Disney - Part I

We took a trip to Disney on Tuesday with Dusty & Arin & co. and had such a wonderful day! It was just a wee bit hot (in the 90s, as is typical for a Florida September) and it rained, but only for about 10 minutes. Then the skies cleared and we were off to ride some more rides and sweat a little more :)

Our sweet little family in front of the castle. This was right when we got there, which is why we aren't yet drenched in sweat.


The first stop: The Carousel! Both girls loved it.


Next on the agenda: Dumbo! Naomi was not so much a fan of this one. She had to be strapped in while sitting on my lap. She wanted to be held facing me, so that ride was not enjoyable for the two of us. But Charlotte loved it!


Then we met Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse! Charlotte was beyond excited! Her "fabrite" show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and she loves all things Mickey and Minnie. She walked right up and gave Minnie a hug. Naomi preferred slobbering on their noses and grabbing their ears. It was worth the trip down there to see the girls' reaction to them!





After that, we saw the princesses. Charlotte enjoyed meeting them, but I guess didn't feel the need to smile. The princesses did such a wonderful job greeting the kids. They totally play the part with the dainty movements and gestures, but don't hesitate to squat down to talk with them, calling the kids "little princesses and princes". It's so sweet.
Cinderella.

Jasmine. With her belly button and tummy looking like that, I'm going to guess she hasn't had kids :)

Aurora. This made me wonder when the last time I saw Sleeping Beauty was. It had to be at least 15 years ago.


Naomi looking super cute with her ears that I made her on (these didn't last very long into the day). She's also showing off the two tiny teeth she has coming in!


Naomi falling asleep...

Fighting it just a little...

Giving in to the exhaustion...

And she's out for the count!


Charlotte and Jared on the People Mover


Charlotte didn't want to pose for me to get a good shot of her with the castle in the background, so this is the best I got.


More pictures to come tomorrow. It's late and I'm tired.

What's Going On

With my infrequent postings, I tend to forget about all the happenings of our family, so I'll just look back through some pictures and give a recap on what's been going on around here.

1. Spending time together. Aww :) The girls both light up when their daddy gets home from work. It's adorable to watch.


2. I tried on a dress I bought on our honeymoon. It still fits...

Sort of...
I'm no good at taking pictures of myself, especially of my back, but that zipper made it about halfway up.

3. We've been to the pool a few more times. Naomi is super cute sporting Jared's shades. (This is definitely a posed shot. It lasted about 0.20837 seconds).


4. August was my month of weddings. I coordinated two, was assistant florist and reception coordinator at another, and was a guest at a fourth. And two of the weddings were on the same weekend! It was a lot of fun, but I'll enjoy a nice little break before the next wedding I'm coordinating (not till February). Here's a sample of what I did as assistant florist/reception coordinator (Amber, my sister-in-law, and her cousin, Sarah, have started Sweet Aroma, a floral business after doing the flowers for several weddings within the past year. They do amazing work and can do a lot within a small budget!)

And here is the only picture from the wedding I coordinated this past weekend.
Emily and Alan, two friends from our church, were married in a very personal and sweet ceremony. I was probably more nervous with this wedding than I have been with any others I've done before. There were four reasons for this: 1. Two friends were getting married and I wanted their day to be extra perfect. 2. More than half of the bridal party and probably half of the guests were friends of ours from church. This meant that if anything were to go wrong, every time they saw me (twice a week for some of them), they could say, "Hey, way to screw up their ceremony!" 3. It was the first time my church-folk saw me "in my element" and I didn't want to look incompetent. I don't mind looking incompetent as a mother or nursery coordinator, my usual elements, but looking incompetent as a coordinator would not be acceptable! 4. It was a crazy busy weekend with having to leave the reception early to catch a flight for another wedding (that post will come soon... you know, the "Brittany version of soon") so that just added to the nerves. But the ceremony turned out beautifully and what I saw of the reception was fantastic as well.

5. Naomi is almost 9 months and is at such a fun stage. She's crawling, pulling herself up and walking along furniture. This translates to getting into everything. She loves to play in Charlotte's room, which Charlotte is usually quite happy about. One day after waking up from a nap, Naomi crawled into Charlotte's room but didn't see her in there, so she started crying. It melts my heart to see how much they love each other! (I have no idea why the picture looks funky here. Technology hates me.)

Hi, I'm Brittany

I know you've probably forgotten who I am since I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been busy lazy. My bad. Here are some of the goings-on as of late...

1. Naomi is pulling herself up on furniture and walking around while holding onto the furniture and is just plain growing up too fast. She's as cute as can be with her chubby little cheeks and her chunky thighs. Though she does seem to be losing some of the pudge now that she's so mobile. The crease of her thighs used to go almost all the way around her thigh and now it doesn't. That makes me kind of sad.

