Busy Weekend

We had a very busy weekend.  Friday I got to come home early from work.  Caroline helped Daddy rake some leaves and then Mark and I headed out on a date.

 

Saturday morning was our churchs Mini Great Day of Service.  Our Sunday School class packed boxes to send to the troops overseas.  Afterwards we went to lunch together and then off to the Habitat for Humanity homes dedication.  Ashley got to present the keys to the home owners!

 

We got home late in the afternoon and Caroline decided she was not napping.  I had a big afternoon planned for us anyway.  It turned out (as it sometimes does) that my plans may have been better for a 5 year old than a 2 year old (although a nap would have helped).

We baked some sugar cookies with our new Mickey Mouse cookie cutter and a pumpkin cutter too.  The cookie baking went so well that we decided to forgo the icing.  :-) 

We then carved out the pumpkin.  I thought Caroline would enjoy the process but she put one hand in to pull out the guts and promptly said, "Dirty. Wash hands.  Wipe."  

 

I tried to encourage her by showing her how it was done but she would have none of it.

 

At least she was willing to pose with the smiley face pumpkin.

Sunday morning Mark (and I) woke up at the crack of dawn so that Mark could run in the Atlanta Marathon Relay.  A friend asked him to replace her because she was injured.  He was glad to jump in and had a really great time.  Of course, after waking up so early Libby would choose to sleep 9.5 hours until I woke her at 7:30 AM to eat!  Maybe the long sleep will happen again soon!  After Sunday School I brought the girls home and started a little sewing project.  I had decided before Disney that Caroline should be Minnie for Halloween since we would already have the skirt.  I failed to think through the rest of the costume and later realized that the shirt was the toughest part.  Mark watched the girls (and made the pretty yellow shoes) while I whipped up the Minnie shirt.  It's certainly not the prettiest thing up close but I'm pretty proud of all that I accomplished with one hour!  :-) 

Minnie and Mickey looked so sweet together at William's 3rd Annual Halloween party!

 

Caroline had a great time playing games and eating lots of goodies.

 

Libby also had a good time.  It's so funny but there are certain days/times that I remember exactly what Caroline was wearing when she was the same age as Libby.  Of course, Halloween is an easy one to remember and compare pictures.  Libby is on the left and Caroline is on the right.  I think they look kind of similar with their little cheeks.  Their coloring is very different though.  I will have to get a full head shot of each soon. 

 

Noelle is the sweetest friend and she cracks me up with her silliness!  She dressed up like Cinderella and all the little girls were in love!  We could've just brought Caroline to see Noelle instead of traveling all the way down to Orlando for the princesses!

 

Noelle also spent some time loving on little Libby.  Notice how William climbed on top of the couch to get a closer look!  :-)



We had one wild weekend which has left me feeling both worn out and full of joy.  There is always a long list of household projects to work on and Mark and I have committed to talking more about our priorities this week.  :-)

Preschool

Caroline loves preschool!

 

Can't you tell?  I think we've decided not to purchase her first schhol pictures!

Mark and I aren't too sure about it either.  We've had too much homework to do! 

 

 

In all seriousness, Caroline is loving preschool.  She comes home every day talking about her friends, her teachers and all of the painting that they did.  This past week we got to go to the Halloween party at school.  Mark and I and another woman were in charge of snacks.  We had a good time putting it all together and I think the kids enjoyed them.

We were really glad to have Daddy along for the party since it was during his lunch break! 

 

Libby, on the other hand, was more of a party pooper.

 

Two Peas in a Pod

Caroline has lots of little friends but I think Daddy may be her favorite.  Caroline is definitely very high on Daddy's list too!

What girl wouldn't love having her nails done by her daddy!?!

Bye Bye Paci

This was a big week for us for lots of reasons but one reason is because we shared all of Caroline's paci's with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  After coming home from Disney we thought it would be nice to send them a present to share with all their baby friends. 

 

After sending the paci's away we were pretty excited that Mickey sent some mail back to say "thank you."  Caroline was pretty excited about getting some mail from Mickey.  

