Other Things I'm Thankful For

Here are some of the things in my life that I'm thankful for that make my life better!

11. MacBook Pro and Iphone! Seriously I could not function without these 2 Apple products!! It's my connection to everything other than the kids!

12.Swimming Pool! We added our pool this summer and we spent countless hours swimming since then! It's great exercise and the kids love splashing about!

13. Running! I realized this summer that I'm getting old....boo! My body does not metabolize the way it used to. So I decided with some encouragement from Dena that I was going to do Couch to 5K program! I can proudly say I can run for 30 minutes without dying! That is something I don't think I've ever done. I don't like running, but my body thanks me for it! Sorry no picture of me running, instead LL :)

14. Soccer! I am not a sports person, but when it's your child playing, it changes everything! I like going to Little Lion's soccer games and cheering them on! The 5-7 year olds actually have a good game going on and the excitement on their faces when they score is amazing! I am also thankful for soccer practice because I get a little friend time while LL is practicing!

15. Family Time! I love spending time with my family! We make a priority of it! We try to do something Fun every day whether it be playing outside, going to get ice cream or going to a theme park. I also love spending alone time with Mr.E and am thankful we go on vacation alone yearly!

16. Blog Readers! Thanks for continually visiting my blog and hopefully enjoying my family! Hope your holiday is wonderful and fulfilling!

Roller Skating

I loved Roller Skating as a kid! Living in a small town it was one of the few places you could go and play with your friends. So I hoped LL would love it too and had visions of monthly roller skating outings as a family. Well that was a lovely thought until we went to a roller skating party last year. All that happened was both of us putting roller skates on and standing up and then taking them off. LL was not having it. He likes control and being on skates, he did not feel like he had it. I was bummed, but realized most of the 4 year olds weren't ready for skating yet.

 Fast forward to this past weekend. We were invited to another skating party. LL assured me he wanted to go and would skate. He learned how by watching Peppa Pig on TV....skate, skate, glide.....okkkkkk.

So we get our skates on and we start to go.  And by go I mean me holding him up and flailing his legs all around. We went to the practice area. Again more flailing, me get frustrated because he wouldn't even stand up. This led to him telling me he was N.E.V.E.R. skating again!!

 Well I left him there and chatted with another Mom.  LL started watching his friends who didn't skate either trying it out. So slowly he started holding onto the side of the wall and making his way up and down the side of it.  He did that for a half hour.  Then I started challenging him to do it one handed.  He was gaining confidence!  It was time for the party to end.  So I helped him skate to put his shoes on.  As we were going, I let go of one hand then the other hand.  He was doing it alone!!!  We decided to stay a little longer.  He could go by himself pretty well on the carpet because of the extra traction.  However, the skating rink had these fancy helper things that the littles could use.  Here LL is doing his thing with a smile on his face!

After we left LL declared he wanted to go skating next Sunday too :)  Yippee!!  Now if only Flower Power was a little bigger!!

The Kissing Hand

WARNING, THIS POST IS FULL OF TEARS!!

Yesterday the 2nd day of school, I cried!  Why, you ask?? We rode our bike to school and then just let him go.....BY HIMSELF!! He walked right into school like a big boy and away he went.  The first day we walked him to class.  So I knew he was there and happy and taken care of by Mrs.P.  Today, he did it himself...A KINDERGARTENER, my Kindergartener!  Pass the tissues!

Tonight, while putting LL to bed, I reminded him that I cry when he leaves for school because I miss him and love him.  He tells me I don't have to cry anymore.  I don't?? I ask him. He says, "Yes, here I'll show you!" He gets out of bed (which I think is a ploy at staying up later because what could he show me that could possibly make me not miss him while at school.)  He takes me to the refrigerator and points to this.

The first day of school, his class read the story of The Kissing Hand. It's about a young raccoon named Chester. Chester is sad and afraid to go to school. Mrs. Raccoon comforts Chester by showing him the secret of the kissing hand. Chester's Mom takes her son’s paw and kisses it, filling him with warm fuzzies. She explains, "Now whenever you feel lonely and need a little loving from home, just press your hand to your cheek and think, ‘Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you.

So Leo wanted me to know that his *I Love You* handprint is there to comfort me when I feel sad and lonely. Just like when Chester was sad and lonely at school. AWWW Love that boy! He definitely got lots of kisses and love yous back in bed!!!

Day 35 POOL IS OPEN!!

