20/20 Vision

I just had my 20 week checkup. This of course is a really big milestone. 20 weeks in 20 weeks to go! The big halfway point. And of course, the BIG ULTRASOUND! We had an amazing tech who did the ultrasound for us. She was so friendly and reassuring. So many times you get these techs that almost don't even look at you and tell you up front that they "will not be talking or answering any questions not to disturb them during their measurements!" But this young lady was truly amazing. We brought the kids with us so that they could see the baby moving all around. Brady's favorite part was "seeing the baby's bones!" I mean come on, does that really surprise anyone, especially with how excited he was to see dinosaur bones up in NYC? Abbey of course loved all of it. The Lord answered our prayers and all the measurements and anatomy came back healthy and strong. Baby J's heartbeat was at 152 today. We were able to get all of the scan on VHS to show all the movement and we also got some still shots as well. Baby J is weighing in at a whopping 12 oz. (basically a can of soda) which is right where he/she should be. Thank you for all your continued prayers. We are so excited to now officially be in the downswing of the pregnancy. May will be here before we know it and we can't wait to snuggle up to this baby! I have included probably the one and only intentional shot of the bump that you will see on here. I will also try to add a survey to the side of the page for anyone up for the challenge of guessing the gender. As of today's appointment, I am up 5 pounds. Let's hope I can keep that trend going. I gained exactly 22 pounds with both Abbey and Brady so I'd like to shoot for that again give or take a pound or two!

This was a really good shot of the umbilical cord on the far right of the baby's abdomen

Have you ever seen such a perfect little foot?

Baby J appears to be a thumb sucker. The tech said she has rarely seen a baby actually get it's thumb in its mouth during an ultrasound, but Baby J had a good hold of it's thumb and was sucking away!

These shots are always a litttle freaky looking, but this is the face straight on. You can make out the eye sockets in this one.

NYC - Part 2

As most of you have heard, Brady couldn't wait to get the camera out and start taking pictures, so as soon as we arrived at the airport he began!

Brady asked me to take a picture of the three of them riding the airport tram!

This was the Burger King in the airport! He acts like he's never seen a BK before!

Me holding a banana to eat once we boarded the plane! And yes, that it my enormous (according to my sweet husband and son)19 week belly as the backdrop.

Brady took this picture of himself sitting on the airplane waiting to take off

And of course, you can't go ice skating without Santa Claus.

Brady really loved the Museum of Natural History. If you've never seen the movie Night at the Museum, this is the location of the film and he was so excited to see all the stuff from the movie, especially the dinosaurs. So the next few shots are from the museum.

T-Rex - His favorite

Wall mural at the entrance to one of the dinosaur rooms

Stegosauraus (I think)

Several dinosaurs together.

Triceratops

Wooly Mammoth - His 2nd favorite

The "art" if you can call it that on one of the walls inside the subway station.



I'm sure you can guess the next few are the Statue of Liberty.

View of the NYC skyline from the statue.

Brady being the statue in front of the statue!

And last but certainly not least, a picture of his Avatar toy from McDonalds.

NYC - Part 1

Since I don't have a lot of time to post all about our vacation to NYC, I'll break it down into parts. The first two parts will be the pictures the kids took with their very own disposable cameras. Part 1 is from Abbey's camera. And for some reason, I can't change the order of the pictures! GRRR!

Abbey had one last shot when we got home, so she took a picture of our tree.




The arch at Washington Square park (in the middle of the NYU campus)



The Statue of Liberty (with a little mittened thumb in the upper corner) from the ferry




Another view of the statue from the ferry



The skyline from the observation deck of the Empire State Building

Another great shot from the top of the Empire State Building

Not exactly sure why this was photo worthy, but it's the kitchen at the Museum of Natural History food court.

Abbey thought it was hilarious that someone wrote on a car in the snow! It definitely deserved a photo!

The snow beginning to fall outside the filthy McDonalds window where we were refueling our waning energy!

Visiting with Santa at Macy's

The ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center

Abbey's ice skate

One of the horse drawn carriages near Central Park.

Me and Brady in the car that picked us up from La Guardia and took us to our hotel.

What a month...or longer!

