Ack!

I'm feeling a little crabby today. Okay that's a lie. I'm feeling a lot crabby.

My children are driving me crazy. Brooke seems to be physically unable to PLAY (why do we have all these toys?), they are fighting. Apparently Brooke woke up with a hollow leg today because all she has done is pester me about food. You'd think we never feed this kid.

We're stuck at home today because we're getting a few new windows. (Expensive windows, mind you. If we weren't getting these windows I'd sooooo be buying more points with DVC).

It's muggy and hot out. Ugh. For the record you will NEVER hear me complain about being cold, how cold it is, cold weather, etc. I really hate being hot, humidity, etc and don't feel it's fair to complain about both. So I only complain about heat and humidity. How very balanced of me don't you think? I don't mind summer, if I'm at the pool or the beach. But pretty much otherwise I'm just sweaty the rest of the summer.

Our desktop computer seems to have a virus. We think we have identified it as the Google Redirect Virus. As in, we got it from Google!! It's a pain in the patooty. Besides the troubles we get with the internet, the computer seems like it only wants to do one thing at a time. You turn it on, do something (internet, pictures, Word, whatever). Then when you are ready to move onto something else, it won't do anything. You can't even get it to turn off. You have to turn off the power strip, turn the computer back on, and then do your next thing. We're trying to run a fix on it (that we had to pull up on the laptop because you can't multitask on the computer anymore) but we're not sure that's going to fix it. Our anti-virus program isn't even picking it up. I'm telling you it's a serious booger. So I have been trying to make sure the pics and my work files are backed up onto a flash drive.

I have cramps. Some days I think I should go back on birth control just because it makes the monthly sooo much "better".... but I just don't think I want to be on them again!

I need a vacation... oh wait, I just took one, and I can't afford another.

Where's the rum?

Happiness

The latest photography assignment on The Pioneer Woman's site is "happiness." A relative term, and let me tell you, there have been some AWESOME pictures posted.

You should seriously go check it out. Go here.

There are loads of great pics, but the one that I have adored is this one:

I don't know the people. I didn't take the picture. I right-clicked it to borrow for my blog, just to make sure you saw the awesome picture. The moment is amazing and if I were them I'd frame that picture in a great big 16x20 print and hang it in my house. It just speaks to my heart on so many levels. From the caption, I believe this baby is just a week or two old, meeting daddy for the first time as he gets home from Iraq. It's amazing isn't it? I'd love to see other pictures from this moment. There are many other awesome ones, go scroll through her last several posts.

My pics, while depicting happiness in my little household...didn't make the cut of course. But I love them nonetheless. Here are the few that I submitted to the pool:

How would you photograph happiness? I didn't get a chance to purposely try to shoot it this week, I just worked with some of my old pictures. I have yet to get a chance to really take off with my camera and just pretend to be a photographer for a few hours, but one of these days, I'm going to do just that!

Guess what I did?

As many of you know, we are not a very GREEN family. Nor do we have much GREEN but that's another subject. I do however have fabulous green eyes. But this isn't about me. It's about GREEN-ness.

As Disney likes to put it - "Love the World" (or if you're at Disneyland, "Love the LAND").

I've been thinking we need to do at least something in this house that makes for an earth-friendly change. So far I've taken steps to do two somethings.

For the last two weeks I've used reusable bags at the grocery store. Look how pretty it makes the back of my (SUV) look!

I've actually collected quite an assortment, it was time to start using them. Although we're not quite done with walmart sacks as poopy diaper disposers, this is a good start.

All of my groceries fit in these. You can put a lot more in one of these than a flimsy plastic sack. I thought they'd be a pain in the butt, but I actually loved it. You can sling one or two of these over your shoulder, which means you can theoretically get all the groceries hauled in with one trip. I like that.

Here's one I bought at WDW. See all the hidden mickey's that make up the tree leaves? Cute.

Another thing we are going to do this summer is use these:

The girls and I are all set with our water bottles. You may remember I gave one away not too long ago! I ordered mine from Disney after we got back. See our cute picture on it (above)? I'm sure I was sweating, but it was a cute picture anyways.