Mark and I are thankful for talented friends who helped make the mail possible.  :-)

 

Caroline has been telling us that Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto have her paci's and she seems fine with it but it hasn't made bed time much easier.  :-(

Vacation

We just arrived home from "vacation" with the whole family.  I have to decided to unofficially, officially no longer call vacation, vacation when there are two children in tow!  We really did have a great time and that is evidenced by the fact that both Mark and I agreed the week long vacation felt like a whopping 3 days.  While preparing to take two little ones to the pool or Disney for the day are monstrous tasks, the smiles that ensue are worth the hard work!

Caroline was really the perfect age for our trip to Disney.  First of all, she was free!  More importantly, she was old enough to get excited about seeing Minnie Mouse or Mickey but not old enough to be sad if we missed riding the flying Dumbos (which we did).  We had a wonderful time with her and little Libby was a great traveler too. 



She mostly chilled out wherever we took her.

We started our trip at 4:45 in the morning.  Thankfully, Caroline is a little ray of sunshine in the morning!

All of the kiddies were decked out in clothes made by Gigi for the first day at Disney!  Although Libby only went with us to the park that night, she got a sweet dress too!  Thankfully, Mom watched her during the morning so we could have some time with just Caroline.



Daddy and his little princess on Main Street with the castle in the back ground.

Our first ride at Disney was "It's a Small World."  Caroline was in awe of all the scary people.  :-)

Caroline loved the tea cups and we still here about the pink castle.

Libby strutting her stuff with a glow in the dark bracelet from Aunt Lindsay. :-)

Speaking of Aunt Lindsay, she is the best baby hlder ever!  She was always offering to help with Libby and I was more than glad to accept the help.

Watching the Electric Lights parade.



We had two day passes so our second day we decided to go to Animal Kingdom.  It was defnitely a good decision for us.  We stood in line to see Minnie for only 10 minutes and could have seen other characters very quickly but Caroline was not interested.  Caroline also really enjoyed the animals and The Lion King show was awesome!

The days we were not at Disney we spent hanging out at the pool, resting, playing on play grounds and enjoying time with family.












We were all so grateful to Mom and Vern who took us on vacation. We could have never afforded a week long stay or two days at the Disney parks on our own. Thanks to some good budgeting, packing lunches and cooking in the condo we even came home with money left over from our vacation fund! WOOHOO!












Thanks for a great week!  We look forward to many more weeks in Orlando!

Friendly Farm

On our way down to Disney, our friends Dustin and Adrienne recommended that we stop at Dustin's Mom/Step-Dad's home for a visit.  They have a farm with all kinds of fun animals and other stuff that we thought the girls would enjoy. We had no idea at the time how neat the whole area really was and that the adults would enjoy it just as much as the kids!  It turned out to be a perfect rest stop on the long 8 hour drive to Orlando!

The girls and Heidi (Dustin's Mom) checking out the emus.

Mark and Caroline checked out the chickens who were munching on some pizza!

They also had bunnies, horses, birds, dogs and cats running around the farm.

A massive tree in their back yard. 

The branches were so long that they went down to the ground (sometimes into the ground) and back up again!

Just as it should, the tree had a great swing hanging from it's large branches.  :-)

Kelsey being the sweet dare devil rode one of the horses!

One of the neat things about their property is that they are partial owners of an underground spring that is right next to their property.  There were tons of scuba divers there that morning taking dives into the Devils Den.

On the other side of the springs, they have some friendly neighbors with some great treats as well!  We met this blind deer who was raised by humans so now it can be petted and loved on!

They also have this...

There is really no possible way to describe "this."  There was a limestone quarry in their backyard and they have turned it into this oasis.  The above picture is just a small portion of the whole thing.  There are gardens throughout with exotic plants and flowers.  There are portions with koi fish and other kinds of fish and other portions you can swim in!  It was like nothing I have ever seen before - maybe in pictures of some island nation.  It was unbelievabe.  I just hope we were nice enough to be invited back.  :-)

The whole visit made me really thankful for sweet friends.  It was so nice of Dustin and Adrienne to set that up for us and Dustin's parents were just great!  They were so kind and gracious, spending a few hours of their Saturday with us.  We were extremely grateful for the stop on our long drive!

Pumpkin Patch

Also known as a mini photo shoot...

Mark suggested that we get the biggest pumpkin we could find in honor of Grandpa Schoellman who used to grow 300 + lb pumpkins!  Normally we wouldn't spend money on such silliness but since we had some leftover vacation money I agreed and am glad to have a reminder of Grandpa sitting on our front porch.  :-)