Thanksgiving Week in Florida

UCF Game...Go Knights!!

Aunt K and Uncle K are both UCF alumni and have off the hook tailgating parties prior to each home game, so of course, the Caswells had to check it out!!! It was great! A & D had a blast! During the game, D went to sit with the boys and A sat with the girls. While sitting with the "boys", Uncle K showed D a new "pick up line" to use with all the ladies..."Do you like nachos?" Thanks Uncle K!!!

On our way back to the car we saw all the "emergency vehicles" in front of the stadium. I commented to D, look buddy, a firetruck!!! We stopped for a second to check it out and all of a sudden, the fireman on duty at the time opened the whole thing up for Little Man to get in. He had his own private tour of the big working tool box. The guy asks D if he likes transformers...D says yes. (I don't think D has and idea what they really are, although one of his school friends did bring one to school for show and tell letter T earlier this month so who knows.) Anyway, the fireman pushes this "magic button" and the whole front cab starts lifting up from the back so we could see the engine inside. At that time, the "police car" on campus, a glorified golf cart, with SIX policemen inside seeing D standing there mystified and us talking to D about how cool it is, start competing for D's attention. "No way, D, that isn't anywhere near as cool as our ride...check this out." They all start rocking from side to side and the golf cart is of course all over the place. It was hilarious!!!

Little Miss A, not quite into the whole emergency vehicle thing anyway, let alone her new found "stranger danger" complex, hid in the background with Aunt K. She wasn't quite as impressed, but boy Mr D had that hidden, smirky smile the whole way back to the car after that. What a way to end a day!

Thanksgiving Day

Can't think of the last time we were in Florida for Thanksgiving. It was so nice to spend time with family. We began the day with an "all family" turkey trot run...a local 5K that they've all been participating in since we left. It really was a great way to start a day. A & D even ran the 1/4 mile kid run. They were so proud of themselves crossing the finish line to sounds of cheers from onlooking family members and friends. :)

Uncle D and Uncle K decided it was a sweater vest occasion. I don't think any of them owned sweater vests prior, but we all headed out to find one. The picture speaks for itself...too funny!

As for the turkey dinner, the kids didn't eat a whole lot of turkey, or any of the main course sides for that matter, but the "appies" and Aunt N's GOURMET desserts were an all around fave! :)

One of the family traditions is to hit the golf course after dinner. The kids even got to play. I took one giant chunk out of the fairway...yikes!!! I haven't played since before I had the kids...whoopsie! The kids loved it, so I think we may need to look into this being a new potential hobby for the Caswell family. :)

From the Beach to the Ice...

So, Mom arranged a picture session with a Cocoa Beach local to take our family pictures on the beach at sunrise. Yeah, it was like 50 degrees...EEK. Sunrise was at 6:58, 5:58 CST...EARLY for the monkeys for sure. We were planning to be barefoot, the sand was freezing, so as soon as I took off D's shoe and sock, he FREAKED out. Thankfully I was able to hide his feet, but man was it rough. Two grouchy, sleepy tired kids that were FREEZING on the beach was a little difficult to shoot I'm sure. So, no pictures of just A & D, but I think RB was able to get a couple of all of us that really turned out well!!! I can't wait to get our new pieces to add to our growing Caswell collection!!!

Later that evening we took the kids ice skating. Ice skating with the water and palm trees in the background...how can you beat that? The kids did great. We went not too long ago, but they did even better this time around. Even by the end of our skate time, they were both doing remarkably better than when we first hit the ice. :)

VIP ZOO PASS!!!!

Again, Grandma had the coolest hook up for our trip to the zoo...a special VIP pass to see the animal, behind the scenes. We had a tour of the "backyard barn" where the animals eat and sleep. We first ran into a very friendly Emu named Priscilla. Little Miss A was TERRIFIED!!!! Then we met a "GINORMOUS" white rhino named Max. I am still somewhat shocked that A actually stood for a picture in front of his "house." The giraffes were sadly MIA when we went back, so we never got an up close encounter with them, but I think, given Little Miss A's reaction to the Emu, that was probably for the best, but man that would have been super cool!

DISNEY WORLD!!!

Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to Disney World for their birthday this year. It was AMAZING!!!! Going back to the Magic Kingdom after years of going all the time because we lived right there, then seeing the park through the kids eyes...INDESCRIBABLE!!!

Just seeing Cinderella's castle with Little Miss A standing on the side of me just in awe. Mr D was just giddy with all the excitement that is Disney.

