recent quotes

Last week, we ate at the Waffle House one night. It's like stepping back in time when you go in there. I think it is a southern chain - I'd describe it as a fast food Denny's. With insanely yummy waffles.

The waiter asked Gretchen if she wanted sausage or bacon with her waffle. Her response, "Well, I don't like sausage, so I guess I'll have bacon." Five year olds are pretty damn funny. Even the waiter laughed!

Not quite as funny, but still cute... Carl ordered a cheeseburger. Carl would eat cheeseburgers 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. But, when the food arrived, he took one look at his plate and said, "Where are my eggs? I ordered eggs!" Well, he hadn't, but he ate about half of mine... along with his cheeseburger and 1/3 of Gretchen's waffle. No wonders he is always begging to go there. 3 of his favorites!

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This morning, Gretchen and I were heading out to the post office and she mentioned Grampie. Then, she mentioned Ali (Aunt Lila's dog) and Spike (Lindy's dog) within the next couple sentences. In her 5 years, she has had 3 experiences with death. Her grandfather and 2 sweet dogs. So now, she was chattering away about Grampie being in heaven but still being alive in our hearts and how maybe he is petting Spike and Ali and having fun. I said he was probably also playing with the 2 doggies I grew up with and wearing his favorite Wirehaired Dachshund sweatshirt. Oh boy - wrong thing to say. Now she had a gazillion questions about how much stuff you can take with you when you die. She changed the subject to being in Heaven and seeing Jesus and God, too. Then, she announced:


"I hope I die someday so I can see what God and Jesus look like."


Really.... all I wanted to do was drop off some muffins at the post office. That's all. Maybe a nice conversation about princesses or something.

right now, according to Yahoo....

It is 77* here.

53* in Woodbridge,
41* in Poughkeepsie,
35* in Plymouth,
32* in Voorheesville & Toronto,
30* in Frankfort,
25* in Bolton Landing & Saranac Lake
and 21* in Potsdam.

Unusual Viewpoints

That's the theme of next week's competition for the camera club.

I usually enter a portrait of one of the kids in every competition mostly because this club is filled with amazingly talented landscape photographers and bird photographers and world travelers who find amazing landscapes and birds to photograph. But, there seems to be a lack of portrait entries. So, why not go with the minority? I feel it makes my photos stand out to the judges, who are different local artists each time. And, honestly... it works. I do have a mini reputation as the portrait photographer in our club. So, if it ain't broke, why fix it? and I will continue to enter adorable children's portraits and hopefully win ribbons.

So, along those lines... Unusual Viewpoints got me thinking I should enter a portrait of myself. The judges are always different, so he won't "get" the little joke, but the other members will. Besides, there is the universal idea that the photographer isn't often in front of her lens. That should fly as an Unusual Viewpoint.

Yesterday, before nap, the kids wanted to take their new dinosaurs out back to play. We scored 4 awesome plastic dinosaurs at the Goodwill the other day. They are probably 12-15" high and each was only 99 cents! So, while they played herbivores and carnivores in the cretaceous period, I grabbed my tripod, remote and camera and headed outside, too. I took a ton of photos of myself - deleting probably 70% of them immediately. I was having focus issues. And goofy face issues. I also tried inside while the kids napped. I didn't get a good shot from that attempt, but I did discover an awesome spot by the kitchen table that gets natural light from 2 directions at 3:00 pm. Then, later, when Lew got home, I asked him to come outside and see if he could focus on my eyes better than I had been able to do earlier. Turns out, he couldn't - I was still going to take the photo myself, I just wanted to see if I was missing something in using the remote and timer. So, for the whole day, I shot 200 pictures, including our February Family photo. We got 3 good ones of those! My fav:Turns out, I used shot #29. Honestly, my second choice was shot #1! How funny would that have been?

So, without further ado.... here are my Unusual Viewpoint entries:

I think I will title this one "Duck!" (shhh..... he is actually juggling this back and forth between his own 2 hands, but I think it looks like he's about to be hit in the face. Hope it fits the theme enough.)

Tune in next week to see if my plans to win ribbons with my own mug worked!

rainbows

Wearing more "R"s.....

