Bon Voyage and Happy Thanksgiving!!

We got to start off the Thanksgiving holiday with a trip to Nasa and a Disney cruise. We had planned for a while to go on a cruise with our friends the Suitt's and Lenny, Amanda and Emerson. We decided to spend the day before the cruise at the space center since Allen has never been there and Amelie has been in a huge Star Wars kick. It was Papa's birthday and we were lucky enough to spend the day with Nana and Papa. The highlights of the day for Amelie were seeing the robot that looked like R2 D2 to her and the "live" astronaut standing outside of the souvenir shop. She dragged me over to him to pose for pictures, then kept wanting to jump ahead of others in line because she wanted to tell the astronaut we were going into the bookstore - "Mama, I have to tell the astronaut we're going in to the bookstore!"

The cruise was so much fun from the beginning. You definitely can't beat a Disney cruise when you have 3 little princesses traveling together. Each princess, mind you, has very different princess qualities. Emerson enjoyed everything princess-y on the cruise including getting her hair braided island style. Victoria loved all of the shows and was always ready to see a show including the time we were finished breakfast on the last day of the cruise when they were kicking us off the ship.

We spent just a little time in Nassau as there wasn't much for the girls to do there and decided to spend most of the day on the ship. We did spend most of the day on Castaway Cay though as there was alot we could all do. Each night, we got to see some pretty amazing shows after dinner. Amelie was never interested in getting her picture taken with any of the Disney characters until one night, Captain Jack Sparrow was standing outside of the theater. She said, "Mama! Pirate! Let's go see the pirate!" So, she dragged me over to the line to get our picture taken with him. Since we had just been to dinner, she was wearing her Tinker Bell dress. She wanted me to make sure to tell him she was Tinker Bell. He seemed quite impressed to be standing with a celebrity.

We let Amelie pick something from the gift shop and she picked a stuffed Simba doll. Since then, she has been wanting to watch Lion King and that movie seems to have replaced Star Wars as her new favorite movie. I'm not sure if I need to worry about her always liking the bad guy - in Lion King, she really seems to like Scar. Hmm...

Not to be let down after the excitement of the cruise - on the day we got back, I got to pick up Uncle Micah who came in to see us for Thanksgiving. We had a great holiday with family at Granny Great's house in Orlando. We also had fun afterwards when Nana, Papa and Miz spent the next 2 days in Lakeland.

He died on the X

Amelie has been going to school at a Catholic church and they occasionally take the kids over to the church. One day, I was driving Amelie around and and she told me they took her to the place with benches and talked about "other stuff". I asked her "What kind of other stuff?" and she said "The angel". "The angel?" I ask. "The angel named God - he died on the X".

A mermaid's choice of attire

Again, I was driving Amelie around one day and out of the blue she asks, "Mama, why does Ariel always wear a purple bra?" Just like a good mother always does, I had the perfect response to this with an "Uhhhh....hmmm...that's a good question..."

Amelie is 3!!

Hard to believe, but, yes it's true - Amelie is 3!! The past 2 years that we've had her home have gone by so much faster than the 1 year we waited to bring her home!

We celebrated her birthday with a camping trip in our camper at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground. We used 1 day of our 4 day pass to go to Disney. On Friday, Lenny, Amanda, Emerson, Amy, Kevin, Abby and Malia all joined us at Fort Wilderness to help celebrate. We enjoyed a picnic dinner at the site followed by a campfire with Chip n' Dale that evening. Believe me, I stopped saying we were going to the Chip n' Dale show after the first time I mentioned it to someone (if you're wondering just say it out loud as you read this).

The next day, we enjoyed the first 1/2 day at Hollywood Studios where we got to see the Jedi Knight training at the Star Wars exhibit (Amelie is now officially a Star Wars fan, I'll write more about that soon). We hit a few more exhibits before it was pretty clear Amelie needed a nap before going on. We trekked back to the camper for some R&R and Amelie was quite refreshed. Afterwards, our friend Mel met us and we headed over to the Magic Kingdom and got to see their night parade and fireworks.

Okay, so now I'll post some update stuff...

Star Wars, Nothing but Star Wars...

A few weeks ago, we got to go to my brother's wedding ceremony (Micah and Katie had a civil union ceremony for purposes of being stationed together next year as they are both in the Navy. They'll have a big wedding in May). While in Maryland for this ceremony, my Dad quickly tired of watching Snow Buddies and decided to put in Star Wars (the original one with Luke Skywalker). Well, who would have guessed it, but Amelie has become an obsessed Star Wars fan ever since.

