Happy leap day

Our kids are growing by leaps and bounds... get it???  Leaps???  It's Leap Day, so I just had to post today so that funny date would show up on our blog.

Some news and stories about our growing boys:

Don't ever tell Zach any secrets.  Scott's birthday is Friday, but a couple weeks ago I had planned a little surprise for him - to celebrate his and our friend Rosie's birthdays.  We went out to dinner with three other couples... and NO KIDS!!!  This is incredibly rare.  Anyway, I had told Zach we were going out to dinner, but I didn't tell him anything else because I knew he'd let it slip.  Then, foolishly, the afternoon of the dinner, I caved and told him that Dad would be surprised there would be two more couples there, not just the one he was expecting.  By the time we left for dinner he had managed to mention the name of one of the surprise guests, and then covered by saying "no, there isn't going to be anyone else at the restaurant!"  Nice try buddy.

Charlie's new most prevalent word is water, pronounced "wah-r" (pretty much one syllable).  It took us a while to figure out what he was saying, since it sounds an awful lot like his roar - something he does a lot.  So now every drink is water, and he loves holding out his cup and demanding more wah-r.

Zach said to me the other day - mom, I hope what you hope.  I had no idea what he was talking about, and when I asked, his explanation was simple and quite logical.  Basically, I always wished for good things to happen to us and not bad things, and that's what he wanted too.  So he wishes what I wish.  :)

Charlie has reached a new stage of eating, or at least we finally realized he was in it: the "I'm a big boy so give me what you're eating stage."  He's always been interested in what's on our plates, but now he wants his food to look just like ours, so no more cutting things into pieces.  It's funny to just hand him half a cheeseburger and watch him go to town.  My favorite recently was a whole apple.  We were at the curling club watching Scott curl, so to keep Charlie occupied I gave him an apple.  He loved it... he tried to eat the entire core and the little leafy part at the bottom.  And he was ticked when I took it away so that he couldn't!

In the car the other day, Zach was chattering away, as he does.  Scott had been curling in a bonspiel a lot of the weekend, so I was more tired than usual of the nonstop noise.  So, as politely as I could, I asked Zach if we could not talk for a little while, because I didn't really feel like talking.  He quietly said yes, and then mumbled "I pretty much always feel like talking."  Truer words have never been spoken.

Charlie has a fairly adventurous palate.  He's unnerved by the sight of new things, but if he always insists on having what we're eating, so we've given him some things I wouldn't normally give a toddler.  An example? Buffalo-flavored potato chips, pretty darn hot ones.  We watched his face, and he looked a little surprised, but ate it and asked for more.  So I was pretty perplexed when I bought us a shamrock shake to share, and Charlie didn't like it!!!  He loves ice cream, and he's obviously not afraid of flavor.  But not a shamrock shake???

One of the phrases we hear from Zach a lot when he's frustrated is "You don't know a thing about XXX."  He mostly says it to Charlie, when he's getting in the middle of one of his games, but I believe I've had the statement applied to me as well.  And he says it with such disgust...

 These last few pictures of Charlie are him "sleeping" in our bed.  Any chance he has, he climbs into our or Zach's bed, pulls up the covers, and rests his head on the pillow.  I had to giggle the other day when I heard him making some noises, and realized he was pretending to snore!  Turn up the volume and you should be able to hear it on the video.

Grandparents Day

Last Friday was Grandparents Day at Zach's school.  My parents were just here a few weeks ago and then were in FL with us, and Scott's parents are coming next month, so unfortunately Zach didn't have any grandparents who could just pop over to spend the morning at school with him.  So guess who stepped in??

Daddy to the rescue!

Scott went with Zach all morning; he got to see what it is they do every day at school.  And then at 11 Charlie and I, plus our friends Wendy and Vincent went for the program the kids were doing in honor of Grandparents Day.  They sang about 8 songs and recited a poem, and then we all had some cookies and lemonade and played bingo and other fun games.  It was a fun morning - although we still wish we had grandparents in town!  :)

I've included some of the pictures here, and also made a movie with the pics and some of the video I recorded (iMovie is starting to make a little more sense).  For some reason a couple of the songs didn't have audio; one of them was Zach's favorite and a very funny one, so in the movie you'll notice there's a song dubbed in!  Enjoy!