The one Carl is wearing I made for Joey years ago. The one Gretchen is wearing I made for their pre-school director - also years ago. I used to work there when we lived here before and the daycare held fund raising auctions, so I made the rainbow sweater to donate to the upcoming auction. We moved before it occurred, though. The daycare is called Noah's Ark - so the rainbow was a perfect symbol for them. Well, turns out, they never held the auction and when we returned, Miss Betty gave me back the sweater. So, I have a pair!

today's post is brought to you by the letter R

This week they are learning about the letter R. They follow the Handwriting Without Tears program, so they are not learning A, B, C, D, E... they are learning in an order that deals with straight lines and curves for learning letters.

So, we always try to find things to wear that start with the letter of the week. Each morning, the kids can suggest words for the teacher to write on the chart of words for the week. Today, Carl will be suggesting "robot" and Gretchen will add "rabbit".

And yes, it is mid February and they are going to school sans coats. Gretchen will most likely be too warm in that sweater, too. But isn't it really cute? Ah - ebay! It allows me to feed my Hartstrings habit!

Carl counts to 100

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The kids brought home their report cards the other day. Carl's said he could count to 20. If you remember, the teacher told Lew Gretchen was the only child in the class who could count to 100. Well, I wanted to show her that she had another student who could, so I taped Carl yesterday counting all the way to 100. He hesitates at 60 and at 90, but I did not prompt him at all. He just paused, then kept going.

So, I shared my video clip this morning and her response was, "Well at home he is not distracted." Hmmm.... seems to me that if he was distracted during a fixed testing setting at school and you were aware of it, as the teacher, it is your job to remove the distractions and to probe further to be certain you truly know his skills before you grade him a 20 when he was capable of a 100.

I casually relayed the story to the speech therapist later in the morning and she said not to worry. In elementary school, the teachers will be much more on top of stuff like that. My concerns and expectations were valid for a teacher.

And for now, he'll rock the end of the year testing for how high he can count. He'll look like the Most Improved in Counting! tee hee

Notice how adorable he looks in the classic white and blue striped oxford? He is all about wearing button down shirts. Plus, this week at school they are learning about the letter "B" (they follow Handwriting Without Tears, which bases learning to write letters on lines and curves. they don't teach them A-B-C-D...) Anyway, he was wearing khaki pants, his favorite "work shoes" and this oxford. So, when they asked him if he wearing something with the letter "B"... he said "Yes. Business Casual!"

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PS -I got an A+ on my poster! Even with the incorrect spelling.

100th day of school

Today is the twins' 100th day of pre-school. So, their homework assignment was to bring in 100 of something to school. (Today is not Gretchen's scheduled day... we will add 1 more item to her 100 things for her to bring in on Friday, the 101st day of school.)

Someone suggested I send in 100 pictures of Carl. "You know you have them" - D.A. (fellow twin mom, fellow knitter, law professor... hmmm - can't say we have that in common. She carried her twins to 41.5 weeks!!! I didn't do that either.) But, that got me thinking... I usually bring my camera to school events. So, I put together a collage of 100 pictures of the pre-school class this year (so far).

I printed it as a 20x30 poster this afternoon. It came out great!!! It's too small to see, but it has shots from orientation, 1st day of school, the bus ride field trip, the pumpkin patch field trip, the Fall Festival, the county fair field trip, the Thanksgiving Feast show, the Christmas Nativity pageant, Carl & Gretchen's party and a few shots from the latest birthday party (the bowling one). Both teachers and directors are on there as well. I spelled 'pageant' wrong. Bummer. Oh well. PhotoShop ought to offer a spell check!

Now, I realize that making a collage of 100 photos and having it printed was me doing their homework... so let's just say that was my homework. I then had each child make their own project. I suggested Gretchen draw 100 hearts on a big piece of paper. No way! She was not hearing anything about that. Way too hard. So, I told her we could count by 10s (which both kids can do easily) and I would draw boxes on paper for her to draw groups of 10. "What if you can't see in side the boxes?" Try explaining 'boxes' to a literal 5 year old. "Let me show you what I mean...." I drew the lines and she figured it out right away. In case you are not able to decode the pictures, I'll translate:

hearts
polka dots
lines
flowers
suns
stripes
pumpkins
Gs
cats (5 Mollys and 5 Angus-es)
faces

Carl and art projects are always more of a challenge but, I know he loves glue... and dinosaurs... and yellow. So, I punched out 55 yellow dinosaurs and showed him the pile. then, I got his input for the next color and for the background color. After I punched the 100 dinos, we counted them. Although he only counted to 20 for his teacher, he can go to 100 easily for me. Oh well... guess he'll rock the end-of-year report card. Then, I let him squeeze mounds of glue onto his paper and gave him a paint brush to spread it around. Then, he dropped 100 dinosaurs on the paper, pausing occasionally to add more glue and spread it with the paint brush. Then ensured that all 100 dinos were planning to stay put! He had fun - and now has his own 100 item homework done.

