed the girls up for Caterpillar Circle at the place that they take gymnastics It is basically like a moms morning out pre-pre-school. One day a week they go there, do a craft or two, have a snack and they get an additional hour of gymnastics a week. SCORE!

Last Thursday was their first day at CC. When they got up Avery, like she does every morning, asked, "What we doing today?" I told her about CC and she started crying saying she did not want to go. I thought, "great this is going to end very badly." I told them we were not going to talk about it anymore till we got there then we could decide if we really did not want to go.

So we get there and the teacher (who is the first teacher that Avery let touch her in gymnastics) was sitting on the bench outside with a few other kids. Avery and Emerson ran over to her and were like , "Bye mommy!" I asked them for a hug and they each gave me one. The teacher then marched them all over to the other building and they did not even look back.

When I got back into my car I was watching them trot across the lawn looking so self confident and sure. I started crying. I was seeing them grow up right there. It made me sad and happy all at the same time.

When I went to pick them up they asked if they could come back the next day. They obviously had a great time.

Now for some fun...kind of...

The other night Avery said they wanted to color with markers. I told them they could go ahead and get the markers and paper out of the craft closet. It was after dinner and before bathtime so when Avery asked if they could draw on each other I said, "sure. Just take off your clothes so they dont get stains." These girls dont miss an opportunity to get naked so they ripped their clothes off and ran into the living room with the markers and one thing I did not know they had... these two big ink pads from a Melissa and Doug stamp set.

I was working on the computer so I was not paying attention to them. A few minutes pass. I decide to check on them....this is what I found:

Julie says she looks like a gay Braveheart


I had to put underwear on her to take the pictures.

Thankfully it IS washable so...

Short Order Cook?

I always said I would never be one of "those moms". You know the ones. They make a meal for the grown-up and then a meal for little Timmy, cause he doesn't like green beans. Another meal for Jessica, cause she only eats white food. By the time mom actually sits down to eat her meal is cold and she is alone at the table.

Not only is this bad for the kids because it is teaching them that if they complain enough about something mom will fix it. It just reinforces bad behavior. My other issue with it is that it limits the kids palette. I love food and want my kids to love food like I do. If they are only exposed to foods they "think" they like then they will never get to enjoy all the flavors that different cultures have to offer. Oh and Im kind of lazy and selfish. I dont want to make 3 different meals and I want to eat with my family at meal time. (btw, that last sentence was a joke/sarcasm.)

This morning however I was one of them. I now can see how it can happen. It started innocently enough. I heated up some of our dinner from last night to give the girls for breakfast this morning. (It was this breakfast bake I make that is yummy) Emerson and Avery really had no idea I was doing that. Emerson came running in the kitchen and excitedly asked for oatmeal. I told her I was heating up some of the dinner from last night and she melted down. Suddenly in my head, I am justifying making her the oatmeal. "I should have given them a choice, cause I rarely give them choices for breakfast or at meal time period. It's not that big of a deal to make some oatmeal..." so I made the oatmeal. She happily ran into the other room with it. Then Avery came in. "I want cereal, mama." "um..ok..." so I made her cereal. Again my justification was the same as before with the added, "I gave Emerson what she wanted I cant NOT give Avery what she requested."

Guess what happened next? Emerson came running into the kitchen asking for cereal... yes, in the end they both ended up eating cold cereal for breakfast and I made 3 yes THREE different breakfasts.

What did I learn today?
I need to start giving them more choices for the good stuff too. I tend to give choices for the bad stuff and that works, but they need to be able to make choices for the good stuff as well. "Those Moms" are all of us. It can happen to anyone, innocently enough.

Life Lessons

1. Potty Chairs should NOT EVER be put over your head.

This fact was learned a few wkends ago. I was sitting at the computer and I heard Julie say, "oh you have that stuck on your head." So I got up and started walking toward the bathroom. As I stood up I could see Emerson had the princess patty seat cover around her neck like a really big necklace. I walked up and tried a few times to get it off and was unsuccessful. I kind of started to panic a little and said I thought we may need to call the fire department. Emerson was completely calm and smiling the whole time, but Avery looked like she could loose it at any moment. So, Julie had us all go into the living room and sit down and try a few more times before we dialed 911. Wise choice Julie Brown! A few more tries and I was able to get it unstuck from her cranium.

