Happy Halloween!

From Jessie and Bullseye!
Melt a Momma's heart!


So Sweet!

Hope you score lots of tricks and treats! We will

True Story

Hi Belle! You are beautiful! Where is Cin-a-wella?

Oh my friend Cinderella is here, she will be by you table later on while you are eating lunch.

Okay!Hi Jasmine....Where is Cin-a-wella?

Oh my friend Cinderella is in the next room, she should be by soon.

Hi Aurora, Do you know where Cin-a-wella is?

Sure my friend Cinderella is in the other room and will be by shortly.Hey Snow White, Cin-a-wella is coming by shortly.

Oh hi princess, look we have the same dress on, I love your dress.

Yes, Cin-a-wella is coming by shortly.

Yes my friend Cinderella will be by in a minute.Hi Cin-a-wella.....where is Ariel?

Hi princess, my friend Ariel is back at her grotto.

Momma, les go see Ariel at da grotto. And we did 3 days later.....

Hi Ariel, I am going to Cin-a-wella's castle to have lunch!

You are, well tell her I said hello!


Yes that is my little princess for you. I swear that is exactly what happened, although the princess lines were just similar as I couldn't remember exactly what was said! That's right Meredith, blow the internets a kiss!

Too old to be a princess

So as we were sitting and waiting for the princess lunch, I told my mom that this was the kind of job I needed. To get paid to be a princess and visit with people during lunch.



My mom then informed me that she was pretty sure I wouldn't get the job. I asked if she didn't think I was princess material. I mean sure I don't wear as much makeup as they do, but I can pull that off for the right price.

I was also as tall as Snow White so surely I would pass some sort of height requirement. And they all wore wigs, so really my hair color not being black or platinum shouldn't matter. She said that all those things were true but.....

when I put 29 down on the application they were sure to chunk it! Well I may be 29, but when I smile I don't look like a hyena....poor Cindrella...I am so kidding she is beautiful.....right Noah?

Family photos

Here we are outside of Belle's castle, Akershus. This was a great princess lunch. I highly recommend it. And one more because our kids were cooperating for photos so well....Awe!

Lunch at the castle!

After we ate with the princesses in Epcot, Meredith was hell bent and determined to have lunch at the castle. She started asking to do that as soon as we got to Disney. We had it planned for the last day. In hindsight that was not the best plan. By then she was so tired we could of eaten in a dumpster and she would not have cared less. Although she was thrilled when we got there.

Finding out we are going in the castle!Saying hi to her old friend Cindy.Mom don't we just look like princesses....do you see the princess wave with the cupped hand. My girl is so prepared.Hugging her good-bye. This was her last visit with Cinderella, we would be home by this time the next day.
The magic wand she recieved. It was probably worth a nickel, but it came free. Well let me rephrase that it was free with the purchase of your very expensive lunch!Telling Snow White she had a bow on too! Thanks to Snow White, Meredith may wear bows until she goes to college now! I hope so!
Snow White, much prettier than the other one, in my opinion. She loved Meredith's dress, thought she was the prettiest princess there. Me too! I was sick of all the princess dresses by then.Here she is telling Aurora she had a pink dress on just like her. Oh and see my shirt....Snow White loved it!So sad that she won't be eating with princesses for a while.Awwwe!

It's hard not to compare notes

So I am taking a break from the Disney extravaganza, partially because you may be tired of it and partially because I am too lazy to edit the next set of pictures right now. Since we have gotten home I am damn tired and would love to be damn lazy, but with two tikes running around who has time to be lazy.

Anyway back to the original post for today......comparing notes.

Today I took an impromptu visit to the pediatrician. It wasn't a well baby visit or a "sick" visit, although the littlest tike has a mean cough and crusty nose. This was for the older tike to find out she has a staff infection....well we think. At least the official diagnosis is staff/strep on our paper. And we got some antibiotic ointment to address that, great....one illness after the next this year. We should be infection, virus, fever free by 2010....maybe.

While I was there, I noticed the good old milestone chart that I referred to at Meredith's umpteen thousand appointments in her first year. I brought her to the doctor a lot, for some real doozy excuses too. The doctor had me pegged as the classic first time mom. I brought her in thinking that she might be deaf, or like when she rolled off the bed, or when she slept through the night, and when she didn't sleep through the night, and just because it's been over a month since we have seen you doc and I just missed ya!

Yeah they had me pegged alright. Noah on the other hand, has been a handful of times. In fact his ears were diagnosed at well baby visits or when his sister had the flu. Their arms would have to be falling off for me to bring them in now. Yeah it has to be a damn good excuse for me to sit in a waiting room full of viruses while trying to entertain two kids while waiting on doctors who are generally running pretty late.....no thanks!

So yes, we have been with all the funk we have had this year, but no where near the amount of times we went for Meredith's first year. And honestly she was never really sick that year. Go figure.

Oh how I digress....I'm tired. Anyway I looked at the trusty old milestone chart they have displayed on the wall, the one I studied and memorized when Meredith was a baby. Today was the first time I noticed it since her 12 month appointment. For a moment I just glanced thinking back to my old self and how I used to drive myself nuts because she didn't reach one of those milestones under her age or how I would study what she needed to be doing at the next visit to practice.

Today though I did get up and look at it. 2 months....check...we are doing all those things. 4 months....check....we are doing those too. We also have the 6 and 9 month category down pat. Good thing since we are rapidly approaching his first birthday. Then I looked at 12 months.....holy shit....pointing to objects he knows. Ummmm have I even tried that. Getting things out and putting them back.....does he even have a minute before the toy is snatched from his grasp and then a screaming war begins.

