Tuesday, November 30, 2010

November in a nutshell....

Since I haven't posted anything this month, I am just going to do one big collective post! The girls, my mom and I got in the car the morning after Halloween to go up to Chicago to visit our family for a week and to see my grandparents for their anniversary, and we had a really good time seeing everyone and staying in our hotel with an indoor pool, which the girls loved (of course)! I jotted down a few funny stories from our trip to put on here:

I am just going to go in the order I wrote them down - starting with the hotel phone. Meredith was amazed with the hotel phone that had a cord. She spent a good chunk of time running around the room picking up and then hanging up the phone, just to run back a few seconds later saying "Somebody callin' me! Somebody callin'" (and most of the time it was Daddy....I think it's kind of rude that he has all this time to talk to her during the day and not me....just kidding, honey! :) Anyway, she had her purse of the week (which was a gift bag from the Halloween treats her cousins Kailey and Maddie gave her) and the first day we got over to my grandma's house, I found the receiver of the hotel phone in her purse. We just laughed....and then I went out and bought her a corded phone of her own later that week so I wouldn't owe the hotel a new one!

We also got to have something up there that we usually aren't able to get: Chick-fil-A. It had just opened the week before we got there, so of course, we had to go! A side note: it was pretty funny, because my dad got there and put in his order for extra well done strips, and one of the guys who was working in the kitchen came out to see who was ordering that, because there was only one person he knew of who ordered his chicken that way....and it happened to be a manager who works at our Chick-fil-A in Canton who was helping to open that store. Only my dad...
Anyway, Melanie and Meredith were thrilled to have their indoor playground, and Melanie made all sorts of friends. She was playing in there for about an hour, and came out saying that this one little girl was going to call her to have a playdate sometime soon and asked me if that was okay....it was so sweet I didn't have the heart to tell her that we lived 700 miles away!

Ahhhh....on to the ghost at my grandparents' house. It took me about 4 days up there to figure out why Meredith kept pointing to the wall and saying, "Ghost! Ghost!" (It was kind of starting to freak me out a little....) But it turns out she was just talking about this ceramic wall hanging (that's painted white) of Mary and Jesus. I tried to explain that it wasn't a ghost, but she was convinced otherwise, and all I could do was laugh (which is pretty much why my kids think they can do whatever they want because they are so darn funny, I can't help but laugh!! Oh well....)

I think I may have created a monster. A cleaning monster, that is....Melanie now gets an allowance every week if she helps me pick up around the house. Well, when we were on vacation, she took it to a new extreme, taking baby wipes out of my bag at Portillo's and wiping down all the tables, the counters, the floor, etc. So when Meredith saw her sister doing that, she wanted to, too!! So while we sat there are talked with Grandma, my girls cleaned the restaurant. I got some weird looks, but they weren't screaming or fighting, and when we go out to dinner, the lack of screaming is a successful trip out to me!

We spent one morning at the mall....it was me, my mom, Lulu, Melanie, Meredith, my cousin Kate and her two girls, Kailey and Maddie, my cousin Nicole, her husband Damian, and their baby girl Teagan. So it was quite the group! We took all the girls to the bathroom together at one point, which in itself was an adventure. On the way back to the food court, all the little girls held hands with Kate holding on to the train, or the whip, as it looked liked. The girls were whipping themselves around so much that people were dodging us as we walked past! I think my favorite part of the trip to the mall had to be the Perry the Platypus hats I found at the Disney Store. They have little braids coming down the sides, and the top looks like Perry's face!!! (Perfect for my girls!) They also conned Mom Mom out of Perry pillows and blankets for the trip home. Meredith also began shouting out "Blah blah blah...curse you Perry the Platypus!!" (We still can't figure out what she was trying to say with the blah blah blah part of that, but it was cute).

Possibly my favorite part of this trip: when Melanie and Meredith were "chuting the aminals" at Anne and Jim's house. That is what Melanie called throwing beanie babies down the laundry chute to Uncle Jim. "Chuting the aminals." Where does she get this imagination from?? I hope she never loses it!! I called her a smart cookie, which Meredith promptly turned in to "Mal's a fart cookie!" Lovely, Mere....just lovely. That same night we went back to the hotel and I took the girls to the pool, and they wanted to swim in the hot tub. Melanie informed me that we "need to remind Daddy to get us a hot tub when we get home." She then asked me how much hot tubs cost, and I told her I really didn't know. She said that they probably cost about 38 dollars, and she didn't want Daddy spending so much money like that.