2. Grab the camera EVEN if you think you may need to call 911!

I cant believe neither Julie nor I thought to grab the camera and get a picture of Emerson with the Princess Potty Seat stuck over her head!

3. Bars can be kid friendly!

I have a friend, she is also the girls swim teacher and mom of one of their friends Scout, she works at a bar as a bartender part time. She kept inviting us (kids included) to The Market on friday nights, saying it is "Kid Friendly". Another friend of mine went one friday night and reported back that they had a great time, Anna (the girls friend) included. So, I figured one friday night we could do that as our Family Fun Night. We've been twice now and the kids love it. They have live music, YUMMY pizza and the kids dance like crazy to the music.

I bet this is not the last time this photo will be taken... (no, they are not drinking anything stronger then juice)

This is Avery photo-bombing these people we do not know. Notice how they are looking at one camera and Avery is looking at ours!

The lead of the band and Emerson... Julie is concerned that this will be her future son-in-law...

4. When in doubt, wear walking shoes!

I got to go to my first NFL football game a few weeks ago. Julie's work owns like 4 seats and they give them out for rewards. We decided to take advantage of cheaper then stadium parking and park at a stripper club. One of many near the stadium. Well, the walk killed me. I was wear my usual shoes, one of my pairs of flip-flops. We got to see the Saints beat the tar out of the Bucs but it was still fun. There were some crazy people there though...one man gold leafed his whole body, a lady 2 rows above us kept drunkenly waving her boa and saying, "I can feel the breeeeeeze". Then there was the man who was wearing a flordelis on his junk...

When the girls say "Tampa Bay Bucs" it sounds like "Papa Day Ducks" cracks me up every time!

3. Dont take more kids to the bathroom then you can handle.

My limit apparently is two... Went to lunch with Christy, Randy, and Cameron at Brio a few weeks back. At the end of lunch all the kids said they had to "tee tee" so I volunteered to take them all. We get in there and I put Cam on the potty first. He is taking forever, and I notice Emerson is holding herself and hopping around, so I pull her jumper down and put her on another potty. I walk back to Cam and switch him for Avery (seems like everything is going great right?) After putting avery on the potty I turn to help Emerson off her potty and see that she has peed on her ENTIRE outfit. You see, commercial toilets are really big and little girls cant get very far back on them without falling in so the stream goes right over the bowl and hits the clothes around the ankles. She had on a jumper...neck to shorts, wet.

As I am looking through my bag I see Avery trying to open the exit door. She is buck-a$$ neked...why neked and not naked? Cause neked is being naked and upto no good! I tell her NOT to exit the bathroom and turn my attention back to Emerson who is now also naked and crying in ball on the bathroom stall floor. I tell her all I have is a t-shit and a new pair of underwear for her too wear. She cries more. I turn around to see Avery dancing NEKED in the middle of the bathroom. Cameron was just kind of sitting back and watching the show.

Emerson left the restaurant in panties and a t-shirt.

4. Smaller is sometimes better.

We took the kids to an organic pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. We picked out 2 nice big ones to buy. On the way out the girls saw these "tiny little pumpkins" that they wanted. I told them we would buy some at publix cause they were too expensive and we dont need organic cause we wont actually eat the tiny ones. They talked about "tiny little pumpkins" non stop for like 4 days. Then Julie came home from the store with some TLP and you would have thought she brought them a pony!

"Furniture is not for ????"

If you say that to the girls they will enthusiastically say, "CLIMBING!!"

We learned this lesson the hard way, unfortunately...

The other day I caught them trying to climb onto their dresser. I told them that they needed to get down and that they should not climb on their furniture or they could fall and get hurt.