How do you keep track of the second one? Where do you find time to practice and read and work on those skills? Does he even have a fighting chance to have practice? I guess it is more of a nature verse nurture thing. Or something that can be learned indirectly.

Today when we got home from the doctor I put him on the floor and laid out a few things. Noah....where is the ball? Where is the block? And then he looked at me like I was crazy had a big devilish grin and blew the biggest, sloppiest raspberry in my face. Yep, he was right and so was the look on his face...."lady don't be crazy I know what they are....I don't have to point to prove it right now."

I'm glad that little boy brought me back to reality. There are a lot less worries when your life is full of chaos. Maybe I will try for that third and then a fourth afterall.....kidding Josh. Hell after the 2nd I hear the rest are a piece of cake!

What she says.....I couldn't resist sharing the cuteness

"Momma....Momma...look at snow white in da modda-rail. Look at her in da modda-rail momma!"

We were doing my "homework" in my office when she wanted to see her pictures. So as I scrolled through all of the disney pics for her this one caught her eye!

Noah and the big black mouse

I decided it would be fun to wake up my family at 6am to make a very early breakfast with a certain mouse and his friends. Don't let this picture fool you, everyone was excited as I was to do this!

Holy Shit! What the hell is that thing?

Seriously are you like a REAL mouse?

Look at the size of your nose pal!

Bring it a little closer...that's it....let me see if this is for real?

Wait....watch where you are going with that thing man!

Whoa.....that was close.....did you see him come after me with that thing!

Hey Mickey...I never said you could touch my spike....we aren't that good of friends man!

Okay now this goofy guy is much more my style....see he is leaving the spike alone and not coming after me with that big, black thing!

Tea cups!

Everyday when Meredith woke up she wanted to do one thing, ride the tea cups! Here she is riding on the tea cups with her Mimi.

Meeting the Mickey and Minnie

Our longest wait in line was literally to meet characters. So we did what any good parents would do, we avoided them! Seriously we had so many princess and character dinners that we only waited in a very few. On the first day all this little girl wanted to do was meet Minnie and Mickey so we did wait about 30 minutes to do that. Then we also waited to meet Jessie and Woody and Ariel, other than that we just waved from the sidelines. October was a fabulous time to do Disney. No line was longer than 30 minutes and very few were that. The weather was great and so was the Halloween decorations. I also highly recommend that you do Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party if you go during October. Well worth the extra moula!

Mom are we really going to see Mickey!
I have no idea who Mickey is, but I wish this lady would put me down already! I am pretty sure I can swing from this rope!Mickey and Minnie! Wow they are real!Mom I need this Minnie! Bringing her to the checkout. Thanks Grandpa I put my disney dollars to good use! We are now the proud owner of a giant Minnie doll. It was real fun getting her home on the plane. We almost had to buy her a seat!

This is why we went to Disney

Here is my crew arriving in Disney world! Wow! Is that the castle? I think those were the first words she said when we walked through the gate!

So excited to finally be here!

Seeing her face light up the first time she saw the castle was priceless! Worth every penny we spent. And while Noah was too young to realize it, I know when we got back in a couple of years he will be this excited too! I can't wait!

Where do you live?

Frequently on the trip people would ask where we were from and vice versus. Occasionally people would ask Meredith that very same question. Her answer was always immeidate and un-prompted without any hesitation....

"I live at da castle!"

Don't we wish!

Sleep....who needs sleep?

The night before we left for Disney we stayed at the Hilton Airport. While the hotel was nice enough, with modest accommodations and pretty comfy pillows, Noah did not have sleep on the brain. We checked in about 7:30pm just in time to get some tikes ready for bed. Meredith curled up and went right to sleep, despite her excitement for Disney World. Noah on the other had thought he would hang with the big dogs and stay up late. At 10pm after trying to calm down a screaming Noah, Josh took him down to the car to ride around. He came back about thirty minutes later carrying a little passed out Noah man. Life was good.

Meredith all tuckered out!
At midnight Noah woke up. It was a little unusual for a wake up at that time, but we were in a new place and he wasn't in his bed. Prior to this trip Noah was falling asleep in his own bed around 7:30 by himself. No rocking, nursing or soothing, we would just lay him down and he was out. Which is what the big problem was in the hotel, we couldn't just lay him down and leave. So at midnight when he awoke, I nursed him and held my breath while hoping he would drift right back to sleep. No such luck.

At 3:00am, Josh finally went back downstairs carrying a screaming baby to fetch the stroller from the loser cruiser. We decided this was best since he had been pulled over by security already for roaming the parking lot. I then cuddled back up with Meredith trying to soak in the hour and half of sleep we had left. We had to be up at 5am to catch our flight. At quarter to 4, Josh rolled in a tuckered out Noah into the room. I lifted my head up to tell him under no circumstances was he to move that child out of the umbrella stroller, and that my friends is where he slept.

Finally passed out!

At 5am we all awoke and got dressed, well everyone except my little noah man. We rolled a sleeping Noah down to catch our shuttle. Although I was happy he was finally getting rest, I have to admit I considered giving him away only a few short hours before. Sleep.....Josh and I boarded the plane and were exhausted, but we would soon be in the land of magic and sleep was soon to be forgotten as well as schedules.

Rested up and ready to roll later on that day.

Now, Noah will not sleep now without screaming when he sees his bed. He has been rocked or strolled to sleep everynight for 7 nights, he has been sleeping in a miniature baby bed in a room with 4 other people for a week, why would he just go back to peacefully sleeping in his bed? I know it takes time to get back on schedule. Let's just hope it is sooner than later.