And all 3 of us finished our homework on the 99th day of school..... aka... on time!!!!

a golden anniversary

Happy 50th Anniversary to my Uncle Brud and Aunt Marlea! Sorry I missed it by about a week. On Feb 11th, they celebrated 50 years of marriage! 3 children, 7 grandchildren ... not bad to show for 50 years of love!!!!

The most recent pictures I could find are from Cherie's wedding in July 2008.

We love you guys and hope to see you soon!!

L-O-V-E

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

amoxicillin and obesity management

Amoxicillin.

We now have 2 bottles of "pink stuff" in our fridge. Gretchen has one more day on her 10 day cycle from her ear infection appointment of 1/7. That day, Carl only had a cold. Well, on Sunday, he started telling me his ear hurt so yesterday I took him back to the doctor's and sure enough, he has a slight ear infection. So, he has 9 days left on his 10 day dose. The doctor unofficially checked Gretchen's ears for me yesterday and they are clear. Yay! But, she said since Carl's nose was still running after a full week, he most likely has a sinus infection, too. So, the amoxicillin should knock both of those out.

The doctor's office was swamped yesterday afternoon! We normally go in the morning, but by the time I called yesterday, the earliest appointment was 2:00pm. I was shooting for after 12:30 anyway since he was at school. I didn't want him to miss OT for a second week in a row. He was acting fine. No fever. Ear infections aren't contagious. Now, yes, sinus infections are, but... at that point, he had only the diagnosis of a cold and was cleared to attend school. You know, people are now trying to tell you "green does not mean infection." I was always of the impression that it did. But, because of that... no one questioned him at school, I guess. It was only Monday with the thick almost green nose anyway.

We sat in the beloved Sick Waiting Room for over an hour. The kids talked the entire time. We walked in the door, I sent them into the waiting room while I signed in. I heard them both talking. I had coached them not to talk to everybody in the room. I try to get them to sit quietly and watch TV. All the other kids in that room are sick... I don't want my kids breathing on them and I don't want them breathing on my kids. I wasted my breath asking them not to talk to anyone. I might as well have said, "Go in there and give a lecture on heterogeneous catalysis". In the amount of time I spent checking in, I heard laughter from the mothers, so I ducked my head around the corner and asked the kids, "What are you telling them?" and one mother said, "Well, we already know your name, your age and your address." And, they talked non stop for the remainder of the wait. We then spent an hour in the exam room waiting for a doctor, but at least they weren't spewing out my social security number to the other patients.

Oh, here's something gross funny. Last week, Carl weighed 50 lbs 8 oz. Yesterday, Carl weighed 52 lbs 10 oz. You know when the kids are sick and their noses seem to full... you wonder "How much snot can one little nose hold?" Well, apparently, 2 lbs 2 oz worth!

Here's Carl from last night. Ear and sinus infection and all.... he's even smiling after I made him take his medicine. He hates medicine because it tastes sweet. Gretchen loves it. Go figure.
Here's Gretchen from yesterday. Her teeth have tightened back up mostly. She still says they hurt if she bites with them, though. Her lower lip is not bruised from the fall. It's chapped from her constantly licking it.

Obesity Management

That's the name of the food we buy. OM. It's for Molly. One year ago, at their annual vet visit, Molly tipped the scales at 19 lbs 5 oz! We tried cutting back her food more, but that wasn't working. So, last August, I took her back in to ask for some diet food. That's when they prescribed the OM food. Up to this point, both cats have been eating a prescription food for Intestinal Distress... called ID. (the naming of the food is amazingly logical, eh?) That started back when we adopted them and Angus had wicked bad kitty diarrhea. (severe understatement) It took several weeks back then to find a solution. It was amazingly stressful at that point and I truly believe many folks would have returned him to the shelter. You would be shocked at how much cleaning I had to do over that itty bitty shitty kitty. But, we finally hit on the food issue (after trying steroids, and other internal drugs with daily trips to the vet etc) and all was right in the litter box. So, Molly had not been gaining weight all along, but she had crept up in the last couple years. Over 19 pounds is not healthy. On the OM, our vet hoped she would lose 5 pounds in one year. You also do not want a cat to lose weight too quickly because they can develop some diseases from doing that.