So of the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra I keep hearing (they really drive it home with the kids, don't they?)...we are starting down the road of Re-Use since we're using resuable grocery bags and water bottles. Step one.

I'm not sure there will be a lot of reduction going on anytime soon.

But we do plan on figuring out some form of Recycling this summer. We don't want to increase our monthly bills by any means, but I'm hoping to find a nearby drop-spot for any of these three: paper, plastics, or cans. Brooke really wants to recycle, so that's going to be one of our projects, starting one of those.

And can I just say, I grew up in a state where you paid the 5cents per can/bottle deposit when you purchased it, and then when you took your bag of cans to the can redemption place you got that money back? Yeah, pretty much everyone recycles their cans in Iowa. Because you get money BACK for doing it! And it actually was a "fundraiser" for lots of things, because people could drop their bag off to the school, or the boy scouts, or whatever, and let THEM go get the redemption money.

I would totally already be doing the can/bottle thing if we did the 5 cent deposit. I think every state should do it. Totally.

I was excited to do this post, because I think that Carrie, Cammie, and Michelle are going to be proud of me ;) And because I am proud of me!

I figure at this point, everyone needs to do a little something more earth-friendly, to help counter-act the complete DISASTER the Gulf Oil Spill is. I can't go clean up oil, but at least i'll be cutting back on waste. Buttheads! I'm seriously ticked about that whole mess, and will be even more so if any oil hits my beloved Gulf Coast of Florida (ie SIESTA KEY) beaches. Or gets out to the Caribbean. Big losers.

The Winner!

While my (ahem....) FOUR commenters are all winners in my book, when I asked Brooke to pick a number between one and four, she picked FOUR...so that makes JODI our winner! Jodi has selected the Hobby Lobby gift card! That means that some other time, I'll give away my magazine subscription!

Jodi send me an email with your address and I'll mail the card over to you! Sorry Kacy, Wendi, and Cammie.... better luck next time! Thanks for playing!

Time's a tickin

Hello dahlings,

Time's a tickin for your chance to enter to win a $20 Hobby Lobby gift certificate or subscription to "all you" magazine.

Only three entries so the odds are good right now! And it's a free ticket, baby! Check the post below for entry instructions!

Good thing I bought the prize before I ran out of money. I'm waiting desperately for my commission check to come in! The well has run dry.

I need to figure out what kind of cake to make for cake class on Tuesday night. I'm thinking about trying a creme-brulee cake. anyone ever had one? I think it's a yellow cake with a nice caramelly layer on the bottom of each layer or something like that.

How's this for a nice random post about NOTHING. I will tell you something....we spent $75 stinkin dollars eating out last weekend, a little overboard if you ask me! We have gotten a little lax in our usual routine of getting one "fast food" meal and one carry-out-from-a-restaurant or go to a "sit down" restaurant meal per weekend. So to make up that craziness, we have decided to not eat out from this past Monday (the 17th) until at least next Friday (the 28th) with the exception of one meal to celebrate the last day of school. I took the time to put together a good menu of options and so far we are doing good. I've made some recipes that I hadn't had a chance to do yet and we're enjoying those. I've got several more good things in our arsenal to get us thru to next week. Some nights (probably tomorrow in particular) are going to be easy-peasey. For example, tomorrow night we'll probably do a picnic in the basement of cheese, summer sausage, crackers and fruit. Not every dinner has to be a big meal!

Well anyways, go on down to the next post to enter the Disney Recap Quiz contest! Good luck!

Disney Recap QUIZ and PRIZE!!!!

Hello readers! For hanging in there with all the Disney posts, I am having a little giveaway today. But first, you have to take a quiz! (Then I'll know you read some of those posts!).

Here's what you do.
A) be a follower of the blog - if you're not yet, become one!
B) answer the following questions in the comments of this post. I've turned the comment settings to "hide" so no one can cheat and just use the other people's answers! I'll turn the comments back on after the quiz is over.
C) You have until Sunday night at 7p.m. cst to answer the quiz questions, then I'll randomly select the winner from all the entrants.
D) say in your comment which prize you would like if you win.