November and December get very busy around here, but add in a virus infected computer that goes kaput, children that tag team you with a very strange stomach virus and a "what was I thinking when I signed up for this" PTA project and you get a very bad blogger! I have a "new to me computer" to replace by sickie computer, but I have no photos (not that I've taken too many anyways) because they are on the old one that we have not had a chance to get to Matthew's IT guy at work to try to recover.

So this will be a fairly random post to try to catch you up and what all we've done or will be doing! In the middle of November we took the kids to a USF Bulls football game. A client of Matthew's gave us the tickets and they were fantastic seats! We all had a really good time, even though it did get a little warmish in the stadium, but hey that's the trade-off to living in Florida! We had all of my Mom's side of the family over for Thanksgiving and had a great time! The food was YUMMO and the weather turned out to be really nice! The kids spent the night with Matthew's parents on Thanksgiving night and Matthew and I got up at 3:15am to hit the Black Friday sales! This was our first time and although I felt a great sense of accomplishment when we were done shopping at 9:30 a.m., I don't think the deals were quite worthy of a 3 o'clock wake up call!

Our November ended with Abbey coming down with a stomach virus and for the last two weeks we have literally been on house confinement while the kids swapped middle of the night sick sessions! Hmmm, we'll be adding a third child into the mix soon, that should make for interesting cold and flu seasons around here! The kids went back to school today, and dare I say, I think they might be rid of that nastiness! On Friday, we will be heading out early for a family trip to NYC! The kids are so excited! This will be Brady's first plane trip ever and the first one that Abbey will actually remember! We have lots of fun and exciting things planned while we're up there. The kids got disposable cameras as early Christmas presents from my parents and it is killing them that they can't take pictures yet! We told them they had to wait until our trip, but once we get there they can take whatever pictures they want! So in other words, we will have two disposable cameras each with 27 shots, filled with pictures of the Orlando airport. What's really humorous (or sadly age defining) is that the kids don't understand the concept of a camera with film. They keep asking if they can delete a picture after they take it to make room for more pictures! Ahhh the spoils of the digital world! We of course will have the digital camera and I haven't quite decided if we will take the video camera as well. I mean come on, we're already a bunch of touristy Floridians traipsing through NYC, we don't want to look like complete fools with a video camera in our hands too! ha ha! We'll get back in time for Christmas at home and then a nice relaxing week off before the hectic new year begins!

As for the new year, that will probably be the start of babyizing the house! We go for our big 20 week ultrasound the Tuesday after X-mas, but don't get all excited because we are not going to find out what we're having. I haven't decided what I like more...the element of surprise in the delivery room, the random old wives tales used to predict, or the sheer shock on people's faces when they hear us say "we don't want to know what we're having"!

Thanks for continuing to check in on our little fam! We hope you all have a very Happy Holiday Season, because who are we kidding, I probably won't be posting again for another week or so! Who knows, maybe I'll surprise you!

Amazing Weekend!

We had a wonderfully blessed weekend visiting with our friends from Little Zion. Elder David Crawford preached on Friday night and Saturday and the spirit of the Lord was with us. We really enjoyed visiting with everyone and we look forward to our upcoming meeting at Little Union. It will begin on Thursday night (November 12th) and will continue with both morning and evening services on Friday and Saturday and conclude on Sunday morning. Elder Ricky Harcrow from Alabama will be preaching.

On Saturday night we took the kids over to Nanna and Grandpa's house to carve pumpkins, eat pizza and go trick or treating! It was a little warmish for the last day of October (even for Florida) and the skeeters were out in full force, but none the less we had a great time and the kids racked up the loot!

We also gained a glorious hour this weekend. It was a much needed hour. It has been really difficult gettin' going in the mornings. It just isn't right having to drive your kids to school when it's still dark outside. And we even have some "coolish" temps predicted for the WHOLE week! I might even be able to turn off the a/c and open up the windows a bit! YEAH!

Let the busy holiday season begin! Happy Fall, Ya'll!