The very next day I put them down for their "rest" and they proceeded to play in their room. They do this every day for about an hour then they put themselves back to bed and take a 2 hour nap. If I hear one of them crying I go in to see what's happening, usually it is Avery and Emerson has a toy she wants or Emerson is laying on her because Emerson wants to "sleep in the hole" (the hole is the two to four inch space where the two toddler beds meet.) On this day I hear Avery crying and I head in there. When I open the door the first thing I see is Avery laying on the floor with one of the dresser drawers on her. The second thing I see is Emerson is sitting on the dresser. I start to scold them for climbing on the furniture while walking toward Avery to pluck the drawer off of her. I took two steps and said, " See, this is why we dont..." That's when Avery's head starts bleeding... A LOT! "OK, never mind. It will be ok, Avery." I tossed the drawer aside and scooped Avery up off the floor. At this point her head is a steady stream of blood. I ran her into the kitchen. This is when Emerson starts crying. I put Avery on the counter by the sink and put the kitchen sponge on her head... pretty sure this is not the most sanitary of wound care, but I was in a panic and this was the first absorbent thing I found.

Avery stops crying, the hole in her head stops bleeding, Avery started telling me, "It's ok, Mommy." You would think that this is where I would start to calm down, but I couldn't cause Emerson was STILL crying. She was scared so I was trying to get her to calm down so that I could get us all ready to go to the ER.

I ran into their room to get them some clothes, because these kids are ALWAYS naked when they are home. They had trashed their room so I just grabbed two outfits off the floor. Dressed them and threw them into the car. As I am trying to get the clothes on them Avery is now telling me, "it's ok, mommy. I just need some ice. Can I have some ice?" Oh, Emerson is still crying like she was stabbed. At one point I think I might have yelled at her, "You weren't the one that got hurt! The one that got hurt isn't crying. Please for the love of all that is holy stop crying!" then I felt bad... "I'm sorry, Emmy. Please stop crying I have to drive all of us to the ER. Your sister is fine. I promise." At this point I think I may have started crying...

They put a little glue on it and she is as good as new. The next time you see her say, "The furniture is NOT for what?" I will bet you ANYTHING she (and Emerson) will yell, "CLIMBING!"

Story Telling

Yesterday we went to a party at Graham's house where one of his mommies did a dramatic reading of How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. She did a great job and all the kids had a great time. After she did her reading Katy (Graham's other mommy) took them on a treasure hunt in the back yard. The treasure was a small pirates chest filled with candy.

Stories have been a big part of our life lately.

Avery loves the story of Snow White. The other day she wore her Snow White costume when we went to a Le Lache League meeting and this morning she insisted on putting it on first thing. She was sitting on our bed and started telling me the story of SW. She said, "I Snow White, I eat apple, I goes to sleeps, I gets kiss, I wakes up." then she said, "I hear hi hoes." She calls the seven dwarfs Hi Hoes. How cute is that?

At night for their bed time routine now Julie and I lay with them and each of us tell one story. They pick what the story will be about then Julie and I make it up as we go along. These kids love stories. I love that they love stories.

They love for me to read to them when they nurse. Before they "take a rest" they each pick a book and I read them to them as they get their "gawk", then we do that again before our bedtime routine. What I think is cool is that they rarely pick the same book. Most toddlers have one or two favorite books and those are the ONLY books they will alow their parents to read. Not the LGs they pick different books almost every time. Emerson especially. Avery right now is in an Olivia kick and insist on one of the many Olivia books she has. That kid loves Olivia. Emerson love all books and picks a different one every time.

Weekend Shenanigans

Saturday we went to Lowes to do a project with the kids. They loved it! It was a little unnerving to have a bunch of toddlers wielding hammers.

When we got there we were the first to arrive...of course! We are always early to every.thing. So we walked around for a bit and then finally decided to get started even though the other families that were suppose to meet us had not arrived. The next group of parents and kids to arrive just happen to be another lesbian couple with their 2 boys. They sat at our table. Then Pam and Katy showed up. Now it looked like a lesbian parents meet up... Hey, great idea!!! What dyke doesn't love Lowes?

