Our Disney Adventure -- Finally!

If you are reading this blog, you have probably heard our latest Disneyland story, but just in case you either had not heard, or really wanted to hear it again, here goes:

We went to Disneyland on January 4. Wait - that was over a month ago! Why did it take so long to post? Well, it all started as I packed our bags for the trip...

I looked at my beloved Canon Rebel and thought, boy, that camera takes great pictures, but it really is bulky to bring to Disneyland with two toddlers. Why don't I bring my new video camera instead?! It captures stills, too, and it's SO much smaller! Well, when we got to LA and pulled out the new camera, it turned on, then turned off. We charged it. It turned on, then off. It's dead. We don't have a receipt or anything with us, and besides, Zach bought it from Best Buy, the evil store that won't take anything back after 14 days, for any reason. Awesome. Well, I say, memories are more important, so let's just go to Disneyland. There will be many more opportunities for cute pics.

As we approach the bag-check line, Victoria gets squirmy. Majorly squirmy. She starts to pull the "melt to the ground" routine while there are about 100 people in line behind us and Zach is getting the diaper bag rummaged through. "Come on, victoria, up we go," I say, pulling her to her feet. The melt turns into hysterical crying. Nice.

We proceed to the entrance of Disneyland, and Victoria won't stop crying. Weird, because she usually only fits for a minute, then she's fine, especially if you pick her up, which I did. We walk on to the main square and I see Pluto in front of the Firehouse! "Look, Victoria it's Poo-oh!" Nothing. She doesn't care. We try a couple more distractions as we walk down main street, "Wow, a real horse!" Victoria doesn't care, she is still screaming. OK, I realize, something is seriously wrong with her.

Zach checks her out, and it is obvious that her arm is really hurting, but there is no way it's broken, he says. Kids don't just break their arm so easily! Nevertheless, I am starting to beat myself up - I BROKE MY CHILD!!! What kind of mother am I!?

We stand outside Snow White and call Kaiser. They direct us to urgent care in Downey. Thankfully, we have annual passes so we decide to all just leave the park. If some of us had stayed in the park, we wouldn't have had much fun, and besides, we only brought one car. Who knew how long the Dr. would take?

We are seen relatively quickly (I think a screaming toddler is like a fast-pass at urgent care) and the Dr says it was most likely a soft tissue injury, which was probably caused by pulling. (I knew it was my fault.) We take Victoria back to Ian and Vickie's and both girls have a really good nap. So good, we decide to go back. It is, after all, Zach's 30th birthday (oh, I didn't mention that?) and the day has been a bust, thus-far.

I also neglected to mention that Zach thought he was "coming down with something," which of course, I brushed off as man-whining. I couldn't have been more wrong! By the time we get back to the park, Zach is feeling and sounding terrible. We eat dinner, he unwraps the one present that security hasn't gotten to, we ride Pirates and leave.

The next day, Zach insists he is feeling somewhat better, so we try again. I can't stand not having a camera, so I buya one-time-use film camera in the park. (Who knew they still made those? I still haven't developed the pics!) Thankfully, our friends Nathan and Mindy meet us there with their kids Caleb and Luke, and Nathan has an awesome camera. He takes lots of pictures and I just got the CD in the mail. Nathan, you ROCK! These pictures totally made my day. I am so thankful to have a reminder of the best 3 hours of our trip.

Only three hours, you say? Well, turns out Zach isn't really better at all. He gets worse and worse, until he is having breathing trouble and can barely walk! It's totally awful. We just call it a visit and get home. The fun isn't over, though. By the end of our 7 hour drive home, both girls are sick and Zach's cold has developed into bronchitis. The fun continues for the next 2 weeks, until finally everyone is well and we can laugh at our Disney horror story.The rest of Nathan's save-the-day pictures? They're on flickr, if you're interested!

Birthday Party

Tomorrow Constance and Victoria will be two years old! I really wanted to have a party for them with some of their cutie-pie toddler buddies, but when I totaled our invite list, there were 24 people! My house is WAY too small for 18 adults and 6 toddlers, so we decided to stick with family.

