Good Times

Monday, May 27, 2013

Random Pictures

So, I was looking through my pictures to see what the next blog-worthy event was after Easter, and I found several random pictures in a row. Here is a sampling of day-to-day life in our world!

Shhhhh.... Princess at Play! Elizabeth has recently discovered the wonder that is putting on a Disney Princess dress. She has also recently discovered the joy of ballerina leotards! Fortunately for her, we are well-stocked on both of those items around here!

Abby Kate helping her good friend, Molly, celebrate her birithday!

Swinging with Daddy on one of the early days of Spring.

Fun at the Fountains!

I am a big breakfast eater. I really love breakfast food, and when I'm pregnant, I can usually count on it to sit fairly well. So, I got a little tired of the same old fast-food breakfast places during my first trimester this time around, and my girls love to eat breakfast food, too. I'm also a little weird in that I really love a good cafeteria breakfast.... as in hospital cafeteria breakfast. In fact, it's one of the highlights of my hospital stay when I deliver my babies. So, I decided to take the girls to the hospital cafeteria one day just to eat breakfast. It was delicious!! And they had fountain Cherry Coke - another huge draw for me! And, as if the experience couldn't possibly get any better, there was a water fountain right outside the eating area that the girls were very much entertained by! I was pretty proud of this idea, if I do say so myself, and we've gone back multiple times since!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Easter Morning 2013

Easter morning was fun and busy, as it always is for us. We managed to get up, get dressed, enjoy the kids' baskets, get necessary pictures, and get to church somewhere in the neighborhood of on time this year. Go us!

The Easter Bunny was very good to the kids, even leaving them some much-desired items from Disney World! The older girls had played with the Ariel dolls for an hour in the huge, official Disney Store, and were thrilled to see them again!

See?? We're not cruel to this child! The very next day she was all smiles and enjoying the Easter festivities once again. I was actually very proud of her attitude during the missing of the egg hunt.

That Easter Bunny... somehow he knew these girls were taking gymnastics without the proper attire!

Elizabeth got some "mop-mops," (Abby Kate's original word for "pot holders" that stuck)! I think it started when I was trying to shoe someone away as I was getting something hot out of the oven, and I snapped the pot holder in a playful way and said, "mop-mop." This turned into a fun game, and so we still call our pot holders "mop-mops."

Pre-church pictures!

Pre-lunch family picture!

LaLa with all of her grandchildren! Thank you, Elizabeth, for being the extra-cooperative one here :)

Post-lunch family picture!

Easter Weeked: Egg Hunt

Hello again, all! I'm on a blogging roll, so I'll post pictures from Easter weekend. On Saturday, we went to our 50th egg hunt of the season. This egg hunt is very nice and includes breakfast and a photo op with the Easter Bunny himself! Enjoy.

Attempt at a family picture. Good ones are hard to come by during this phase of life.

Hanging out with the Easter Bunny!

Hunting for eggs.

Elizabeth enjoyed the egg hunt, too, and really had her skills perfected by this one! I have no pictures of Abby Kate hunting eggs because she got in trouble multiple times that morning. After several warnings with no improvement in her behavior and attitude, Cline and I made the not-fun-at-all, but (we felt) necessary decision that she would have to miss out on the fun of hunting eggs this time. Some of the grandparents felt that was a little harsh, I think, but I reminded myself that our children have and get to experience so much compared to most kids around the world, and there were multiple other Easter Egg hunts and festivities that she got to enjoy. As tempting as it is to do the fun thing when discipline is required, I would rather her miss out on this one small thing, and learn the lessons of obedience that might allow her greater privileges (or prevent greater heartache) later on in life. Her behavior turned around quickly after this whole experience, so that affirmed our choice.

I love this sweet girl...

... even though she frequently refuses to cooperate for pictures these days!

Happy Hunting!