Finally Uncle Randy and Aunt Christy came with Cameron. Oh, well there went our gay theme... ok, maybe not. The girls do love to call Chris Uncle Christy.

Julie "helping" Avery. If you look closely you can see that she is trying to hammer two nails at one time...

Avery in her safety goggles

Total focus! Notice there is no nail though...

Avery showing off her ALMOST finished dog leash holder:

The finished products:

After our project at Lowes we all decided to go to Ricks for lunch. The kids had a great time and the grown-ups had fun too!

Emerson and Cameron:

Avery performing with her air guitar!

The Tortoise And The Hare

After we got back from our vacation in Clearwater we had a few days home before Mom (Julie) had to go back to work. We decided to go to our little beach that Friday. It was great there was NO ONE there. We had the beach all to our selves and no one was whining they wanted to go home!!!!

Julie took them hunting for Nemo while I hung out under the umbrella reading. Then we looked up and saw black clouds rolling in. We started packing up slowly. As we got the last stuff onto the wagon it started raining. It was a combination of that hard sideways rain that stings and drops that were about the size of dimes.

It's a pretty good walking distance to the car from the beach. As soon as the rain started Emerson and I took off running like we were being chased. As a matter of fact Emerson screamed, "Get me out of here!" I realized that Julie had the keys so I turned around to get them from her cause I knew Emerson and I would be first to the car and it would be all for not if we had to stand there and wait. When I turned around I realize that Julie and Avery are not right behind us, but extremely far behind us. So much so that I had to run back to her. As I get closer to them I see (cause I couldn't see them for the sideways rain!) and hear Julie trying to convince Avery to step it up. When I look at Avery she looks like she is taking a walk in the park. She has a juice box and is literally strolling down the side walk as if nothing is going on. It was hysterical and I don't think words can describe how funny this scene was.

Yesterday Julie and I needed to have a serious "grown up" discussion. We needed to talk about what Julie was going to do with her new job situation. Our cousin Christy was her with her son Cameron. So she was trying to get all the kids into the house so Julie and I could be alone on the back patio to talk. Emerson and Cameron were happy to go inside for her, but Avery was down right refusing. She was kind of running circles around Chris while Chris tried to bribe her with candy, soda, movie, a new car? Finally Julie and I said, "Don't worry about it, let her stay out here with us." So Chris walks into the house and Avery closes the door behind her walks back out to us and says, "sorry guys..." complete with exasperated hand gestures.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted...

This was NOT being sung by the LGs...

We went to Clearwater Florida for 4 nights. The first day we were there Avery kept saying she wanted to "go home". Um, sorry sweetie but this vacation is already paid for and we are taking it whether you like it or not.

On day two it was Emerson's turn to be homesick and continue her sisters anthem. We hung out at the pool for most of the day. The hotel was not ON the beach it was on the water but not on the beach. You had to take a trolley, car or hotel van to go to a beach.

Emerson not "happy" and wanting to go home:

Avery wearing her Mom's shirt:

We figured we would have a beach day on Monday. The girls had not taken a nap the day before due to us getting to the hotel so late. So when nap-time rolled around they were not happy about it. They were being crabby and ill tempered. After saying it was nap-time Emerson was saying she wasn't tired and did not want to nap and Julie said, "well, you sure seem tired cause your not happy." For the rest of the vacation whenever it was time to go to bed Emerson would start saying, yelling, screaming or (the best) crying, "I HAAAAPPPY!!!!" over and over again. Funny and cute the first time. Annoying beyond anything you could imagine the 10,000th time.

Emerson:

Mommy and Emerson:

On Monday we got up and started packing for our beach day. Avery promptly told us she did not want to go to the beach she wanted to go to the pool. We had it in our mind that despite her protests she would have a good time once we got to the beach...We have never been so wrong.

When we finally got to the beach Avery whined. the. whole. time. we were there. We only stayed maybe an hour before we decided it just wasn't worth it and went back to the hotel so they could swim in the pool.