The last night we were up there we were all over at my grandparents' again and Meredith was the star of the show that night. She told everyone that "I need ass" (which in Meredith-ese is "I need ice") and "I want a dick" which means "I want a drink." She also found where we hid the lollipops on the piano, climbed on the inch of piano bench that was accessible, and reached over all the breakable stuff to get her lollipop, and she did this in front of about 7 adults, not even caring about getting in trouble....she was a girl on a mission! (I think she kind of floored Nicole and Damian, because honestly, I don't know if I would have even noticed her doing this if they hadn't because she did it so quickly!)

On our last night there we took the girls to the hot tub one last time, and on the way back, we filled up the cooler so Meredith could have her "babas" in the morning. Melanie had taken it upon herself to become the ice princess that week, and loved using the ice machine. Well, Melanie filled the cooler, and then went running down the hall with the cooler and spilled the entire cooler of ice and water all over the hallway. She started cleaning up, picking up one ice cube at a time and running it down to our room, and then going back. She did this probably 50 times, and when I went to go get more ice in the cooler, Meredith decided to help, but she had already taken her bathing suit half off and was running through the halls half naked. We raise them with class!!!

Well, our trip home was uneventful, which was a very good thing. Meredith moved into her big girl "ca car bed" on November 11, and she has been doing pretty well sleeping in there....I took apart the crib, which was a sad day, but that's ok. Meredith has a new favorite phrase, "There's a stick in my bum" which really means, "There's a snake in my boot" from Toy Story. Then she adds, "Get out my butt!" As I said before, CLASSY!! She also can't say the word "frog"....it comes out "fuck". "Icky fuck, Mommy, Icky fuck!" She also can't see a Florida Gator or Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket without announcing "Icky gators! Icky lellow dackets!" She has also started trying to say "Melanie" but it keeps coming out "Lemony."

We are just getting ready for Christmas now! The girls want either a princess car or a horsey car (a Mustang) so we will see if they have been good enough this year to get it! Gary is back keeping an eye on everything and hopefully giving Santa good reports on everyone!

Halloween




Whew....November flew by....Halloween was a month ago already, but I couldn't let it go by without mentioning my ca car and my Jessie! They had a blast trick or treating....Meredith was a little leery at first, but once she realized that she got candy, she was all for it! There was one house that left their candy on the porch for he kids to take one, and Melanie walked up and took one. Meredith came up behind her and took one, then two, then three, then four, and I said, "That's enough." She looked up at me, took 2 more and said "All done!" She really is my kid! When we left to go home, she looked at me and said, "We go trick or treating again tomorrow night??" They were so sweet and so cute!!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Fall with our crazy "gulls"!!


It's been a fun fall so far with our crazy "gulls" (that's how both of them say "girls"). We have done all the great stuff that comes with fall...pumpkin patch, apple "picking", corn maze, etc., etc.,....I don't really know the best way to organize all of my little fall stories since I have just typed little clues into text messages on my phone so I remember to post it on here at some point! I guess I will sort them by each "gull"...