After waiting a LOOOONNNGGGG 4 days for the chemicals to stabilize, we were finally able to go into the pool!!

They are still a few things that need to be finished around the pool. The Bobcat had to come back and clear all the junk away and level the land with some nice dirt.

Now we need to do irrigation and add sod which won't be done until later next week. BUT we can still swim :) Love having a pool!! The kids love it too! We've been averaging 3 swims a day! How could we have survived summer without a pool for so long???

New Smyrna Beach!!

Our wonderful friends Dena and Heath invited us to spend the last weekend of Spring Break with them at New Smyrna Beach. Well Duh of course we'd go!! The first day we had another family with us. After spending the day at the beach and pool we headed out to dinner all 12 of us! While we were waiting for our table we hung out on the dock. The kids had a fun time watching the resident dolphin!

Here are all of our cuties!!
The next two days were spent building sand pyramids which turned into a shield for water guns.


Catching fish in a bucket and a clam which now is happily living in our salt water tank:)


Played in the pool where Little Lion swam without floaties for the first time!!!
Broke a chair....Mr.E!!!!!!
Jumping waves!

And you can't go to the beach without some gorgeous pics of our kiddos!!


And a few more since Dena is such a fantastic photographer and Flower Power is cute:)



What a nice and relaxing vacation!!!

Food Trucks!

Food Trucks are a new food eating trend! A Food Truck is basically a restaurant on wheels. You go up to the window and order and they cook it there and hand it to you and then eat outside in your own chairs. It's a fancy tailgating. Sunday night we had a Food Truck Bazaar in our neighborhood. It's where 15-20 different food trucks come to one area and people go around and get many many food choices! It was actually overwhelming to decide what to pick. Here is one row of food trucks.
We decided on BBQ Brisket for dinner.

We did also get a Pumpkin Spice Crepe and Red Velvet Cupcakes for dessert! Yummy! However, I was too busy stuffing my face to take pictures :)

In honor of Halloween, they also had Trunk o Treating. That's where the cars are dressed up and you go from car to car for candy.

And you can't have a bazaar without a big bouncy slide :)

So excited that this will be happening every month!! A great way to hang out with the neighbors and eat yummy food!!

Hair Do

I have naturally curly hair! I do love it unlike most people. Ok maybe I like it because it literally takes me 5 minutes to do my hair. Wash, scrunch, airdry, go. However, I am getting up in age.....and like to be cute. That means my naturally mousey brown hair needs some help every 3 months. So by the end of summer, I look like this!
Not too bad, but the cut is grown out and look at those roots!!!
It was time for a trip to the salon. I've been going to Lisa who was a parent of one of my 5th grade students...who recently graduated high school, see I told you I was old:) This was my inspiration picture.
I liked the color and cut which my curls should do nicely. Here is how mine turned out.

Hahaha. Ok not exactly the same....yet! My curly hair gets mad at me for a week or so after being cut and colored which leads to me straightening it. I think the color is close. I'll keep you posted on a curly picture in a week:)

IFly Indoor Skydiving

As I stated in my last post...It's my birthday, It's my birthday, I'm going to party like it's my birthday!! We went to IFly Indoor Skydiving here in Otown. It was so much fun and a thrill to skydive (in a safe, non jumping out of a plane falling to your death way:) A, Mr.E and I along with my Mom and the kids got to the place and we watched the group in front of us. It was a little scary seeing these people floating above the ground, but everyone came out happy after and no one was hurt, so I knew I'd survive:)

We left Mom and the kids in the observation room as we went to our instruction class. And by class, I mean a 5 minute video on hand signals and proper body position.
Our instructor came back and we got geared up. Don't hate how beautiful we are :)
We thought we'd have a little fun and practice while we were waiting to head down to the wind tunnel.

Here we are anxiously awaiting our flights.
Here is Mr.E on his first flight. You can see that he is higher than the instructor.
I was next. I did really good and went to the top by myself. This just happens to be a picture of me down low, but I was looking at the camera;)
My niece A was next. She was a little nervous, but did fine.
For the second flight, you got to fly by yourself for a bit and then the instruction attached himself to you. The two of you did tricks...up and down and spins. VERY FUN!!! This is the instructor and me.
At the end you get your certificate and we got the DVD which I'll post later once we upload it to the computer.
This may be one of the coolest touristy things I've done in Orlando!! I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting! It's a bit pricey, but if you have an entertainment book there is a buy one, get one free coupon. Gotta love a deal;)