On Tuesday we rented a cabana for the day and played in the pool most of the day. I think I only heard one or two "I wanna go home" statements on that day.

On Wednesday we told Avery, joyfully that we would be going home. She cried, "NOOOOOO!!!"

The best part of vacation was that Emerson potty trained herself while we were there. She told us she needed to "tee tee" so we set her on the potty and she went pee. We gave her a maraschino cherry (her favorite) every time she peed on the potty and since we have been home she has been wearing panties and has only had like 2 accidents. I'm so proud of her. I knew she would do it when she was ready and the weird thing is I remember thinking before we went on vacation that she would probably start wanting to use the potty while we were on vacation. So strange that I was right!

Avery:

Emerson swimming. You can always tell if it is Emerson cause she always has her goggles on:

Emerson coming up for air while swimming:

Avery swimming. This kid LOVES to swim!

Floss Is Very Important

Especially when you want to give it to a friend...

Today we had a play-date with Graham. Katy and I planned to take the kids to a free movie. Of course it wasn't completely free as we had to get popcorn, soda, and twizzlers. That's how they getcha!

This morning when I was getting the girls ready to leave Avery gathered some floss sticks and announced that we had to bring them. Thinking to myself, the child is a genius cause we will be having popcorn. I said sure. She then proceeded to tell me who the floss sticks were for. "one for me, one for Emmy, one for Graham."

As we were backing out of the driveway about an hour later Avery started yelling, "My Sauce! MY SAUCE!!!" I continued to back out of the drive and head down the road trying to decipher what she was saying. "Your socks? Your sauce?" She would say no or yes but still continue to cry and pleading with me to go back and get her sauce. HUGE elephant tears streaming down her face. As we were getting on the Veterans it dawned on me...HER FLOSS! So I asked her, "your floss?" She said, "YES!!! go back and get it." I kept trying to tell her we could live without it and could have some when we got home. She was still crying. She wanted to give some to Graham... I finally calmed her by telling her that when we got home I would put a hand full of them in my bag so we would never be without floss. This is how my day started...

I am really bad about uploading my little camera into the computer. I will take pics with it for a few weeks or more and then finally remember to up load them. I did this today and discovered some interesting things on it. One thing is the girls have started taking my camera out of my bag and actually taking pictures. There were a lot of floor and wall pictures but there were some that were kind of interesting too. I thought I would share:

This picture is Avery taking a picture of herself in a mirror:

I did not take this picture... Avery did. Im pretty impressed!

Beach Day...NO PICS!

Had to get the girls out of the house today. Yesterday all I did was take them to Walmart. That's not enough and their nap yesterday was non existent. I decided I was going to take them to the beach.

We had a really good time just me and the LGs, with the exception of some miss steps. I took them to the bay, just for convenience. It wasn't little beach (Citrus Park Beach) though. It was Ben T Davis Beach.

We got there and it was nice and windy so I thought we could try flying the kites. It was perfect kite flying weather! Avery was holding the kite and I wanted to get a picture...grabbed the camera, turned it on 'no memory card'. DAMN IT! Alas, no pictures were taken.

The girls made friends with an older girl and they played together for a while. At one point I thought I would get out the kites again so the 3 of them could enjoy them. I was getting the kite started (looking up, not paying attention to the 3 girls below) as I was going to hand it to one of the girls I looked down at the ground to see a pair of swim suit bottoms. Yes, one of my kids were standing there buck-ass-naked ready to fly a kite. It was Avery...as if I needed to tell you... The first words out of my mouth were, "who got naked!?!" The girl they had friended proceeded to tell me that Avery had peed. I washed her and her swim bottoms off in the ocean and made her put them back on.

Then as we were leaving I saw something orange on my windshield...PARKING TICKET!!! $30 Apparently you have to pay at this beach... crap!

Playdate 3 yrs in the making...

I have a few friends I have made over the years that I have never ever met face to face. I have met them on message boards of one kind or another. One message board is Sheknows. There are boards for parents that have kids born in the same year. This one board I have been on since I was pregnant with the girls. So, some of these women I have known for about three yrs now.