We'll start with Melanie (or "Mal" as Meredith calls her). She has been Mommy the last few weeks, taking baby dolls with her wherever she goes, to the tune of she brings the baby pack and play with her to Mom Mom's house so that her babies can take naps, and puts them to bed every night before she does. It's really funny because they are all named Melanie and Meredith (and it gets kind of confusing when she is trying to talk to us about them, because she'll be using their names and we will think she's talking about the real Meredith), except for one, whose name is Katelyn. She is such a good little Mommy! Melanie is also getting an attitude....which concerns me mainly because if she's this attitude-y at 4, how will she be at 13? Anyway, Eric got home from work the one night and she followed him upstairs to talk. He came downstairs laughing and said he had something to tell me, but I had to promise I wouldn't get mad at Mel. I said okay, and he told me she told him that "Mommy is getting on my last nerve today!" What a little jerk! But I did think it was pretty funny because I have said that to her before! Melanie has also become a wonderful scary story teller....she gets a flashlight in her face, and tells "scary" stories...her favorite is, "It's a dark and stormy night. Meredith wanted a ba ba, and when Mommy went to the refrigerator.....there was....NO MILK, AHHHHH!!!!" Hilarious. She also tells a similar version about Mommy being out of diet coke! Mel had a blast when we went to the corn maze the other night, too....she lead most of the way and helped find our way out! She is really the sweetest little girl...
She is still really in to music...not kiddie music, of course, but one of the girls' favorite songs lately is "Only Prettier" by Miranda Lambert...Mel was sitting in the tub the other night singing the line, "I'll keep drinking, you'll keep getting skinner" over and over again, but she kept saying, "I keep drinkin', you be gettin' skinnier"....it was really cute. She also still loves Taylor Swift, and we were listening to the radio the other day and her new song came on. Melanie is jabbering in the back about how "This is the song that Taylor Swift wrote about Taylor Lautner" (there's my 13 year old again....thanks Lulu!) What 4 year old talks like this?? Then, her sister is sitting there repeating, "Taylor Lautner, Taylor Lautner"...these kids are crazy!

I guess I can move on to Meredith now....the kid is C-R-A-Z-Y. Crazy. There is no other word to describe her. I don't know where my calm baby went, but she is long gone and I don't think she is ever coming back. The last couple of nights she has been waking up asking to "seep in Mommy's room, I seep in Mommy's room" and when you hear your sweet little (yet still crazy) baby crying from her room, "I want you Mommy...I want you Mommy!" you pretty much just give her whatever she wants! The only issue....she's like the freakin' karate kid when she sleeps. Randomly she will just fling her legs up in the air and roundhouse kick one of us. I guess we could also call her Baby Chuck Norris. She does this ALL NIGHT LONG! If I wasn't so tired, it would be HILARIOUS. And we can't figure out how someone who is only 3 feet tall can take up an entire king size bed. She's crazy in all aspects of life, not just her sleeping habits. Anytime she eats anything, she has to have a "fock" which is Meredith for "fork". I try and limit her to spoons because she runs around withe them. She needs a fock for everything....gummies, raisins, goldfish, etc....everything. And, if she has 2 different foods, she needs 2 focks. Meredith also has a new phrase she says...."Be cool." She says it to all of us...."Be cool, Mommy, be cool." Mere also has this little saying she does with her Mom Mom....Mom will say "Hello, good bye, go stick your nose, in an apple pie!" And she will repeat every word, but when she gets to the apple pie part, she goes "apple PIIIIE!" She also loves this Halloween decoration we have with a frog, and instead of saying " an icky froggy" she calls it "an icky fucky"...
She was also super funny at the pumpkin patch....we were there searching for pumpkins, Melanie found a beautiful, big, round one, and Meredith only wanted a baby pumpkin...so that's what she got. But she wanted me to stick her Minnie Mouse decorations in to her pumpkin, so she has this teeny tiny pumpkin with a huge Minnie head and feet!







I swear she has a little bit of Italian in her with her accent....every morning she runs up to me..."I picka my clothes, Mommy....I picka my clothes!" Or at the corn maze the other night, she kept running ahead of us shouting, "-isa way, -isa way!!" It was really cute, but I am still kind of amazed that we didn't lose her in the maze with the way she was running ahead of us in the dark!


Oh, and this cracked Eric and me up last night....the girls were talking about trick-or-treating, and Meredith got in my face, and said, "I got a wock" just like Charlie Brown! She is SO funny!!

I think I got everything covered....oh, except for the fighting in our house. The big fight last week was about the t.v. Meredith wanted to watch "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" and Melanie wanted to watch "Phineas and Ferb's Christmas Vacation." I suggested maybe, perhaps, a HALLOWEEN movie since, oh, I don't know, Halloween is right around the corner?? But I got shot down, and Melanie conceded to watching the Easter "Bagel" first and her show second, because she figured Meredith would just scream through Phineas and Ferb.....she's such a good big sister!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Ahhhh poppycock....

That is Meredith's new favorite phrase. It is so stinkin' cute when you hear "Ahhh poppycock" come out of that sweet little angel's mouth! She is our little parrot right now....she repeats everything that she hears. She wouldn't go to sleep the other night so Eric and I brought her in bed with us just to calm her down and we were watching "Mad Men" on t.v., and she started repeating lines from the show! She is so funny....I love this age!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The crazies....