So, 6 month ago we started the OM food. She dropped from 19 lbs 5 oz to 17 lbs 6 oz in the first 3 months. Then, at today's weigh in she was down to... drum roll..... brrrrrrr..... 16 lbs 11 oz!!!!! She right on track for her 5 lbs in one year!!! I'll take her back this coming August for another weigh in.

Here's Miss Molly. She'll be 10 years old on March 8th.
Angus lost only a couple ounces since last year. He now weighs 8 lbs 13 oz. He gets his old ID food up on the counter. I just love the 'buggy car bokeh' on this shot! I actually turned it black and white for that reason. It highlighted the car more. Angus will turn 10 on 3/8, too.

****update**** 9:19pm*****

Gretchen has developed the same exact rash Carl got last January when he had his first amoxicillin prescription. Here's that entry from last January. The link to the wikipedia page in there shows the rash. Gretchen is exactly 8 days into the dose - actually, it ran out tonight. But, Carl was the same exact time frame as well as the photos - the first picture in the series says "8 days after first dose".

Happy Valentine's Day

This shot was from last year, btu I entered it in my club's photo competition last month and it scored an 8 out of a possible 9 points! I also scored an 8 on the black & white shot of Gretchen with her white plastic beads on. (It's in the first photo in this old post.) The judge chose that one (he had to pick 2 out of 12) to award a ribbon as well.

floor: 1. two front teeth: 0.

They are still in her head. But, now they are wiggly. Of course, it happens on a Saturday morning. Gretchen fell in the living room and landed flat on her face. I didn't see it, but she said she was jumping on the trampoline. So, she was bleeding and I figured it was a bit lip. Washed her all up, kind of felt her teeth (which seemed fine) and did what any good mother would do... offered her a popsicle at 11:00 am.

Well, she attempted to take a bite and screamed. That's when I felt the teeth a little closer and sure enough - the top two are loose. So, I called the dentist's office hoping they have Saturday hours. I had to call a second number and leave a message. The actual dentist called me back in like 2 minutes. She said not to worry - especially because she is close to teeth losing age anyway. She did say they will most likely tighten back up. If Gretchen were younger or older (with permanent teeth) they would definitely tighten back up, but being 5, there aren't many roots to tighten back up to. So, they may stay a touch wiggly. When I reported that her twin brother had already lost 2 teeth, she exclaimed, "Oh Carl & Gretchen! I remember them. Oh - they are fun kids!"

So, at the last dental appointment, they did x-rays and those showed Gretchen's 6 year molars are very deep under the gum line. Now, Carl did not sit for x-rays, but his 6 yr molars are almost poked through. They could feel them physically. Plus, he got his teeth earlier than she did. That was all good because we want Gretchen to have time to stop sucking her thumb before permanent teeth come in. So, I was pretty confident that she wouldn't lose any for quite some time.

Now, I will be worrying that she will in fact lose these two she bumped this morning in the near future... but then spend years waiting for the permanent ones to grow in. We'll have to wait and see.

Luckily, the Motrin took her pain away quickly.

The dentist told me to give her softer foods for a few days. Not all mushy stuff, just cut her food for her so she won't need her front teeth to bite things. So, she thoroughly enjoyed having her peanut butter sandwich and strawberries cut into bite sized pieces... and having chopsticks to eat them with! She never did eat the popsicle.

a Hot Dog party

The twins had a party at school today for Valentine's Day. A Hot Dog party. I wised up this time and signed up to bring juice!! Only juice. If you recall, last year I felt guilty about having 2 kids in the class and signed up for 2 items. One was sandwiches which ended up being more stressful than I wanted. You can read about it here if you are feeling like a flashback. You will also see that was the first day he wore his brown "work shoes like Daddy's". Well, he loves those shoes. He wears them as much as his sneakers. He'd wear them every day if I let him. Some days, I just think bucks with sweatpants is a touch too geeky. He calls them his 'work shoes' and I will surely be buying a new pair when he outgrows these (soon). Stride Rite James. Yay ebay!

