Celebrating Carrigan

She started the two-year-old pre-partying with a chocolate cake in Florida, shared with our other July family birthday, Uncle Josh.  Then, on her actual birthday her first request was a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.  After her sisters prettied-up her hair, that is.  Afterwards she kept saying "Chuck E. Cheese so fun!"  Then we invited a few church friends and neighbors to the Blackridge pool for a "greenie" cake and sing "Happy Day"--also, her choosing.  She beamed the whole time.  Now she uses her birthday present pink water wings like a pro and demands to swim by herself. (With us closely watching, of course).  She's so proud of being a grown up even if she still prefers to tell people she's three instead of two.

Our Day at Disney

Our tricks for managing little kids at Disney?  A 2:1 adult kid ratio and several strollers.

First up:  the carosel outside of Cinderella's Caste

Carrigan was SO ANNOYED by Jonathan here. She wanted to ride all by herself.

She barely tolerated us with her on the teacups and tried to push Jonathan off of the Dumbo ride.  Not that she was scared, just that she wanted to show everyone what a big girl she is.

One of the very best parts was the actual meeting of the princesses.  After a wait (even with the FASTPASS) we were escorted into a room where Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Belle were available for conversation and photo ops.  They were true to character and charming to the girls. Cinderalla encouraged us to be home by midnight.  The girls were completely captivated.



Overall, it was a fantastic day.  With the help of a great guidebook and the FASTPASS process, we fit in 12 rides from the time opened until dinner. Favorites included the Monsters Inc. show and Buzz Lightyear's ride.  After that we drove back to the  Winter Haven area because a certain husband of mine had been craving BBQ.  Then Brinnly and Carrigan headed to bed while Amalia had a special night out back at Disney with just her mom and dad.  She chattered the whole way there about beating her previous score in the Buzz ride ("Buzz is going to be so proud of me!" she kept saying) and loved taking advantage of a few of the darker rides like the Haunted Mansion and Snow White's Scary Adventure. We were all exhausted the next day but pulled ourselves together to enjoy donuts and good organ music at the clubhouse's coffee hour.



Family Time in Florida

Four generations together

Worth the drive!

En route to Florida

First stop...a West Virgnia rest area.  Beautiful picnic area complete hiking trails.  We chatted wtih another family also on their way to a Disney vacation.

Second day stop--a park in Charlotte, NC.  Perfect weather.

Later that night...Tybee Island, Savannah.  We were so excited to finally be at the beach we skipped digging through the car for swimsuits and just played in our clothes.  We finished that night with Snickers ice cream bars for dinner. Yum.

The third day we drove from Savannah to Winter Haven, FL--the final destination.  Unfortunately, the tire blow-out and consequent four hour delay interrupted our picture taking.  But we made it and once again, ice cream was involved. More pictures to come.

Florida (in words, not pictures)

We're having camera issues and I can't even blame it on the kids.  A few days before Mali's birthday, I dropped our camera on the stairs.  Can I possibly attribute that pregnancy lack-of-balance?  For whatever reason, it's not working.  So I have the best of intentions of downloading our recent vacation pictures from my parent's camera, but all of the normal parenting life just keeps getting in the way.

However, we had a fantastic Florida vacation visiting Grandma Dee and Papa (great-grandparents to our girls).  We made a road trip of it while the rest of the Koch-Shunkwiler gang flew down and met us there.  Other than a tire blow-out and awful holiday traffic, we all managed the drive pretty well.  It was well worth it to spend such precious time with our extended family.  We stayed in my grandparents park, swam every day, ate yummy food, took the girls fishing, and even managed a day at Princess Heaven, aka Disney World.  Plenty of pictures of that to come.  Until that time, here are our favorite quotes from each of our girls during the trip....

1) We hit our final traffic jam about 20 minutes away from our grandparents' place.  So frustrating.  So we ventured into "Celebration" for a quick distraction.  At one intersection, another driver was having a difficult time determining right-of-way.  After motioning her on several times, Jonathan mumbled something under his breath. Of course, the girls caught it right away and asked him to elaborate.  He said "oh, I was just saying hi to my new best friend."  Not catching his sarcasm, Amalia asked him what the new friends' name was.  He responded, "Oh, honey, I don't know".  She immediately told him "best friends know each other's names!"

2) Jonathan allowed the girls to help him steer the golf cart driving back and forth to the pool.  Brinnly went first which scared Amalia.  "Brinn's never had driving lessons!" she maintained.  "Yes, I have!" Brinn retorted, "I drove with Hata and Hoshish for twenty hours on the way here and took driving lessons with them!".  Never discount the talent and qualifications of those imaginary friends.

3) And finally, don't look to our family for any future Tiger Woods. Jonathan and I took the girls mini golfing one night and while Mali and I were getting a drink of water, I heard Carrigan screaming "no, no, no!"  I looked back and Brinn and Jonathan were far away from her.  Supposedly she had gotten frustrated with her luck at the game, threw down her club and laid down kicking and screaming. Maybe she'll be a boxer instead.

Two

Two years ago today a burst of blond hair and blue eyes joined our family and what a delight she has been.  Carrigan was born at a difficult time in some ways.  Mali and Brinnly were barely past the baby stage themselves. Jonathan was very new at his job and the only thing we knew for sure was that it wouldn't be permanent for him.  But somehow, having a little more "wildness" (one of her many nicknames) in our life was just what we needed. 

Carrigan loves life. She's usually the first one up in the mornings and we relish our cuddle time with just her. She chatters away all day long and puts up with our inability to understand her most times.  Her current favorite phrases are "hold you!" and "no, Mali!  no, Buggy" and of course, "SPACE"!  She loves loves loves to eat (where in the world does she get that?) and has a pretty varied taste.  Overall she goes with the flow but if something upsets her too much she's quick to stomp her feet and pull out the fists.  Definitely the strongest temper of the three when her buttons are pushed.  One of her favorite silly games is pretending she's either asleep or blind and she does that almost as often as she tells her version of the "interrupting cow" joke.  Of course, she's quick to laugh the loudest at herself.

We so love our little Elmo-Yo Gabba-Minne Mouse fan.  We love her running and walking, silent and talking as one of her favorite books says.  Her blond ringlets bouncing up and down bring smiles to our faces and she's just the right fit in our silly family.  Care-Bear, Squeezy-Muffin:  you have no idea how much we thank God for you.  Fists and all.

Five on Friday

1)  Mali and Brinn had a week at Redeemer's Vacation Bible School this week.  Great programming, and Mali's teacher was a former co-worker of mine from my school social work days.

2) One more birthday note about Mali:  my mom took her out for a special 1:1 birthday lunch the day before the big day.  She chose Red Lobster and devoured her "Garlic Grilled Shrimp" served on a skewer.

3) After much research, we bought new car seats for the girls at Babies R' Us.  We even ended up with a "twins' discount" because we bought the same seat for Brinn and Carrigan!

4) Jonathan installed the car seats after bedtime one night.  He took some time to look over the manuals, etc.  Our neighbor walked across the street and declared that Jonathan had been out there much too long. So he handed him a cold beer and offered to help with the installation.  Isn't that great? 

5)  Coincidentally, while Jonathan was doing that, I was emailing and making plans to catch up with former neighbors of ours from our Highland Park days who now lives in North Carolina.  Neighbors truly make Pittsburgh a unique town.