They really are crazy....I'm going to start with Meredith. She loves the Geico commercial with the little piggy that goes "Weeeee! Weeeee! Weeeee!" all the way home, so much so that she even completes the commercial by looking at me and saying, "Thanks Mrs. A." She also loves music....mostly inappropriate music. I don't know if I have mentioned this already, but she loves Ke$ha. She sings the end of the song by going "Your love, your love, your love...is my drug" and then goes "I like your beard." She sits in her carseat just repeating that over and over again....silly girl! And I also learned in the car today that Melanie can sing the rap part of "California Gurls" that Snoop Dog sings. I don't understand how they can pick up on lyrics so easily, because I am awful at figuring out lyrics!!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Halloween

It's finally October....time to start thinking about Halloween!!! YEAH, RIGHT....we have been discussing Halloween in the Rein house since at least June!! The girls love Halloween.....it took all I could to hold Melanie back from decking the halls with Halloween decorations the day after her birthday! (I made her wait until the last week of September, and it was still 90 plus degrees outside while we were doing it!) Anyway, Mellie is excited because she is going to be Jessie from Toy Story, and Meredith is going to be....well, this is very surprising....but she wants to be a ca car. (I know, no one could have guessed that one, right??) Seriously though, you can't say the word Halloween without Meredith shouting "I wanna be a ca car!"

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The things they remember...

I have known for a while now that Melanie has a fantastic memory, but now I know Meredith does too. Whenever she sees Mickey or someone says anything about Disney, she always says, "I go Mickey's house. Disney World. I frow up at Disney World. I wear Mel's Tinkabell shirt." And she is exactly right....that is exactly what happened! Meredith got mad on the way to Orlando and stuck her finger down her throat to make herself vomit, and she thinks that this story is just HILARIOUS!

I love you too

Meredith is so frickin' cute. I love the stuff that comes out of her mouth....for example, whenever she wants to tell someone she loves them, she just automatically says "I love you too." Not just "I love you" but "I love you too." That makes me feel so good, because clearly, she feels loved if she is always adding "too" on the end of it...she's so crazy, but she is so sweet!! When Melanie was her age, she would always say "A too" for I love you....I love my girls!

Speaking of "frickin'".....I have heard my voice coming out of the mouth of my eldest a few different times. Meredith has this Princess iPod that she insists on having every time she gets on the trampoline. The other day the girls were outside playing, and I hear Melanie stomping inside saying, "Fine! I will get your FRICKIN' iPod for you!" My mouth dropped open...she sounded just like me. She also disciplines Meredith in my voice. "I am going to tell you this one more time....." or "Do not jump on the couch, sweetheart....you might hurt yourself." I guess I really need to make sure I watch what I say and how I say it!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Brainwashed

Well, even though they have been fighting ALL DAY LONG, these girls always know how to make my day. In the tub, they are sitting there arguing, and then all of a sudden they are giggling because Melanie found 2 things that were orange and blue, and those are "icky Gator colors!" So Meredith starts going, "Icky Gators! Icky Gators!" So I looked at her and said, "We don't like the icky Gators, do we?" She replies, "We don't like icky Gators, we like ca cars!" over and over and over again! Daddy should be proud he has both his girls brainwashed against the icky Gators and icky Yellow Jackets!

Our baby girl is 4...how did that happen???? (and the rest of our busy month!)


Our sweet birthday girl!

Whew! I have no idea where the last month has gone....I am going to try and do a reader's digest version of everything we have been up to!

We had 2 big events: My grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary and Melanie's 4th birthday. We went to Chicago for the big anniversary, and it was a busy, crazy trip. The craziest thing?? Probably our trip to the emergency room with Meredith. She came down with a 104 degree fever and was throwing up, and Mom and I were at the ER with her for over 8 hours, and then Dad showed up to keep us company. Thankfully, she ended up being fine and breaking the fever, but this was after the poor baby had to get blood drawn, a bunch of different tests, and an IV where she had to be re-hydrated with 3 bags of fluid. I felt so terrible for her! And she didn't sleep well in the ER...we actually had to call Lulu in Georgia to sing for her because that was the only thing that would calm her down!! Another thing that kept making Meredith smile was when I would make a pouty face and she would smile and say, "Calm down Mommy, calm down!" She also found the automatic hand sanitizer thing on the wall, and that kept her occupied for about an hour. We were also lucky because we had the best nurses and doctors taking care of her! For a bad situation, it was a great experience.