<2%

That is our risk of miscarriage now at this point. Less than 2%! Praise the Lord! We had our final appointment with our specialist yesterday and our first official OB appointment today. Everything looked great! The baby was very active and even had the hiccups yesterday. We got to see 5 perfect little fingers on one hand (the other hand was not in a spot where we could see it). The blood in the uterus seems to be absorbing which is exactly what the doctor was hoping for. Everything is going so well in fact that I have been permitted to start vacuuming again! WAAAAAHHHHH! Well it was a nice 6 week ride anyways! Matthew has been amazing. He works all week long and then would have to come home and do a lot of my jobs! He's a trooper! But, it's back to the grindstone for me!

Abbey and Brady had the day off from school and since my dr. appointment was smack in the middle of the day, they were invited to spend the night at Mimmy's house and went to the playground today. After my appointment was over we picked up the kids and took them to the Toy Story double feature! Can I just say I love those movies. I think they are by far the best pixar movies EVA! The story lines are just so much fun...I never get tired of watching them. Plus it was in 3D which was pretty cool. It was a long day/evening but we're back at home and I am fixin to head to bed. The insides of my eyelids are calling my name!

Much to cram...

I know it's been a looooonnnnngggg time since I've blogged. I've been having to save what little mental capacity I have for the kids' homework. As far as Baby Johnson goes, everything is still going well (aside from the complete lack of energy). We had another appointment today with our specialist. I still have some blood in the uterus and although it is not currently causing any harm to the baby, there is some concern that the blood could cause the uterus to become irritated and start contracting. So for now, I am still on very limited activity. My doctor is taking me off the baby aspirin therapy and reducing the progesterone to only once a day! Praise the Lord! I will go in one more time next week to see him and then he will officially release me to my OB here in town. That will definitely be a bittersweet day. On the one hand, it means I'm "out of the woods" and we can actually breathe a sigh of relief and start really enjoying this blessing. On the other hand, it means no more weekly sonograms that provide reassurance that all is going well.

The kids are really getting excited about their future sibling. Brady has been praying for a boy, but Abbey says she is happy with either a brother or a sister. Secretly I think she is just selfish enough to know that if this baby is a boy then she will remain the "princess" of the family. And if the baby is a girl, then she will thrilled because that means she will have a brother AND a sister.

We did, however, have a minor meltdown last night with her. Is is possible to have sibling rivalry with a child who isn't even born yet??? The way the house is set up now, the baby's room will more than likely be what used to be our guest bedroom, which has a bathroom next to it. Abbey and Brady's room share a separate bathroom. According to Diva Abbey, it's not fair that the baby is going to have it's own bathroom. So she is proposing that since she is the oldest, she should have her own bathroom. BUT, she's not willing to give up her room. She'd rather walk out of her bedroom into the hallway through the family room into another hallway and then into the "3rd bathroom" just to have her "own" bathroom! Seriously, where does this kid come up with these things? So we had to have the "sense of entitlement...blah blah blah, ungrateful heart...blah blah blah" talk with her. And then we further explained that neither one of them was going to get their own bathroom until they prove they can keep one clean!

Brady has decided that he WILL change diapers if the baby is a boy but not if it's a girl. Brady is also addicted to the "Froggy" book series. And has decided that if we have a girl, then he wants to name her Pollywogilina. I have officially removed him and Matthew from the naming committee.

Please continue to pray that we will make it safely into the second trimester and that all will go well throughout the rest of the pregnancy. Our official due date is May 16, 2010. May is a very busy month for birthdays and anniversaries so I'm sure we will hit someone's important day.

Are you positive?

Apparently I am!

Over labor day weekend we were surprised with the wonderful news that we are expecting again! Some of you are aware of the struggles we have had over the past few years, so we pray that you all will continue to pray for a healthy pregnancy. The unofficial due date is May 17th. We have already had two doctors appointments and everything seems to be growing exactly the way it should. Praise the Lord. Next week I will go in for a dating ultrasound, but I'm pretty sure the due date wont change by much.

Because of our history of miscarriages, I have to be especially careful out in public because I can not take the flu shot (at least not in the first trimester, maybe later on though). So if I don't shake hands or hug at church or if you see me using hand sanitizer after touching you, please do not be offended!

Thank you again for all your prayers over the next few months.

Dear Mr. Caller ID...