One of the moms just moved a little over an hour away so we wanted to get the kids together for a play date.

This morning I was telling them what we were going to do for the day. I said we were going to meet new friends, Elise, her mommy Amy and Elise's brother Brody. Avery repeated every name back to me and when I got to Brody she said, "And Plex?" Plex is a character on Yo Gabba Gabba. Brody sounds a lot like Brobee, the little green one. No Avery we are not going to Yo Gabba Gabba land.

Turns out I had Elise's little brother's name mixed up with another little brother on this board... oh well, I'm chalking it up to twin mommy brain! For the record his name is Beckett... and he is a cutie!

The girls and I had a great time playing at their house. The swam, ate sandwiches and watermelon, spilt apple juice, had accidents, and wrestled over a doll. A great time was had by all...

July...already?

I Cant believe it's already the 9th of July and I have not blogged ONCE! I have a lot to catch you up on...

Well, lets start with the 4th of July weekend. First of I cannot remember such a bad weather 4th of July...ever! It rained all weekend. We had invited all of Julie's family up for the 4th. I was going to bbq chicken and corn. Ended up having to cook everything on or in the stove. Making for a hot house with lots of extra body heat as well.

We had a surprise visit from my relatives also. Brenda, Kevin, Amy, Lila, baby Kevin and his great grandma went to Clearwater for a short vacation. The girls and I met them Thursday night for dinner at Crabby Bills. Friday we went to the Aquarium, then they visited Saturday with us. It was nice to see them. Although, Avery and Emerson were angry when Lila was leaving. Neither of them would give anyone a hug or kiss cause they were mad that she was leaving. I think they would pack their little bags and move in with Lila if they could.

Baby Kevin and his mommy, Amy:

One of Emerson's favorite things is to water color. I discovered this when we would go to swim lessons. The instructor has a little girl the same age as the LGs and she has water colors and sea shells on a table. EVERY. TIME. we go Emerson makes a bee line to the table and water colors until I make her head to the pool. So the other day I bought them some water colors and Emerson will sit for hours and paint paint paint. She has also taken to painting herself....Thankfully the paints are washable so it comes off really easy.

Here is one of her master pieces:

Just cause Avery's so darn cute in this pic:

There was break in the rain so we thought we would try some fireworks. We had about the same luck as we did last year. The girls were scared to death of them. Before we set any off though Uncle Randy opened up the back of his truck for the little people to sit on. We were trying to get them to do the hear no, see no, speak no evil and it was a huge FAIL cause when you would tell one to put their hands over their eyes they would all do it. It was like a failed game of Simon says.

This is the best we could get:

Here is what happened when the first (and last) fireworks went off:

Nana came and stayed the weekend. This made the LGs VERY VERY happy. Emerson make a full body print on Nana's lap. She was Nana's cuddle bug all weekend.

For dessert the kids had cup-cakes and it cracks me up when they hit the sugar coma. This is a video that I had to watch twice before I saw what Emerson did when she dropped the little trinket that was the cup-cake topper she was using as a utensil to eat the icing.

Universal Truths... Land of the Mouse

We took our first family vacation to Disney World last weekend. Julie worked for Disney for about 10 years so I have been there quite a few times pre-LGs. Some of these I already knew, like #4 if you are ever have body image issues head to WDW and you will feel like the skinniest hottest person on the planet. Some of these truths I learn, unfortunately while I was at WDW.

We stayed at the Fort Wilderness Cabins. It was really nice and different then what we have done in the past. The "cabin" is a fleetwood RV converted into a cabin. So we had a separate bedroom, kitchen, living room and it really reminded me of a single wide trailer. As a child most of my life was spent living in a trailer. A trailer makes a distinct sound when you walk down the hall and the cabin made that sound. It was kind of cool and creepy. The "resort" camp grounds had a lot of stuff there to do. The first day there we played at the water park area and rented a golf cart to get around in cause you cant drive in the grounds. You have to take a bus, ride bikes, skateboard, cart, walk or anything that is not a car. The girls (and I) really enjoyed driving around in the cart. We also went to the camp fire sing along. Chip and Dale were there and both girls got to meet Chip and both gave him hugs and got his autograph.