Now that I am thinking about it, the hospital visit probably wasn't the craziest thing....the craziest thing would have to be Christine, Kate, Nicole and I getting all 7 girls together (ages 4 to not even 2 months!) for a picture for Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary. Our photographer was kind of a tool, but shockingly enough, we got a fabulous picture of all the girls together to give to Grandma and Grandpa. The girls were all so cute....Kate found poodle skirt dresses that we were able to get in all the girls' sizes, for a couple of reasons.....they were married in 1950, so it was kind of a throwback, and also because Grandma made us all poodle skirts when we were little. It was a great idea, and kind of funny because they were all 1950s, and Meredith insisted on holding a cell phone in the picture. Funny kid!



We also had a big party at Grandma and Grandpa's house for their anniversary, with all of the family except for Eric, because he had to work. It was so nice getting to see everyone and spend time with the family. We even got a picture of all of us together taking by a random mexican guy name Ramon that my uncle pulled off the street. We found out later that the guy lived a few houses down, but it was still pretty funny because all of a sudden there was this guy snapping pictures of everyone, and no one knew who it was or where he came from!




Oh! And while we were up there, Melanie decided she was ready to get her ears pierced. Once that kid makes a decision, it's decided! We went to Claire's at Orland Square Mall, 2 girls did each ear at the same time, and our brave little girl didn't even cry! Now she has the "most beautiful ears ever with my pretty pink flower earrings!!"

The before shot!


During the piercing....such a brave girl!


And the after shot!

We had a really good trip and it was really nice to see everyone, but we had to make the 700 mile drive home the day before Melanie's birthday, and I still had to get her present put together! Eric and I got her a trampoline for the backyard, and it didn't get here in time for us to put it together before we left. So I drove home from Chicago, unpacked the car, went and picked up the trampoline, and then Eric and I spent the next 4 hours putting together the trampoline in the backyard! It probably would have only taken us 2 hours, but it got dark and my poor night blind husband really had to slow down because he couldn't see what he was doing. But in the end, it was all totally worth it because Melanie was so surprised when she saw her trampoline in the backyard! She had a good birthday....we went to ballet, and Chuck E. Cheese for dinner, and then she got her new "telly-scope" and a camera from Mom Mom, and then we said we could take the camera out back to take pictures. She asked me what she should take a picture of, and she couldn't have timed it better because as she asked that, she walked out and I said, "How about your new trampoline?" She loves it, and it's great because it wears both of the girls out like nobody's business! I just can't believe my baby girl is already 4 YEARS OLD! It's just crazy, I feel like we just brought her home from the hospital!






Oh, and also, Meredith started tumbling and Melanie started ballet again. I can't remember whether or not I already posted this, but if I did it's cute and I'll put it again before I forget. Meredith is so funny, she will stand there and jump and run, and then when she wants me to take her picture she will start shouting "Cheese! Cheese!" until I take her picture. Then, if she thinks I am not praising her enough, she will look straight at me, and say "Good job me, good job." She has been telling everyone "Good job" any time they do anything lately.....so, so cute!!

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. I am going to get back to updating this more often again now that summer is coming to a close and we are getting back on track with our schedules.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Our 3/4 of a family vacation (otherwise known as "I'm a mom, travelling with my kids. It's not a vacation, it's a business trip.")



I know in this picture I look super hot (and I mean that in the literal sense, not the figurative!!) but it was one of the only pictures of the 3 of us on our trip!