Don't Get Blogged Down

**Re-posted from a MOPS newsletter**

"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads." Deuteronomy 11:18 (NIV)

Oh the mommy blogs! I am as guilty as anyone of getting sucked into them. I don't mean the perfect ones, like mine (hee hee), that include nothing but upbeat and intelligent posts and adorable pictures of cute children :) I'm referring to the blogs written by the perfect mothers out there in cyber-world, who can write very well, and who use that talent to share their one-sided opinion about every. single. parenting. decision. that is to be made over the course of a child's life. I enjoy reading helpful tips, inspirational stories, and even well-written criticisms of some less-than-stellar habits or attitudes I may have fallen into. I also enjoy social media as a way to keep up with family and friends and to occasionally share my own opinion about a topic I feel passionate about. In this day and age of an overabundance of information, however, I find myself often frustrated at the massive numbers of "helpful parenting articles" that constantly tell me I'm not doing something well enough. Or that my kid's favorite snack is not only terrible for them, but laden with potentially cancer-causing chemicals. Or that I shouldn't have taken that 10 minute break to mentally veg out on my iPhone, because I missed out on the only cart wheel my daughter would ever do at 4:15 on Tuesday, March 26, 2013. I will never get that moment back! My personal (not-so) favorite links are the recall/new safety concern notices that constantly inform me my favorite baby gear, car seats, cribs, eating utensils, strollers, and fluffy stuffed animal lovies should all be trashed because of new safety concerns that could theoretically harm my precious offspring if a specific and narrow set of circumstances align together while I happen to be looking away for two minutes.... perhaps at my iPhone. I find myself especially drawn to articles with titles I know I will disagree with. But I read them anyway, mentally patting myself on the back for my "open-mindedness" and effort at "educating myself" from all viewpoints. One such article claimed that the only 100% safe and nutritious food I could feed my family without any risk of cancer, obesity, exposure to toxic chemicals or other terrible ailments is kale. This particular article concluded by stating that if you eat too much kale, you might suffer from kidney stones.

As a mom who is constantly analyzing and questioning my parenting decisions, rarely 100% confident that I am doing everything the exact, right way, I feel in my mommy-gut that this "valuable information" is probably doing more harm than good much of the time. I was expressing these frustrations to my mother in law the other day, because I do, in fact, want to be a good, informed mother who makes reasonable safety and nutrition decisions for my family and who can speak intelligently to my friends about the latest ideas. And my prideful self wants every other mother out there, even these super-informed bloggers who have all the answers and who, also, I will never ever meet personally, to agree with every miniscule decision I make.

With one quick sentence, my wise mother in law asked me a question that solidified what I already knew, shed new light on this issue this I've been struggling with off and on for some time, and convicted me of my true sin in all of this. She said, "What if you and all of your mommy friends took all of that time and energy you spend reading about the best ways to do all of these things (or not do them) and you spent that time and effort praying for the salvation of your children and future generations of your family line?" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I knew that my own mommy blog post was born! What good is preventing cancer or SIDS or giving my child peanut butter on the exact right day if one of my kids gets to the end of her life and doesn't understand the eternal saving grace of Jesus Christ?? What good is a lifetime of memories of finger painting, chasing butterflies, and hours of undivided attention devoted to the entertainment of the little people if they grow up and fall prey to many of Satan's lies and deceptions about the love and goodness of God? What kind of peace and wisdom would flood my life if, instead of reading someone's opinion about a fairly insignificant topic, I infused my thoughts with the Word of God to guide my parenting decisions? My kids (and all of us) have one, only one, thing to do in our lives that really makes the only difference that matters. We have to admit that we are sinners and fall short of God's holy standard for us and know that God sent His Son to die on the cross for us in our place. (Romans 3:23, John 3:16, John 15:13) We then have to accept that grace and mercy, given out of a love 100 times more pure and perfect than anything I could ever feel (even for my kids who I adore to the moon and back), (Ephesians 3:14-21) and commit to doing our best to turn away from sin and towards the standard of Christ-likeness God sets for us - which can only be accomplished by asking and allowing Jesus to transform our naturally sinful heart into one that beats like His. (1 John 2:1-6) It was no coincidence that we happened to have this conversation in the middle of Holy Week, as we prepared to celebrate Easter.

