Disney 2.0

Last year back in this post, I talked about the arguments for us to go to Disney World. When we got home from the trip, I was a huge  cynic about going to Disney with toddlers. We had fun, but it was just exhausting. Then after the dust settled, we started to realize what a great time we had. Over the last few months, I kept saying that I wanted to go back. Then we saw the episode of "The Middle" when they went to Disney World and Ben looked at me and said he wanted to go back. For a moment we thought about going in January for my birthday and that is when it became serious.

Then our friends started talking about going. JL and her family always go in November but it is just too close to the holidays and Ben can not really take off that much time at that time of the year. Heather had a cancelled family event that freed up a week and it just happened to be at the same time that Disney was running a deal for the hotel at that time. I know we are crazy but here is our reasoning (not that I need to explain our decision to anyone).

- Miller is still free and obviously, so is Scarlett.

- With this deal, the hotel is less per a night than a hotel anywhere. It is a great deal for Disney!

- People say that a two, almost three, year old will not remember it. You know, we do a lot of things for our kids that they will not remember in the name of making family memories. There is such a short time in a kids life where they see the magic in Disney World and Heather and I wanted to take advantage of that.

- We made such great memories as a family and they are only little for such a short time. 

- We live within decent driving distant and if it was not for that, we would not be going.

- Rather than 5 days in the park plus the Halloween party like last year, we are only doing 2 days and the Halloween party. This makes it a lot cheaper and less stressful. We are going to try to take advantage of the free things to do on our off days.

- Taking a 9 month old....crazy lady except that she is still pretty mobile and easy going. She will just hang out in the carrier on us or in the stroller.

I have a few projects that I will probably blog about so keep an eye out for that. 

Vacation From Hell '14: Part 2

Here is the second part of our vacation.

We pretty much took Scarlett's naps where we could get them. There was lots of those on the beach. It was awesome to soak up some baby snuggles while sitting by the ocean.

We kept hearing the ice cream truck drive by so one afternoon my cousin chased it down and all the kids got treats. I am not sure if Miller was more excited about the ice cream sandwich or the ice cream truck. 

My uncle brought his kayak and Ben took a turn.

On Thursday night my cousins husband chartered a sunset booze cruise for my cousins 30th birthday. Here is the crew that went. Some people stayed behind to babysit or do other activities. 

This is the after shot of us at the end. 

Of course on our last day, Miller got sick. We had a few other people get sick this trip with just a bug so it was our turn to get it. He was pitiful and just wanted to lay on the couch and watch movies. I got in some good snuggles before he laid down for a long nap. He ended up getting some energy so that he could swim a bit that afternoon. 

I took some family pictures while we had everyone together there. They turned out so good!

This is the best I could get of my kids.

7 of the original 8 kids with my grandparents.

 

13 of the 16 cousins with my grandparents.

All 7 of the current great grandkids.

 

This is the best picture. It is of the in laws who call themselves the outlaws. They definitely give our family their flavor.

 

And here is everyone that was able to come. We are missing 7 plus the newest baby who will not be here until November.

It was such a good trip. Definitely crazy and hectic now that I have my two kids but we got so much quality time together. We even got to have some fun after the kids went to bed (there was one night with a little too much drinking where some of us ended up in the pool with our clothes on). We all left making plans for the next one in a couple of years. The only issue is  that we keep growing so we will probably have to move to different houses but we already scoped out new ones. I was so sad to leave but we have another trip next month to look forward to.

Vacation From Hell '14: Part 1

We got back from our big beach vacation with my mom's family two weeks ago and finally are back t normal life. One week, one house, 39 people. It was crazy fun! 

Our first night and the kids could not wait to get in the pool.

Scarlett's first time on the beach.  She was startled when the waves would come up and get her but then she loved floating in the water all week.

And she never tried to eat the sand. The funny thing is that she grabbed a fistful of sand and soon after this picture was taken, she fell asleep on my mom, still with the fistful of sand. 

My cousin's wife got all the little kids their own personalized buckets. They are adorable!

Scarlett and baby Drake playing in the baby pool. Neither was too happy.

