Oh, my, the cuteness.

Organization versus chaos

Yikes. The spring cleaning bug has hit me early this year. I've always tried not to be a packrat, and between living in St. Thomas and moving a lot in college and young adulthood, I really like the process of decluttering. And oh, boy, am I on a roll! Today I loaded up what I've collected so far, since it was threatening to devour our dining room table. I brought three boxes of books, cds and movies to the library to donate for their annual sale, and the back of my van is stuffed with about nine more boxes and bags full of donatable stuff for Goodwill. Now the goal is not to replace it with more stuff we'll just want to get rid of next year!!

Reorganization of the pantry in progress:

(Note: since writing this about a week ago, I've loaded up the van a second time with donations, including a huge load of professional clothes that my skinnier-by-the-day hubby can no longer wear without attracting stares and giggles.)

And here are some of the forces of chaos trying to thwart me in my tidy, organized goals:

Miss G had her fifth birthday party on Saturday. Fifteen 3-6 year olds dressed as princesses and knights were on a royal quest to rob me of my sanity. I joke. Kind of. Lots of fun, but holy cow, I admire pre-school teachers and others who have an innate talent (which I lack) for wrangling large groups of children in this age bracket!

We made got dressed up, made royal crowns, went on a quest involving the following:
*sneaking down into the valley without waking the sleeping beasts (going down stairs past all of the stuffed animals)
*climbing up a mountain and sliding down the other side (fort/slide)
*stealing some magic potion from Merlin's magic laboratory (little packages of bubbles from a cauldron)
*stomping on dragon eggs (large swathes of bubble wrap left over from mail order Christmas gifts) and gathering dragon eggs (super bouncy balls with little dragons inside)
*climbing through a (tent) tunnel into a dragon's cave to fight the dragon (inflatable, about 4 ft. tall) and steal his treasure (toy rings and candy kisses)



We then had a royal feast and the presenting of royal gifts. And that description sounds very tidy and organized and doesn't begin to suggest the level of noise, movement and mess invovled! The party was Saturday (this is Monday) and the house is ALMOST recovered.

And now my sweet girl is five. Sigh. (Cue Zero Mostel singing "Sunrise, Sunset" in the background.)

Happy birthday, baby girl.

A rare sunny day...

Ramble post...

We have had a quiet, productive, pleasant few days. Thursday evening, rather spur of the moment, all three kids went to the farm for an overnight, which means that Daddyman and I had 18 hours in the house without the kids. That's never, repeat NEVER, happened before. We had a quiet evening, I went to bed really early, and woke up at 5:30, at which point I was able to finally get back on top of household work. Between 5:30 and 10:30, which was when I went to pick up the kids, I did bookkeeping and paid all of the bills that had piled up, finished about 5 loads of laundry, vacuumed the whole main level of the house, mopped all hard surfaces on the main level of the house, did the dishes... you get the idea. Very productive and necessary to getting tidy again after the holidays, the trip, etc. This overnight at the farm might become a regular feature! (Though I must admit I paid for it the next day because no one slept particularly well while there, and everyone was pretty cranky.)

Saturday, after getting another early-to-bed-early-to-rise night, I went to 7:00am (yes, you heard me correctly!) yoga, which was great, though it left me very sore. My usual class is 60 minutes, and this was 90. And the first time I've practiced yoga in about a month. Sore. That's all I'm saying.
Miss G, Little Mister and I then sped off to ballet (one of these days we'll make it on time!), where I captured this image of little brother watching "Sissy" in her class:
I don't know why I like this picture so much. I think it's just because he's so intent, peeking around the corner. He's been quite the charmer lately. He loves to run around after his big sister, playing whatever game she wants to play. You can tell he really wants to be "big". The other morning while I was changing his clothes, he was taking a moment to run around in his diaper, and he stopped, looked at me, and dropped to the floor in the spot where Daddyman does his pushups in the morning, obviously trying to do a pushup, as well. I couldn't stop laughing. Then this morning, Daddyman called to me while getting ready for work, and when I went in, Little Mister had dragged a stool to my sink, and was standing there, imitating Daddy at his sink brushing his teeth. He had turned the water on, and was pretending to spit in the sink, and was just very pleased with himself. Don't think he wants to be like Daddy or anything, do you?

Since the bathroom is finally done, I thought I'd post a couple of quick pictures of the final product. (Now we just have to get the bedroom carpet replaced, and we'll be all done with the master suite!)

Finally, Saturday evening, we had tickets for a Celine Dion concert in Kansas City. It was originally scheduled for November, but she had a virus, and it had to be rescheduled. I have to say, it was pretty outstanding. While I think she has an amazing voice, I'm not a huge Celine fan, personally, but Daddyman really loves her (he saw her Vegas show all by himself when he was there on business last year!). It was a really entertaining show. Her voice is really beautiful, and the production value was lots of fun. She had about 6 costume changes, each more entertaining and outrageous than the last. She was pretty charming, too, when she spoke to the audience. Super Celine, to the rescue!

Okay, the last one isn't outrageous, in fact it was kind of pretty. It was for her final encore of the Titanic song. Anyway, a very fun evening, and really, how many women get to say that they were dragged to a Celine Dion concert by their husbands???

