Day 1: First Flight

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The big day finally arrived! I had packed and repacked several times in my head (do you do that?) and then packed for real. Upon advice from lots of random people over the past few weeks, we decided to NOT check any luggage, just stick to carry-on. We each had a backpack, Alan and I each carried a small suitcase, and the kids each carried their little booster seats. Two bags each.

tiny travellers

Tiny travellers, all packed and ready to go.

With plenty of time to spare we arrived at our quiet little airport. Security was a breeze (I was well prepared!) and we enjoyed watching the activity on the ground below while waiting to board.

at the airport

At the airport, seeing all there is to see.

doggie

The doggies came along for the trip. Alex wanted to have a good view.

If you know anything about flying Southwest you know that you have to check-in online 24hrs before your flight. At check-in they assigned you a boarding group (A, B, or C) and a number (1-60). At the airport they board A1-60, then family boarding (kids 4 and under!), then B1-60, and C1-60. There is no assigned seating, so the better boarding position you get the more likely you are to get a better seat. I really wanted A group (me and everyone else flying Southwest!) because we had a very short layover and I was worried that if we were in the back of the plane we wouldn’t get off quick enough and would therefore miss our connecting flight! I checked-in just one minute into the 24hr window and we ended up in the tail end of the B group. Not ideal, but it all worked out ok. The flight was full but we were able to get seats in groups of two and not too far back. Thankfully! The travelling gods were in our favor and we departed on time, landed in Chicago early, and came in at a gate very near the next flight’s departure gate.

boys on a plane

Happy boys, ready to fly!

eve

Eve wanted to sit with mommy.

soilders

It’s hard to see in this picture, but we saw a ton of soilders in camo getting off a bus and onto a plane. Each carrying a white box the size of maybe two shoe boxes together. We were curious.

snacks

It was good to find the airlines still serve snacks. :)

scaredy eve

Eve, pretending to be scared. Really she had a great time and kept yelling things to Lex, who was a few rows back and could not hear her! “Lex, we’re in the air now!” “Lex, look at those clouds!” “Lex, that loud noise was just the engines turning on!” It was super cute.

Chicago was slightly less fun. We stopped to grab lunch, hoping we’d have time to eat it in the gate area. Instead they boarded A group quickly and lined up B group. Then we waited FOREVER while the family boarding took place. Turns out a flight to Orlando is PACKED with families with young kids. I was getting nervous that we’d never find seats together and no one would have any sympathy since everyone else had kids too! Despite being hungry and just a tiny bit cranky, we made it on to the plane and found seats near the back where we could sit in twos again.

lunch

We grabbed a quick lunch at the Chicago Airport.

clouds

Beautiful clouds in rows.

river

A winding river

silly eve

Eve is tough to entertain on a plane. :)

In Orlando we made our way to the car rental place and eventually picked up our rental. Everyone was tired and the kids were uber silly at this point! It was only about 4:30pm, but it felt like a very long day already.

hanging out

Hanging out at the car rental place. They were a little wild, but it was hard to tell them to be still and quiet after spending a full day on airplanes.

Once we were in the car the kids made me very nervous in their little booster seats. They were flopping around and wrapping the center belt around their heads and just being silly. It was raining and there was traffic and I was really wishing they were in their big car seats with the 5pt harness!

Big kids in big kid carseats. As the week progressed they settled down and I was less nervous about these seats.

Big kids in big kid carseats. As the week progressed they settled down and I was less nervous about these seats.

We made it to Mike and Andrea’s house and I apparently have no more photos of the day. We got Panera for dinner and just hung out there. When we pulled up to the house Mike and Joe were waiting out front. Eve jumped out of the car and was the first to the porch. Joe said, “Hi, I’m five years old.” (he just had a birthday). Eve said, “Oh, me too.” And off they went to play. Like old friends. :)

Day 2: Just Hanging Out
Day 3: Disney Fun
Day 4: Lego Land
Day 5: Kennedy Space Center
Day 6: The Zoo
Day 7: A Drive Along the Coast
Day 8: Heading Home

Home again, home again

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We are home again. Back in the snowy north. I want to complain, but really can’t as the weather is warm (ish – 38°) and sunny today. Everything in Florida was green and there were lots of fountains. I liked that. The cars were all shiny and not covered in salt. Sigh. Anyway, we are back now.