It's funny to see what toys we have out at 8:30 am. On the table: a Mr Potato Head, stuffed Lady from Lady & The Tramp and Carl has a Matchbox car.

Back to the Hot Dog party report. Turns out, the kids both ate well. Not awesome, but considering the menu - hot dogs, grapes, carrots, dip, chips and heart shaped cookies - they did pretty good. Both ate a whole hot dog. They may have been the only 2 in the class who did. I know the other kids at Gretchen's table were too busy calling each other names and kicking each other to eat. Miss Diane did say to eat your fruit, carrots and hot dog before you ate your chips and cookies. I did not give Gretchen a cookie on her first plate, but I did give in and give Carl 4 chips. Which he promptly ate first. Good listening, Buddy! But, knowing he wasn't going to want a cookie for incentive, I told him he could have more if he ate the protein. He ate that and all his carrots, too! So, I gave him more potato chips. Gretchen earned a cookie, too.

At the end of the meal, I was helping Carl gather up his garbage when I noticed Gretchen was over talking to Miss Diane. I thought it was something trivial... and tattle tailing. The teacher then spoke to another child while his mother listened. I still thought it was trivial. Well, turns out, this kid BIT Gretchen. Nice. Oh well. She does look sweet, right? And the kid hadn't touched his hot dog, carrots, grapes or cheese. He was probably hungry. I guess sometimes, her incessant tattle tailing is OK.

The kids got Valentine's from their friends, too. Each child had decorated a white paper bag to bring home their cards and goodies. I believe it is a federal law to create these white paper bag Valentine's holders. Good to see his teachers are on top of these things.

The funny part is each child was encouraged to write their classmate's name on the envelope and also to sign their own name inside. Then, this morning, the teachers made the kids put the cards they brought into the proper bags. We got home with several of Gavin's cards in Gretchen's bag and a few of Cora's cards in Carl's bag. Hopefully, on Monday, Cora and Gavin's moms will be bringing in the cards for Gretchen & Carl that they inadvertently brought home.

I hate to keep bragging on my kids, but again, I am shocked that the kids do not know the spelling of all the names of their friends. Three years ago, both Carl and Gretchen were reading the names off cubbies and other signs in the classroom.

And... one mom approached me and got in really close. Kind of worried me. Then she asked, "Can Carl read?" I said, "Yes. He's been reading for quite some time now." I should have told her since before school started last summer at least. But, she said during her parent teacher conference when they were discussing pre-reading skills, Diane said, "I only have one child in the class who can read." And this mom said she and her husband were discussing it that night at home and both guessed Carl on their first guess. I wonder what about him made them know it was him? Hope it was good. He then showed off a little by reading the chart filled with "P" words for the week. I loved having him back it up!

So, back to the Valentine cards. The kids were encouraged to sign them by themselves. There are 14 kids in the class plus 2 teachers, 2 directors and 3 therapists. So we started this about a week ago. Gretchen addressed all the envelopes except hers one day with me. She put stickers meticulously on each envelope - deciding which child would appreciate which design and also planning for which stickers should be saved for inside the cards. I cut, bordered and added the photos to the front of each card. Then, Gretchen started addressing each card's inside. All this time, I was dreading Carl's signature portion of our week long assembly line of cards. Well, on Tuesday, we told me "I want to make Mackenzie a Valentine." Gretchen had already done it, so I said, "Just sign your name, Buddy". remember, this child gets weekly OT therapy for his handwriting motor skills. He is not a fan of writing. But, he insisted he wanted to write "Dear Mackenzie, Happy Valentine's Day. I love you, Carl." These were tiny cards... I talked him down to "Dear Mackenzie, I love you, Carl". He decided he wanted a heart sticker instead of the word "love". He literally said, "I need it to be I heart you. That means love." Here's the back of the card:

That was all he would write that night. I begged him to do another one for his therapist. Please, just one for Andrea - she's the OT! She needs to see this writing. Nope, nothing doing. "I only love Mackenzie." Well, I waited until last night to ask him to sign his name in the other cards and surprisingly, he wanted to write "Love, Carl" in them. And - he willingly wrote "Dear Andrea, I love you, Carl" as well as one for his teacher Miss Kelsey, and 2 other therapists. He also signed the cards for the directors. And he wrote a card especially for Gretchen! He wrote more in hers than she wrote in his! He probably has a sore hand today from all the writing!!