Epcot... the home stretch

Saturday was, shall we say, a bit busier than Friday in the parks! LONG lines! There were a few things we just couldn't do because the lines were really long, but it was still a really fun day. Daddy and Big Guy spent LOTS of time at Mission: Space, and Miss G and I had loads of fun at the The Seas with the Nemo ride and marine observatory, and also at the imagination Pavilion.


Look at my handsome man:

These "water snakes" may consistently be one of our favorite things to do at Epcot... kind of crazy!

Goodbye, Disney!

Hollywood Disney and Magic Kingdom, Part Two

We had a fairly (okay, VERY) long wait at the Boardwalk for the ferry to Hollywood Disney. Big Guy "directed" the reactions of the family to the wait:

We rode the Great Movie ride, which Miss G liked except for the scary bits. We did the Muppet Movie 3-D show, and a few other things. We had dinner reservations at the Sci-Fi Drive-In Diner, and the park closed by the time dinner was over, so we only had a couple of short hours to do attractions at this park, but it ended up being just right; a pleasant and relaxing end to our day.

Then we went back to the hotel, slept the sleep of the very, very tired, and got up to do it all again! This time, Big Guy and I headed off to the dark, scary and nausea-inducing stuff, and Daddy and Miss G spent some time together in Fantasyland. The boy managed to get me on Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster, which is a miracle. I. am. not. a. rollercoaster. person. But it actually wasn't horrible. Kind of fun, even. (Shhh, don't tell him, or he'll never let me live it down!)

Once was enough for me, however, so I enjoyed the morning sunshine while he rode again (that's him in the second row):

I punished him for convincing me to go on Thunder Mountain:

And we met Daddy and our princess at Cinderella's Castle for brunch:

This is a new version of a photo of Daddy and Big Guy we took inside Cinderella's castle when we came to Disney when he was five years old. I'll try to find a digital copy of it so I can post them side by side later.

Our princess was a little nervous to go up to Cinderella by herself, so I came along!

This is one small representative of the 30,000 photos Miss G asked me to take while we were riding the Small World ride. She was somewhat resistant to going on the ride (the entrance was similar to the Snow White ride, which scared her), but ended up really enjoying it, especially after she got to order me and my camera around! Meanwhile, the boys were riding the Buzz Lightyear ride again and figuring out how to beat the system and score as many points as the ride will allow!

We say goodbye to the Magic Kingdom...

And hello to Epcot, in our final marathon post, to be published later!

Magic Kingdom, Part One

A confession: we left Little Mister with Gamma and Grampa. And boy, every time I walked by a family with a fussy, squirmy, tired two year old, I thanked my lucky stars (and my Mom!) for having the good sense NOT to bring the toddler with us. But anyway, on with the photos...

Before the sun rose on Boxing Day (26 Dec), we made our way to Orlando, checked into the Boardwalk Inn in the Epcot area (which I highly recommend... lovely, and only a short walk to Epcot and a slightly longer one to Disney Hollywood!), and made our way to the Magic Kingdom. We went straight to Tomorrowland and Buzz Lightyear's ride, which Miss G found a little loud, dark and scary (perhaps we should have done it later in the day for her, to ease her in to Disney-style rides!). Then we jumped on the Tomorrowland train:

We went to the Monsters Inc comedy show, which was a good giggle. The boys then went one way, to do all manner of scary, dark and/or nausea-inducing rides, and after trying Stitch's Great Escape (which neither or Miss G and I really enjoyed... he spit on us... ewwww!) we went to Fantasyland. This is her first real experience with Disney style lines, while we waited for the Dumbo ride:

But the wait was worth it:

Then we were able to walk right onto Cinderella's carousel:

Then came our VERY FAVORITE ride, Mad Hatter's Teacups:

We met up with the boys again and tried to all go in the Haunted House, but little miss was thwarted by the spooky sound effects outside the building, so she and I went back to Fantasyland for a little while and rode the Teacups again. Then we met up with the boys and headed for Adventureland, where I waited while Big Guy rode Thunder Mountain (which, sadly, we will revisit later!), Daddy and Miss G went to the Bears Jamboree, then we spent some time at the shooting range, and headed up the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse:

Then off to Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride:

Big Guy goes for the gusto:

We went to the Tiki Room (which Miss G says, "was freaking me out!" with the storm, then to Pirates of the Caribbean. Shockingly, Daddy worked some voodoo magic on little miss and she wasn't scared there, but just thought it was all good fun. We went on the Jungle Cruise, which we have always enjoyed. Miss G enjoyed it, except when we headed into the dark caves:

But then all was sunshine again:

We headed back to the hotel at this point, pausing on Main Street Disney:

And Daddy bought Miss G a balloon the size of Rhode Island:

Then we headed back to the hotel for a brief rest and swim. VERY cool water slide at the pool, which little miss was thrilled to ride, though she flailed a bit at the bottom before we could reach her. With many instructions to Daddy to "wait right at the bottom" she was back on it in a flash!

Later, we headed to Hollywood Disney for the evening, which will be part of the next post!