a beautiful spring already!

just in time for easter, we have a resurrection miracle right in our backyard! when my friend heather moved here in 2007, she dug up a BUNCH of amaryllis bulbs and shared them with me and kristie. i love those flowers, but i was hesitant to plant them because i do not do flowers. i love receiving them, i love admiring them, but i cannot keep them alive in the ground. i did not inherit my granddaddy's green thumb, that is for sure. i have been known to say, "i am growing children, not flowers!" well, my two gardening friends assured me that amaryllis were tough and that i could not kill them. well, bring them on! kristie helped me plant them along my (ugly) fence, and i actually had a little hope! until kristie and heather both mentioned in passing some time later that their amaryllis were blooming... both of theirs bloomed, and i had some green leaves. that was it. and for the next two years, that was it. just green leaves. they looked mighty healthy last year, and i was sure they'd produce some buds then.... but no. my sweet neighbor bonnie and i have had many a conversation across the fence about those poor flowers and whether they'd ever bloom. i'd pretty much given up on the poor dears this year... they were covered in weeds and the leaves were looking quite pathetic. just two weeks ago, i shook my head at them and said, "i told them i'd kill 'em!"

WELL! last week, the kids and i went outside to breathe in some beautiful spring air, and wouldn't you know!? those weed-infested leaves held stems! and those stems held BUDS! red BUDS! i could not believe it! you'd have thought i'd found a box full of gold, i was so excited! i put amelia in her swing, and i started weeding. there is probably a right way and a wrong way to weed, but i just started cleaning out around the flowers. caroline had a ball finding all the "pretty flowers" (aka weeds) for me, and ethan carefully watched me. then i fertilized them and watered them really well. i was tickled. and it was just a day or two later that these beautiful blooms appeared... in my yard! i still can't believe it. something grew despite being in my yard. everytime i'm in amelia's room, i peek out her window to take a look.



now, never mind the dry grass and dollar weeds in the background of the pictures. :) baby steps, people. baby steps. there are several plants that have yet to bloom, so i'll probably get some more pictures soon. i must admit that this has given me a small, small taste of the joy of gardening. just don't tell anybody i said that...

the beach!

as much as i have loved seeing my kids bundled up in their sweet hats and cozy jackets, this momma is so glad that beach days are here! our first beach day a couple of weeks ago was a wonderful one... a little windy, so a little cool... but that did not stop the kids from having a ball. my kids that want to change their clothes the minute they spill a little something on them at home were perfectly content sloshing around in wet clothes all afternoon! gotta love the beach!


after the cousins got nice and soggy, they dried off a little while they built a sand castle with aunt kristie. amelia really really wanted to help...


here's their work of art... notice the lollipop-wrapper-flags! :)


amelia finally got to get down to play in the sand. she loved it from the get-go!


once she got a fist full of sand, she did not let it go.


seriously, she didn't.


and whatever goes in her hand goes in her mouth!





the funny thing is that amelia continued to shove sand in her mouth, even after making that yucky face. :) babies can't resist!!

when the soggy kids got a little chilly from the breezy day, they cozied up under the warmth of towels and beach hats.


and aunt kristie didn't mind keeping amelia warm!


now that we got our first taste of sandy sunshine, we can't wait to go back. the back of our van will be loaded with buckets and beach toys for a good long while now, and the floorboard will stay sandier than my husband prefers. we will most definitely take our swimsuits from now own, and this girl will most definitely have her ten little toes in the sand....

march!

i think i say this every single month, but i cannot believe march is almost over. someone today was talking about april, and in my head, i was thinking that's a few weeks away... then it hit me that april first is one week from today. yikes! i've got some actual catching up to do around the house, but i also want to catch up on here before easter! we have actually had a fun month around, though my blog has recently been nothing more than a disney-catch-up journal! here's a little peek at what we've been up to lately....

amelia is growing like a weed! she turned 14 months this week, and she is starting to take a couple of steps every now and then. i think it's been pretty accidental, but i figure she'll be walking before too much longer. she is eating anything we put in front of her! and whatever doesn't make it in her mouth winds up in her (fantastic, dishwasher safe) bib, which she'll check at some point to see what she missed. :) she's learning new words every week, and one of her favorite things to do right now is put her hand to her ear like she's on the phone and say, "hey, bye, dadadada!"


we went on our first family camping trip earlier this month! our small group camped out together for a couple of days, and it was so much fun. i can't wait to share more about it soon! as you can see, our kids kinda sorta liked camping...