Thankfully, Ian and Vickie drove up for the weekend, so they were able to be here. The girls, especially Constance, have been so into drawing lately, I had yards and yards of paper with drawing on it, and I was feeling bad just getting rid of it. So, I made invitations with their artwork on the front, and a picture of them drawing on the inside with the message, "We'll draw and paint with every hue, Constance and Victoria are turning two."
This became an art theme, and I had so much fun at home depot picking out flowers and paint swatches to decorate with! I bought painters' caps for 98 cents each, and put nametags on them with Disney paint swatches. I love how the cake turned out! I had the idea to do an artist's palette, so I googled "artist palette cake" and found a picture that matched my idea exactly! I used it as a guide and it helped a lot.The girls had lots of fun opening presents; our family friend, Kathleen, made them ballerina skirts! Constance danced and twirled, and Victoria got a kick taking hers off, then putting it on. Again, and again, and again!
As always, many more pics on flickr!

A Nursery, No Longer

It's official, the girls' room is no longer a nursery. We've graduated to "big girl beds," which aren't nearly as sweet as the matching white cribs seen in this photo. Boo-hoo, shed a tear, move on...

With my sister and brother-in-law's baby arriving pretty much at any time, I was able to trade one of my cribs with my mom, or "Glammie," as she's known around here, for a twin-sized bed with a trundle. I figure this serves two purposes: maximizing space, which is at a premium in this house, and minimizing the potential for falling out of the bed. I pull out the trundle almost all the way, but do not pop it up to full height. Toddler beds are cute, but no way am I about to shell out hundreds of dollars for two mini-beds. And I really didn't want to buy bed rails, either. Victoria would have those figured out in 2 seconds.

So far, so good, I suppose. Almost two may seem a little early to transition to the bed, and perhaps Constance could have remained in the crib. Victoria, on the other hand, had mastered the crib escape and was getting far too comfortable balancing on the headboards between the two cribs. It made me nervous. Well, as nervous as I get anyway, which is more like, "hmm, that might not be good."

Tonight will be night 4 in the bgb's. Each night has gotten progressively better. The girls love their newfound freedom so they run around their room, pull diapers out, remove all the books from the shelf, giggle and jump, but eventually they both get to sleep. Sometimes they sleep on the floor.

At least there's one plus to transitioning early: they can't open the door!

Organization and Tidiness

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Originally uploaded by katiesgirls

So the girls are turning two in a little over a week, and Zach and I are FINALLY beginning to reclaim our house. We've been plugging along, making improvements and maintaining a reasonable level of tidiness, but there are always one or two areas which become neglected dumping grounds. For us, it was our OFFICE! By the second week of January, the desk was so piled with paper, I was beginning to feel the weight on my chest. There was a big drawer of papers "to be filed," which had been building up for almost 7 months and I dreaded having to go in that room. So we decided to go ahead and tackle the project. It took us about a week's worth of naptimes and late nights to work through the junk, and we ended up with a bankers' box worth of paper that needed shredding.

Working through that box, we kept overheating and overfilling the shredder, so I kept a black trashbag on the floor and popped in every so often to work on a stack of papers. Well, I left the baby gate open, and the girls discovered confetti. It was pretty hilarious and not too hard to clean up. The most difficult part is the shredding remnants that I am still finding in other rooms and stuck to random sweaters.

SNOW!

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Originally uploaded by katiesgirls

We may be in a drought, but there's still snow! We drove the girls about an hour up the hill so they could play in the snow. It was their first time seeing the white stuff, though they somehow knew exactly what it was. I think books and TV had them clued in. Regardless, they were very excited to play in the snow. And very cute, too. Zach brought his skis and gave Victoria a little cross-country warm up. Constance enjoyed putting the snow in her mouth and kissing the snowdog that someone before us had built.

As usual for these two, Victoria was excited yet cautious, while Constance was thrilled to death. Can you guess who was more cold and wet when we got back in the car?

Lots more pictures at flickr!

