February Snow

It rarely snows in Temple, so when it does, it's a BIG DEAL.

We were sure to get bundled up in our winter gear.

Then we enjoyed playing in this weird white stuff on the ground.

 Christine really wanted to make a snow man, but the snow wasn't wet enough to stick together.

The entire town shut down of course. Who could possibly drive in this much snow???

Christine's Birthday

Still doing September updates :)

We celebrated Christine's birthday in Kingwood with GiGi and PaBruce after Jeff and I got home from Disney World. But we wanted to celebrate on her actually birthday too. Nothing fancy, just a few birthday hats for the baby dolls and some cake.

 We let Christine pick out a cake and a can of frosting from the grocery store. She of course choose purple.

Christine is such an amazing girl. She is the very first thing I see every morning (wake up mommy!) (that's not counting Jeff kissing me goodbye as he leaves at 4 in the morning-I'm usually half asleep for that) She's a big help with Jacob. She is always helping me find his shoes and throwing away diapers. She is EXTREMELY opinionated, and gets upset when things don't go exactly as she wants them to. From which spoon she eats with to what puppet she uses at Music Makers she knows exactly what she wants. We are constantly working on "being flexible".

Christine calls the gym "the gyms" and won't let me say otherwise. NO MOMMY! we are going to the gymSSSSS" The biggest dilema there is that my classes are 1 hour long and the kids usually get to watch a movie in the little day care room and movies are usually an hour and a half so she never gets to finish the movie. She is always pushing me out the door because if she's the first one there she gets to pick the movie and can sometimes get Whitney (the daycare worker) to start the movie in the middle so she can see the ending.

She loves the color purple and the classic disney princesses (Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella). She loves music and singing. She is always singing along to the theme songs of her cartoon shows (Sophia the First and Jake and the Neverland Pirates are her favorites right now) She still loves to belt out "Let it Goooooooo" any chance she gets.

She likes to run around and get Jacob running around with her. Everyday has several outfit changes usually ending in her princess dress-ups.

Preschool

It's a feeble attempt, but I am trying to update the blog. It's been a rough few months. After October's month in San Antonio, Jeff had a month of Emergency Trauma Surgery. It's a busy rotation with rough hours, 30 hour shifts every 2/3 days :( Ug After a month of being away, we were grateful that at least we got to see Jeff every few days and he did get to sleep at home once in awhile. This post isn't about November though.

So let's rewind to September. Christine started Preschool!

Christine goes twice a week for a couple hours. Her preschool teacher is a great lady in our ward who also conveniently lives just a few houses down from us. She teaches preschool in her home so we get to walk to preschool :)

Christine loves her friends in her class and has a great time. They have show and tell every Tuesday. Every single princess baby doll has had a turn getting to go. Christine is getting exposed to new things like barbie dolls (and now she owns a snow white barbie doll who immediately had to be brought to show and tell).

She loves to practice writing her name and letters. She is always so excited to show me all her work when she comes home. Right now her class is working on the alphabet, Christine loves when they glue food things to the letters- this week they glued oatmeal to the letter O. They've done Cheerios to the letter C, marshmellows to the letter M etc. She is learning so much, and I enjoy having a few hours to run errands with only one child.

When Christine started preschool I took her to Target to pick out her very own backpack. The thing is like half her height! But it has princesses on it and it's sparkly.

October and Halloween

Time for our Halloween update! For October this year Jeff had to work at a burn center in San Antonio. It was a great experience for him to get training on severe burn patients (super severe- like 95% of the body covered in burns severe). The hospital provided a hotel room for Jeff for the month and we thought we would all move to San Antonio for the month and have fun living in a big city again. We had heard from some other surgery resident friends who brought their kids that it was fun and they just ate pizza a lot during the month, so we thought sure this could be fun. HAHAHA no. It was not fun. Living in a hotel sucks. Taking the kids to fast food restaurants by myself everyday is not fun. Having the kids sleep (or should I say NOT sleep) in a place that is not their own room is not fun. Trying to fit a visit to the children's museum around nap time is not fun. Having to buy milk a half gallon at a time/ having to go to the grocery store every day to buy said milk is not fun. I thought hey! I'll be able to go to JoAnns! then I went and it was crazy crowded/busy that you have to take a ticket to get your fabric cut, then your ticket is like 30 numbers away from being called which means at least an hour wait. I had to leave the store empty handed after waiting for 30 minutes because Jacob was screaming so much. And did I mention the horrible traffic? Sure made me appreciate Temple a LOT more. The kids were so grumpy the entire time. Even after buying them special new toys and an entire season of Sophia the first. UG! I hated it so bad and only lasted a week. I said "sorry Jeff I love you, but see you in a few weeks."