the kids and i are wrapping up our first year with classical conversations. we have loved fellowshipping with this amazing group of encouraging families, and i can't wait to get ethan's kindergarten year rolling in the fall!


cousin karina stayed with us last weekend while her mommy and daddy stole away for a little anniversary weekend. the girls practically lived in their dress-up clothes, and they enjoyed working together on this mug for brian's grandmother.


since the girls were up by 6:30 on saturday morning (yikes!), i had plenty of time to whip up some mickey mouse pancakes! the kids were so surprised! :) hey, i can't let aunt kristie be the only fun aunt in our family. :)


we've enjoyed the warmer temperatures these days, so this little girl has been so happy to get some time in her beloved swing! and she almost has enough hair to put up in a barrette! her hair is so fine that it practically slips right out of any barrette. i am so ready to put some bows in amelia's hair!!!!


since it has been a little warmer lately, kristie and i thought it was time for our 2010 inaugural beach day last week! it was somewhat windy, so we thought the kids could just play in their clothes like last spring... surely the water would be too cold. we left all the bathing suits at home and headed to our favorite place in town! well.... we hadn't been there ten minutes before all three cousins were soaking wet up to their waists. oh well. :) kristie and i had some good chuckles watching them waddle all over the shore in their heavy-wet clothes!


this little booger is definitely not the sleeping infant that i brought to the beach last summer! :) do i even need to tell you that she loved the sand!? i think she ate sand for lunch.


be back soon with more camping and beach pictures!

animal kingdom: disney day 4!

we spent our last disney day at animal kingdom, and it was another cold day! i'd say overall, it felt warmer than epcot, but that may have been due to the trees and foliage blocking the wind! as soon as we got there, i ran to get fastpasses for expedition everest (woohoo!) while the rest of our crew waited for me in a warm store. since it was so cold, we were immediately drawn to the indoor "it's tough to be a bug" show, which we were really planning on skipping. the kids didn't care for it too much, but at least they didn't get downright scared. caroline's review of the show was, "i didn't like the bug that sprayed me." never mind the humongous 3-d tarantula-- fear the bug that sprays a light mist at you! :) the worst part about going to the bug show is that it ate up about 30 minutes of our day, which already felt short since AK closed at 5. at 4:00, i was really wishing we had 30 more minutes to explore something else! oh well! ya live and learn. since we probably won't revisit the bug show on our next trip, i'm glad we at least got a fun picture of us in our bug glasses. :) amelia is looking at me as if to say, "do i know you, lady?!"


next, we headed over to dinoland, usa, where the kids were so excited to ride triceratop spin. this is identical to the dumbo ride in magic kingdom except you're riding a dinosaur instead of an elephant. and instead of a 20 minute wait, you can run onto the ride with absolutely no wait at all. so while i took amelia on a please-fall-asleep-in-the-stroller walk to get fastpasses for the safari across the park, gram and daddy and the kids rode it twice. (and amelia did fall asleep!) here are gram and caroline, who could never quite figure out how to get their dino to go up! :)


when i got back, brian and i snuck away for a little date to ride expedition everest. gram and the kids had a snack in dinoland usa while we froze our buns off riding this roller coaster!!! the frigid temperatures added even more theme to this arctic ride, especially when we rode in the very back row. woooooah, nilly. what a thrill! we got fastpasses with the kids' tickets too, so we were able to ride twice in 20 minutes! this was another one of those rides that would be neat to look at all the details in the queuing area, but again... we were so happy to not have to wait long at all! here we are in front of our favorite ride at disney!


we hurried back to dinoland usa to rescue gram, and we all headed to the safari. you never know what animals you are going to see, but we saw a ton of animals this time! last time, when brian and i rode it on our non-kid-disney trip, we had a back row to ourselves, and we were able to pass the camera back and forth to snap pictures on either side.... well...... this time was not so ideal, photographically speaking. the bus was full, and we took up a whole row. :) i had amelia strapped to me, so i was no help taking pictures. there were a lot of animals we missed taking pictures of, but the kids just absolutely loved the safari. definitely a favorite this day!


can you see the baby giraffe hiding behind her mother?! she must've been a little camera shy...


but this baby elephant walked right toward the bus! caroline was thrilled beyond words to see this sweet little guy!


i loved watching caroline wave sweetly at all the animals. here she is waving at that elephant.


i had a front row seat to see this wild animal on our safari! be careful, she bites!