Where have you been all my life. I know, I know, we have run in the same circles for many years, but I have always been intimidated by you. To me, it seemed the price of our friendship was never worth the investment. But oh, how you have proved me wrong. In just the few short days since we have known one another, you have proven your friendship! You have protected me from those troublesome people that never fail to interrupt either dinner time or homework time. If only you were able to protect me from the irritating All State person that called last week to ask me all kinds of questions regarding my auto insurance. Did she forget that I had called numerous companies (including hers) to get prices on auto insurance? And did she forget that she was ridiculously overpriced? So why must she call me while I'm trying to fix dinner for my family to give me information that I already had!

Now, I know you want me to also appreciate the friendship of Miss Call Waiting. I, however, don't fully understand her. I feel it is awfully presumptuous of her to assume that she can interrupt me when I am having a perfectly pleasant conversation with someone to try to entice me with other friends! I do believe I can make room in my life to accept her as a friend, however, she must be fully aware of the boundaries of our relationship. She must understand, that I will only engage in this frivolity under extreme and dire circumstances.

Again, Mr. Caller ID I would like to thank you for coming into our lives. I hope that I will someday be able to return the kindness you have shown me and that this will be a long lasting friendship!

Sincerely yours,

The Happy Customer

Mean Girls!

We have managed to survive 4 years, 1 week and 2 days of school before really having to deal with a "Mean Girl"! I've never quite understood the concept of being mean. In my opinion it is too dang hard to be mean. Oh sure, I've been in a bad mood more frequently than I would care to admit. And I'm sure I've snapped at someone when it was totally unnecessary. But to be in that continuous state of nastiness is just too draining. Where do people find the energy to behave in such a way?

I know kids can be mean and cruel. And I especially know that life is all about dealing with difficult people. So it is important for my kids to learn that early on. I'd say 90% of what they tell me about so-n-so hurting their feelings, I respond with an "oh, just ignore them. They're just trying to make you mad!" But then there is the few times that my radar goes up and the "mom gloves" come off. There have been way too many incidents that have occurred in our area lately that have physically made me nauseous just thinking about. I don't EVER want my kids to think that I'm not willing to stick up for them and fight for them. I want them to feel like they can come talk to me about a problem they're having with someone and together we can work out a solution.

Last night I told Abbey she needs to stand up to this girl. This girl needs to know that Abbey isn't going to put up with any of her junk! Abbey of course was concerned that she would get in trouble. But I told her that the teacher was aware of the situation and said it was OK for Abbey to speak up! So we decided to work on some come-backs that Abbey could use. Here are the two best ones:

"So-n-So, if you're going to be rude like that, then go tell it to the corner, cuz that's the only place that's going to listen to you!"

"So-n-So, I don't like you well enough to miss you if you weren't here!"

I'm am now asking all of my loyal readers out there to channel some mean girl! Give me some good comments that I can give to Abbey to use. Please remember that these are 4th graders and I DO NOT condone violence or profanity...even though I would love to give this child a pop in the face!

Last year for single digits...

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Nine years old! Nine years ago this day, you came into our life. You are no longer my little girl anymore. You like to talk on the phone and "shop" with friends. You like listening to music and get goo-goo over cute boys. I think we're in big trouble once the teenage years hit! You enjoy school and all your teachers love you. You are friendly with everyone, but you have one close friend at school, Laura. Daddy and I chuckle over your friendship because you two are polar opposites. You are still 100% girlie girl. There isn't enough pink princess/diva things in the world. If you could buy every baby doll and accessory ever produced you would still probably want more. You have enjoyed your new baby cousins this year. You always want to be there to feed and change them whenever possible.

I thank the Lord for you daily. I look forward to many more years of teaching and loving you. Happy Ninth Birthday, Doodlebug!

Look what we got on Sunday...

We had such a good time babysitting for Britt on Sunday night while his Momma and Daddy went out on a date. The kids of course had a blast entertaining him. I think they plum wore little man out! He was so tired at 9pm he didn't even drink his milk!

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The kids were playing dodge ball with his "tag ball"! Brady of course was being his usual goofy and loud self and Britt loved it!