What are you going to win!? Today you get a choice of prizes. Since I've been in a major redecorating mood the last few weeks, I've got a $20 Hobby Lobby gift card to give away! If you're not a HobbyLobby girl, your other option is a one year subscription to the magazine called "All You." This is a great magazine, it's for real women. Women who want to save money, read short concise articles, has relevant snippets of information, and does not feature a bunch of $600 purses, etc. It's a realistic magazine and I love it. So those are your choices.

So here you go, the quiz. The questions you must answer. Seriously, it's only five questions. We can all survive that, right?
1. What is the name of the the Disney Vacation Club property that Matt
and I own at?
2. What park did we go to first?
3. What character was flirting with grandpa?
4. What is the name of the new ride at Hollywood Studios that is FUN, and 3D?
5. What are we doing for vacation next year?!

That's it! all the answers are located within the Disney recap posts. It's like an open book test! Go and post comments. OH.....and if you have a blog and give a shout out on your blog to this winning opportunity, let me know, and you will get a second entry!!!!! Send your peeps my way!

Have a great Friday! Hugs!

The final installment...of Disney Recapping

Final Disney recap--I'm cramming all the rest into this post, making it concise, picture heavy, and fabulous.

Wednesday we headed off to Hollywood Studios. This is my 2nd favorite of the four theme parks. Brooke loves the street performers (they can be sooo funny), they have wonderful attractions there for both the kiddos and the parents. And my all time favorite ride is there- Aerosmith Rockin Roller Coaster.

We got there pretty soon after the gates opened, and right away had a chance to see Goofy and Pluto. We love characters!

We then proceeded directly to Pixar Place to use a magical fastpass for Toy Story Midway Mania...one of the newest rides at WDW that is a) 3d and b) wildly popular. The wait times have been known to exceed 2 hours for this one even when the rest of the park has normal wait times. For the record, I would never wait 2 hours for a ride. The queue for the ride was awesomely decorated, and the ride itself was like cruising thru the Toy Story Wii game actually, if you have it. Fun for everyone!!!

If you think I won't use this picture to embarass Brooke someday, you don't me very well. Isn't it sooo cute though?! Such a ham! I mean, monkey!

After Toy Story, I took off to get fastpasses for Aerosmith and Tower of Terror while the rest of the gang rode the Great Movie ride. Seems like we did another thing or two before lunch, but I can't remember :0)

Lunch was at the Sci Fi Drive-In. Food was okay, but I didn't enjoy the experience. Very cool concept, where you are seated in replicas of old cars just like at a drive in with sci-fi clips playing on the big screen. Car hops bring your food to the car, etc. It just wasn't fun with Hannah trying to jockey between the "front seat" (ME) and the "back seat" (Matt, which was actually the middle. Gma and Gpa were in the back). But good burgers at least!

After lunch we sent Grandma and Grandpa to ride Rockin Roller Coaster. I don't think Grandma plans to ride it again. We missed getting into that showing of Playhouse Disney Live on Stage by about 5 minutes.... and then decided not to wait for Ariel either.... so the four of us strolled over to meet Gma and Gpa after they were done with the Roller Coaster. We watched some street performers, had a bunch of pictures taken by one of the photopass photographers, and tracked them down.

A great thing about HS is the layout.... the two "big rides" (that many kids are either too scared or too short to go on), are right next to each other. Situated adjacent to them is the Beauty and the Beast stage show. So we sent Grandma and the girls off to watch the stage show while Matt, Gary, and I hit the Tower of Terror with our fastpasses. After that, we did Rockin Roller Coaster. I had also gotten rider swap passes for that, so as soon as we got off, Gary went to meet the girls and Matt and I rode it again. I was bound and determined to get to ride it twice, I'm so glad I did :)

In Tower of Terror --someone has a dustier desk than me!

We had a great day at HS....Hannah was doing great, the temps or the humidity had dropped a little bit...we didn't make it back to the hotel till 330 or so for nap time! On our way out of the park we caught the parade.

A quick rest time, then Matt and I took off with the girls to Downtown Disney. Anne has a cousin that lives down there that she hadn't seen for like 40 years, so they met them at the hotel and had dinner in our suite with them. I had some shopping to do, and we just love hanging out down there. They have a fantabulous Christmas store and we always pick up a few ornaments down there. They also have a lego store which is super neat. Amazing what some people can do with legos!:

We had a wonderful dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express, I drooled over the $200 Dooney and Burke special edition Walt Disney World purse, we went in the largest Disney Store in the world, and had a good evening. Then it was back to the hotel. Whew.