Here is a breakdown of the A & D's favorites rides:

Fantasy Land~It's a Small World

Frontier Land~Thunder Mountain

Adventure Land~Pirates of the Caribbean

(We never made it to Tomorrow Land, so that just means we HAVE to go back, right?)

The evening fireworks display was awesome, as always. A is still not so fond of the fireworks and SHOCKINGLY fell ASLEEP on Grandpa's shoulder about 10 minutes into the display. The Light parade at the end of the day was great, a couple of the "characters" actually came over to where we were sitting interacting with us a little.

Totally wonderful, but the ABSOLUTE BEST part of the whole day was DINNER WITH CINDERELLA!!!!! We took a boat to the Grand Floridian for dinner with Little Miss A's favorite princess. We got to see, talk with, hug and take pictures with not only Cinderella and Prince Charming, but Lady Tremain, Anastasia and Drisella as well. :)

Little Miss A was a little more shy than I thought she would be. Quite hesitant at first then becoming a little more laid back about the whole thing. She actually took a picture with Cinderella by herself, something I was worried wasn't going to happen at all. When Cinderella asked D if he would like to take a picture with her, his response was "Um, no thanks." Silly boy. After all the characters made their way into the ballroom for the waltz, little girls starting going onto the dance floor to dance as well. We almost had Little Miss A up there, but the music ended and she came back and sat down. It was truly the most magical day EVER!!!!!

Flying in Style!!

Mom hooked us up with the COOLEST transportation EVER!!! We had our own jet take us to Florida and back for our Thanksgiving trip to see the fam. I seriously don't know how we're going to travel again. That would be REALLY easy to get used to!!!! We literally drove onto the tarmac and they got our bags out of the car and loaded them right onto the plane. All we had to do was get on with the kids. A & D were in heaven...so excited for this new adventure. Being able to see the cockpit was amazing. They both talked to the pilot, D more so than A. Getting to Florida was SOOOO cool...seeing Grandma waiting for us on the tarmac was so special. Grandpa, Aunt K, Uncle D, J, Aunt N and Uncle G joined her shortly thereafter. Talk about a welcome back!!! :) That was awesome!

Science in the Park

We met some of our playgroup friends for science in the park after school today. We learned about the moon...it's surface and will be charting the phases of the moon over the next 28 days. :) Ms. J had some seriously fun action plans for the kids that of course, Mr D. just gobbled up. Notice the "air tank" as he is orbiting Earth in his space shuttle and Little Miss A throwing meteoroids with the other A. They both had a blast, what a fun way to end a day. :)

Twinkle Twinkle...

I just love it when they SING!!!! I swear, I think A & D will end up talking in song eventually. They'll be those kids that can make up a song for anything...seriously, they sing all the time!!! :)

Growing Up!

So, we're sitting down to dinner tonight and D says "Mommy, I want to drive cars when I grow up!" To that, Little Miss A chimes in with "I want to be a princess when I grow up." Holy crow, too cute!!! It was all J and I could do to keep a straight face. (They were both SO serious about it!) Where do they come up with this stuff? I don't know, but I love it! Tickles me just to think about it...hours later. :)

Book Fair!!!

Okay, so most of you know that books are just one of my MANY weaknesses. I LOVE the book fair!!! I think the kids were JUST as excited to go this afternoon after school as I was. So many books, how do you choose? It was so hard for A and D to make up their minds, but both finally found their "favorites" for today anyway. Little Miss A selected a Kittens and Puppies Sticker Book (of course) and Run DMC chose a MEGA Rescuer book. (More like a manual, I think I'M going to learn a lot with that one!) I foresee a few more trips to the book fair before it ends this Friday. Oh, it's the little things in life. :)

Drew Man Chu...Tang Soo Do

Okay, so DMC TOTALLY fits now that little man actually has a uniform to wear to class. (Just in time too, he was saying today "I don't want to do karate anymore. I don't wuv it.") What do you say to that? Are you sure you don't want to get your uniform and check it out? That worked, he got his uniform and was completely transformed through class today. He even did the "test" to up his belt and mastered the techniques of white belt and is now officially an "orange stripe". Missing last week threw me for a loop, I had NO idea that was coming. But a fun surprise!!! So DMC is back into karate again... :)

School Assembly

We had a school wide assembly this morning...meaning the kids and I actually got to go too!!! It was SOOOO fun to see them in the MPR with all the "big" kids. I wasn't sitting with their class, but I could tell they were following allowing, saying what the "announcer" was prompting them to say. At the end of the day as I picked them up, I asked the day in, day out question, "What did you do today?" (Thinking that the assembly would at least be mentioned, NOPE!) "We did centers and played on the playground." They told Daddy the same thing later on. :) Silly kids!

