We stayed in Sarasota which is about 2 hours south of Orlando. However, we decided that we couldn't go to Florida without taking the kids to Disney World. Bill and I signed up for Disney's "Give a Day Get a Day" program. We volunteered a Saturday at a resale shop and each got a free ticket to a Disney theme park. Liam was free because he was under three, so it was not a very expensive day (minus paying obscene amounts of money for hotdogs and water). My mom came with us--she almost wasn't able to because she wasn't feeling well, but thankfully she rallied because she didn't want to miss the kids' first trip to Disney! I had one wish and one wish only for our trip to Disney; that was for Rori to at least see a princess. I knew that the only guaranteed way to meet a princess at the Magic Kingdom was to dine at Cinderella's Table restaurant. You have to make reservations 6 months in advance. We did not do that, so we couldn't get in. However, right about the time we arrived at the Magic Kingdom a show was starting at Cinderella's Castle. I was worried that Minnie and Mickey were going to be the only ones in the show, but out came Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White! I don't know who was more excited--Rori or me! Being the cheese that I am, I teared up a bit because I was sooooo happy that Rori got to see them--even if they were on stage and not right up close.

The kids rode a bunch of rides and had a blast. Bill, my mom, and I melted into puddles of sweat, but thoroughly enjoyed seeing their faces. I saw on the map that there was a character greet area so we headed over there in the hopes of seeing at least one princess. We got there and I asked if the princesses were there and the lady told me there were some inside. I was worried we'd be waiting hours in line, so Bill and Liam went off to meet Mickey and Minnie. We only ended up waiting about twenty minutes and Rori got to meet three princesses!! Each one took some time to talk with her and give her a hug. Rori was in heaven, as was her mommy and grandma. They were each so sweet to her and it made the whole trek to Disney worth it!

Liam got to meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse and he was almost as thrilled. Not as thrilled as if he had gotten to meet Batman, though!

By the end of the day, everyone was exhausted, but satisfied!

Notice Liam's sweaty head (although it's mixed with obscene amounts of sunscreen that Bill sprayed on his head)!!

Fleas, Roaches, and Dirty Underwear, Oh My!

I am clearly behind on my blogging, so I think I am going to go backwards and start with the most recent events. We just went on our first family vacation, and our first any kind of vacation in 6 years! We decided to go to Florida to see my grandma who turned 90 years old this year. My parents, Jenna and Ryan, and all our kids rented a really large house that looked fabulous on the internet. It was originally owned by the Ringling family--you know, the circus Ringling's. You can kind of see from the picture it was quite spacious.

That's the ballroom with the sitting room attached, behind it are two huge master bedrooms. It really was enormous!

There were 5 bedrooms--four had bathrooms attached. It seemed like a dream vacation home. However, it was not the ideal vacation getaway I had hoped for. The fifth bedroom was unusable because the air conditioning didn't reach it. The air conditioner for the kitchen and dining room didn't work--it was replaced four days into our vacation. Because of losing a bedroom, we ended up with all three kids in our room. The room was spacious enough, but it made it difficult once the kids went to bed for us to get anything out of the room. We were wandering the house with our toiletries to get a shower in either my parents room or Jenna and Ryan's room.

Almost once a day we found a dead cockroach in the house. I know that Florida has lots of bugs, and big bugs, so I could mostly deal with the occasional dead roach. Thankfully, Jenna was the only one to see one alive. I think I would have lost it if I had seen that. To add insult to it all, we had paid a cleaning fee with the rental cost, and yet we found a pair of dirty underwear in the hot room (I'm assuming it was dirty, we didn't inspect it closely since noone was staying in that room). Jenna and my mom also found a human molar on the table outside. ummm...gross.

Now, I could deal with all of the above and chalk it up to you get what you pay for (the house wasn't terribly expensive). I would even consider going back. However, by day two I had several itchy bites on my ankles. They progressively got worse. We were thinking they were no see 'ums which are tiny bugs that can bite and some people have a reaction to them. A few days into the vacation, I decided to check the sheets because I was starting to suspect fleas. Sure enough, I found a flea in our bed. Then I found two in Jenna's bed. Worse, I found two on Juliana's face at random times and Bill found two on Brendan's face. By the end of the trip, I had over 75 bites on my ankles, feet, legs, back, and arms. And they itched like the dickens. Near the end of the vacation I started spraying myself with bug spray after showers and swimming to fend off the fleas. Needless to say, I was ready to burn the house down by the time we left. Note to self: Next time you go on a Florida vacation, ask when the last time the house was exterminated!

