On Tuesday Cristiana and I met up with some of the gals for a fun day @ Sea World. This was Cristiana's first time @ Sea World and she really enjoyed it. She enjoyed watching the dolphins, the sea lions, the baby dolphins, and the penguins (which were her favorite!). The girls enjoyed riding the carousel, the tea cups (squishy fish), and playing in their sand area. We ended the day with a short visit to one of the gift shops and of course a stuffed penguin for the ride home. It was an absolutely beautiful day and can't wait to have more visits to Sea World now that we have our annual pass.
On Sunday evening, we went over to the Chamber's household for a yummy dinner. Wayne and Erin were nice enough to invite us over and cater to my picky meal habits. The girls had a great time on Charlotte's swing set, pool, and of course all her toys. Cristiana got a little too excited playing and jumping on Erin and didn't notice a table and ran mouth first into it. Just a little bit of tears and blood, but she quickly got over it. The girls later proceeded to jump on Charlotte's bed (Cristiana's idea of course) and Charlotte had a tumble of her own, but got right back up to jumping.
Thanks so much Erin and Wayne for having us over, we had a great time and Jaime is asking for a second date so he can play some games with Wayne.
On Sunday I participated in the walk for March of Dimes (Cristiana and Papi stayed home sleeping while mommy was up by 6am). It was a great 6 mile walk around Maitland and luckily Kristin decided to walk as well which made it so much more fun. And the Popsicle @ mile 3 made the walk even more wonderful (especially since they ran out of water at every station prior to that, we were dying of thirst!).
This cause is very close at heart since both Cristiana and I were born pre-term (4 wk early). With God's good grace we were born well developed and did not require time in the NICU, but many babies are not as lucky. So THANK YOU to all who supported me and donated to this wonderful cause! I'll hopefully be walking again next year.
On Tuesday, Cristiana and I joined Monica, Amelia, and her grandparents on a trip to Magic Kingdom (yes, seems like we've been there a lot this year, but we're beating the summer crowds). The girls had a great time watching the parade, riding it's a small world, venturing through toon town, and even riding mommy's favorite ride, Peter Pan. Unfortunately, I don't think Cristiana liked Peter Pan due to it being a little dark, maybe she'll grow to love it as she gets older. The weather was beautiful and we even enjoyed the ferry on the way to Magic Kingdom, instead of the monorail.
We finally converted Cristiana's crib into her toddler day bed this Sunday and crossed our fingers that her sleeping would not get any worse. To our pleasant surprise, her sleeping has actually improved (now that I've publicly said it...I'm sure it will go back to normal!), she knows that she can get in and out of her bed but she will not get out of her bed until someone goes into her room (I'm sure that will change at some point) so we haven't had any middle of night visits into mami and papi's bedroom, YET! She is still not sleeping through the night so I'm sure we'll see her in our room once she finally decides to get out on her own. One of her favorite things to do now is climbing into her and jumping. She use to always jump in her crib, but now that she can get in and out on her own, she seems to do it so much more and more often as well. I hope she doesn't break the bed!
On Sunday we headed to the Playground Magazine Music and Art Fest @ Lake Eola. We met up with Monica, Amelia, her grandparents, and Tracy. We had a great time walking around..looking at the exhibits and just grabbing some freebies. Cristiana really enjoyed looking at
the ducks as usual (picture of her squatting down looking through the fence) and the Kindermusik exhibit which had instruments to play with..she LOVES the drums.
On Saturday we headed over to Magic Kingdom w/the Grant Family. It was nice to have the guys around to share the load as well as wait in line for us. The gals enjoyed meeting princesses and Mickey and Minnie. Cristiana still had not met Mickey and Minnie or as she says "Mouse" and "Meme"(lines were always too long) but we were really lucky, princesses were only like 10min. and Mickey and Minnie were maybe 15-20min. We rode on the carousel as usual and even went on Aladdin's flying carpet. We also had the girls scale The Swiss Family Robinson Tree house which I'm sure pooped them out for the day. Towards the end I think the girls were delirious from being tired as u can tell in the final few pictures in which we all look pretty crazy. The fun NEVER ends!
Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the blog before playing the video of the girls playing ring around the rosie w/Joe...sorry I recorded it sideways.
This weekend we hosted a baby shower for 3 of the moms in our mom's group. Everyone pitched to help make it a special occasion for the ladies. Rubber ducks were the theme so I baked a batch of rubber duckie cookies and Cyndi made a beautiful rubber duck cake (seen on right). All 3 ladies are due within the next few months and Tania is expecting 2 (I'm sure Gabriella will love getting 2 new siblings at once!). Congrats ladies and we can't wait to see and squeeze those n
ew little bundles of joy!
On Saturday we headed to Gymboree to celebrate Efri's 2nd birthday. Cristiana had a great time playing with everything and just being her plain old silly self.
Thanks for having us and can't wait to hang out with you guys when schools out!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EFRI!
Kristin and Ava joined us for a fun visit to Animal Kingdom. We decided it would be fun to ride together and I think the girls enjoyed sitting in the same car..so much so, that there was no falling asleep on the way back even though they were both extremely exhausted. The girls enjoyed the safari, the bone yard with their big "Dino" dig area, and of course the characters. Kristin was able to capture a really cute video of the girls bouncing their way to see Tigger (see below slide show). It was too cute! We had a great time as usual with the girls and I still don't get tired of seeing how much their interactions change every day they get older.
On Tuesday Kristin and I hosted our Mom's group Easter Party @ my house. The weather was perfect and the kids enjoyed running around and playing with everything. We had crafts set out for them..but I think they were just too interested in playing in the backyard...but they did enjoy painting on the easel. We hid over 100 eggs in the backyard and I think everyone good a decent amount (we had to slow down Ava and Cristiana from grabbing too many..see video). The biggest hit, as always, was the trampoline which Cristiana and Ava of course spent a good portion of their time bouncing on as well. Cristiana, Ava, and Alyssa kept singing "Ring around the Rosy" and they loved "falling down." It was nice to have so many little ones over to enjoy Cristiana's backyard and I hope we'll be able to have another get together here again soon.
Make sure to pause the music @ the bottom of the blog before playing the video.
Just a few pics of us wearing our Easter best!
On Saturday our church had an egg hunt for the kids. Cristiana loves collecting eggs and she collected so many...but at the end...she had to turn her eggs in for a bigger prize, which was fine with me since that meant less candy. Cristiana had a great time blowing bubbles with their water table full of bubbles solution, she played with her first water balloon and did a pretty good job at tossing it with papi. We then went indoors for some crafts and some games (bunny ring toss, fishing for prizes, and a kids pool full of packing popcorn which Cristiana really liked). I really enjoyed this event because all the crafts were religiously based and brought back the real reason of why we celebrate Easter. Though she may not understand it now, I'm sure she'll appreciate events such as these in the future.
This week we had the West Side Girls (haven't called them that in such a long time!) over at our house for a play date. It was a beautiful day so the girls were able to enjoy all the fun activities we have in our backyard (the swing, the small slide, the playhouse, the sandbox, and of course the trampoline). The girls had a great time playing and "eating" their lunch together (it was hard to keep them sitting down long enough to get anything down their throats). Thanks for coming over gals and thanks for the pics Kristin!