It was rough being a single mom for a month, but at least we were at home with our beds/crib and highchair, and a refrigerator and a washing machine, and ALL our toys, and our BACKYARD to run in and the jumper-roo to strap Jacob into to get a few minutes of peace. Then I got super sick and was REALLY grateful to be at home. Side story- I couldn't find anyone to watch my kids while I went to the doctor's so I just brought them with me and I had to get a steroid shot in my ....ahem. Christine was fascinated/horrified by the event. The nurse was laughing so hard at Christine's face when she administered the shot. Then the next day at preschool she told her entire class about how her mommy had to get a shot in her BUM!

By the end of the month I was exhausted and tired of being a single mom. My mother in law was in Brazil for most of October but as soon as she got back you can bet that we rushed over to Houston for some GiGi time! The kids had a blast being at Gigi's.Gigi helped us have some Halloween fun. We painted pumpkins and went to a pumpkin patch. Okay it's not really a pumpkin patch- it's called Old MacDonald's farm and it's a petting zoo with a playground and a train and some pumpkins on some picnic tables- it was AWESOME. Especially after such a rough month.

The highlight for Christine was getting to ride a pony!

 Jacob was weary of the animals, but Christine liked feeding the animals.

Cinderella HAD to come along too

Then we got to go Trick or Treating! Since I wasn't planning on having access to my sewing machine for the month I just let Christine pick out a costume from Walmart. She picked Snow White- her favorite princess at the moment. Jacob was an Owl. I wanted to dress him as Prince Charming and Christine wanted him to be a squirrel. The owl won out because it was easy to make and I convinced Christine that there were owls in Snow white too (not true however)

Christine was tired and had a break-down before leaving, so we almost didn't even go. But we did! We kept it short and visited only a few houses on the block. Jacob LOVED knocking on the doors, and got REALLY excited about the candy. That boy loves candy.

When we got back to the house the kids dumped their bags out to look at all their candy. I love this picture so much because it reminds me of when I was a kid. Examining the candy loot definitely is the best part of Halloween.

Our Disney World Trip

To celebrate the end of Medical School last year we wanted to go to Disney World. Angela was so sad to realize when she was pregnant that we couldn't go anymore. This summer we finally took our dream vacation.

Here we are getting ready to make the drive to Houston to drop off the kids at my parents' house. Christine insisted that Tangy bear and her baby dolls had to wear their own seat belt. Best of all Cinderella doll didn't even complain that she had Tangy bear's butt in her face for the 4 hour drive. Angela missed the kids like crazy the whole trip, but it was very nice to have a break from them.

We left Friday after I got off work. Luckily, I was on call the night before and had to stay up all night, so they sent me home early. So we got a few hours head start. We took a pit stop at the Blue Bell ice cream factory (one of our favorite places to let the kids run and around and get ice cream), but sadly, they were already closed. So we just walked around outside. We stopped a second time at Buccee's our new favorite pit stop.  It's a huge gas station/convenient store famous for their clean bathrooms.  We got a delicious slushy to keep me awake.

Here we are at our resort: Port Orleans, Riverside. We were very impressed by the resort grounds, it was beautiful. It had a very secluded feel, beautiful water ways and bridges.

 The main lodge has a huge water wheel and a nice eating area.

 And you could take a boat to Downtown Disney.

Our first day we arrived we checked into the resort and went to Downtown Disney (via riverboat), got delicious sandwiches at The Earl of Sandwich and ice cream sundays at Geradelli Ice Cream. I was blown away by my classic Rueben sandwich from the Earl of Sandwich. It was amazing! Angela had done a lot of research into what was the best food at Disney World because we really wanted to splurge on good food on our vacation.

