Playing Catch Up....

So we all know that I am not the best at keeping up with the blog. I will try and play catch up from any happenings from the last time I blogged. The kiddos have been enjoying summer break, but man oh man, am I ready for them to be back in school. CJ has been going to a few weeks of camp at preschool. She loves it, which makes me happy. She "officially" starts preschool August 22. We have been pretty lazy while on summer break. It is hot and humid most days, so we don't really do much outside until the evening that usually consists of swimming.

At the end of June, I drove home with the three kids. All in all, it was a smooth trip. I did the whole drive in one day, which I would not recommend necessarily but it worked. Daniel flew up July 3 and we spent another week up north together. It was wonderful to see several of our friends and family, but after being gone for 2 weeks, I was very happy to get back home. I think I am still recovering from being gone.

In the last week or so, we have been gearing up to go back to school. I have started buying school supplies. Olivia starts back August 19. The next few weeks are going to be busy with CJ in another week of camp, then meet and greets at school and then the start of school.

Lets see, what am I forgetting? Oh yeah, Addie is a crawler!! She is all over the place and is starting to get up on her knees, so it won't be long until she is pulling up and walking. She turns a year old in 2.5 months. WHAT!?!? Where has time gone? I gotta start planning her party.

Until next time.....

Something a Little Different

For anyone who reads this blog, this post is not about anyone in my family, it is more of a PSA. In my last blog post, I had a comment from a woman named Heather asking me to contact her regarding this blog. So, I did as I was asked and contacted her. She responded asking if I would post a video about her cancer journey. Now, while I found it odd that she would ask me, considering that we don't even know each other, I am happy to do as I am asked. Why you ask? I think that in some way, shape or form, cancer effects all of us on a personal level. I have a wonderful friend from Texas who is a breast cancer survivor, she is a true inspiration for me that is for sure. I have another friend in Nashville whose husband is a cancer survivor as well. I have had family members that have not been so lucky and lost their battle with cancer. So, I guess what I am trying to get at is, please take a second(or more like 3 minutes) to watch this video. It helped for me to take inventory of my life and help drive home what is really important in life.


http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather/

*This will be the only time that I stray away from the purpose of this blog, which is to keep our family and friends informed about our happenings in FL. Check back soon for a new post about what crazy stuff the girls are doing now :-).

What's A Happen' Hot Stuff

Not a lot has been happening since the last time I blogged. Next Tuesday is Olivia's last day of Kindergarten. Holy cow, where did the school year go? No worries, she starts back August 19. Since CJ is completely potty trained(and has been for the last 6+ weeks), she got to start preschool today. At the school that she will be attending in the fall, they offer summer camp. She did really good today considering she has never been in a school type setting before. I dropped her off and it was pretty much adios amigo. But when I went to pick her up, it seemed the tide had changed. She was crying that she missed me and that she had broken a crayon. I am sure the only person that cared she broke the crayon was her. I asked her if she is ready to go back tomorrow and she said "yes", so we will try again tomorrow.

As summer starts, I have been racking my brain thinking of activities to keep the kids busy. I haven't really come up with anything solid, so I guess they can master the art of swimming.

Disney World Part Duex

Wow, lets just start my acknowledging the obvious, I suck at updating. Ok, now that that is out of the way ;-). Last weekend we took the kids back to Disney for the weekend. My mom was able to come down and stay with Addie, so it gave Daniel and I time to spend some better quality time with Olivia and CJ. Saturday we left and headed to Animal Kingdom. We really lucked out with the weather as it was overcast and cool all day. Animal Kingdom was a lot of fun. The kids loved seeing all the animals, the safari ride was amazing(so amazing we rode it twice), the Lion King show was great, the kids even got to participate in the show. Sunday we decided to go to Magic Kingdom. Since we have been there before, we thought we would go late morning and then stay for the fireworks. Crucial mistake. The skies threatened rain all day. About 4 o'clock, the skies opened up and it started pouring. We could tell by the radar that it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. We finally left about 6 because the rain was not letting up. The good part is that the kids got to do things that we didnt get to do last time. We had planned on going to Hollywood Studios on Monday but seeing as the forecast called for rain and thunderstorms, we decided to head on home. I found out later from someone else that I knew was down there the same weekend that it didnt rain a drop. But anyway, we are planning on going back hopefully in the beginning of May to use our last ticket. Although, we are seriously considering buying a season pass so we can go back around the holidays to see the Christmas lights.

                                          Olivia making her performance debut.