Darth Panda, I mean Vader

My grandmother (aka Nana, aka Granny Great) made Amelie a panda bear hooded bath towel in anticipation of her original homecoming. Well, now this towel is no longer used for baths, but for our miniature evil lord who now resides with us. She loves to wear this as her 'Darth Vader cape'. She has mastered making an entrance as the dark lord - once she puts it on, she gets quite a sinister look on her face and quite a slow, deliberate walk to make sure everyone is quite aware you do not want to cross this fallen Jedi. She likes to be Darth Vader when we go out and about on the town as well. When we were in the library she asked for her Darth Vader cape. So many around her watched and smiled as they commented, "what a cute panda". Simple fools. As I was walking behind her, she said "Mama, do the bad guy music". So, here I am walking through the library behind a short little panda girl going "Bom, bom, ba bom, bom ba bom, bom ba bom". Very reminiscent of Month Python's the Holy Grail with the entourage of the coconuts. Very fear-inspiring to be sure though...

Deep thoughts

The Star Wars fascination has led to some in depth conversations though. At one point, we were driving around town and Amelie asks, "Mama, why is Darth Vader not nice?" And I say, "Well, perhaps he has not learned to be nice." After a reflective moment, she replies thoughtfully, "well, maybe if he had a bunny?" I thought this was an excellent idea and told her so. She then said she would share her pink bunny with him and they could play bunnies. So, that leads me to think - Obama is now deciding on a Secretary of State (okay, so I am late actually writing this post), when really he should just pick a 3 year old girl. How much better would our world diplomacy be if all the world leaders could just meet with bunnies?

Attention to Detail

I was much older than Amelie is now when I saw both Star Wars trilogies and never cared about the storyline in the level of detail that my 3 yr. old daughter has gotten into. We have had to go online to research backgrounds to characters (such as the planets where Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker are from) because she has such a curiosity about all of these things.

Gotcha Day #2

It's hard to believe we're celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the most important day of our lives. It's funny that we were so impatient waiting for something we were afraid might not happen (or couldn't imagine actually being real), that 2 years have gone by already.

We spent the day at Blizzard Beach, a water park at Disney. Needless to say, we had a blast. Amelie had to ease into a little, so we went to Tike's Peak first. There, she got to get comfortable on the little kiddie slides and shallow pools. Then, we spent the rest of the day trying to keep up with her. We did the family raft ride where 6 people get in a raft and go down a rather fast slide to the bottom. The only drawback to this ride, at least for me, was the ski lift you had to take to get to the top. Mama was white-knuckled all the way to the top. Amelie kept saying "Mama, don't hold me". "Uh, no, I'm holding you". "But, Mama I'm okay". "But, I'm not". So went the trip with me like a psychotic person going "Ha ha ha, isn't this fun?"

The rest of the day was spent with multiple laps around the lazy river (Amelie actually did sit in a tube for a little while); jumping waves in the wave pool (which we called the "ocean"); and going down this gigantic slide (I mean gigantic because of the number of steps involved to climb up) where we could go down in a double tube and Amelie wanted to do over and over. On the last trip down, I lost my sunglasses. I get my sunglasses at Wal-mart, sub $10 as I tend to lose them in pools and restaurants, etc. Amelie seemed overly concerned about this. For a while afterwards, she kept asking "Mama, what happened to your sungassees?" "They fell off in the pool honey". "Go get them!" "It's okay honey I'll get new ones". "No! get those sungassees!" I'm not sure why the attachment to those, but I think she finally got over it.

Toward the end of the day, we all shared a chocolate drizzled funnel cake, which I feel safe in saying was a highlight. They announced that the park was soon closing so we told her we had to hurry if she wanted to go on a few more slides. She asked if her Gotcha Day was closing too and we told her that, no, just Blizzard Beach was.

On the way home, we had one sacked out toddler, so we stopped for some take out Chinese food.

School followup

So, last week was the first entire week we've had where Amelie did not cry when I dropped her off. The teacher and preschool director told me on Tuesday that Amelie was very good about putting bunny in her cubby and not being distracted by him while she was at school. I think this is because Amelie did such a great job in prepping bunny on the way to school. She carried bunny as I gave her a piggy back ride to school and told him "Now bunny, you have to stay in my cubby while I'm in class, okay?" And bunny replied in a high voice, "Okay, I will". Bunny later went on to say he'd probably take a nap while she played and Amelie thought that was a good idea.

Amelie has been getting treats while in school because she helps clean up her centers as well as those of the other kids. She tells me she's been having fun and once asked if the kids from her class can come over to play. Each time I pick her up, I watch her for a little while before going in and she's always playing happily with the other kids or chatting with the teacher. Her teachers names are Miss Milley and Miss Nicole. At home, she likes to pretend to play school and will have me be Miss Milley and she will be one of the kids.

In the end, I do feel as though she is adjusting and getting a lot of of going to school.

This past Friday, we got to go back to school for school pictures. This was the first year they did school pictures for the 2 year old class and it was somewhat like herding cats. I almost thought getting Amelie's school picture was not going to happen as, for some reason, she despises posing for pictures. The shots the photographer did get were quite close up in order to get me and bunny out of the shot since that was the only way she would even consider posing for the pictures. They did come out good though and I'm curious to get the proofs now.