I’m taking the pictures off the camera now. Turns out we took 893 photos!! Yesterday Eve and I were guessing at how many photos there were. I guessed 400 and she guessed a million. We were both off by a lot! I’m going to post vacation updates one day at a time. Trying to do the whole week in one blog post would take forever to read and even longer to write!

I think the kids have been suffering from craft withdrawl during vacation. They’ve spent all day today with the paper and scissors and tape everywhere. Rummaging through the recycling bins, lots of glue and string. Crafty kids getting caught up on crafty things.

crafty kids

Crafty kids hard at work.

Lex also had many inspirations for train layouts while on vacation. On the plane ride home he drew up diagrams and first thing this morning he was at work building train tracks and stations. Busy, busy.

trains p1

The cardboard box is Sea Side Sheds with tracks going up to the top. From the top the trains have the option of going on the trampoline (closer track, near the blue box) or the water slide (further track).

trains p2

More train tracks. I’ll have to ask him about the black boxes by the couch.

Happy Friday. More to come later!

Flying high

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The traveling gods were good to us today. We had a half hour layover and I was SURE we would miss the connection, but our first flight ended up getting in half hour early so we ended up with nearly an hour for the layover, which just gave us enough time to hit the bathrooms and grab lunch to eat on the plane. We never would have made the connection!

image

Turns out the kids are excellent travellers. Oh wait, that’s no surprise!

A reading breakthrough!

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Eve has had a reading breakthrough recently! I am so excited! Her exact skill level has been up for debate (between Alan and I, anyway) but was un-testable because she was pretty uninterested in reading. She read sometimes, mostly for Alan, but not with any regularity. Lately however, she has been reading with gusto!!

They started reading groups in school two weeks ago and she is very excited about that. She comes home and tells me all about who is in her group and what they read. Today she told me that in her book at school was the words “very” and then another one “kind of slanted” (italics). I started to explain what that meant, but she stopped me and told me how she read it in class. I don’t really know how to write it here, but she read it as “very, very” very (regular), very (emphasized)! She said her teacher was surprised that she knew what that meant and stopped to explain to the other kids.

reading group p1

Each day she brings home a picture and a sentence that she wrote from reading group. This one says “Bears eat fish and berr.” I asked her what “berr” was and she said she forgot to write the rest of berries. :)

reading group p2

“Bella and Rosie brot sunglasses to the beach.”

Along with the reading has come a big step in writing. She is much more apt to write now, and sound out her words. Sometimes the spelling is correct, sometimes not, but she’s trying! Which is huge!

doodle pro

On our snowless-snow day last week I wrote a message on the Doodle Pro saying, “Snow, snow, where did you go?” On the very snowy next day, Eve wrote this: “Happy Sadrday. There is snno every where.” With a picture of a house and a sun and a rainbow and snow balls.

She reads to me at bedtime quite often now, and she reads very well! She reads books I didn’t know she could read. One night we were reading Truckery Rhymes (a silly poetry book) and she started off saying she would read every other poem, but then she got excited and insisted on reading every poem! She read an entire “Little Bear” book to Alan the other night. Tonight I was reading her a chapter book and several times I stopped and asked her where I was and she always pointed to the exact word I ended on. She’s reading right along!

spelling

These are Lex’s spelling words. He is supposed to write each one three times, but he never does. Each Monday we go through the list and he spells them all correctly so he doesn’t bother with the practice. With Eve’s new burst in reading she is getting in on the spelling game too. Now on Mondays after school she reads him his spelling words (with my help when she needs it) and he spells them. I LOVE IT!