Here are the envelopes they addressed to each other. He only wrote "Gretch" on her envelope. And it was the last envelope he did for the night - he was losing interest. But, when he did her card, he was fairly focused. It reads "Dear Gretchen I love you, Carl"

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lila!!

Happy Birthday to Great Aunt Lila Rae!!!! We love you very much!!!!



June 28, 1992... couldn't resist. Look how tan and skinny I was! Me, Mom, Lila Rae watching Kenny's motorcycle race.


May 2006. Uncle Rod with Gretchen, Aunt Lila with Carl.

November 2008

Dec 2009, Gretchen still talks about "Aunt Lila's 2 feet of snow!" It is the most she has ever seen in her 5 years!!

March 2010

March 2010 taken by Carl

March 2010 I found this clip from 2 years ago... here is Gretchen singing Happy Birthday, Aunt Lila in 2009. Age 3.

Parent - Teacher conference

This morning Lew went to school to meet with the twins' teacher for a conference before work. I would have joined him, but we weren't allowed to bring the kids and they wouldn't let us drop them off early... so... I thought it would be more fun to send him. I'm sure he felt it was 'fun', too!

On their progress reports, Carl had a good mix "G"s for "good" and "W"s for "working on it". Gretchen had mostly "G"s. Both are on track to succeed in kindergarten. Miss Diane told Lew, "You have two wonderful kids there. Both are going to do well in kindergarten." She did say that Gretchen's biggest issue is that "she thinks she is an adult." We are working on bringing down that attitude at home.

The 2 cool things:

1. Carl was the best child in the entire class for spotting shapes in the environment!

2. Gretchen was the only child in the entire class who could count to 100!

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At the doctor's on Monday (double sick child visit that I made because Gretchen woke during the night complaining her ear hurt. She does have an ear infection, Carl merely has a runny nose/cold.) Carl weighed 50.5 lbs and was 47" tall and Gretchen weighed 42 lbs and was 43" tall.

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Here are a couple photos from Super Bowl Sunday. Of course we all wore Buffalo Bills clothes!! You don't live in Buffalo for any amount of time and come away without a tons of Bills clothes ... and support! The kids have some beanie baby bears wearing Doug Flutie's jersey - you should hear Carl chant "Floooo-TEE! Flooo-TEE!" In the laundry room, I have several boxes of original, unopened Flutie Flakes. We don't have the San Diego Chargers version, only the 2 Bills ones. That makes it better and will keep me off Hoarders.

The kids took a very good nap in the afternoon on Sunday(after the bike riding) so we even let them stay up for the entire game! OK, maybe that was because neither one of us wanted to give up watching the game to put them to bed. You can't get up during the commercials on that one, ya know? Even if they were going to school, they don't have to get up until almost 8:00 anyway - so don't be judging me for letting them stay up until 10:00 on a school night when Gretchen was already sick. Monday isn't her day to go to school anyway.

See their "snuggle pillows" in this picture? It's cute how they appear to be kissing, too. Anyway, the pillows are a moose and a bird, Moose A. Moose and Zee D. Bird from Nick Jr. This month, a craft project they showed was to make these out of felt. Well, we figured felt wasn't going to hold up and used fleece. And I sewed them rather than using fabric glue. They kids helped me stuff them... and Carl finally stopped begging! Oh my - they came to the fabric store with me and he asked me for his "snuggle pillow" (because that is the exact term Nick Jr used. Carl is a stickler for rules) every 6.093 seconds starting at the fabric cutting counter that night! I did promise them I would make them each the other animal now. Planning to have those for Valentine's gifts. I am still working on the 3rd take of this Valentine's sweater! It's going well and my yarn arrived in the mail today.

I'll add a bigger shot with the characters, too.

Disney Day 8, Saturday 11/13

Our final morning in Orlando got an early start... or not so early, I guess. just typical. I fully believe that the condo next to ours had someone in there with an alarm clock set for 5:30 each morning and it woke the twins. They have always been light sleepers. And this was so precise each day, it makes sense something was set to wake them other than Mickey Excitement.

We finished packing the car, ate breakfast and left for the park by 8:00am. You can see how empty the park was on our way in. We had an even closer parking spot this morning. A minivan parked next to us and unloaded their crew. They had definitely all left for the park and Lew looked over to see the back door of the van wide open. He played parking lot hero and closed it for them. the funniest part was he knew it was the mother who was unloading little ones from that door - not like a teenager raced out and forgot to close it. Nope, Mom was the one with so much excitement she forgot!