Universal truth #1: Even if your kid/s has no idea who a character is, once they are excited about characters (not scared to death of them) they will be over the moon to meet them. I know the girls have no idea who Chip and Dale are, yet they couldn't wait to meet them. Gave them hugs and kisses.

I had ordered the girls a plush Minnie and Mickey with 2 autograph books to have waiting for them when we got to the cabin. They were a HUGE hit and they traveled almost EVERYwhere with their Minnie and Mickey dolls. And they were VERY into getting autographs as well.

This is when we first got there and they discovered their present:

notice the mice that they HAD to have sit with them while they ate their snack:

Our second day we went to the Magic Kingdom.

Our goal was to meet Mickey Mouse. We did! Avery was way excited to meet him and Minnie. Emerson despite her excitement to meet Chip the night before was a little scared of them. I think she was a bit overwhelmed though. Disney can do that to a person!

I decided I really wanted to see the fireworks and found out that we could see them from the beach at our resort. I didn't want the girls to be scared of them so I thought I would prepare them for how loud it was going to be. The night before when I was trying to get them to sleep. We heard the fireworks and told them that's what it was. So, while telling them what we were going to do I said, "remember when we were trying to go to sleep last night and we heard the fireworks? Tonight we are going to go see them. It will be loud but very pretty." Emerson seemed to listen and take it in. Avery started telling the story of, "we sleep (hands to face) then boom boom boom!" We heard this story retold all weekend.

Julie almost deleted this photo! I love it. Not sure why....

Universal Truth #2: You are going to yell at your kids at Disney. I remember going to Disney pre-LGs and seeing moms yell at their kids and thinking, "jeez, you spent all this money on a vacation that is centered around your kid and now you are yelling at them. Give the kid a break..." Well, guess what I found myself doing...yelling! I think its a perfect storm of sorts. You want your kid/s to have a good time, you have to keep them safe, your HOT, you and the kid/s are in sensory over-load. If you get through going to Disney without yelling at your kid/s at least once then you must be a robot. Don't get me wrong I felt bad (although they could careless, I mean really, they were at Disney!) I just must apologize for judging all those moms of years past.

The third day we went to Epcot. We had wanted to go to Animal Kingdom, but Epcot was the only place we could get in that we would be able to meet princesses. Universal Truth #3: All little girls love princesses. Doesn't matter if they know who they are or not. Doesn't even matter if they know WHAT a princess is, they love them... If you are looking for a great place to meet princesses and cant get into the Castle do Norway!! Lots of food, ALL the princesses come to your table, before you are seated you get to meet Belle and they take a picture (8X10 and 2 4X6s)that are free with your meal!

Another story Avery told, told and retold was her version of Snow White. "She ate apop (hands to mouth with munching noises), go to seep (hands to face like she is sleeping), kiss (hand to nose), she woked up (hand gesture like no big deal)."

The princess lunch made quite the impression on them. When we got back to grandma's house they were pretending they were princesses coming around posing for pictures with grandma, Julie and I. They would come up to us say hi, pose for a picture and then give us a hug.

Our last day (check out day) we had one more quick service meal left on our dining plan. And I refuse to not use everything we paid for! We went to the Polynesian and ate breakfast before heading to Grandma's house. We ate out side and there baby ducks, along with mama and papa duck and a white ibis hanging around. I saw him try to take a piece of sausage off a little boys fork. A few minutes later I turn around and he jumped on our table and grabbed a piece of sausage off of Emerson's plate. I shooed him away, but Avery told this story again and again, "pink beak took sister's sausage." then Emerson would yell, "NOOOOO pink beak!"

Emerson was about the best behaved two and a half year old I have ever seen the whole trip. I was/am so proud of her.

I have tried to get some of Avery's story telling on video, but she has a tendency to clam up when she sees the camera.