2. Charlotte has started potty training! We started the training on Tuesday after the I stole the idea from Arin to set a timer, reward her for being dry and then reward her if she does her business on the potty (rewards have been in the form of a chocolate chip or a mini marshmallow). As long as I remember to set the timer and put her on the potty, she has done really well. She will go almost every time she is put on. But if we do not initiate putting her on, she has an accident. I think that since she can make herself go when she's on the toilet (or "tool-let" in her words), she knows what the urge to go feels like. She's only had one accident when we were out of the house, which was an accident of the worst kind because it involved poop. (Yup, I'm a mom, so I talk about poop.) She has had constipation issues for months. Maybe close to a year now. We've been to the doctor about it a couple times. Miralax is her friend. So with the constipation issues, when she feels the urge to go, she almost always tries to hold it in (which makes the constipation worse and it's a vicious cycle). So, the situation was her having had Miralax for three days, needing to go, but the only option was the "scary tool-let" in the bookstore. She has a fear of the big commercial toilets in stores and restaurants, even though I carry around a foldable potty seat that goes over the regular toilet. As soon as we walked into the store I took her to the bathroom because it had been an hour and a half or so since she last went. She saw the loud, scary toilets and magically didn't need to go anymore. And despite all her efforts of holding it in, she wasn't able to so I had the task of trying to get Charlotte cleaned up in the bathroom (thankfully it was a bookstore's bathroom and was about as clean of a restroom you can find in public) and trying to convince her to sit on the potty to finish her business, all the while holding a baby because I wouldn't dare set her down on that bathroom floor, no matter how clean it looked. It was a stressful, messy, stinky situation. It was not my favorite day of motherhood. And I will be sure to remind Charlotte about that one day when she has kids and is slowly being driven insane too.

3. We went to the pool this morning and Charlotte had a blast. She has such an imagination and it is really starting to show. She was "driving" around in her crab float. Jared directed the float over to the stairs and told her it was a drive thru window and told her she could order some food. She said, "No, let's go inside!" Jared asked where the inside was. She said it was the chairs on the other side of the pool. So they went and sat down at the chairs and she said, "We have to order!" She walked over to a different chair and pretended to talk to someone, picked up a tray, then went to sit by her daddy. He asked what it was and she told him, "A Chick-fil-A sandwich!" (We really should buy stock in the place.) Jared asked what they have to do before they ate and she told him, "Pray". He folded his hands to pray and she said, "No Daddy, you have to put your tray down!" He asked her where to put the tray and she told him it went behind him. So he put the tray down and prayed. When they finished eating Jared asked if she was ready to go. She told him, "Daddy, we have to put the trash away!" So she began to gather all the "trash" and throw it in the trash can (the corner of the pool). Then she hopped back in the crab and drove over to Mommy and Naomi :)

4. Naomi is waving, and it's pretty darned cute.

5. We're going to be in bed before 10:00 on a Saturday night. We're old foagies, I tell ya.

6. I'll post some pictures of the girls before too long, but not tonight. Because, after all, it is almost 10:00!

Go Gators!

I haven't been regular in my posting for a while, so I've neglected to mention the fact that Naomi is now mobile. She's been scooting around for at least a month now and has finally gotten the hang of keeping her knees tucked up underneath her to crawl. She's pulling herself up on the coffee table (and has fallen backwards many times) and standing in her crib (fell overboard... gave her Mama a heart attack on that one!). So she's getting around the house and getting into everything these days.

A week or two ago she scooted her way into the foyer, one of her favorite spots, because of the stack of Southern Livings and the gator head. She managed to pull them down before we realized what she was doing. Once we did, I ran for the camera of course, and Jared chuckled and said, "Go Gators!" Charlotte, poor thing, has her mommy and daddy's (very corny) sense of humor because she thought that was hilarious! We think it was the first time that she has heard a joke (or pun or slightly ironic statement) and actually "got" it :)

(I swear my kids are not always naked... We're really not as redneck as we seem.)

Eat More Chikin!

A couple weeks ago, Chick-Fil-A had their Cow Appreciation Day. Dress like a cow - get free chicken? You know I'm there! And since Naomi is too little to protest and Charlotte likes dressing up, they got free chicken too (Charlotte and I split Naomi's:). Jared apparently has too much dignity for things such as dressing like a cow because, for the second year in a row, he refused to don black spots and ears for the sake of free food. (Hey Hun, that's two extra meals that we paid for. Just think: we could be that much closer to retirement...)

Cutest CowBaby ever!


Charlotte called me a cow... the one time anyone can say that and me not get offended!

Charlotte LOVED this! The next time that we went to Chick-Fil-A she was telling me we couldn't go because we weren't dressed like cows :)

Here is last year's photo. I can't believe how much she's changed!

Me and My Girls

Can you tell who's who?

Dad Life

Our Pastor told us about this video. We had to pause it because we were laughing too hard to hear it :)