Today Paige officially turned two! Mommy and Paige started the day with a special treat! Yummy Donut!
Paige went out to lunch with Mommy and Daddy and had a pretty normal day for the most part. After Daddy was done with work, we all went to a park for a McDonald's picnic. Paige loves fries and she and Connor both ate a good dinner.
Connor found an old cardboard tube nearby and thought it made an awesome telescope. He was telling us about all the amazing things he could spot far away with his powerful instrument.
Very exciting!
After dinner, we played at the park for a while. Both kids love the St. John's Golf and Country Club park.
When we got home, Connor gave Paige a special gift that he helped pick out when we were at Disney World.
Baby Cinderella! Paige was very happy and gave Connor a big hug.
Finally, the kids ate some yummy cupcakes and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Paige.
Happy birthday baby sister! We all love you so much!!
This Monday is Paige's 2nd birthday, so to celebrate we all went to Disney World for the weekend. We went down on Friday and stayed through Sunday morning. We usually stay at Disney properties, but the Buena Vista Palace looked pretty nice and we thought we'd give it a try. It was located on Disney grounds, right next to Downtown Disney.
On Friday, when we arrived, we went swimming at the pool for a while and it was great practice for the kids. It was nice that they didn't require any swim jackets or life vests or any floatation devices and throughout the weekend, both got better and better. Connor hasn't been doing so well on his floating, he may not have enough meat on his bones to be buoyant. He still does a pretty good job doing his ISR skills and is very comfortable swimming on his back. He does great and stays relaxed, able to breathe the whole time. He swam all over the pool with no trouble and enjoyed it when I'd toss him in to the middle and he'd have to swim out on his own. He'd flip over and swim on his stomach if you told him to, but he still doesn't feel comfortable swimming for long like that.
Paige is the floating queen. She could float and float all day, although she'd cry the whole time and demand that you help her. She was a little tentative at first, but by the end of the weekend she was jumping in and swimming to us. She did well swimming to the side, but if she didn't get there in time and had to float, she'd have some trouble. The way she seems to transition from her float to her stomach, she'd inadvertently push herself away from the ladder or wall she was trying to reach. Even so, she was amazing and there were a number of people that were pretty impressed that she was such a great swimmer at such a young age.
Andrea took a video of one of Connor's many tosses in to the deep end.
On Saturday, we woke up early. Earlier than normal since we didn't have a fan, didn't sleep well, and the kids were in an unfamiliar place. We all got ready and then caught the bus to the park. Unfortunately, the buses from non-Disney properties aren't allowed to drop you off at the gate, so we got dropped off at the "transportation hub", where we had to then ride the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Ugh, it took forever.
When we got to the park, it was shortly after it had opened and we sprinted to the back of the park. We were hoping that the new "Fantasyland" area had opened, but it's still under construction and most new parts are not due to open until later this year. It sounds like it won't be completed until some time in 2014. Even so, the back part of the park was very uncrowded and we were able to ride a bunch of rides in a surprisingly short timeframe.
Both kids enjoyed the Mad Hatter's teacup ride, which was Paige's first ride ever last time we came.
We always enjoy the People Mover, it's a nice long and relaxing ride that never has a line.
We actually didn't stay at the park all that long. It's nice having season passes and not feeling like you have to stay every second of the day to "get your money's worth". We left early afternoon and got really irritated by the bus again. We had to ride the monorail back to the transportation hub, then waited forever for the bus to arrive. When it finally did, it drove all around the Disney grounds to other parks and other hotels before finally going to ours. From the time we started waiting for the bus it took an hour to get to our hotel. Definitely learned a lesson from this experience! We're parking ourselves or only riding Disney transportation going forwards.
The day wound down with us swimming again for a few hours and then eating some Chick-fil-a takeout. I also ran by Walgreens so we'd have a fan for white noise overnight. We all slept really well and even slept in until 8:30 on Sunday. We drove home this morning, stopped at Aunt Catfish in Daytona Beach for some lunch and now we're winding down the weekend at home. It was a great weekend to spend together as a family and the kids really enjoyed it.
This past week our house had some decent progress. They put up drywall everywhere inside and did some of the stucco on the outside of the house. The outside is starting to look pretty good. Still quite a bit of stonework to be done and of course the paint.
This past week was Andrea's birthday! It was on a Thursday, and we did our best to celebrate mid-week. I got her some roses and we went to lunch together. We didn't have a big party or make a big fuss about it, but we should have definitely done more for it. Andrea is very special to all of us and we love her and appreciate everything she does.
A few weeks ago on April 4th, we went to Mickler's Landing and met up with Jenn Hopkins for some professional family photos. Andrea spent a lot of time coming up with some cute color combinations and scouting out a picturesque location. It all came together that day and we were hopeful we'd get a a few decent pictures. The first half of the session went pretty well. Both kids had been coached for a while and were pretty cooperative.
Halfway through the session, the lighting got to the perfect point where the sun was low in the sky to the West and we could shoot some nice shots East towards the ocean on the beach. We went down to the sand, turned towards the photographer and disaster struck. At least, in Paige's mind. Her feet got wet when an inch high wave washed over the sand. She was terrified, screamed, cried and shrieked "Fall! Fall! Water!". She did not fall. We held her and tried to console her, but her mind was made up. The water was something terrible to be feared and she was not going to be happy if it was anywhere in sight.
The rest of the session, we tried to get her to relax and to cooperate, but she was only happy if we weren't within sight of the water. Most of the good pictures were from the first half of the session, but we did manage to get lucky a few times towards the end.
