While setting up for the monthly shot…

a.k.a. I’m a terrible mother who puts her children outdoors barely dressed in snowstorms to take their photo, photo series.

This was one storm ago, let it be known that I refused to do it two storms ago when she was sick! You can click on the image (twice) to see it big.

Let’s get back to November, when it was warm and there was no snow! Although actually it got rather chilly in Orlando and rained a lot of the day we went to Disney too. On Monday of our visit Jordi’s parents took us all to Disney World! We amazingly got up plenty early and even parked and arrived prior to the park opening. As we pulled up on the monorail from the parking lot we got to see the cast of characters waiting to arrive by train to the opening gate! We got our first (and only) glimpse of Anna and Elsa and some other characters. We arrive to the main gate, get our tickets checked and the show starts right away complete with song, dance, and fireworks!

We walked straight up main street, trying to see if we might be able to meet up with Anna and Elsa in fantasy-land, but didn’t want to drag the kids in a race and ruin the beginning of the day. So by the time we got to the line it was over an hour and a half. Basically the only way to get to see those princesses is to stay at a disney resort so you can get a fastpass many months in advance, none were available by the time we could set our fastpasses. Instead our first stop was the winnie the pooh ride!

We spent the morning going around from ride to ride, using a few fast passes but mostly things were moving pretty quickly since we weren’t going on the more intense rides (snow white, or space mountain). We got onto dumbo and flew. One of Josie’s favorites was the smaller roller coaster, the barnstormer, I think she went three times with different groups of adults. Ewan was not particularly fond of most things as he didn’t like the dark, or loud noises, or being restrained and he was in a clingy phase as well. We visited the tea party cups too. It was a lovely morning visiting a number of rides, including the driving one, and sending Jordi and his siblings off to space mountain which Josie opted out of riding this time. We also visited Buzz Lightyear and played the space game which Ewan loved, but the girls just hid from. It was very unpredictable which ride would please each child.

Then we headed across the park to frontierland to ride splash mountain. I had to physically drag Celia onto the ride as she was quite nervous, but I kept her safe as she will attest! And Josie hid herself to keep from getting wet too! Then we headed off to lunch and found some great options for us vegetarians at Columbia Harbor house. Then we headed back towards fantasy land and got to see Ariel’s ride before it started to rain on us. We snuck into the Carousel for a quick ride while other grownups went to other scary rides.

Sometime around now, it started to pour cats and dogs, and unfortunately continued for the rest of the day. I think we had short line waits because of the predicted rain, but it did rain on the upper end of what was predicted sadly. So we dashed between rides and the camera didn’t get out much anymore. We saw small world, and the favorite ride for all three kids was Enchanted Tales with Belle. No actual ride, but a cool storytime with real people and animatronics. Javi got roped into being a guard up front, my girls couldn’t be convinced to play a role but hung back with us in the audience.

Belle was nice enough to look at my camera too, not just their professional photographer! Celia was rather wary of getting near any of these characters and had to be convinced to hold hands. We also found that the line for Cinderella and Rapunzel was only half an hour (still over an hour and a half for Elsa and Anna) so we waited to see them.

Ewan kept running to the front of the line and I had to retrieve him. Waiting in line is not a strong point for a 1 year old! The princesses were very kind and friendly with the girls, but Josie and Celia didn’t really know the Cinderella story too well and definitely didn’t remember Rapunzel. We taught them some more stories when we got home, but next time I’d review the stories before the trip so they get a bit more into the ideas! Such lovely costumes and decorations. Towards the end of the evening, all wet and tired we had a nice dinner at the italian takeout place. Then we wandered back toward tomorrowland and enjoyed the laugh floor from Monsters Inc. That was very clever and enjoyed by the adults. Finally we watched the castle which still looked beautifully magical in the rain before we trudged up mainstreet thoroughly exhausted, with a few small shopping errands to do. We got a treat and they spent the end of their Disney money.

The park closed by 7, which turned out to be just right for us as the kids were definitely ready for bed from such an exhausting and exciting day at magical kingdom!

While we were in Orlando we kept things pretty low key except for the one day at Disney World. The house and company were plenty to keep us having a good time. We enjoyed the pool, getting in it almost every day. The day before we left when it went below 60 even I was unwilling to get into the pool with the girls, Josie was severely disappointed. We did lots of reading, cuddles, bubbles, swimming, playing and just hanging out talking. Several of Jordi’s paternal relatives live in Orlando and they came to visit us several times.

On Sunday morning, Tere through Celia a belated 4th birthday party. We had in fact found good reason to celebrate most every day as many birthdays were right at the same time! Josie made Celia a tres leches cake, but Celia insisted that she didn’t like tres leches cake, so we left off the tres leches from her cake, hence the missing corner of cake from the picture. Otherwise we also got to visit with Sean, a friend of Jordi’s from high school and his own little girl. She liked watching the big girls and playing with Ewan a bit.

I did the makeup on one of these people, take a guess which one 🙂 I think Tio Javi went home with a bit of a red nose that day even after all the scrubbing.

Last November we had the pleasure of joining Jordi’s immediate family, plus his dad’s brothers families in Orlando. We rented a huge huge house and stayed all together enjoying the pool and getting to play together. On our first day there we went to Downtown Disney to do some shopping, see the sights and introduce the kids to the idea and style of Disney.

