Our Disney trip, i.e. terrorizing our kids on waterslides

We took the kids to Disney world over the past weekend. Hannah's school is semi-year round, so she gets a two-week break every Fall. We decided that it would be a good time to go to Disney, since #1. the weather in Florida is more tolerable in October, and #2. the parks are less crowded in the Fall. We got the good weather, but missed out on the second point, I think crowds are just a given at Disney world.

We took the kids to two parks, Typhoon Lagoon Waterpark and the Magic Kingdom. We did Typhoon Lagoon on our first day. We made the mistake of starting out the day on a moderately-sized water slide. Hannah was really into it, so I asked the lifeguard at the bottom what she thought about Lucy trying out the slide. She said no problem, just have one of us at the bottom to catch her. So Eric took her to the top, where she was happily seen sliding down sitting upright. Next time I saw her at the bottom, she was laying down, coming feet first and screaming. I know, we definitely don't win the parent-of-the-year award on this one, but we really thought she would enjoy it! That pretty much did in the rest of the day for Lucy. Every time she would hear a wave from the wave pool, she would scream and run.

Day two was definitely more successful. We learned our lesson on day one and decided to stay away from rides that might send Lucy shrieking through the park.

While visiting Disney world last year, our girls became acquainted with a new attraction that all little girls eventually discover: the Bippity Boppity Boutique. This is basically a mini-salon designed to empty your wallet and also make your kids look like princesses. We told the girls last year that we would do it next year, in our minds delaying the inevitable rather than making any promises. As fate would have it, the kids talked about it almost daily for the whole year, and we quickly realized we would have to make good on our promise. So this year, we paid the outrageous fees, and the girls were made over into princesses with the following results:

They loved being princesses for about an hour and a half, then asked to go back to wearing their shorts and tee shirts. Then Lucy fell asleep and was out for the rest of the night.

Lucy's 3rd Birthday

We celebrated Lucy's 3rd Birthday last weekend. In June, she started telling us she wanted a ''cow cake'' that was red on the inside for her party. We decided to forgo the red inside (we thought that would be a little creepy), but I did manage to put to together a cake that at least looked somewhat like a cow. At least she was pleased with it. We ended up having a farm themed party in the backyard--based on the cow cake, of course.

One of the more popular features at the party was this top-of-the-line play barn we made out of an empty appliance box. It held up fairly well considering it was put together with a bunch of duct tape. The three year olds didn't seem to mind our shabby construction skills (they were too busy throwing popcorn at imaginary chickens).