Christmas

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Originally uploaded by katiesgirls

I just came across the pictures from Christmas last year, and I am totally blown away by how much the girls have changed in a year. Not only are they bigger and rowdier, but they are so much more aware of everything.

It started with the outdoor lights. Once Victoria had one look, it's all she wanted to see. We had to add 10 minutes to every trip in the car, just so we could drive around and see the lights. She even invented a word - "wa-dee." Not sure what she means by wadee, but we think it's something like pretty. Also, she's learned what snow is, and she seems to think it will be outside our window every morning. She's never seen the real thing. I think we should take them soon.

Christmas was wonderful. All four of them. Wait. We have a fifth Christmas coming up still, at Ian and Vickie's. We leave tomorrow morning, and I can't wait to see the Smith family. We're going to celebrate Zach's birthday at Disneyland, which will be so wonderful with Constance and Victoria.

Click the flickr link on the right to see more pictures, most from our celebration with the Cullivan side. I still need to get the rest off my Dad's camera.

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Constance & friends watch the parade.

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My Christmas Present

Can you guess what I got for Christmas? Here's a hint - doesn't this video look a little better than my prior cellphone clips? Yep, Zach bought me a digital video camera. The funny thing is, I also bought Zach a digital video camera! It's nice to be on the same page, or should I say frame?! Merry Christmas, everybody!

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The girls were all dressed up tonight for Christmas Eve service. It was the children's Mass, and they had a nativity scene complete with live baby Jesus and donkey. Constance and Victoria were so excited to wear their fluffy dresses and tights, and they were well behaved, for the most part.

After we put them to bed, Zach and I got to put together our first Christmas toys. The girls are getting trikes this year; they are pink and purple Disney Princess tricycles. We got the stockings all stuffed and the presents all wrapped. It's really a lot of fun being the parents at Christmas!

We've been getting together with lots of family this week. I have pictures, of course, and I will post them all to flickr hopefully tomorrow or the 27th. Have a blessed Christmas!

FishHead

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Originally uploaded by katiesgirls

So I got a flat tire yesterday. No idea how it happened; I loaded up the girls in the van Saturday morning, backed out of the driveway and noticed that the tire was completely flat. We're talking no air, falling off the rim, flat. Called roadside assistance to change the tire (no way am I doing it myself while trying to keep the girls from running into the street)

When the nice tow truck man came, the girls insisted on remaining outside in the front yard to watch him work. I took the opportunity to rake the leaves for the umpteenth time, and it was actually a fun change-up from our normal routine.

Then, Victoria ran into the house and emerged with the Goldfish box, which Zach recently cut into some sort of mask, since the girls really enjoy putting it on their heads. Victoria walked the box out to Constance, put it on her head and started cracking up. Constance loved it, trotting around and showing off for the poor guy who was much too busy changing our tire to properly recognize their comedic genius.

Our Meeting with Santa

At least threre was no line. 10:15 am on a Thursday is definitely a good time to see Santa. The girls were full, rested, and very happy to be at the mall. They waved at Santa and smiled. Then we lifted Victoria up to sit with Santa. As predicted, she burst into tears.

So our photo with Santa became a family one. Nice move, Katie, wearing a hat and no makeup. Ah, well. It didn't turn out too bad, I guess. All in all, a fun morning.

2008 Christmas Card

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Originally uploaded by katiesgirls

Tonight we took photos for our Christmas Card. I know it's sort of late, but better late than never. We ordered the generic 4x8 Christmas prints from Sam's Club, so I'll pick them up tomorrow and hopefully get them addressed and sent out by Friday.

As usual, it was a total zoo trying to get a decent shot of all four of us. Zach and I have learned to just look at the camera and keep smiling, in hopes that at some point both girls will look in the same direction and the moment will be captured. It rarely happens, and we end up with a lot of images like this one. There were only two that were o.k., and neither one really captured the total cuteness of our girlies. Ah, well. They'll just have to do.

I'm still deciding whether we'll take on the other traditional photography madness tomorrow -- pictures with Santa!! Stay tuned...

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FW:

Beep beep!

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Daddy is at work.

This just melted my heart.

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9ers football!

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