Posed a couple times on our way to the ferry....

We didn't take the monorail today...

We headed for the ferry. It took only a few minutes more than the monorail, but it was usually more spacious. I didn't like how crowded the monorail was when we had to bring the stroller on. Of course, today, we had already dropped off our rental stroller and were all walking. We weren't worried, since we had only a few things planned before heading out. Making them tired before a 9 hour car trip is a good thing anyway. Although, they never ever sleep in the car unless it is pitch black outside. Even then, not a guarantee. They have never been those kind of kids who fall asleep as soon as they hit the car seats.

It was so empty - we were literally the first ones onto the ferry!

This woman wins my Best Disney Park Outfit award. We saw many non-sensible shoes and outfits throughout the week, but none as good as this.

This was the only day of the week that we got there before "Rope Drop" meaning the gates were not open yet. We arrived between 8:30 and 8:40 and the park didn't open until 9:00. This was the crowd there waiting for the rope to drop so they could enter... and run to Space Mountain, I guess.

The Mayor of Disney as well as many characters arrived by train to sing, dance and kick off the opening of the park.Once they dropped the rope so to speak, we all entered and headed towards our first 2 stops. As we walked down Main Street towards Cinderella's castle, Mary Poppins strolled alongside of us! She was holding the hands of 2 little girls, but she did say "good morning" to Gretchen, too.

It was 9:00 as we headed towards the castle. Lew was racing over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster to get 4 Fastpasses so he and Gretchen could ride the roller coaster 2 more times before our vacation ended. While he did that, the kids and I headed quickly to ride Dumbo one more time. When we got in line, the wait sign said "10 minute wait"...

... when we exited, the sign read "25 minute wait". Some of those other Rope Droppers were headed to Dumbo, not just Space Mountain! Lew actually arrived to see us end our ride, BTMRR fastpasses in hand. Then, I ran to the restroom while he and the kids boarded the carousel one more time. When I got back, the line had just closed. They had saved me a horse and everything. I would have had time to jump on if the lady would have let me in. Oh well. Because I was watching them, I got to snap this cute picture!

And here we have Science Daddy and Daughter eyeing the mechanism that makes the horses gallop and jump. You can just barely see Carl's head on the horse to their left.

OK, at 9:30 we headed over to start waiting for Tiana and Naveen. They were, after all, the whole reason we were here today. We wanted to be first in line for sure! And we were! Shortly after we arrived, a college aged guy showed up with his autograph book. He was darling and sweet, and somewhat challenged. He definitely did not have any issues approaching people and staying in their personal space. he wiggled his way right in between us and sat on the brick wall along with the kids and me. Actually, he and the kids had good conversations about meeting characters and how the autograph books were working out. He was funny, he didn't like that Gretchen had the Step Family sign her book. He wouldn't go meet them because they were mean to Cinderella. His mother made a brief appearance, but then she left to go find him his camera. By now, a few more people had shown up and he let a couple families go ahead of him while he waiting to get his camera. I honestly do not know if his mother came back in time or not. I hope so!

About 5 minutes before the Princess and The Frog came out, the Disney Photo Pass employee showed up. He was fun to talk to. He looked at the size of my lens and got in really close to see what zoom it was. "OOOOOO!!!!" He thought I had a 70-300 on there and was going to tell me it wasn't wide enough, so when he saw the 24-70/2.8 I had rented (an almost $2K lens) he was impressed. I quickly got it out there that I rented it! He said I would be very happy with my photos and his probably wouldn't be as good. We talked about Nikons and upgrades and dream cameras. He also warned me that they had some funky magenta lighting going on. Boy was he right! He was also right about me loving all my photos from the whole week. That lens was dreamy!!

Here are a couple shots he took of the kids... they are able to add characters into the photos after taking them.

Gretchen and Prince Naveen looking to be turned human again by a princess's kiss....
This shot was much trickier. Carl wouldn't sit still very well at all, but here he is hoping to turn Tiana back into a human, too! You can just feel the enthusiasm, can't you??!
This was worth being first in line... as Tiana & Naveen approached, Gretchen and Carl were right there to run up and greet them! The other little girl in her Tiana costume was there celebrating her 5th birthday. She was beside herself with glee at seeing the Princess! We learned from her mother that Tiana and Naveen were only signing on Saturday from 10:00 to 10:45. So glad we got there when we did! Can you imagine being turned away from the line after making a special day for it?