a bunch of ostriches walked by, and this one got so close to ethan! the camera wouldn't even focus because the mean bird was too close!


after the safari, we walked the pangani forest exploration trail. this was another one of those exhibits that we would have loved to have spent more time exploring... but once we got a little ways into it, we realized that we were really pressed for time to make it to the nemo musical. so we had to rush through the rest of it. :( next time, we'll make sure we have more time to enjoy this! it was really neat. here's brian with the girls in the stroller... amelia was the warmest one of all in her cozy den!


can you see the hippo in this picture!? we stood in front of this huge aquarium for a good 15 minutes before ethan finally found the hippo. :)


we did not take time to get good gorilla pictures.. we just saw them in passing as we rushed out of the exhibit...


ethan could have stayed all day watching these little blue fish....


speaking of little fish... we made it to finding nemo: the musical just in time! we were given great seats in the front half of the theater, and wow, what a show! brian and i skipped this the last time we came because it looked cheesy to us, and i am so glad we made a point to see this show this time around. it is nothing short of impressive. ethan and caroline sat still and amazed through the whole show. amelia, on the other hand, was absolutely done with shows by this point in our vacation. this was day four of being held and not getting to crawl around to get her energy out... so she was quite squirmy and fussy during nemo... despite her crankiness, i was still able to enjoy the show! (i don't know about the teenage boy with the fro in front of me, though. sorry, man!) here's a couple of pictures that brian took...



and i love this video! we have watched it so many times since we've come home from disney! who does not love crush, the big australian turtle!? i will warn you... if you watch this video, you will get this song stuck in your head!!


ok, i have to share more of this part... did i tell you i loved this show!?


by the time nemo was over, we only had a couple of hours until the park closed. ethan was dying to see some tigers, so we sauntered over to the maharajah jungle trek to hunt for some big cats! ethan was so excited to wear this jaguar shirt to the animal kingdom, and he finally got to take his jacket off to get a picture in it! "oh no! tigers!"


"hmmm, let's check the map... and then i'm gonna catch me a tiger!" (are you surprised that ethan loved watching the swiss family robinson movie?!)


this happy boy found his tigers!


there they are! i wished we'd had the video camera out for this... two tigers were kind of just lounging around until a third tiger bounded over and started playing with one lying down. i thought we were gonna see a bonafide cat fight! ethan was all smiles as the tigers put on a little show.


beautiful disney jungle as we exited!


our final activity for the day was the festival of the lion king show! ethan and caroline were amazed by the huge animatronic animals, the stilt-walkers, the engaging music, and the colors everywhere! my pictures did not do justice to this eye-opening show, so i'll just share this one of ethan and caroline looking up at the lion king.


after the lion king show, we headed back to our warm condo to eat dinner. i felt like there was so much more to see at animal kingdom, but with the early closing, it's almost impossible to see it all. the girls were exhausted, and caroline had a fever, so it was good that we got home. we put caroline and amelia to bed, and my mom happily stayed put at the condo with them while we took ethan to downtown disney. he had been waiting all week to go to the lego store (and so had his daddy!)... look at these boys-- definitely in their element. :)


while they were drooling over way too expensive lego sets, i found this crazy wall of lego minifigs!


ethan got a kick out of the lego family! i liked when they had this family looking at the big lego dragon in the water, but they've since moved them out of the way next to the store...


we also went to the huge disney toy store, where ethan picked out a couple of disney racers. we bought caroline some little princess play sets, which she has played with every single day since we've been home!

the next day was supposed to be our second day at the magic kingdom, but we knew it'd be freezing and raining... so by thursday night, we'd accepted the fact that our disney trip was over. it was just as well because ethan woke up with a fever friday morning and spent most of the day on the couch. caroline still wasn't feeling great either... so even if it had been a gorgeous day, we'd have all spent the day recouping. brian and i snuck out to downtown disney for a little while again on friday, but otherwise, we were packing and resting. next time, i vote for our down day to be in the middle of the week instead of the last day. :) but i can't complain. we had a wonderful, wonderful trip. we made lots of memories, and had so many fun moments as a family. writing these posts a month later makes me want to go back! our passes are paid for, so it is really (really, really) tempting to take the big kids back and leave amelia with family! we may try to do that before summer arrives... but for now, i'll say good-bye to disney for awhile. it was fun, disney. it was magical. it was amazing. and it was utterly exhausting. and i can't wait to do it again!