Note the bites but pay no attention to the ugly foot, I had gotten a pedicure, but what can I say, that's my foot...

The rest of the vacation was mostly wonderful and I will post about that next.

Welcome to the family Marylou!

This weekend we were so excited to celebrate an addition to our family! No, not another baby :) Todd and Marylou got married!!! I'm so excited for her to officially join our family.

Whenever Marylou offers to bring food to a family function, I get really excited because I know it's going to be yummy! She makes a coconut cake and a cheesecake that are to die for!

Marylou has a wonderful sense of humor

She loves the kids and even though she thinks diapers and spit up are gross--it doesn't stop her from playing with them (the kids that is--not playing with the spit up)!

She even let us hi-jack her pre-wedding bar-b-que with a birthday party for Liam and his cousin, Ashley.

Granted, she did make us stare at this during the bar-b-que/pig roast...

Marylou was one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen!

Because she cares about hers and Todd's families so much, she had every small child in the wedding and put up with their lack of cooperation with grace!

Oh, yeah, Todd was there too :)

Welcome to the family Marylou! I'm so glad you're a part of it!

He gets it

I had posted, when I wrote about losing our daughter, Faith, that I had regretted not getting her a gravestone. She was our baby and deserved recognition as such. I had been thinking about it again, recently, and it has really been on my heart to get one. I mentioned to my friend, how I had hoped that Bill would think of it on his own so that I wouldn't have to bring it up to him. We had recently refinanced our mortgage, and therefore got to "skip" a mortgage payment. Basically that left us with a little extra money that could cover a gravestone. My friend wisely told me that men are different than women and I needed to just bring it up to him. I did and he agreed we should get one. He even said he'd call about it that week. A few weeks went by and he didn't mention it to me again. I got really frustrated inside because I took this to mean he didn't care about her the way I did. I felt like he just didn't get it. So, I took matters into my own hands and got the information again on how to go about getting a stone. I told him how I felt and he apologized and we agreed that next weekend we would go pick one out.

Last night my dear friend Anne, aka my Jilli.an Michaels, texted me and told me her sister lost her twin babies at 20 weeks pregnant. I was heartbroken for them. It brought back many of my memories. I couldn't stop thinking about them all night. Bill and I were laying in bed going to sleep and I felt the need to text Anne that her sister HAD to get pictures of her babies. That is the biggest regret of my life, not getting pictures of our Faith. After I texted her, Bill didn't ask what I sent, but he reached over and squeezed my hand and said, "I love you." And I knew then that he got it.

My Birthday

My birthday was yesterday, Cinco de Mayo! It's always a fiesta on my birthday :) Every year Bill renews my subscription to Us Week.ly (don't tell our friend Nat, he's a youth pastor and thinks it's a trashy magazine and we like to keep up our wholesome image ;-) ). He also gets me another gift because that one doesn't really count because it's expected. Lucky for me! This year he got me a new point and shoot camera!! I love it because my other one takes horrible grainy pictures--you can tell when I've used it if you go through past posts on my blog. I love my Nikon SLR but it's much too big to bring on vacation and I wanted one I could just throw in my pocket so I could take pictures at the park etc. So, of course I had to test it out and so this post is going to be photo happy :)
I decided to try a self portrait, since if I don't take pictures of myself, if I die, my kids won't know what I looked like...

Oops, this is better (but nice teeth above, huh?)

I have ape arms so am pretty good at taking pictures of myself and the kids together.

Bill sent me flowers at work. I love when he does that. I feel special. Aren't they lovely?

This was my birthday card from him. I made it extra-large because if anyone can tell me what it says, I'll give them $5...

Todd n ML showed up. They didn't know it was my birthday. They felt embarassed. So as punishment I am posting this picture.