It was such great weather to walk around in. We enjoyed checking out the lego structures and all the characters that were permanently posed for us. We had lunch at the rainforest cafe, after having to move away from the all too lifelike gorillas. The kids found the rainforest cafe to be a bit overwhelming with all the thunderstorms but enjoyed it more once they learned the rhythm and repetition of the events. They most wanted to have one of the birthday volcanos, but alas it was not near their birthday. Instead we had a giant sundae from the Ghiradelli shop!

Finding Anna and Elsa was a major highlight! Celia picked out her blinking wand for a gift here, Ewan got some duplo blocks and Josie picked out a Frozen story book. The place was decorated so beautifully, but once we had enough shopping and eating, we headed home with our new toys, after acting too cool for Cinderella.

For three weeks Celia had t-ball lessons! Should have been four, but she had a fever the first week so I kept her home. This information is _way_ old, but I’m so far behind, that’s where I am. She did this for the month of October. Celia loved her lessons and boy did they keep her running. A favorite of the coach was to name a child, hit a ball way out in the field and tell them to go get it. Celia occasionally would find a ball closer on the field and bring it back, not quite understanding that the coach wanted her to run, not just get him a ball.

Otherwise they did catching and throwing exercises, took a turn batting and fielding grounders. Celia got together with a few other girls and tended to dig up the pitchers mound when they were supposed to be fielding. It is pretty slow waiting for 12 kids to take their turns hitting! Celia wasted no time whenever she was up at bat, in fact the picture below is the only one I got of her batting because she’d just walk up and swing before I’d manage to get ready most days. Josie and Ewan watched with me but as the weeks went on, Ewan was desperate to get on the field and proved he had been paying attention at the end of the last practice by taking a turn swinging the bat. Celia had a great time and we’ll be signing her up again given the chance to play ball!

Merry Christmas from our bunch to yours, may it be a peaceful day.

Thankful for happy belly laughs, which will hopefully soon be returning once we’re all healthy. Also thank you to you my blog readers even though I’m about three technology fads behind (facebook, instagram…)

Happy Halloween from our fairy, cow, and scary bumble bee! Ewan enjoyed his first Halloween where he had a clue what was going on. He was wary at first, but eventually he was charging ahead after his sisters unwilling to be left behind for anything! A few times he gave them candy from his bin, instead of the other way around. Jordi got to take them around, and Ewan had to skip every other house to be able to keep up, but he still filled up almost the whole pumpkin with candy.

Two weeks ago our little Cecilia turned 4! I feel like I’ve been seeing some big changes with her recently from her diction and language to her manners and self control. Here’s what she’s been up to!

She started school at Sunshine in the beginning of September and she loves it. Every day when I ask her how school was her answer is ‘great!’ Actually that’s her answer when I ask her about most everything, how did she sleep? great! How was t-ball? great! How was dinner? err actually she has a lot of complaints about dinner lately . She’s always happy to go right into school and her teachers tell me what a great kid she is and how well it’s going. It’s a bit tiring for her, but she loves the writing center where she makes at least three notes/pictures and envelopes each day (often of a sun, or a potato lately). When the weather has been good she loves the sandbox and digging for shells and other things they hide in it. She has trouble telling me what they did at school most days beyond the very big highlights (like snack) but she’s giving me more information as time goes on.

Academically they don’t do much at school, at home now I’ve been working with her on reading and math. One of her favorites is ‘candy math’. I literally hand out candy (candy corn and pumpkins right now) and she uses it to help figure out math problems like how much is 3 plus 7. We have also been working on the vowel sounds which has been a challenge, but she’s picked up the consonants pretty well already without me working on them. There’s no rush so I keep trying to find new games to help her internalize those sounds.

One thing Celia and I like to do together is play games. She just got a great new handful of games for her birthday that we’ve been playing together. She can almost count out her spaces right on the games every time. She likes to play uno, go fish, the farming game and lots of others. She also likes to help me cook by measuring, mixing and washing fruits and vegetables.

Out of the house Celia is taking ballet lessons and just finished up a series of t-ball classes. She liked t-ball, it made her run a lot and we’ll see if she wants to do it again in the spring. She enjoys her ballet class and has been learning some grace and some of the positions. Otherwise running is a great strength of hers and she wants to do soccer when she gets the chance. Celia has also been quite the monkey at the rock climbing wall at the ymca, although now they moved the handholds and it’s a bit more challenging!

At home Celia is a huge fan of dressing up, playing pretend and reading. It’s tough keeping clothes on her and she is resisting the season change very much. She loves for Josie to read to her. She also often chooses to play lego’s during Ewan’s nap time. We also recently moved her bedtime up earlier, and let Josie’s fall later as we try to figure out how to get three kids to bed in two rooms when they have different sleep needs and habits. I think her behavior has improved remarkably since we got her to sleep earlier, and now I get some more one on one time with her right before bedtime.

• Size/weight: Mostly 5T, just a few 4T’s
• Favorite foods: cheese, tomatoes, pasta
• Favorite toy: doll stroller
• Favorite book: Fancy Nancy series
• Favorite activity: digging and getting dirty
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:40; gets up about 6:30
• New skill: go to school!
• Teeth: holding steady with all 20
• Literacy: working on those short-vowel sounds. She can identify them in the front of words, but it’s tricky alone or asking her to just produce them.