In like a lion, still a lion

Can winter be over already, Gah?! We are tired of being cooped up inside just like everyone else but multiply that by 2 for our kid factors. It looks really nice out; I can see sun. It looks really nice out; I see very little snow. It is not really nice out; I feel cold. It is not really nice out; I feel frigid wind. Grrrrr. It's March 27th, the lamb should be here by now for crying out loud.

Ok, onto a different subject! Matt and I recently attended a parent-teacher conference for Luke. He's doing really well at school and we can certainly see all the progress he's made. One thing's for sure, this guy is just like his dad! One of the things we talked about with Luke's teacher was that no amount of convincing is going to make Luke do something he's just not interested in doing. Sounds familiar. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I guess that's why Luke does so well in a Montessori school, because he can do those things he's actually interested in doing and thus learning more by doing them.

Another topic that we seemed to revisit a lot in our conversations with the teacher was how verbally advanced Luke is and how social he is. What kills me is the amount of mental anguish we experienced with Luke's verbal development because he started off very slowly. But he caught up -and surpassed. And now he doesn't stop talking. Ever. EVER. Apparently he's everyone's friend, too. Which is a great quality. In fact, every time we go somewhere in town, he knows someone - he knows more people than we do.

The rest of Luke's report was really good...when I get the fancy printer, scanner, copier machine that I've been eyeing, I plan to upload it.

The same day of Luke's conference, Adrienne had her 9 month appt. At the weigh-in, big girl put up an impressive 21 pounds and 6 ounces - about the 88%ile. Length came in at 28.5 inches - also about the 88%ile. Per the doc: no shots this time, *just* a blood draw. A what? Yes, a blood draw, not a finger prick like Luke's previous dr. did. They literally cuffed her arm with a tourniquet, held her arm and drew blood like they would for an adult. She didn't like it. Go figure. Anyway, her iron is a little low so we are working on increasing the amount of iron in her diet. So far, she loves ground beef! Other than that, everything looks good!

Here are some recent pictures of how we've been spending our time!

9 Months

Big Girl is 9 months old! She's rapidly becoming more and more mobile and harder and hard to contain! Very soon after Adrienne starting crawling forward, she started pulling up on everything she can get her grubby little hands on. Sometimes she'll even let go of things and just balance on her feet. She's loving her new found sense of freedom and independence but I am not loving all of the spills she takes! It's a good thing she has plenty of padding on that little booty! One of her favorite items these days is her brother's scooter. And yes, the fighting over toys has started already. Lastnight I had her standing on the platform of the scooter with her arms stretched up so she could get her hands on the handle bars. Quite a funny sight - she was so happy she was giggling. We, of course, did this while said brother was outside crashing his power wheels into various objects. Adrienne also loves playing blocks with Luke although Luke is quite stingy with howmany blocks she can have. So she settles for playing babyzilla and just knocks his towers down. I find much entertainment in watching them play together.

We have Adrienne's 9 month appt.on MondayAND Luke's parent/teacher conference so I shouldhave plenty of material to update you all on next time! Until then...

Our First Trip to Walt Disney World

To say that planning a trip to Disney World is overwhelming is an understatement because almost everything about Disney World is overwhelming. But kind of in a good way. It truly is a magical place unlike any other.

For our first family trip to WDW (Matt and I have been there before), we took a low key approach and I think it really paid off. We were there from a Tuesday night to Friday mid-day which was a good amount of time for us. Our Disney experience started off with a shuttle ride from the airport to the resort and I only mention this part because Luke was thrilled to ride on a "coach" bus with red velvet seats and drop down TVs. We arrived at our hotel, the Carribbean Beach Resort and immediately hit up the main building for some food. Luke found an arcade which we played in for a while after dinner then off to bed to get ready for the next day, our first day at the Magic Kingdom.

With every known baby product in tow, we headed off to the promised land. Once inside the entrance, we stopped quickly for some food...and I should mention here that ALL of the food was great-decently expensive, but always quality. Not having a specific plan of attack, we decided to go "left" at the first opportunity to do so, which meant we veered off at the circle in front of the main castle. Luke's first attraction was the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House which he loved. Next up, Aladin's Magic Carpets, one of our favorites. We did this ride twice, I rode with Luke once and my mom rode with him once. I was kind of shocked that they let little kid ride these rides only because growing up, I felt like I couldn't ride most rides until middle school, regardless of their safety level. Maybe it just sticks out in my mind that I was so small and couldn't ride the rides that everyone else my age could. Anyway, at this point, Luke started asking to leave. Yes, you read that right, Luke already wanted to leave the Magic Kingdom. He wanted to go back to his Beloved hotel with the fun pool. Well, of course, we weren't going to leave yet so we continued to torture Luke with more rides at the happiest place on Earth.

We did a whole bunch of rides, but my favorites were the Tea Cups and Space Mountain. I was definitely in a mission to make sure we did the Tea Cups. I'm not really sure why, but I had it in my head that we had to do the cups. Maybe I wanted to make sure we had the All American experience while there. Luke went with mimi and he made sure that they rode in a purple tea cup - it had to be purple. And even later in the day, I made my mom ride the tea cups with me, but I didn't make her ride in a purple one again. After about 3 hours or so, the kids starting dozing off in the rental strollers...it seemed so funny that we were at this fabulous kid place and they were riding around in strollers sleeping. So Matt and I took advantage of this and rode a couple of rides ourselves while my mom watched the sleeping beauties. The only ride that Matt really really wanted to do was Splash Mountain and it was the only one that I really really didn't want to do, naturally (I'm not a fan of big drops) . So Matt and my mom did Splash Mountain while I wondered around with the kids looking for a bathroom. After a few more hours and one MAJOR fit by Luke at the Race Cars, we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel...music to Luke's ears.

Now don't get me wrong, I can see why Luke loved the pool, but seriously, he could have at least humored me with enjoying the parks a little more. So we spent the rest of the day at the pool - luckily the pool also had a bar that served Blue Moon. score! Later that evening we headed to Downtown Dinsey which was cute. We walked away from there with a mini mouse princess and a purple light saber compliments of mimi.

The next day we went back to Magic Kingdom but this time, there was double the number of people there than the day before...the first day of their peak season. We had a similar experience on day #2 in that we did some rides (and this time we did the race cars successfully with no fits!) but Luke still wanted to be back at the hotel. So after a few hours, back to the pool it was.

We concluded our Florida trip with my friend Kevin's wedding and for this we switched hotels and went to downtown Orlando. This hotel was not like the kid friendly Disney hotel but was very posh instead. Luke loved the deep purple velvet chaise lounge in our hotel room and designated the coordinating pillow as his caterpillar, Fuzzy's bed. Because this hotel was a Marriott hotel, and Matt still has his platinum Marriott status from his work travel, we had access to the concierge lounge. Luke and Adrienne were the only visitors to the lounge that made any sort of noise...but we didn't care and went daily anyway. Mimi watched the little people while Matt and I attended the wedding on the pool deck of the hotel with the reception in the ball room. All in all, it was a great trip and we did not love coming back home to the frozen tundra.

I think it will be a number of years before we do Disney again but I definitely think we'll be back there in the future.