Well, Eric and I decided that since we had so much fun in St. Augustine for our family vacation last year, that we wanted to go back and book it again for this summer, so we booked our condo in January. That's right....January. A solid 8 months before we were going to go. We also volunteered on Valentine's Day so that we could get our free Disney passes so while we were in Florida, we could afford to take the girls to Disney World for a day, and spend the money we would have spent on admission on souvenirs for the girls. We thought it sounded like a solid, smart plan. Well, the night before we were supposed to leave, Eric's bank got taken over, so he wasn't able to come with us. We were past the cancellation policy, so we would have lost our money if we had canceled, plus Melanie said, and I quote, "Oh, but I really wanted to go play in the sand and the water and go see Mickey" and(insert sad face)so I loaded up the car and took the girls by myself. (Yes, I was questioning my sanity a little bit at this point, but I figured if I could do a trip with 2 little ones by myself, I could do anything!!)

Well, my little angels were exactly that - little angels. They were so good the whole trip, I don't think we would have had such a great time if they had been misbehaving! The only negative thing the whole trip (well, except for the throwing up on the way to Disney....I'll get to that later) was that Melanie just kept saying, "The only thing that would make this trip better would be if Daddy was here" and she was right. I tried to go through and jot down the highlights of our days in Florida, and it's not as thorough as it was last year because I didn't have any help this time around! But I am really, really glad that we went on our 3/4 of a family vacation. The girls and I had a great time and it is a trip I will never forget.

I am going to go through our trip day by day.....Saturday was our drive down to St. Augustine, and luckily it was pretty uneventful. We stopped in Valdosta for lunch, and somewhere right inside the Florida line at a Wal-Mart because we got stuck in a torrential downpour....where we discovered Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ritz crackers. The girls and I pretty much ate the whole entire box in the first 3 days, and I have been searching for them up here ever since we got home! Once we got checked in to our condo, we ran out to Publix to get some groceries, and when we went to the deli, and Melanie thought it was the coolest thing that I had to take a ticket and they had to call our number before we could order. While we were at Publix, Meredith decided to shout out a new word that she thought was just hilarious..."Cacapoopoo"....she shouted this repeatedly throughout the store, getting a variety of reactions from other people in the store, from laughter to looks of disapproval at me for letting her say that (like I have ever had any control over what my children do or say!) Melanie and I also had a big conversation about mustard...she announced that she likes mustard, but just not on her shrimp....this was a sentence that she repeated over and over all week. Random, but still funny....we walked on the beach after dinner where Melanie ran in the water with her clothes on, and she is so skinny that the water pulled her little shorts down off of her hips! We came back and then had a nice, relaxing evening.



Sunday we woke up and made our way down to the beach, which was absolutely perfect. The girls had a blast, and I realized then that I had done the right thing bringing them down by myself....even though we did miss Daddy a lot. All Meredith wanted to do was "trow sand. I trow sand!!" and Melanie was a little doll, prancing around on the beach like she owned the place, building sand castles and running in to the waves. The girls were so cute, sitting in their little Toy Story and "ca cars" beach chairs...they are little beach babies! We headed back in for lunch and to take a break, and Mel put on the t.v. in her room and was fascinated that she could watch church on t.v. She sat there for over 20 minutes watching church, and just kept saying, "I had no idea you could watch church on t.v.!" While Mel was doing this, Meredith was upset because all she wanted to do was to go shopping at Kohl's. (She is definitely my kid!!) We headed back down to the beach after lunch and rest time, where I was informed by Melanie that "When I turn 4, I'm not going to start drinking." FANtastic. I'm such a proud mommy! At the end of every night, we would go to the hot tub in our building, which Meredith refers to as "the baf tub". This was her favorite part of the whole trip!





Monday morning we woke up and went to get ready for the beach. I put the Disney Channel on for the girls and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on. Now, Eric always makes fun of this show because they really have the most ridiculous problems, and use Toodles to fix everything. Well, Mel was sitting there watching it, and she started shouting at the t.v., "Just do it already!" (She is SO her father's daughter!) We went down to the beach where the girls had another great day.....I hauled a ton of beach toys down, and all Meredith wanted to play with was a red solo cup. That was all she pretty much played with all week! The people sitting next to us caught a seahorse and were keeping it in a bucket to show it off before they put it back in the water, so the mom asked me if Mel and Mere would want to see it. They thought it was really neat, but Melanie looked up at the boy and said, "I like your seahorse, but I don't like your shirt." The boy was wearing a Florida Gators shirt. The mom just laughed, and I explained that their daddy is a big Georgia fan. We got cleaned up and ate dinner, and then we went into downtown St. Augustine for a little bit before it got dark. I got the girls ice cream and I am so upset, because I forgot my camera, and they made the BIGGEST MESS I have ever seen two little girls make with ice cream because it was so warm outside! The ice cream was bright pink and blue and green and yellow, and it was all over them!!