In our culture, praying and reading God's Word can often feel like something we do before we can start the "real work" of solving a mommy-issue or improving a situation. Friends, that is one of Satan's lies that I have fallen prey to. Praying to God IS the work of parenting or getting our family through tough circumstances. God's Word should be our most helpful and consulted "mommy-manual," even if we do occasionally get a truly great idea from a book or internet article.

Speaking of great, supplemental books to the Bible, in the devotional, Night Light For Parents, the author shared this brief story. "My great-grandfather, George McCluskey prayed every morning from eleven to noon for his children and for future generations of his family. Toward the end of his life, he announced that God had made him a promise: Every member of four generations of his family would become Christians. That promise has been working itself out in remarkable ways. By the time I came along, every family member from my great-grandfather to me not only had accepted Christ, but also had been or were ministers. I am the only one who did not feel specifically called to this service."

By the way, the author (who was the only family member *not* called to the ministry) is Dr. James Dobson.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Disney with LaLa Finale: Chef Mickey's

We like to leave Disney with a bang by having brunch at Chef Mickey's on the way out of town! Somehow the excitement of one last character meal and over-stuffed bellies as we get in the car takes some of the sting out of the reality that our vacation is over. I had to pull out the most wintery clothes I could find for everyone, as it was cold and cloudy once again, but that didn't stop us from having a great meal with Mickey and the gang!

Getting ready for a delicious, high-calorie meal!

I think Elizabeth enjoyed this event more than anything! She couldn't wait for each character to get to our table, and as they would leave, she would say, "More Donald Duck... More Goofy....," until we could distract her with the next character.

Meeting Pluto, of course!

We had to get a big group picture with the Mouse himself!

Elizabeth insisted on giving each character a "huggie" and a "kiss" as they walked away!

Good times!

"I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a Mouse."
-Walt Disney

Disney With LaLa: Hollywood Studios

The next day of our trip, we went to my favorite park, Hollywood Studios. It is usually so easy to get around, and I absolutely love the 50's themed restaurants, decor , etc. There are some great shows to be seen, such as Beauty and the Beast, and my favorite restaurants are there, as well! On this particular day, it was much more crowded than I'm used to, and we had several downpours. We had a great time anyway, but this was the day I realized we probably won't be trying to "do Disney" the week before Easter ever again! Apparently, the weeks before and after Easter are among the busiest of the year, and I would believe that, having been in August, May, October, and now March. Disney knows how to handle a crowd, but when I can hardly walk from one place to another because of all the people, it's too many, even for me!

Abby Kate's hair was super curly in the damp, Florida weather. It looked adorable!

Sassy and cute!

Eating at the Sci-Fi Drive-In Theatre - my very favorite Disney restaurant!

The girls and I had a movie night a few weeks before our trip, so they could see Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I was hoping the movie set playground would still be there, so they would make the connection! It was, and the girls had a great time playing on the playground, although it was so crowded, it was hard to keep up with all 3 kids!

Elizabeth enjoying a little playtime!

Since the girls and I are such Coca-Cola junkies, we had to get a picture in front of the giant Coke bottle, right outside the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground.

Meeting our buddy, Jake.

Getting ready to watch Disney Jr. Live. The girls loved it, and some of their new favorite characters had been added, such as Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Sophia, from Sophia the First.

Having fun in the rain.

I never knew there was an actual Pizza Planet restaurant until this trip. It hit the spot for dinner that night.

Elizabeth chilling after a fun day.

Disney with LaLa: Magic Kingdom

Hello again, all! It's 3:30a.m., and I'm having a little insomnia (thank you, growing baby), so what better way to spend my time than updating my blog?? Since I'm still on our Disney trip from March, I'll just pick up where I left off, and maybe by the time the baby actually arrives, I won't be nearly 3 months behind!

LaLa thought the girls needed Disney princess costumes to wear to our Princess Lunch at Cinderella's Castle, so she let each older girl pick out the dress/accessories of her choice. Christa chose Snow White, and Abby Kate chose Ariel. The dresses were.... not cheap, and I briefly regretted forgetting to pack the ones we have at home. But I have to say, they are much better quality. All of our princess costumes fall apart after a couple of times of wearing them, but these are still holding strong!