Most of these pictures are from the zoo this past weekend and the last one is when we went to Green Meadows Farm with Abby, Malia and Emerson back in July. Amelie's favorite things to do at the zoo are to feed the giraffes and pet the stingrays.

First day of school

Today came the time I had been excited about and dreading at the same time. I'm realizing that being a parent is a series of bittersweet moments in life.

Amelie started preschool today. She only goes 2 days a week for 1/2 day, but it's pretty monumental for this mama. As a parent, you want to raise your child to be a happy, confident person who can handle themselves in life. Each step your child takes towards independence causes the parent (okay Mom) to want to tug them back a little bit. We have to remind ourselves not to do tis, but it can be hard.

I was not so worried about the time away from her, since I knew this would go by quickly. I mainly felt nostaligic about this being a new phase in her life in which she would only be moving forward away from the dependent baby stage.

I was also worried about the initial drop off since she has been very much a Mama's Girl lately (which I treasure). If she curled that bottom lip, or clutched at my neck, I wasn't sure I'd be able to withstand the pressure.

Allen and I walked her to school this morning and were there a little earlier than the start time. This is when all of the kids from all the rooms meet in the lunchroom and then are taken to their own classrooms when school starts. We thought we'd get there early to hang out with her a few minutes before leaving. Unfortunately, when we got there, many of the kids were crying (and not just a light wimper either) and I don't think that helped. I asked the teacher what was the best thing to do and she told me to just let her take her. So I did and told Amelie I loved her and would see her soon. We had to just walk away so as not to drag it out and make it worse, but when Amelie started crying and yelled out "Mama!" boy was that a tough thing to do!! I had to choke back a sob, but I did it.

I met my friend Amy for breakfast afterwards to have someone to vent to. Her girls had started kindergarten a few weeks ago, so I had done the same for her on that milestone day. Afterwards, I called the school to see how she was doing and the director told me she did much better when she got to the classroom.

I was pretty eager to pick her up and got there a little early. I couldn't wait to see how she was interacting in the class and what her reaction would be to me. When I walked in, the director stepped out of the office to give me her bunny which Amelie allowed to have a nap for the rest of the day while she was in school. The director said Amelie did much better when bunny was out of sight and temptation of reaching.

When I walked into the room, Amelie was playing happily. She saw me and gave me a huge smile and walked up to me with a huge hug. Needless to say, I was very happy to see her and receive this reaction.

Her teacher told me that she was the only one who helped her put things away. I was pretty proud at that moment too. The teacher even offered her a sticker for her help, but Amelie just said, "No thanks". Her teacher also told me that she hadn't gone potty that day. They take all of the kids at once several times a day. Amelie told her, "I'll just go when I get home". Well, she held it!

Later, I took her out for ice cream as a treat. Throughout the day, she kept hugging me and saying "Thank you for picking me up today". Bless her heart! I wonder what she was thinking during the day when I left!

I took some pictures this morning, but she was not a cooperative subject. She was not to keen on being sent off to school for the first day even though we had tried to prep her for the past few weeks talking about what would happen (she would go to school, Mama would work and pick her up afterwards). We tried all kinds of things to ease the transition - even role playing. I'm not sure what difference any of it made in the end though, but we did get through the first - and hardest - day.

Visit with the Holdens

Allen's sister Chevie and her family were in Longboat Key for a little vacation before Max and Belle had to start back to school. We got to drive down to visit them for the day since they were only 1 1/2 hours away and had a great time.

Amelie got to go to the beach with her cousins Max and Belle (soon to be 10 & 7) and was so excited to participate with them in everything they did. She wanted to make sure we were never too far away and kept calling after Max "Hey Max! Look!" Max and Belle showed off their boogie boarding skills and Amelie was very impressed with their 'surfing'.

Afterwards, we went to the pool. Amelie, who is already a great swimmer, got to watch Belle really show her talents (Belle is on the swim team). It's great for Amelie to get to spend time with her cousins, especially cousins who are so patient and caring for her.

After swimming, we all wound down in Chevie and Mickey's room and played some games. Amelie really bonded with Chevie who was so good with her. Amelie kept wanting to be on Chevie's team and 'help'. Max and Belle were very generous with Amelie and let her sit with them and share their snacks and candy. At the end of the day, it was pretty clear everyone had a pretty active day and Amelie sacked out early.

Skater Girl

Today, we got Amelie a pair of starter skates that she has pretty much wanted to wear from morning til night. Luckily, we have tile floors throughout the house and a great cul-de-sac which make for great tracks. These are plastic skates that go up past her ankles and have 4 wheels. The front 2 wheels are like inline skates and the last 2 are side-by-side to provide balance. Later, we can change these to make them more like real inline skates when she masters this skill. Allen and I tried to start her off much in the way we did when we were teaching her to walk where we would have her go back and forth between us as we held on to on of her arms. However, she seemed to do much better when we just let her go on her own. I will say she looks pretty intimidating in all her garb with the skates and helmet on.