Our funny little Valentines

The rest of the Florida story

So what else did we do besides swim and go to Disney World while we were in Orlando?  Lots and lots of relaxing!  We have never been the type of people who jam every moment full of activities, so we purposely planned to have plenty of time to just relax, enjoy being outside without our winter coats and hats on.  We took a few walks to the park down the street and the lake around the corner, and went miniature golfing twice.  Zach had never been, so my parents and I took him one afternoon while Charlie napped (Charlie & a golf club does not sound like a good combination).  We had a great time, but I was still surprised when we asked Zach a couple days later if he wanted to go to a go-kart place, but instead he chose to go mini-golfing again.  I guess he liked it!

^ Check out Zach practicing his casting in the pool!  :)

And now, for your entertainment, click on the link below to see my dad's take on our vacation:

Grandpa's movie trailer

The Magic Kingdom

On Tuesday we set off on our Disney adventure.  I started the day a bit crabby, since in the morning there was fog limiting our view and an ominous prediction of rain.  We had planned to go to the Magic Kingdom either Monday or Tuesday, and when the weather forecast appeared better for Tuesday, we spent Monday miniature golfing and hanging out by the pool.  And it was a beautiful sunny day, with no rain until dark.  So our decision to wait until Tuesday to visit WDW seemed like a bad one.

As it turned out, it was a fantastic decision.  Gray skies keep the crowds away, and while I felt a mist at one point, it never actually rained on us.  So while I'd prefer to see beautiful blue skies in my pictures, I'd much rather walk right on to rides, which is what we were able to do much of the time.

One of the first rides we went on was the Buzz Lightyear ride.  It was perfect for both boys - Zach loved shooting the evil Zurg and accumulating points, and Charlie loved pulling the lever that spun the car around.  And as you can hopefully see in the picture below... Grandma and Grandpa took the challenge very seriously!  (Yeah, I did take a picture of the screen; like I'm going to pay $15 for a picture of my parents on a ride, even when it's as hilarious as this one.)

Zach also got a kick out of racing (Charlie, unfortunately, had to sit that one out - he would have loved it).  But we can't help but wonder why they haven't changed those generic race cars into Lightning McQueen and the rest of the gang - then both boys would REALLY have been excited!

The attendant on the People Mover was quite the comedian; Charlie enjoyed the sights.

We checked out the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse:

It hasn't changed since I was a little girl, but it's a classic for a reason - It's a Small World!  The darkness lead to blurry pictures, but I loved trying to capture the wonder on Charlie's face.

And, of course, the castle.  Zach isn't exactly into princesses, but even he was disappointed to find out we couldn't go inside.  :)

The afternoon parade was short but relatively entertaining.  We didn't have a great spot; our plan to get their early didn't quite work out!

And the teacups, of course!  The big guys begged off, citing weak stomaches, so Grandma and I got to take the boys.  Wheee!!!

We went on many, many more rides than are pictured here.  In fact, I think we only missed one ride we had intended to go on - Peter Pan's Flying Adventure.  Zach even went on Space Mountain!!!!  For some reason he was determined to do so, and I couldn't convince him otherwise.  It scared the $@#% out of him, and for the rest of the day he got nervous any time there was darkness on a ride (which happens a lot, surprisingly), but he doesn't seem to have any lingering effects.  :)

If you go to WDW, our advice is to absolutely skip the Lilo and Stitch "ride."  Terrible.

If you ask, Zach will tell you his favorite was the Monster's Inc. comedy show.  Which cracks me up, because we did our best to talk him out of going to it, but it turned out he really did love it. 

We made it the whole day, even stayed for the fabled fireworks.  I'm not sure who was more tired, the four of us adults or the kids!  It was quite the day.