New glasses

Austin's glasses came in today. At the moment he seems happy to be wearing them and cleaning them. His eye exams showed a stigmatism.

Valerie

I guess the easiest and fasted way to update so I can keep on track is to do each kid separately.  First up is Valerie.  What can I say except that she is 13!  I sure hope I was easier, but I am sure I was not.  I don't have many pictures of her she either likes to be the one taking the pictures or hides behind something when I am it at her.   I guess we are alike.
This year she had some ups and downs, but who doesn't.  She experienced going to TCBY, the park, friends houses after school, not coming home until supper.  Spending her weekends at friends houses or meeting them at the park.  She also experienced the normal teenage trouble.  Grounded, no phone, no friends, no internet, and paying off dept by doing chores.  She decided she didn't want to BMX anymore but wanted to try Baseball.  We could only get her into a softball league here and she chose not to do that, so this year she didn't participate in sports.  She attended Fruit Cove Cares for most of the summer and Bible study after school.

 My favorite picture of her this past year

 Cake she made me for my birthday, she seems to really enjoy baking

 She asked for red hair and I delivered!

We just dropped her off at her dads for the summer.  Savannah keeps asking for sissy and is missing her a bunch.     Once I can get a hold of her computer I have more pictures to post.

Let's see if this works!

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No luck with mobile yet

So lack of post mostly come from the Ipad.  I use the Ipad mostly and rarely touch the computer.  I have yet to find a way to blog via my Ipad.  I will work on it in an effort to keep up with the blog.  I have decreased the amount of picture on facebook to help with the need to blog.  It is so easy to take a picture put a few words and go.

But for now a little update.  We just got back from a 1.5 week long tour of PA.  First stop was Nanny and Poppy's.  The kids attended Olivia's last baseball game of the season, went to the park, and a ride around God's country.  Also lots of play time with Nanny and Poppy.
Then off to Beam and Poppy's where the kids played with Benjamin, Maddie and Nate.  They all got a long really well and we are excited for a vacation with them at the end of August.  Here I  also got to visit with Jennifer and Melody.  Then it was to drop Valerie off for the summer at her dads. 
Next stop was Pap and Ama's.  Here we attended a Curve game where Austin got to play Angry birds on the filed with Steamer the mascot.  Then a trip to Penn State to appease daddy.  There was a picnic with all of Robs friends and family members.  You can tell your getting old when the head count has more kids than adults.
For the last stop we visited Granny and Grampy.  The kids enjoyed playing kenext and would really like one (mostly Austin).  We went to see flight 93 memorial, trying to explain to Austin without going to far and scaring him was hard.  We got to visit Weezy everyday.

I am hoping to back track a little.  Some will be without pictures.  I used Valerie's computer to take pictures of off my memory card and well, she has her computer with her...Darn!

Testing

Im testing writing a post on my I pad. I don't wanna spend a lot of time and have it not work. I'd love to get back into blogging for the kids.

1st of many

So our 1st Disney trip has come and gone. Everyone had a great time. Things we realized while we were there:

We need a cheap double stroller. We were to scared to leave our "good" stroller at stroller parking, the buggy board is great but at the end of a long day at Disney both kids want to sit. Plus to put a big stroller on the bus is a pain in the bum!

Next time hand sanitizer is a MUST. I had not realized until after we left with 1 sick kid that we went on rides, ate and then went back to rides without ever washing our hand...gross! Not to mention that Savannah is still putting her hands in her mouth, then Pap told us Austin had his tongue on a poll.

You need several trips to truly see Disney.

Showers should be taken at night, so you are not in the room any longer than you have to in the morning.

So on to the trip. I don't have that many pictures, but there is always next time. We got there Friday night and headed straight to Magic Kingdom, Road a few rides had dinner and then home we went. With standing in line you really don't have that much time. The first "ride" was actually a 20 minute show. Pap, Ama and I who stayed out with Savannah had no Idea, finally someone heard us talking, You know what did they do with our family kinda thing and they kindly came over and let us know it was a show! We then found music playing, so off we went to occupy ourselves while waiting. Savannah was dancing the entire way over...then we got there and she stopped dead in her tracks...Stitch and the chipmunks were there. She wanted no part of it. Anyway the first night was a success. Each afternoon we took the kids back to the room for naps, Austin fought everyday and only slept 1 day, Valerie was willing and only on 1 day did Savannah fight it.

Ama trying to get Savannah to dance...no such luck

Over the next couple of days we visited each of the parks always ending back at Magic Kingdom for the kids at night, hoping to see the parade however we never actually saw the parades.