Here is my camera talking buddy, Michael at work. the Photo Pass photographers are at most of the meet and greet stations. They take pictures of your child's visit and then put them onto a card for you right there. You are issued a credit card that holds all these photos and then you can buy prints or the whole disc later on. Since you saw the shots with the frogs in them, you know we bought the disc. We knew we would be buying it, that's why we stopped often to have our photos taken by Photo Pass people all over the park. It is a really nice way for the photographer in the family to get to be in some magical photos, too. Plus, they will take your camera from you and take pictures for you using that if you wish. They don't care if you are buying their photos, they are simply there to take vacation photos for people. I can see it being an awesome way for someone not lugging a huge camera and (rented) lens around to have lots of nice pictures from their trip.

Here is Carl reciting his favorite lines form the movie - his Louis the alligator quote. Tiana and Naveen laughed right out loud when he finished! He also asked them if they serve cheeseburgers in their restaurant. If you are not familiar with the story, it takes place in New Orleans and surrounding bayous. Tiana longs to open her dream restaurant. She is then mistakenly turned into a frog along with Prince Naveen. They must figure out how to become human again. They fall in love. They get married as frogs. They get back to human (because once they get married, she is now a princess... and so when she kisses him - being a princess - she can turn him human.) Then they live happily ever after once they have opened her dream restaurant.

Anyway, Carl wanted to be sure they serve cheeseburgers... which they do. Phew! This is a fairly recent movie. I'm sure Disney marketers are planning to open a restaurant on site called Tiana's. If not, they oughta!

And people were right, this interaction was so much fun. They really engaged the kids and even between themselves had great chemistry.

Boy, Carl hugged a lot of princesses this week!

We didn't get to meet any other princes... so this hug was very special!

After all that magic, we headed to the roller coaster for Lew and Gretchen to ride twice. The line was so short, they actually got to go 3 times in a row! This put their Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster count for the week at 9! Nine times! Gretchen would have gone 90 times if we could have!

They are right in the middle of this next shot...

Once they were done, we headed back to Mickey's PhilharMagic for one last viewing. We ended up with 2 empty rows in front of us and it made for the best 3D view of the week! We saw that 4 times during our stay. Once each of the 4 days we spent in Magic Kingdom. the repetition was wonderful for the kids. They knew their favorite parts were coming up and loved seeing it all again! You can actually search "philharmagic" on You Tube and find videos of it that are fairly decent. People put the 3D glasses on their video camera and it makes it kind of neat. Obviously, not like being there, but you get the idea. Here's the curtain while we were waiting for the show to begin...

Grabbed our final Disney pretzel....

... on our way to Toon Town. All 4 of us rode the little roller coaster called Goofy's Barnstormer. We had been on 3 times earlier in the week. Carl asked to go again, but Gretchen wanted to see Minnie Mouse's house one last time. So, we briefly split up - meeting in the gift store for some quality shopping time when we finished our individual fun.

Here is Gretchen playing with Potato head parts. I know it's blurry, but it shows you how big the display of parts is there. You buy a cardboard box for $20 and fill it with as many pieces as you can. The only catch is you have to be able to close the lid. I think I did a good job engineering us a tons of accessories for our potato heads at home!

We hopped onto the Disney Railroad to ride back to the front of the park. Of course, we stopped and bought some goodies for Miss Sweet Tooth. She picked a Christmas tree cookie. They were very good!

But, these smore squares were insanely good! We only bought one. We dropped the ball there!

As we headed out of the park, Lew eavesdropped on 2 workers discussing why anyone would choose to live in Buffalo NY and he couldn't resist jumping in and defending his Queen City!

Waiting for the ferry to return us to the parknig lot. Carl, how do you feel about leaving Disney World?

Right from there... we headed for the highway and headed back home!!!!! We survived, even thoroughly enjoyed a week long vacation in Disney World with twin 4 year olds!!!!

This final photo of Carl and his Mickey Mouse was taken in the car. I simply turned around, probably traveling 80 mph and captured it. It won a ribbon at one of my recent photo competitions! "A Boy and his Mouse".