                                          Cameron making her performance debut.

                                              

                                         I remember seeing Baloo when I went to Disney.

                                      
                              CJ was so happy to get a high five from one of the parade characters.

                                   Rapunzel=Heaven


I'll try and get better about posting :-).

Happy Birthday Olivia!!!

I am a few weeks late, but Olivia celebrated her 6th birthday on Saturday, Feb. 23. It is hard to believe that she is 6 years old already but even harder to imagine our lives without her. She is an absolutely wonderful child. She is smart, funny, polite, sassy and amazing. Daniel and I couldn't be prouder of the little girl she is growing into. Since we had went to Disney the week before her birthday, we planned on doing something pretty low key on her actual birthday. We went out to lunch, took the girls to play mini golf for the first time(they loved it), and had birthday cake and presents. On a side note, I mentioned that we took the girls to play mini golf for the first time and low and behold, Olivia got a hole in one on her first try :-).

I think she had a good birthday. She is a very loved, spoiled and lucky child.

Walt Disney World

So, a few weeks ago Daniel and I were discussing about something special to do for Olivia's birthday since we had decided a while back to not have a big friend birthday party. The idea to going to Disney came up and if you know me, you know when I get an idea, I more than likely will run with it. So, that is exactly what happened. One of the benefits of living in FL is that you can get discounted tickets to places such as Disney. So, we looked into tickets and decided on buying a four day pass. Only stipulation was that it couldn't be used during the week of Spring Break and had to be used by June 7. We tossed around some dates and decided to go on a one night trial run before we went on a longer trip. Since Daniel is leaving to go out of town tomorrow, we decided to go last weekend and get a hotel on Sunday so we could stay and watch the fireworks. Since Daniel and Olivia both had President's Day off, we decided to go Sunday and Monday. We thought tat it wouldn't be super crowded but boy oh boy were we wrong. Anyway, we got up at zero dark thirty Sunday morning, got our kidlets loaded in the car and we were on our way to Orlando. It is about a 2.5 hour trip to Disney, so totally doable with not a lot of effort. We got to the Magic Kingdom right around 9 am. By the time we got through all the hoopla to actually get into the park, we stepped foot onto Disney soil a little after 10 am. The kids were in awe from the moment we arrived. We walked around a lot and tried to see as much as we could with what felt like 10,000 people. We were sadly mistaken when we saw the crowds. Apparently, Presidents weekend/week is the busiest time of year to go to Disney. Who would have guessed? Also, did I mention it was so cold out. The whole weekend was cold, with temps in the upper teens with wind chill. Needless to say that with not living in a state that has "official" winter weather in 3 years, we were all a little under dressed. So, between the crowds, the cold and just the shear fact that it takes a minimum of 30 minutes to do anything at Disney, we didn't get to see as much as we would have liked.

The girls got to meet Daisy, Minnie and Ariel. It was cool to just see how massive the Magic Kingdom is. I haven't been in probably 25 years and Daniel in at least 15 years. A lot has changed. The characters weren't walking the streets like I remember. As the day turned to night, the temperature continued to drop so we had to break down and buy some extra clothes for the kids. They sure know how to charge :-). The kids had a wonderful time and I hope we made memories for them that will last a lifetime. I booked our hotel today to go back, which is April 20-22. We are excited to go back and spend some more time at Magic Kingdom along with Epcot and Animal Kingdom.

I could post a lot more pictures as we took a ton but you get the idea :-).

I know I am slacking when.....

I know I am slacking on the blog when Daniel says something about there not being a post in a while :-). Let me try and remember what has been going on since the last time I blogged. Um, not much really. Daniel was OOT for a week at the end of January, that was fun times had by all :-). Then the last week of January, our besties from STL came down. Olivia was so excited because her boyfriend was coming. It was so nice to see some friendly faces and be reminded of what we miss about "home." We were busy, busy, busy while they were here. We went to St. Augustine, the beach two days and the zoo. We hung out at our house a lot too, which was nice to sit around and catch up. I don't know if I mentioned or not, probably not since I haven't blogged in a month, but we got a new member of our family. Olivia convinced Daniel to let her get a bunny. We got him after the new year, he was an early birthday present for Olivia. His name is Butterscotch. He really is a good rabbit, we are learning as we go.

Butterscoth in all his glory.

Olivia, her boyfriend and her competition.

I forgot to mention that while our company was here, Cameron came down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Not sure where she got it. Poor girl had a blistery rash over most of her body. She is still getting over the blisters but other than that, she is all better.