We talked them into staying for cupcakes

Bill made them and the kids decorated them. Well, Bill decorated the ones with the red writing. I am doing the same $5 offer for that one...

This is what the cupcakes looked like unfrosted. Bill's not sure what happened...

But Todd approved

So did Marylou. I told her this picture was a good angle and she should practice it for her upcoming wedding pictures.

Rori liked the hats and wants to keep them for her birthday!

Thank you, my dear hubby, for a lovely day. Next time you get me a camera, though, warn me to put a little makeup on since I am pretty sure this is the most pictures of me that have been on my blog the whole year!

Attitude Check

I have no idea what my spiritual gift is. I think I was absent the day they were handed out. Evangelism? nope. Administration? Have you seen my desk? nope. I have taken the inventories, and they are not very helpful. I have tried to think of ways to serve in our church using my skills. It's hard because honestly, and I'm not saying this so everyone will say nice things about me, I don't feel like I have useful gifts. One day, before I was pregnant I saw a sign up sheet for Meals on Wheels. This seemed right up my alley. I love to cook! I look forward to the week that we have main dish for our small group. I love cooking different types of food than what I normally serve my picky family. I get to experiment with new things. Anyway, so I signed up.

I never got a phone call. That is, until a week ago. The person that heads it up called me and asked when I could bring a meal to a family from our church. They have 11 children. Lucky for me, 4 of them are no longer at home. I hemmed and hawed, thinking, "don't you know that I have 3 small children and I work two days a week." She wasn't going to let me off the hook. So I chose last Friday. I felt quite indignant that someone would ask me to do that when I had so much on my plate--especially since it was for 9 people! Enter, attitude check. I felt God nudging me, and I felt ashamed. Every Sunday people serve my family. They teach Rori and Liam about Jesus, happily change Brendan's poopy diapers, and Bill and I sit in the sanctuary enjoying the service. Here I was grumbling about making a meal, something I enjoy, something that I signed up to do and hadn't been asked once in the previous year to fulfill. So, I changed my attitude and made a delicious meal, hopefully blessing the family by having one less thing to think about.

I ended up being blessed in return for making the meal. Sunday, when we went to church, the dad came up to us and asked if I made it from scratch and said they loved it. Then one of the little girls said to me, "my mom said that whoever made that meal knows how to cook!" I was humbled, touched, and ashamed of my initial attitude. I am ready for the next Meals on Wheels phone call. Unless it's a meal for the Duggars. I don't think I have a pot big enough to cook for them!

Todd n Ml

 Bill and I had an incredibly busy weekend, it was fun, but I am exhausted and need to have a day off to catch up at home! Bill's sister, Tiffany, and her daughter, Ashley, came in for the weekend because Bill's brother Todd and his fiance Marylou were having their bachelor/bachelorette parties and their couples shower this weekend.

It was fun seeing Ashley--I think it had been almost a year since we last saw her!

 

 We got ourselves all spiffied up for the shower. Please take notice of my manicure. It lasted one day, but I thought it was really fun. The color was Emerald City. I am normally not that bold, but sometimes I have to do something wild and crazy ;) Better watch out for my wild side!

Be sure to note Bill and Liam rocking the sweater vests!

Here's Bill and his "big" little brother

Here's Marylou, Todd's fiance. I think Bill and his brother's like girls with beautiful smiles and good teeth, what do you think? (I can say that about myself and not be vain, because my parents spent a fortune to make mine that way) Todd and Marylou have officially become Todd n Ml. It's just easier and quicker :) I'm all about efficiency.

 Continuing in the beautiful smile/good teeth genre, we have Nicki and Bill's other little brother, Nicholas, or for the efficiency experts out there, NPsquared (our last name starts with a P, get it?)

 Here's Rori with the junior bridesmaids, Olivia and Eva (she's a flower girl). I was a little insulted because she spent the whole time with them, and only needed me when she had to go potty. She even sat at their table for dinner. Is this a glimpse into my future? If that's the case.I don't think I will ever let her be old enough to go to the bathroom by herself.

The wedding is right after we get back from our vacation, and we're so excited for them! They are truly made for each other! Thanks for the fun weekend Todd n Ml!