Tuesday was our relaxing day before our big Disney trip on Wednesday. We did a little shopping in the morning and went to the shell shop that the girls love. We went to the beach that afternoon, and then to the baf tub that night. It was an easy, relaxing day!!

Wednesday was DISNEY WORLD!!! We got up early and headed out for the hour and a half trek down to Orlando, and me, not thinking, got stuck in rush hour traffic in Orlando. Well, this made Little Bit MAD. So mad that she stuck her fingers down her throat and made herself throw up. Awesome. What a way to start the day! I had to pull over in a Burger King parking lot to get her and the car cleaned up. Now, I get made fun of all the time for my obsession with how things smell, but I was REALLY glad that day that I had a thing of Febreze in my bag, because if I hadn't, my car would have smelled completely disgusting by the end of the incredibly HOT day! And by hot, I mean with the heat index, it was 115 degrees in the Magic Kingdom. After the throw up incident, the day had nowhere to go but up. And we had a fabulous day. It was hot, but totally worth it.

I brought the stroller, but Melanie wouldn't ride in it very much and Meredith wanted me to carry her around, so I parked the stroller, bought a 17 dollar fan attached to a water bottle, and we had a great time at Disney World. Meredith keeps saying her favorite ride was the Dumbo ride, but she slept through that one, which I thought was pretty funny!

Melanie's favorite ride was the Jasmine ride, where we rode magic carpets up and down....we rode that one about 6 or 7 times, and the teacups about 6 or 7 times. The girls also got ice cream, and after that, Meredith was on her 3rd shirt of the day, but they totally needed it to cool down a little bit!


We also stood in line to meet Mickey Mouse, (Mommy agreed to it mainly because it was 45 minutes in the air conditioner!!) Melanie loved them, Meredith would go no where near them!





We ate lunch at "No-keyo's house" in Fantasyland.....that's what Mere kept calling it! But the girls were so, SO good the whole time. I tried to stay as late as possible, but we didn't make it to the parade. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home for dinner where the girls inhaled about 8 chicken nuggets each, and then they both passed out on the way home.....which was great until they wouldn't go to sleep until 2:30 a.m.!!! Once they went to sleep, they didn't sleep long....Meredith woke up around 6 Thursday morning, and Melanie came out of the room around 8:30 and announced that she had a late night and could I keep Meredith quiet because she is making too much noise. We made our way back down to the beach that morning and just played and hung out, then came back for a rest and lunch. I had promised Melanie miniature golfing, so we went out to dinner at Mango Mango's, and then headed over to the golf course. It was HILARIOUS taking both of them golfing. Melanie had a Happy Gilmore-like stance, and Meredith kept throwing her ball and almost hitting the people behind us! Meredith kept telling me, "Good job Mommy!" and clapping everytime I would hit the ball, and both she and Melanie would either just walk up and put their balls in the hole, and put it right next to it and try and hit it in. They had such a good time, and we got Slush Puppies afterwards...yum!!






Melanie also informed me that "I'm a big girl and I can do what I want." (That was her motto for most of the trip!) That night after dinner and baths, we called Daddy to say good night, and Meredith had already had her nightly "ba ba" and I had told her no more ba bas for the night. So she was talking to Daddy and she just kept saying "No ba bas" over and over on the phone to him, and all of a sudden she smiles and says "Uh huh!" hands me the phone, and says, "Daddy says, Mommy....Daddy says!" Daddy had told her she could have a ba ba...little con artist!!

Friday was our last day at the beach. We hung out for a bit, made sure we went to the baf tub one more time, and got all packed up. Melanie told me she wanted to be a belly dancer when she grows up....another proud Mommy moment! Melanie is also thrilled that Mere has enough hair for her to style, so she was doing a lot of that....I love having girls!!



We got up and out early, and made the trip home in less than 7 hours. It was so good to see Eric again, and even though we missed him, we had a great trip that I know I will never forget! Next year though....we are definitely going with Daddy!