Next morning-Chef Mickey's for breakfast!!! it's a fun time!

Minnie was the orneriest of them all if you can believe that:

Look at her smooching on papa!

After breakfast we headed over to Magic Kingdom to hit a few things we hadn't hit before. We got to ride Splash Mountain, here are Brooke and the gparents afterwards:

We hit a few other rides in Fantasyland, got a Dole Whip for a refreshing snack, and went back to the hotel. During rest time there was some rain, and this:

During swim time, Brooke finally went down the big slide and LOVED it. I did too-- it was so fun!! You could hear brooke "whoo-hoo-ing" all the way down the spiral of the slide, it was so funny. I think she went down it about 20 times in an hour.

After we got the girls in bed that evening, Matt and I had our turn to go up to the Top of the World Lounge...an exclusive lounge area on top of Bay Lake Tower reserved for Disney Vacation Club members staying at BLT. It is a pretty awesome place. There is a fireworks observation deck, so we had a great view of the Wishes fireworks. They even have the music and Jiminy Cricket narration playing up there to go along with the show.

The last morning we were going to go over to Magic Kingdom, but decided to go swimming instead. The slide wasn't open yet, so Brooke was bummed, and Hannah was in some kind of mood! We swam for awhile, packed up our stuff, and caught the bus to the airport around noon. We decided to eat (at Chic-Fil-A which i hear we're finally getting one!) before going through security. That almost was a mistake. The security at Orlando was massively slow. Crazy.

Hannah was so tired but wouldn't go to sleep, so she was pretty upset and vocal the last 30 minutes of that first leg. Then we were delayed by 2 hours in Atlanta, making us stuck at that airport for a total of 4 hours. Thank God, Matt sat with Hannah on that leg and got her to fall asleep. (She was strapped into her carseat. I was just burnt out though, she had gotten progressively more clingy to mommy as the trip went on).

We had a wonderful time. It was fabulous. We learned things we're going to try next time, we took it at a good pace, we loved everything we got to do, and were okay with the things we couldn't work in. We felt so blessed and thankful to get to go, to be DVC owners, knowing that we'll be back!

So that's the Disney recap..... Whew, right? There will be a quiz tomorrow! And now you can be Disney-recap-free until next May, when we set sail on the new Disney Cruise Line ship- the Dream!!!

Pixie dust wishes to you today!

PS--and you know that Dooney and Burke bag I mentioned? Matt bought one when I was napping with Hannah and smuggled it home in his carryon for my Birthday/Mothers day gift. Good job honey!

Sweet Journal Entry

Do you ever feel like you're not real sure you're doing a great job at this parenting thing? It is the one job we need to be sure to be good at...but it is the hardest job too! I often feel inadequate, and I'm sure there are other parents that do too.

I often feel inadequate as a Christian too. Do I share my faith like I should? Do people who know me see the love of Jesus? I hope so, but I'm not sure! But I can tell you this, if I lead my girls to Christ, I will feel like I've done a good job as a parent. If all else fails, as long as I teach them to believe in Jesus and have him lead their heart...that works for me.

I got the most wonderful email from Brooke's teacher today. She is a wonderful Christian woman whom I adore. It made me so happy... here it is:

"Angie- We were writing about things we are good at in our journals today, and I couldn't wait, not even until tomorrow, to share this with you and Matt. This is her journal entry:
'I am good at reading my Bibl. A Bibl is godd for fiding thags a bout god. god is vare pourfl. God can prtect all of us.' .....you are raising a wonderful Christian child of God. I am proud to know her and you..."

I cannot tell you how much it made me smile and touched my heart to know that my little girl knows God, loves God, and will talk about God with that child-like/fearless faith. She wears her heart on her sleeve and I pray that Jesus will always be in it! I'm so glad we have developed such a relationship with our teacher that she would know how much this means to me, and take the time to send it to me!

Praise the Lord

disney recap part 4

After a brief respite from Disney recapping, I'm back to telling you all about our vaca.