I will take an order of anal retention with a side of OCD!

I wasn't the clean one in the family...that award went to Kimberly growing up! But times have changed slightly. Yesterday was cleaning day and although I dread the task of cleaning house, I always feel a sense of accomplishment when the job is done. But the bonus is when you realize your kids do actually listen to you about the importance of keeping the house looking nice. Last night before church I overheard Abbey tell Matthew "Dad, I can't walk there because Mom just vacuumed and I don't want to mess up the floor!" AAAHHHH! There is nothing better than the vacuum lines on the carpet. Brady on the other hand sits at the living room door waiting for me to finish vacuuming so he can drive his trucks through there and leave tracks in the carpet. Yeah, he's not quite there yet with the appreciation of a freshly vacuumed floor!

I eat stress for breakfast...

...and it usually goes right to my thighs. To say the last week was stressful would be an understatement. To say that I have remained calm and rational would be a lie. And yet we still don't have all the answers!

I will try to retell the story with out going into too much detail so as to avoid any public humiliation for my poor little boy. He has been through so much over the last week and has taken it all with very little complaining.

So here it is from the beginning. At Brady's six year old check up back in February, I questioned our pediatrician about a concern of mine. She refered us to a specialist. We met with the specialist in April. The specialist whom I will call Dr. H, diagnosed Brady with a condition that was going to require a "minor" outpatient surgical procedure. Due to the nature of the surgery, we felt it best to wait until the summertime to allow for the required recovery. The surgery was scheduled for July 28th (last week). It was extremely stressful knowing that my six year old was going to be going under general anesthesia, but we knew it was important to have this issue corrected while he was still young.

We had the option of having the procedure done at St. Joseph's Children's hospital in Tampa or All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg. Based on the reputation of All Children's, we decided that would be our best option. We got to the hospital on Tuesday morning at 11:30 am to begin all the pre-op paperwork and registration. We were told that the procedure itself would take approximately 45 minutes and then he would be in recovery anywhere from 30-60 minutes. We were also told that there would be no "ouchies" until after he was asleep. At about 1:30 pm they began the procedure. At just before 3 pm, we had still not heard a word from anyone and I was starting to get a little panicky! So I got up and went to the desk to see if they had any information. Before I could even say a word, the lady at the desk said "Are you with Brady?" I said "yes". She then said "I'm so sorry that noone has come out to talk with you yet. Brady is actually out of surgery and well he's also out of recovery and on his way back to his room." I was a little frustrated with that but thrilled that he was already awake and on his way back to us.

He got back to the room shortly after 3pm with a popsicle and a coke (which is a very special treat for him). At 4pm, they came in and told us we could get him dressed and take him home. We were given a post-op care sheet and sent on our way. Heading home from St. Pete at that time of day makes for a delightfully stressful driving experience. What should have been about an hour and 15 minute trip ended up being a 2 hour trip. But we were thankful to be heading home. When we got home at 6pm we noticed Brady was bleeding through his clothes. So we immediately consulted the post-op care sheet and followed the directions to stop the bleeding. Because of how sensitive the incision area was, we were having a hard time getting enough pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. At about 7pm, I contacted the specialists office and were connected to the on-call doctor, Dr. R. Dr. R made some suggestions on how to stop the bleeding, but told us that if we could not get the bleeding under control then we would need to go to St. Joseph's Children's ER. I questioned him to see if we could just go to our local hospital but he said he really didn't recommend it since they don't specialize in pediatric emergency medicine. Plus, he told us, if we went to St. Joseph's, he personally would be able to treat Brady.