The kids had so much fun playing in this ditch. 

My baby girl and I in our beach hats.

This was our tent city that we lived under for the week. 

That is her resting face and I love how her upper lip disappears and it looks like her cheeks are sagging her little smile.

We went on a dolphin nature cruise half way through the week. My mom kept Scarlett so that Miller got some one on one time with Mommy and Daddy. After this we went souvenir shopping and got shaved ice. It was a good date with our little man. 

 

 

We randomly decided to do a bonfire and it was a highlight of the trip. The weather was so nice and it was only in the 60s with a slight breeze. The hot fire, my feet in the cool sand and the sound of the crashing waves, ah it was amazing!!!

Alright I am breaking this up into two parts so stay tuned.

Scarlett Monthly Update: Month Eight

  

Weight: 20lbs 13oz (+12lbs 2oz) (Miller was 20lbs 10oz)

Height: 28.5in (+8in) (Miller was 29in)

Head: 18in (+4.25in) (Miller was 19"in)

Sleep: Well the good news here is that she seems to be improving. She has been getting better about waking up and putting herself back to sleep so that we are now getting longer stretches of sleep from her. Definitely not sleeping through the night but at least she is not screaming her head off every hour because she wants to be held. I am hesitant to say that these are permanent changes because she is not consistent day to day, but overall she has been much better. She even did good stretches of sleep in the PacknPlay at the beach, which I could not get her to sleep in last time we went to Tennessee. Even with naps she has been sleeping 1.5-2 hours, however that is only once a day. 

I am only nervous that since she has discovered crawling and pulling up, she might wake up and start playing in her bed. I am hoping that we skip over  that possible phase. Ben did find her standing in her crib greeting him when he went to get her one morning so we had to lower her crib some.

Eating:  Nursing is going the same. As for solids, lots of different people gave her lots of different foods at the beach so she is getting used to new things. However, at home I just give her what we have and sometimes that does not offer her a lot of variety. Oh well, you can tell the girl is not starving.

Best Moment:  I love watching her play by herself. She is so happy to discover and figure out new things. It is even cuter when her and Miller play. It does not last very long before one of them annoys the other one but it is sweet while it lasts. 

Milestones: I officially have a crawler and a stander. She crawls all around the house, and pulls up to everything. Part of me wants  to hate it because that means my baby is getting bigger but I just can not help but love it. I was the same way with Miller. They just look so content to be able to get themselves around. You can just see this "Eureka" moment happen for them, like, "so this is how the big people do it". She can also stand independently for a bit. This girl has always had good balance.

Monthly Wisdom: I am suddenly seeing how far we have already come with her. We have a long way to go in terms of raising her but I am noticing how different her first year has been so far compared to Millers. It has been much more even keeled adjusting to having two kids than adjusting to the first one.

Goals for the Upcoming Month: She has been sleeping decently so I am hoping that is a permanent change and in a few weeks we will transition her out of the swaddle. I know we could have done it a while ago but it is for my security. It has always been a part of our night time routine and signal to her to go to sleep but most nights she gets out of it after being in bed for a while and sleeps fine. I am just afraid we will do without it and she will have trouble getting to sleep.

Things Scarlett is doing

-She has gotten better at getting food to her mouth. 

-Crawling, pulling up and standing like a champ.

- She dances when she hears a song come on that she likes.

-She has started to sit in the cart when we go to stores and she LOVES it. She went with me to the craft store and flirted and smiled with everyone and when they looked at her to give her attention, she would flap her little arms and bounce up and down with the biggest smile.

- She plays and just babbles to herself. It is so stinking cute!

They are looking less and less similar as time goes on but I feel like they still look like siblings. They just have completely different face shapes

Here is them next to each other now. So different but some similarities. 

 Here are a few extra shots of her. 

She wanted to show off her new skills for this months photo shoot. 

He was being so sweet and wanted a picture with her. He kisses on her all the time. 

This is not a great picture but it accurately captures her hair and the red that is coming out in it.   

Happy girl.

  

This is from last week. She crawled over to the window, and just stared outside and babbled. She was a happy girl.