Bad blogger

I've been a terrible blogger lately. I don't know why, but I haven't been motivated to get it done. I have a few things I need to blog about but I just haven't felt like messing with it lately. I'm hoping to get some time to catch up this weekend!

"Jesus, can I have that?"

The girls watch cartoons and ask for every toy they see on commercials. They yell and yell and make me run to the living room to see the toy that they just have to have. They ask if they can have it and won't take no for an answer so last year I started telling them to ask Santa, not me. I told them to put it on their list for Santa and ask him for it. I also told them that Santa ultimately gets to decide what they get for Christmas! That helped some. Last year I would hear Lyla say in a quiet voice "Santa, can I have that" as she was watching a commercial.

Well, this year the commercials have already started and they're already asking for the toys they see. Once again, I've started telling them to ask Santa. Last week I heard Lyla say softly, "Jesus, can I have that?" I didn't say anything to her about it. I was just glad she wasn't yelling at me about the toy!

On Sunday afternoon, Grace and Lyla were upstairs for some "quiet time". Sadly, this is just a short movie on Sunday afternoons for us now. But last Sunday, they were watching a cartoon that I had recorded a long time ago and it had commercials on the tape (yes, we still use VHS). Here is the conversation I heard from the girls upstairs. I was downstairs cleaning.

Lyla: Jesus, can I have that?
Grace: Lyla, you don't ask Jesus, you ask Santa.
a few minutes later...
Lyla: Jesus, can I have that?
Grace: Lyla, SANTA, not Jesus!!!
a few more minutes later...
Lyla: Jesus, can I have that?
Grace: LYLA, SANTA, SANTA, SANTA!!!!!!

This cracked me up!

Disney

We're back from Disney. We got back a week ago. I just finished going through all of my pictures and am ready to try to put some of them on the blog. Here are two to start with. The first was taken at our princess dinner. They had their picture taken with Belle (Beauty and the Beast), and then met the other princesses at our dinner table where I could take their pictures. They also met Cinderella, Ariel (Little Mermiad) and Snow White. The next picture is of Lyla after she was inducted into the Pirate's League. She was given an official pirate name (Maggie Pillagefish), had her make-up done to look like she had a black eye and scar on her face, her fingernails painted black, and a pirate bandana put on her head. We brought the pirate outfit from home. It was a halloween costume from last year. After she was made to look like a real pirate she was "sworn in", given a sword and then taken on a treasure hunt where she found a"real" pirate medallion.

The trip was fun and exhausting. The girls were both sick. Grace had fever the first two days and Lyla had fever the last three days. We still did everything but with a few more fits, tears and frustrations. I think they still had fun though. I know a few families here that go every year. Eric and I both agreed that we don't think Disney is the trip we want to take every year (even if we could afford the crazy prices).

I'll try to put up more pictures this week.

A family walk

Grace always wants to know what we're doing. She loves to go places and have fun. She is not content with sitting at home all day. I have probably help create this monster. I never really enjoyed just staying home all day long when she was little, so we always went somewhere, even if it was just to Kroger. Anyway, on Labor Day morning she wanted to know what we were going to do that day. I really needed to go grocery shopping. So I told her Eric would do something with them, which usually means a bike ride or walk in the river, and then when I got home we could go somewhere new. The idea of going somewhere new really gets her excited! So we decided to go to Radnor Lake. I have never taken them there and I'm not sure I have ever been there myself. We got there and looked at the map of the different trails. Eric wanted to go on the route around the whole lake. He said, "it will only take about 30 minutes". It looked really long to me but I didn't argue and off we went. Grace kept asking when we were going to go on a real trail because we were on a paved walking path. She kept pointing to the paths that took off from the paved path and were marked "difficult". We had a hard time convincing her to stay on our path. We did eventually get off of paved road though. That made her happy. Poor Lyla couldn't keep up though. We were walking at a good pace but she had to run to keep up with our walking pace. She kept wanting me to carry her. She is only 4 but I can't carry her for very long. Then they kept stopping to look at every leaf, twig and possible animal along the way. This is fine and great if you're out for exploration and not needing to finish a 3 mile hike before dark. Eric loves animals too so he was just as interested in the animals as they were. Eric and the girls took several pictures of animals. The "30 minute" hike ended up taking around 1 1/2 hours I think. We learned that the girls like to explore the woods and next time pick a very short trail that they can take their time on!

Labor Day Fish Fry

Every year on Labor Day weekend, Eric's family has a fish fry. They fry the fish that Jim has caught all season and have a bunch of friends and family over to eat. I think there are more people there each year! This year the weather forecast was for rain all day. Considering the forecast, the weather was pretty good. It did start to sprinkle at one point and they moved all of the tables into the garage but the rain never really did come. So they moved them back out onto the driveway. The pool water has gotten really cold so the girls didn't really swim much, which Grace was disappointed about. Instead, they got to ride in the Hurm's new horse carriage, play with all of the other kids there, and search for all kinds of bugs. Lyla found a little frog that she followed for a long time, a woolly worm, a preying mantis and then Eric took the pictures of the little yellow birds. The girls had fun playing and, of course, I ate too much desert!

Random pic

I was playing around with Picasa and made this collage. I thought it turned out pretty cute. This is Grace and Reesi being silly at Grandma and Grandpa Galloway's farm in July. They were hugging and then Reesi was smacking Grace's bootie. Silly girls!

The count down is on!

We are going on our first trip with Disney World on the 21st of this month. We're flying too! The girls are VERY excited. I think they're as much or more excited about flying as they are about Disney. They have now started counting down the days on my refrigerator calendar. Grace drew this picture this morning before school. It is Minney Mouse. I thought it was so cute.