We then attempted the things Dr. R had suggested, but the bleeding continued. Matthew decided to call Dr. R again to clarify some issues we were having with the bandages. Dr. R gave us a few more instructions and reiterated the importance of coming in to St. Joseph's if it didn't stop. So based on the additional recommendations of Dr. R, we redid the bandage and put Brady to bed around 9:30pm. At around 2am we woke up to check on Brady and found that his clothing was saturated in blood and we knew we had to get him to the ER. At 2:45am we were pulling out of our driveway heading to Tampa. We contacted Dr. R and told him we would be there in 30-40 minutes. We arrived at the ER at 3:15 and we were immediately triaged and taken back to a curtain area. It must have been a really slow night at the ER because the Physicians Assistant came in immediately to examine Brady. Then the ER doctor came in to examine Brady. The ER doctor told us that this amount of bleeding was completely normal for this type of procedure and that he could lose anywhere from 30-40 cc's of blood before it was over. We questioned if Dr. R was going to come in and examine him just to be sure. We were told that Dr. R had not contacted the ER as of yet, but the ER doctor might "try" to contact him and give him an update. The PA then cleaned Brady up using sterile water and then redressed the area with fresh bandages. We were told to follow up with our surgeon, Dr. H, when the office opened and were sent on our merry way. We left just after 4am, just 45 minutes after arriving at the ER. We got home around 4:30 and went back to bed for a few more hours.

At 9am on Wednesday (the day after his procedure and just 5 hours after leaving the ER) I called Dr. H's nurse who told me the bleeding did not sound normal and we would have to bring him back into Dr. H's office to be examined...in ST. PETE! So at noon we got back on the road again to head back to St. Pete. We had a very long wait in the waiting room before being called back. When we were finally called back, Dr. H came in and examined Brady and immediately said "this is not normal, we've got to get him over to the ER (at All Children's this time)." Dr. H thought that perhaps Brady had some kind of clotting disorder because he gets nose bleeds occasionally. He told us that he would have to put Brady back under sedation to remove the surgical dressing that had been put on the day before and rewrap it and put a pressurized dressing on it as well. Plus he would have to have all kinds of blood work done to see if he had a clotting disorder.

So back to the hospital we went. Once we were in the ER Dr. H came over and said that not only would he need to be put under sedation, but he would also have to be admitted for observation, plus there was a chance that he would need to receive fresh frozen plasma to help with the clotting. So we were admitted to the hospital and put in a "short stay unit" that held 3 additional patients and their families with just a little curtain separating us from them. The little boy in the bed across from Brady hacked and sneezed all night long while his Mom watched TV throughout the WHOLE night. He was then discharged shortly after 5am where he proceeded to run up and down the length of the room hollering and screaming. The 12 year old girl in the bed directly next to us was there because of a severe leg break. She was going into surgery to repair the spiral break along with the cyst that had formed and was going to be in traction for about 3 weeks and then in a cast for an additional 6-8 weeks. It truly makes me wonder why in the world we have to sign our lives away regarding the HIPA policy when I got all this information about this girl just by sitting in the chair next to Brady's bed. I couldn't tell you what the family looked like because we never saw them past our ultra private curtain, but we know an awful lot about them.



So now here it is Thursday morning and Dr. P from the specialists office is the doctor doing rounds and who will be responsible for removing the pressurized bandage. Dr. P comes in at the crack of dawn I think it was around 6am proceeds to remove Brady's pressure bandage without so much as "this may be a bit painful for him so he may be awoken from his morphine induced slumber." As I'm sitting there listening to the doctor tell us all his blood results so far have come back normal he then just gruffly starts removing the bandage and Brady wakes up screaming. I had to jump up and grab a hold of Brady's hands and Matthew had to grab his legs to avoid doing any damage to himself or the doctor. I tell you what if I ever run into that Dr. P in a dark alley somewhere, he'd better watch his back. Isn't bedside manner a required course in medical school?