For dinner that night we road the monorail to the Contempory Resort, where we ate on the roof top restaurant called the California Grill. It was definitely the nicest restaurant I have ever eaten at. We had the "Oak-fired File of Beef" it was outstanding steak!

This picture was taken with our phones from the monorail so it's blurry, but its the contemporary resort. One of the reasons why we wanted to eat at the California Grill was to watch the Magic Kingdom fire works show from the roof top balcony (they even pipe in the music of the show). After eating, we stepped out to the balcony and watched the show. It was a great start to our vacation.

 It was hard to get a good picture. But that's the castle in the distance.

The next day we went to Epcot. We really didn't have to wait in any lines the whole time we were there. We hit the off season just right.

Epcot is pretty magical. It's amazing how in 50 yards, they can transport you to different countries all around the world. I loved China.

They have this replica Chinese temple which I thought was beautiful. Surprising to me Angela's favorite shop was Japan. They also harvest fresh water pearls in the shop which was really fun to watch.  Angela's favorite rides at Epcot were the Mexico and Norway rides. She loved the World Showcase. I liked test track, soaring over california, and sum of all fears. We ate french pastries during the afternoon and returned to the French Patisserie that night for french sandwiches to eat while we watched the Illumination firework show- which was amazing!

The next day we went to Animal Kingdom. It was really fun. The safari is really cool. I've never been so closed to uncaged animals. Angela got so wet on the river rapids ride that she had to buy new socks and let her shoes dry out during the exotic bird show.

This rhinoceros made me a little nervous.

Our favorite things at animal kingdom were the Finding Nemo show and The Lion King Show.  They were in my opinion Broadway quality theatre. Really amazing! We took this picture of the giraffe because Christine requested a giraffe picture- Angela was texting pictures to kids throughout the trip.

After Animal Kingdom, was the Magic Kingdom, our favorite of the parks. It did make us miss the kids a bit. We will just have to take them back when they are bigger.

I make a pretty good good captain Jack Sparrow, don't I? Pirates of the Caribbean is always a classic ride.We had fun riding our favorite  nostalgic rides like Small World and The Jungle Cruise. Angela loved shopping for the kids, and just looking through all the gift shops.

I love Gaston. We had Lafu's brew at Gaston's Tavern, which was interesting and delicious. We rode the new seven drawfs mine train.

One of the highlights of the trip was eating lunch at Belle's Castle. Angela did sooo much planning and preparing for the trip, which made it turn out great. She had to reserve spots at Belle's castle way in advance. It was an amazing meal, and for lunch it was very reasonably priced.

You get to seat yourself. We chose to sit in the ballroom which was magical.  Amazingly after sitting down, someone magically appears with your pre-ordered food.  I was absolutely baffled by how they could know where we sat. Turns out, that the bracelets you wear for your tickets, have a tracking device on it! It was really cool.

Here's a cupcake with "The Grey Stuff". It was delicious! definitely worth singing about Lumiere.

Two of the mornings we took a romantic boat ride to the Polynesian resort and had Tongan Toast (Deep fried Cinnamon Sugar sour dough bread stuffed with bananas). It was so good we have already attempted to reproduce it at home.

The second to last day, went to Hollywood Studios. Our favorite ride was the toy story one. I beat Angela at the games. It was really fun. And of course the firework show was amazing. Here is an amazing Carrot Cake cupcake we got at Pizza Planet. Hollywood Studios was hosting a "Frozen summer of fun" even while we were there.

Our favorite ride at Magic Kingdom was Splash Mountain. We loved this picture of us!

We ended our trip with one more day at Magic Kingdom, where we got a front row seat at the electrical light parade and the firework show (again thanks to Angela's great planning). It was the perfect ending to a perfect trip.

 When we arrived back in Texas we celebrated Christine's birthday. When Angela asked Christine about having a birthday party with her friends Christine insisted that she just wanted to have a party at GiGi's house, so that's what we did.

 Christine is wearing a cheerleader dress-up outfit with princess jasmine necklace and headpiece. While she was at Gigi's she watch Aladin daily and it has become one of her new favorites.

Angela had post-vacation depression for a week after being home. She's already planning our next trip- this time the kids will get to come too.