6 years

We had Sydney's birthday party on her birthday,  Saturday the 21st. She had a nail themed party and we put vinyl jamberry nails on the girls nails.  They all dressed up and made candy necklaces.  It was super low key and that was nice.  Grandma loaned a foot spa for the girls to use, but Abby decided instead it was her personal bathtub and climbed right in! Sydney has made a lot of friends in Oregon and grown into a very social girl.  She is very kind and nice to Wynn when her friends are around and almost always includes him in their play.  He got to go over to grandmas during her girly party though.  Aunt Kim came over before the party and helped us decorate Sydney's beautiful giants cupcakes and cupcakes.  It would not have gotten done or have been so cute without her!   She got to celebrate again with her wright cousins that night after the party and said she'd had fun.  She is such a kind smart happy girl and I love her tons!!!

Mom Klondike

Some  friends and I went up to Anthony lakes one weekend to go snow camping.  Although I wasn't sure what to expect,  I'm always up for an adventure so I was eager to go. I had a lot of fun and was even warm.  Not just okay but warm! We first set up camp and then went sledding on the slopes after the lifts closed down. We made a strip steak soup for dinner and then went cross country skiing by the light of the moon. I had never cross country skied before and found I really liked it.  I want to take it up as a hobby when the kids get older and can go with me.  We went to bed all warm from skiing and stayed up talking until 1230. I actually slept very well and didn't wake up until about 730 the next morning.  Meg made an interesting comment that she prefers winger camping  to summer because there are no bugs less people and you don't have to worry about predators.  I agree with her.  I'm excited to  do it again. 

The pictures

Our cruise

So rather than give a play by play of what we did I think I'll list everyone's favorites.

Andy:
No rush to be anywhere
Free food all the time
Free drinks all the time
Free ice cream all the time
Free movies all the time in the theater and in the room
Being able to spend time with the kids and then put them in kids club and have time to ourselves
Trying fancy foods we normally couldn't afford
Staff attention to detail and helpfulness. No need to worry that the kids behavior is going to bother anyone

Me:
Everything is family oriented
You can do as much or as little as you want
Since everything is catered to kids, there isn't much whining. No waiting for dinners, no waiting in lines, no need to be quiet, no reason to be bored
The shows at night
The adult shows after bedtime that Andy and I enjoyed
Seeing movies
Ice cream
Ordering more than one dessert
Swimming at sea
The morning after Sydney lost her tooth there was a certificate outside our door for loosing a tooth and a Cheshire cat pin that said "I lost a tooth" so everyone would know the next day

Sydney:
The characters come into the kids club and play with them instead of just take a picture
Can eat in the kids club if I don't want to sit at dinner with Mom and Dad
Watching movies while swimming
Dance parties
Seeing the princesses sing and dance
The kids club and lab were fun

Wynn:
Being a pirate
Seeing Peter Pan
Playing in the kids club
The pirate ship slide
Ice cream cones

Abby:
I'll answer for her
Abby was so good! She slept like a charm in her pack n play right next to Wynn
She liked to crawl around the decks and charmed all the staff with her smiles
She didn't even mind mealtimes because they brought her an endless supply of crackers! They even pureed fresh vegetables for her but she wouldn't eat it with so many crackers around!
The baby splash zones took some warming up to but by the end she was crawling around and playing as much as we let her
She did SO well in the infant nursery. She played with the other babies and on our last day they gave her the "social butterfly" award. She even slept for them. They must be baby whisperers... It was so nice to just tell them to call me when she wakes up and drop her off and let them take care of. nap time!

So much fun... definitely going again!

Getting to Florida

Two weeks ago we took our first Disney cruise. I'm going to dedicate the first part of this post to getting there however. We left La Grande at 630 AM Thursday morning, drove to Seattle (5.5 hrs), boarded a flight to Dallas (4 hrs), had a short layover, flew to Fort Lauderdale (2.5 hrs), waited for a shuttle to the hotel and spent the night. The next morning we had to wait until noon to catch our shuttle to the port of Miami 1 hr away. We could board the ship at 230 pm. It was a marathon of travel! The kids were so patient and when we finally got to board Wynn and Sydney were ecstatic. I don't think it was very real for Wynn until he could actually see the ship with the Mickey Mouse smokestacks. Then he started to get really anxious. I didin't realize that the hotels in Florida usually have tile floors because of all the sand. so I had just anticipated the kids sleeping on the floor for one night...... the hotel didn't have rollaway beds either so all 6 of us got to squish into 2 double beds! Fun night eh? At least Abby was comfy in her pack n play.

 Sydney read a 60 page novel in about an hr on our flight!

Sea bound tooth fairy

First of all, Can you tell how tired she is! That's what happens when you stay up partying until 1030 or 11 at night for 5 nights on an awesome Disney cruise and then get up early so you don't miss out on all the fun!

Sydney's first loose tooth started wiggling before we left and she told me she was going to work really hard to wiggle it so it would fall our during our cruise. She got the job done! She wiggled it out while playing on the Disney cruise in the kid's club but then she dropped while she was carrying it around! When Andy went to get the kids that night, about ten kids and the youth staff were having a treasure hunt for Sydney's tooth. They never found it but we wrote a nice note to the tooth fairy telling her where she lost it and so we're sure she is out there at sea looking for it. She left Sydney a nice surprise anyway! Her permanent tooth is already coming in and two more are loose :).

Valentines

Andy and I had a fun Valentine's date to Pasco. We flew over to drop off a cashier's check to the hot tub dealer who was going to pick up a used hot tub for us in Portland! And then we had dinner at Red Robin.... yuummmm :). Unfortunately the weather fogged over on our way back to the airport and we had to rent a car to drive home... and then drive back the next day with the kids to return it and fly home. Super grateful to Grandma for watching the kids a lot longer than expected and glad Andy and I got to have a fun time together.

Sydney got to have her own Valentine's fun the Saturday before with a little Valentine's party. The girls mostly played but they did decorate a whole bunch of cupcakes and get all sugared up after their tea party lunch!