Disneyworld 2013

This post is picture intensive, but if you pay the crazy money to go to Disneyworld, you might as well have some pictures to prove it, right?

We went last week for 5 nights and six days to Disneyworld.  My parents flew out from Vegas to go with us, so the big boys could stay in a room with them and they went to all the parks with us.  We went to all the parks once and had an additional half day in Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.  We rode about every ride at least twice (well there were some that weren't worth riding twice, and a couple that we didn't wait the wait to ride twice).  We went while the kids were in school so that it wouldn't be really crowded, but somehow we hit the winter breaks for the northeast and a princess half marathon, so it was crazy busy.  I think next time we will figure out how to go over Thanksgiving or Spring Break so that the kids don't miss so much school if the park is going to be busy anyway. 

 

 We had a coupon that we used when we signed up so we could have the dining plan for free with our hotel stay there.  That let us go to many of the character dining spots where we got fed a great meal and the characters came and visited us.  The kids generally weren't that interested in the characters, but they would stand up and take a picture with them when I told them too.  When Pooh and Tigger came, Nate was really excited to see them, though.
The evil stepmother from Cinderella:

 Prince Charming:

 Getting ready to see a Bugs Life:

 Daisy, although Joe called her Minnie...

 Cinderella:

 

 I looked through the kids clothes and found clothes that were generally the same color every day.  Then when we were walking around the super crowded parks, we could easily spot our children by the color they were wearing.  Some days the colors matched better than others...

 Ellie saw all the girls with their faces painted and she really wanted to get her face painted too, so she did that one day.  It stayed almost perfect all day.

 Nate and Ellie ran into Minnie walking one morning so they went for a walk with her.

In a few years, we will have to do it again!

11 year old Adam

Adam just had a birthday a couple of weeks ago.  He turned 11!  I can barely believe it.  After Christmas we asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he didn't know what he wanted so he would get so upset trying to think of something that we would buy him.  He really wanted an Ipod touch but we told him multiple times we would never buy him one so he wasn't thinking about that.  Finally we just told him not to worry that we would get him something that he would like.  This is his school picture.  The first one turned out so nice that I was happy I spent an arm and a leg for it. 

 Around Thanksgiving time, he started mentioning every once in a while that he would like to have a pie thrown in his face.  He kept saying he wanted to go to Kroger so he could buy a pie to put in his face.  I thought he was being a little ridiculous, so I kind of ignored it.  He was still mentioning at the beginning of February and I had some whipped cream that was about to expire, so we filled a pie tin with whipped cream and took him outside.  Joe decided to do the honors:

 He thought it was SO cool.

Here is Adam opening his presents.  We did finally relent and let him get an ipod touch.  He has started babysitting for us and so he can be at home and text us when we are away and we can keep in touch that way.  (Let me just say that having a child old enough to babysit is the best thing ever. It is very life changing.  Almost as life changing as having a child start school).

 We made him pay for half of his ipod so that he would appreciate it more and try to take better care of it.  It took him a while to gather up the money to buy it, even though since Christmas we were telling him he should see if he could save $150.  Anyway, he got it mid last week and already he is getting more texts on it than I do.  It is a little of a relief for me since he always tells me he doesn't have any friends, its nice to see that he really does.

He chose blueberry cobbler for his cake.  That's a boy after my own heart.

On a side note, he recently told Joe he would like a little motorcycle/dirt bike to ride.  Joe jumped right on that and bought him this beauty:  He jumped right on and rode it like a champ.  Even more amazing, Michael jumped on it the next weekend and rode it just as well!

 Adam is such a great boy to have as our oldest.  He is so obedient.  He is a great friend to Michael.  In fact, if it isn't a school night, they always sleep on the same bed because they like to talk.  They only have twin beds and one sleeps at the foot and one at the head, they look so squished in there, but they love to do it.  He loves to read, so much so that some of the kids at school tell him that he reads too much.  He loves to be helpful.  He is always hanging around Joe when Joe is working just so he can see if there is something that he can help with.  He is very concerned about his school work and does really well with studying and working on his homework.  In addition to that, he has piano and trumpet that he has to practice every day- there are many days that he is just so busy we can barely get it all done in time!

We love our Adam!

I'm turning into my mother!

When I was in high school, scrapbooking became really popular.  I remember getting out my box of things my mom had saved for me and putting it into albums.  Tammy did her own, but as was always the case, Mom worked a little on Clell's since he would never think to do his own.  As we did it, we looked at all our school pictures and we noticed when Clell was a little kid that there were two years that he was wearing the same polo shirt for school pictures.  Since we had so few pictures during those years, it was like the only picture we have of him for 2 years and yet he is wearing the same shirt.  I remember thinking that it was a little crazy that he was wearing the same shirt for two years, and I would never do that.

 

Fast forward 20 years.  This first picture is the school picture I had taken of Michael last year.  This is the retake, the first one was even worse.  I thought it was not a great picture, so last spring I went to JcPenney and had better pictures taken, in the other pictures he is wearing a different shirt.  I put the new picture in the frame on my piano that has the kids yearly school pictures.

 This year, when it was time to take pictures, I looked at the picture in the frame, looked at what shirt he was wearing and made sure he wore a different one for picture day.  This is the shirt we picked:

Funny thing is, these were also retakes as the first ones were also so bad.  Well, he does look a lot better this year, and I don't think he has worn the shirt since the last picture day.  Oh well, guess I need to go shopping before next picture day.  Incidentally, Michael thought it was funny.

Nate is Silly

Nate has said some pretty crazy things lately.  Its funny to see the way his mind works.  We were driving the other day and he asked why candles don't work.  I asked him what he meant and he wondered why birthday candles don't work when you wish on them.  I was feeling pretty bad because the poor kid had some wish that he wished that never came true, so I asked him what he wished for that he never got...."a real wand," he said!  Then a few days later he decided that he must not have really asked for one that was why he never got one so he was going to wish for one for his birthday, and by the way, when is my birthday!

 Another day, we were in Walgreens waiting in line for some prescriptions.  He asked if the Walgreens had a bathroom, and I said that it did, it was right over there.  He then asked if the bathroom had a portal.  I was sure he didn't know what he was saying, so I asked what he would do with a portal- he said he would travel to the "nether," and yes, he did have a twinkle in his eyes when he said it. 

 We were eating lunch one day and there was a girl strutting around so that she would get noticed.  Nate asked me, " Mom, why do some  girls have their bum go side to side."  That was a little hard to explain.

 Another day, we were driving in the car and Nate asked how do babies get in Mommy's tummy.  I've had this conversation with some of the other kids when they were about Nate's age, so I was prepared to just give a basic answer- it grows from a seed.  "But how does the seed get in there?"  Daddy puts it in there, "But how does Daddy put it in there..."  Never had one of the other kids kept asking after the first question.  I finally had to tell him he has to wait until he is older to find out.  He kept asking in different ways, but I didn't answer, and luckily, after we got home he forgot he wanted to know.

 He is always asking me a ton of questions while we drive places.  Quite often they are well thought out questions that involve a detailed answer.  Usually I can answer him, but sometimes when I am stressed I can't think of the answer at the minute and I have to not answer.  He definitely is ready for school, hopefully he doesn't ask too many questions of his teacher next year.