Tuesday found us heading to Epcot. I had no intention of dragging the girls around the World Showcase. We wanted to get in and hit our choice attractions and head on back. It seemed the routine was (with Hannah in particular) rough day, good day, rough day, good day. Epcot fell on a "rough" day...and there weren't a lot of rides she could do there.

Have I mentioned how glad I was to have our magical fastpasses?

Epcot day was pretty quick. We went on Spaceship Earth first thing. While we were standing in line, some dirty old man that we kept criss crossing paths with kept looking at my boobs. Like as in, blatantly staring at my chest. (I had a tank top on that day, and let's face it, I've got some boobs). At first I laughed when Matt told me about it, but then the next time we passed him and I witnessed it myself, I was pulling my tank top way up and keeping my back turned! Creepy! Geewhiz. So--Spaceship earth. We went over to Test Track and fastpass-swapped it. We took Brooke on it first, she was (again) a nervous wreck but (again) loved it once we got going. You should have heard her giggling when it was on the outside fast track. While Anne and Gary went on it, we took the girls over to ride the Nemo ride.

Matt and Brooke in their Clam-mobile:

They then met us at The Land. We got fastpasses for Soarin. Anne and Gary took Brooke on Soarin while we got a table and some lunch with Hannah. When they got off, they took over our table to sit with the girls and finish up lunch. I love Soarin. It makes me happy. It simulates that you are gliding over California. You can feel the breeze on your face, you can smell the pine trees when you fly over the forests, you can smell the orange groves. It is awesome.

Some Epcot pics:

We hustled it back to our hotel so we could meet up with our DVC rep, Dave. Love that guy. He took us to the Top of the World lounge (more on that later), and showed us the other accomodations at our resort. Just solidified the fact that we wanted to buy more points!

After rest time, it was off to Matt and I's favorite restaurant at Walt Disney World. Ohana's. It is at the Polynesian resort and it is great. At the center of the restaurant is a huge open fire grill. Everything is served family style. For "starters" you get salad, pork potstickers, (extremely sticky but yummy) wings. For the main entree you get these fabulous noodles (that I'm hoping to get the recipe for), and then the servers come to the table with these 3-foot long skewers of meat right off the grill. There are skewers of beef, turkey, shrimp and pork. They come to your plate and slide off the skewer however many of each you want. Yum. It is so good. Then for dessert is this incredible bread pudding with bananas fosters sauce. I don't even like bread pudding. But I like this!! Yum.

After dinner we went back to the hotel for some evening swimming. Always a great way to finish the day off.

So recap will be going into part 5 and possibly part 6. Coming soon...a great day at hollywood studios, downtown Disney, Chef Mickey's, and flying home.

Happy Birthday Hubby

Today is my dear Hubby's birthday!!!

Happy Birthday sweetie!

He is a good man, you could call him Charlie Brown. Except he has a few more social skills than our good friend Charlie.

He is caring, loving, affectionate (which is not always a plus in my book haha), a GREAT daddy, a hard worker, a Christian, a man with great values and ethics, a good lookin guy with a cute butt. He's an all-round good guy.

His parents did a good job. I think I've improved him a bit the last 10 years too-- lol-- but they might not agree.

Look how BLONDE he was when he was little! Cute little guy huh?

Here are some pics from our early years together!

And more recently....

Happy Birthday to a great husband! I love you BUNCHES!

Let Us Eat Cake!

I'm taking a cake decorating class. did a cute one the other day in class, and tonight I tackled one for Matt's birthday.

Because I'm so proud of my work so far (even though I have a long ways to go!), I thought I'd do the "Flaunt It Friday" thing that I clicked to through a friends' blog.

There's lots of cute ideas and inexpensive crafty stuff going on over at this blog. Go check it out!

Anyways, here's the cake I did in class, I thought it turned out cute, and the sparkles make it even cuter!

I tried to think of something great to do for Matt's birthday.... was kinda feeling stumped for awhile. Since we are such huge Disney and Disney cruise fans, I decided to go with that theme. We learned the 'piping gel transfer' technique in class and I gave it a try. Thought it turned out pretty decent!

More -break from Disney recaps- type posts this weekend, then on to the rest of the story!