We got to see several Characters, however we didn't happen to see any princess until the last day when Savannah was sick and literally attached to me via sling and literally getting sick on me every few minutes, fun times.

What is Valerie doing in the back ground??

Valerie was pretty excited to get all the Character autographs. We had to put some off for next time, the lines get so long.

Mini accadently kissed Savannah's "pretty" (what she calls her berets), she talked about it all day

Austin was pretty excited to see Buzz, had I realized where he was, we would have let him wear his Buzz costume

Valerie's birthday was the same day as my marathon, we celebrated by taking them to the Terex restaurant, I believe she had fun. She was pretty upset with me...apparently she thought I "made" her go on a roller coaster. But she must have blocked out the fact that Pap took her arm and said you are going...Not me...Thanks Pap.

I was pretty content hanging out watching the kids and Rob enjoy the rides, and hanging with Savannah when she couldn't go. I took her to get her face painted one of the days. Everyone went off to ride some rides she couldn't. I was taking her to do somethings when every line we went to was max load (mermaid show) Break time (Handy Mandy), and some other Disney character I didn't know, then a music show which ended as soon as we sat down (we later saw it at the end of the day). I felt so bad for her. She loved her face paint so much. That afternoon she cried herself to sleep (she just didn't want to nap). When she woke up of course it was 95% gone, we all had to tell her a white lie that it was still present. Daddy was not allowed to kiss that side of her face, it was for the frog only.

Ama was most excited about the tea cups...she had everyone excited about them by the time we got there.
On the last night we were there in the middle of the night Savannah called out to me for help. It was the worse felling to open her tent and smell something awful and then discover that she had gotten sick in the thing. She ended up needing a bath at 4am. We were hoping it was because Pap was feeding her late into the night...she was sneaking out of the bed while we were loading the car, Pap thought we knew she was up. But no such luck, on the bus ride from the resort to the park, yup you guessed it she puked all over the front of me! Austin and Valerie kinda got upset because I said we had to go home. In the end we stayed a little she just slept on my chest and I sat in a rocking chair while the others did their promised rides and then we were home bound.

On the Safari ride...everyone had a blast

Our Christmas 2011

Valerie and Austin's piles. Valerie was right in front of the tree and Austin's was off to the side. With our Disney tickets in the middle of the tree.

I kept telling Austin the only way we could go to Disney is if Santa brought us tickets. This made him pretty upset because he did not put them on his list and thought for sure there would be no tickets. Daddy tried to reassure him and said that he asked for Disney tickets for the entire family. So Austin Kept say...boy I hope daddy was a good boy so we can go to Disney:) I love the innocents

Savannah's pile

The only half good picture of Valerie

We had the most perfect Christmas we could ever ask for. I get pretty excited for the kids to wake up and see if Santa came.
Thanks to Granny my wrapping this year was painless!

This year we did an advent Calender that The kids all enjoyed. It was more of an activity calender, no goodies. The last week we focused on doing things for others, except Christmas eve it was our traditional open 1 present of mommies choice. Last year we did away with matching pjs and got ones specific for each Child. They were a big hit.

Rob mentioned to me something his family did as kids and thought we should give it a try. When I was growing up we always knew what pile of toys was who's because of the stocking sitting in front of the pile, so this is what I have always done. However Robs family always had the stocking sitting by the bedroom door, so the kids knew Santa had come. I have to say I wasn't sure about it until Christmas morning. Austin woke up first and when he came to our room he announced Santa had come because there was a full stocking sitting at his door. He never went in it, instead asked if he could bring it to us. We were pretty happy about this because it was only 630. Both Valerie and Austin brought their stockings to our room sat on our bed and opened them. This was great, it gave Rob and I some time to wake up, brush our teeth and gave Savannah some more sleep time before we had to wake her. Then she opened her stocking. I have to say the kids were all good and patient never in a rush to get down stairs. We finally started to make our way down the steps around 710.

I was very impressed with the kids again this year. It makes me pretty happy that they don't run down the steps and tear things apart. They kind of look around soak it in and then Valerie and Austin try to get Savannah into it. Savannah didn't need as much help this year, she got into it pretty quick. They all took their time and opened their gifts. I have to say it's hard when you want to get a video and still pictures and be a part of the action. I think a tri pod and better placement are in store for next year.
The most played gift this year...by both daddy and Austin. They both really enjoy it.

Oh the computer, thank goodness...Nanny and poppy :) Whenever you would ask Savannah what she wanted for Christmas her response was a computer.
I tried to upload a video of the morning but after an hour it still said uploading, maybe I'll try u tube