I’m super excited by this. Reading is kind of a big deal in our house, in case you haven’t noticed. We do a lot of it! :)

Valentine’s Day Treats

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We will be jettin’ out of here on Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate anyway. The kids finished their class Valentine’s Day cards today. We are going to bring them in on Wednesday and their teachers have promised to distribute them. My guys are eager to return to a bunch of Valentine’s Day cards waiting for them after vacation. :)

This afternoon we made cookies.

chocolate

Someone’s had enough chocolate already!

kisses

They were giving each other silly kisses. I tried to get a picture, but instead got this weird shot. :)

sugar

Fun with sugar. Eve had the job of rolling the dough balls in sugar. It took much longer than necessary, but she enjoyed the sensory experience.

hearts

While Eve played in the sugar, Lex got the first shot at putting the hearts on the cookies. These are definitely fun to make! (that table in the background sums up my life! Messy, colorful, healthy, sweets, kids!)

yum

Cookies!

eve

Eve got a turn at the hearts too. I could NOT get a picture of her with a non-talking mouth! :)

I have been wanting to make these cookies for awhile now. Holding off until it’s actually close to the sweet holiday. They are peanut butter blossoms (with the unholiest of deliciousness – Jif peanut butter!) with Dove and Hershey hearts instead of the usual Kisses. So YUMMY! We will be delivering these to various friends over the next few days, while saving a few for ourselves, of course!

Technolgy

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Technology is definitely creeping into our house and our parenting. I left the kids playing games on Hightlightskids.com this morning while I took a shower. Gone are the days of the 20 minute Between the Lions. When I came down I found Lex playing on the computer (where I left them) and Eve on the tablet! What did I do… grab my laptop for a blog post! Happy snow day! :)

technology

They’ve got the computer and the tablet going at the same time.

This morning I had to explain to the kids what a disposable camera is (was?), which led to an explanation of film. Eve couldn’t understand why the character (in the scary Magic Kitten book we were reading) couldn’t just review the pictures on the camera.

Times, they are a changin’!

However, to illustrate their innocence still… The PE teacher at school has Dance Dance Revolution that the kids get to play sometimes. This week he had it set up all week and each class got to play. Lex loves it! All week the kids have been talking about it. During one conversation he told me that some of the kids are really good and I explained that it’s a video game you can buy and that many of the kids probably own it and practice at home. How would you expect a child to reply to that statement? Typically with “can we buy it?” or something similar. Lex, however, gets a thoughtful look on his face and says, “I wonder if I could make Dance Dance Revolution at home, with some paper.”

Here’s an unrelated picture. They’re still sweet, even with the technology creep.

cookie

A treat from Panera Bread. Eve insisted on a photo before eating the cookie. (that’s black bean soup on her face, not dirt, btw!)

Toy Jail

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My kids used to be pretty good at cleaning up. We used to have a “one toy at a time rule” that they mostly followed. These days though, not so much! Now the games are more complex and involve many more toys. Now they create experiences and haunted houses which dominate entire rooms. The creativity is great, but the mess isn’t. I’ve been trying to figure out how to handle cleanup for awhile now. Once they create a big “thing” they don’t want to take it down immediately, but over the course of a few days it gets forgotten and ends up just a mess.

However, it wasn’t until they recently started dropping toys on the floor and walking away that I took action. I couldn’t believe the day I saw Lex just drop a toy in the middle of the floor and walk away to do something else. No effort made to even put it on a table or something. After seeing that a few times, I built the Toy Jail. (thanks to Pinterest or the blogosphere or somewhere for the idea!)

Toy Jail, tucked under the donation box!

Toy Jail, tucked under the donation box!

The first morning it was there they whined and complained about it. The next few mornings, when there were toys in it, they got worried and paid the fine immediately. The past few days it has taken them a few days before paying up. The toys you see here were put in last night. This morning Eve said, “Oh no!” Lex said, “Why are those toys in there?” Eve said, “We didn’t clean them up last night.” Then they went on a played with something else. They get 30 days to pay the fine, toys not “bailed out” get moved to the donation box and there’s not escape from there!