Wordless Wednesday

But definitely not a Diet Coke-less Wednesday!

(Seriously, just returned to my office and found these. I'm nothing if not predictable. And loved by my co-workers, apparently.)


Lori - via my iPhone

HOT

I just love the addition of the word "HOT" in the 7 day forecast below.

As if the triple-digit temperatures weren't enough indication that you just might want to stay inside.

Anyone else ready for fall?

T-W-O!

On Saturday, our baby girl Olivia turned 2!  We had her birthday party at the Natatorium in Allen, the same place where we had Carter's 2nd Birthday Party.  (wow, I've been blogging almost two years!)  We had an absolute blast with our family and friends, and Livvy brought home lots of lovely new toys and clothes.


Carter spent the night with his best bud, Nathan, so it was just Nick and I and the birthday girl on our way to the party.

Once Carter did arrive, he was so excited about the party that he decided to take a few pictures.

It was only when I uploaded the pictures to my computer I realized that not only did Carter leave me with a few artistic beauties, but he also left me with a giant fingerprint on the lens of my camera.  Awesome.  So, Olivia's birthday party pictures have a nice... glaze about them, shall we say?  Ah well, such is life with an independent three year old, I suppose.

Anyway, back to the [hazy] party...

Here are a few of our guests:

Clockwise from the top: Rachel & Trey, The Roeschleys, The Buchanans,
Nana & Jaja/Courtney & Gracie, and "Aunt" Amber & Baby Cohen

Minnie & Daisy and the whole (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gang) proved to be an excellent theme.

Though I didn't gather up enough courage (or time) to create a Mickey cake (like the Elmo one I did for Carter's birthday), I did decide to save some cash and make the cupcakes myself.

Olivia didn't seem to mind that they weren't professionally made.

And she really got into opening presents...

especially when so many girly, pink, princess-y things started emerging from the gift bags.

Finally, it was time to swim!  The kids couldn't have been more excited.

At this point, I turned the camera over to my mother-in-law (thanks Gwlynda!), and I spent the rest of the party chasing kids and making sure everyone had a good time.

And except for that one time when we lost a child, I'd say a great time was had by all.*

Happy 2nd Birthday to the darling of our family, 

our little princess, Olivia Gayle!

*So about that lost child thing: um, yeah, that was OUR lost child.  Carter, to be exact.  We had been in the water maybe 10 minutes, and last I had checked, he was bee-boppin around the playset.  Nick and I were doing our best man-on-man defense, but somewhere in all the people, we had lost him.  We weren't panicked, at first.  Then it was pretty much ALL the adults looking for him and I started to get worried.  The pool was rather crowded, so it was kind of hard to spot one little person, but finally, after about 5 hurried minutes of looking, he was spotted at the top of the giant twisty slide, which he was WAY under the height requirement to ride.  But somehow, he had walked his happy little butt up several flights of stairs and ended up stuck at the top.  Nick retrieved him and my heart began to beat at a normal pace again.  The end.

Happy Birthday to me!

Check out this awesome delivery I received at work today from my in-laws:



Aren't they beautiful?



Such a perfect thing to make my day.

And tonight, Nick arranged for childcare (thanks Mom!) so that we could go to dinner and a movie and go pick out my present.

Not to mention the outpouring of birthday wishes via text, email and facebook.

I am one lucky girl. Here's hoping that 29 treats me well!

Lori - via my iPhone

Disney Vacation - Day 7

By day seven, we had been to all the parks, and we had worn Nana & Jaja flat out.  We had plans to go back to Hollywood Studios in the evening because their spectacular night show is only on Mondays & Thursdays.  But in the morning, the Easons were ready to go at it again... so? You guessed it: Magic Kingdom!

There's not much I can tell you about Magic Kingdom at this point that I haven't covered already, but a picture's a picture and every one's unique, so here we go.

Of course we visited Mickey's Toontown Fair again.

And this time, we used money from Gigi & PawPaw to buy the kids their Mickey Mouse ears!  We let them each pick out their own pair.

Carter liked these red ones that resemble Mickey's shorts:

Olivia had to have PINK!

This is what happens when you ask my son to stand still for a picture with his ears:

We got some fast passes so that Nick & I could ride Space Mountain again, so while we were waiting for our time, we rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin again.  I just had to show y'all this picture of Carter (and Olivia).  See how he's holding the "Wet Floor" sign?

The whole trip, no matter where we were, if Carter saw one of these, he just HAD to pick it up.  Occasionally he would just kick it over, or he might pick it up and dance with it, but some fascination with this strange yellow sign led him to touch it.  Every.single.time.

Though we were intending to, we happened upon the afternoon parade down Main Street USA, and the kids loved it.

We saw Mickey:

Pinocchio:

Snow White:

Aladdin:

And of course, Cinderella!

It was time for one of us to go ride Space Mountain, so I let Nick go first, and I bribed the kids with fruit bars while I was on my own.

I also got brave and decided to take them on a "ride" by myself, which really means that I hopped on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, aka slow moving train in the shade.

I'm not exactly sure what Nick did with the kids while I took my turn on Space Mountain, but soon it was time to head out of Magic Kingdom so that we could get to Hollywood Studios in time for the night show.  In an effort to take the children on as many forms of transportation as possible on vacation, we took a bus!

I don't think they could have cared one way or another, though I will say that it is really hard to keep children seated on a moving vehicle when they're not in carseats.  Nick was really excited to be riding a bus as well.

We arrived at Hollywood Studios just in time to meet up with Nana & Jaja and show off our new mouse ears.

And then we trucked ahead with about ten thousand other people to the outdoor amphitheater to see Fantasmic!

I really do wish I had better pictures of this show, because it was really amazing.  It was a firework & water show with some pretty impressive pyrotechnic/hydrotechnic effects.  Before the show started, I really wondered if Carter was going to make it.  Despite my best efforts to assure him that it was not a "scary" show, he still wasn't sure.  And though there were some "dark" parts of the show, all-in-all, I think he liked it. And when all his favorite characters came out on a boat at the end of the show, I knew he was sold.

We headed back to the condo after the show to prepare for our last full day of vacation.  I bet you'll never guess which theme park we went to...