So after a very long morning in the short stay unit we were finally discharged around 2pm. Brady is doing much better, now. He is still very extremely sensitive. So now that you know the whole scary part, now I will leave you with some funny things. My parents were vacationing over on St. Pete beach during all of this so when we went back to the ER on Wednesday afternoon in St. Pete they were very thoughtful to come and be with us along with Bro. Buddy (our pastor). My parents arrived at the hospital just after Brady had recieved his first dose of morphine. I noticed that Brady was starting to get a little droopy eyed and I told him that he could go to sleep if he wanted to. But he looked at me and said "but I have company!" I chuckled and said "I know your company will understand if you want to go to sleep." He just shook his head and said "I think I will visit with my company!" Also on Thursday morning he told his nurse that he thought he would stay for another couple of days because he liked the food. Since he was on a regular diet he got to choose anything he wanted off the menu. For breakfast he ordered scrambled eggs, a glazed donut (dunkin donuts), bacon and orange juice. For lunch he ordered a hamburger, tater tops (that's what he calls tater tots) and a blue slurpee! Like I said before the kid was a rock through all of this, except for the pressure bandage removal, he hardly even made a whimper the whole time. He got to have an Xbox 360 delivered to his room to play while we were waiting to be discharged. And because he had wooed his nurse with his smiles and stories about transformers, he asked her if he could have a wheelchair to ride out in. He then got another slurpee (red one this time) as we were leaving the hospital. When Matthew pulled up with the truck, I lifted Brady into the vehicle and started to turn to put the wheelchair away. He said "wait Mom, don't I get to keep the wheel chair?" Like I said he had been given so much stuff, he just assumed he was going to keep the wheel chair too.



Anyways, we have been home now for just under a week and he is starting to move around much better. He has watched WAAAAY too much TV, but how else do you restrict a six year old boy's activity without a lot of tv time?

World Travelers!

Disney World that is. Yes, we spent and entire 8 days and 7 nights at the Walt Disney World Resort. Aside from the blister that formed on my foot the last day, we managed to survive the "happiest place on earth." As some of you know, we kept this vacation a secret from the kids. They knew we were going on vacation, but just didn't know where. Mimmy of course spilled the beans (pun intended) and told them we were going to the lima bean farm. And for those of you who don't get the humor, it is because you don't fully understand the disdain my children have for lima beans...I threw in an extra detail...lima beans with a side of baked beans. My chitlens of course didn't fall for the lima bean farm like Brooke did (who was utterly disappointed to find out we didn't go there). They did however fall for the fake "slip-up" from dear old Dad. Who mentioned a trip up to the mountains. By Sunday (the day we left), they were certain they were in for a long 10 hour ride to the mountains following church services. It wasn't until we crossed under the big Disney World sign within the resort that Abbey started to wonder.

We had a wonderfully exhausting trip. And I did manage to take well over 100 photos (which is major progress for me). However, it will take me the better part of next year to upload all of them. So I will just leave you with some of our favorites.

Since this is our third or fourth trip to Disney with the kids, we feel we have become somewhat of an expert in "World Traveling". So my next post will be the Do's and Don'ts of WDW! Stay tuned!

My kids were finally tall enough this year to ride on some of the "big kid" rides, ie. Tower of Terror, Test Track, Dinosaurs, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain...anything with a 44" and lower height requirement. Unfortunately, Space Mountain was closed for refurbishing, but we went on all the rest of them. Probably the scariest would be Tower of Terror. I think that was actually my favorite ride. Brady was the most scared of this ride, he didn't really want to go on it, but we all talked him into it. Abbey was really excited about it. This was our first park day of the trip and she was bound and determined to go on some big roller coasters. Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios is based on the twilight zone theme. So it is a big scary haunted mansion. None of these things were sitting well with Brady, but he did it. Now for those of you who have never been on this ride, I will give you a little background. You are taken into an elevator looking room that has probably 4-6 rows of stadium style seating (4 people per row). You have a seat belt that goes across your lap. And you basically are hoisted up this tower, elevator style, where you are then dropped (free falling) and then raised back up and dropped again for several minutes. During this ride, you are in the dark except for the occasional times when windows on the tower open up and you look across the whole park and see how high up you are. So for our first experience ever, where do you think we were seated. Yep, you guessed it. Front Row! Nobody in front of us to block the view from the windows. Just us and the windows in front of us. Brady had a death grip on Matthew the whole time, Abbey screamed and screamed. It was by far, the scariest ride the kids had ever been on. We got off the ride and made it all the way down to the gift shop...because, you know Disney can't possibly let you go through any part of the park without stopping to buy souvenirs, and that's when Brady broke down. SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY! We pumped him up by telling him how brave he was and he eventually calmed down. If you ask him what he liked least about the ride, it's that his bottom was off the seat when we were falling down. With as scared as he was of the ride, by the end of the week he was talking about going on it again...but I think he knew we weren't going back to Hollywood Studios anymore and he was safe!