Tutus and spice and everything nice!

We got together for a crafty play date with our bffs this weekend to make tutus. It was SO much fun!!! I'm not sure who was more excited for dance class today...Little Miss A to wear it or the Mom seeing Little Miss A in her cute new duds doing pirouettes and plies. A flurry of pink fluff...what girl wouldn't want one? I'm contemplating making one for me...how fun would it be to dance around the house in that? (No mental pictures please!)

Glitter make up for boys?

One of D's birthday presents was a cool doodle activity kit complete with awesome coloring pages, markers and glitter glue. (All of which are things we use all the time.) However, on this particular occasion, DMC decided that this wasn't actually glitter glue. He walked straight to the bathroom to use the mirror for full application and declares..."It's blue glitter make up for boys!" I guess that's what you get when you have a twin sister that's totally into the whole body glitter thing.

Does that look spell trouble or what?

Time Out vs Clean Up

You know you need to start revamping consequences when the consequence is chosen over the desired behavior.

The kids made a GIANT mess with the packing peanuts this morning. Upon clean up time, after SEVERAL re-directions to continue the clean up process, I told the kids that they could either make good choice and clean up their mess or they could go to time out. Little Miss A happily walks herself to our time out spot, sits down and says "I think I'll just go to time out then."

After that failed, Daddy tells A maybe you should go to your room instead. To that D says "Okay, I'll go to my room!"

So now we have a giant mess of packing peanuts all over the house and one child voluntarily sitting in time out and the other happily sitting in his room.

Maybe the idea of losing our play date today with be the kick in the pants these monsters need to make good choices. Sheesh!

Chuck E Cheese

Yes, blast from the past, Chuck E Cheese is alive and well again these days. Little Miss A and Mr D LOVE this place. Since we didn't have a party this year, we thought we'd head over to the fun house for a little play time. The kids had a blast!!! I swear, I think they could go EVERY day and never get tired of it. Fortunately for A & D, unfortunately for Mommy and Daddy, we found our missing cup of token just before we left meaning we're going to have to go back sooner rather than later. :)

Friday Night Football

Okay, so let me first start by saying that Texas high school football is NOTHING like the high school football games I grew up with! The stadium was totally packed. It was the final game of the season between the two big rivals in our district. The students I had from my looping year a few years back was split between the two schools, so we HAD to go. A & D LOVED it!!! Little Miss A was bouncing in the bleachers to the music. Mr D, kept asking when he could play football too, but was then distracted by the track that runs around the field. "Mom, can I go down to the track? Mom, can I go down there? Mom, when are we going down to the track? Mom, I really want to go walk on the track." (You get the idea...still tenacious D!)

FOUR??? No way...I want a recount!

Okay, today was harder than I honestly thought it was going to be!!! I seriously can't believe my "babies" are FOUR!!! That just sounds so old to me! Every time I thought about it, I'd start crying. Well, we kicked off our day with the traditional birthday song in the morning followed by presents. With school, this tradition may need to re-vamped a bit. Boy, was it a rush. (With "our" birthdays in the summer, as kids, the morning school rush was never an issue.) Trying to leave the house was quite the undertaking...leaving newly opened presents at home ALONE all day was REALLY hard!!!!

A & D seemed to have a great day, although finding out specifics about school is next to impossible at times. I checked in constantly. (Yes, I have become that Mom!) I asked what "special treat" they would want for lunch if Mommy came to have lunch with them today and they both said "McDonald's" in unison! McDonald's for lunch, icing cookies birthday treats for our classmates. We left school early in hopes of going to pick up Sonic drinks and heading to the park. NOPE. Mr D just wanted to go home to play with his presents. (He didn't even want me to stop at Sonic!!!) So, rather than going to the park, we went home. They both tore into all their toys and began playing at once. As the clock ticked nearer and nearer to 5:00, dance time, I started trying to get them both psyched up for that. Nope, D was DEFINITELY NOT on board for that, but it is A's day too and she wanted to "stay and play" as well.

So, we skipped dance class today and waited for Daddy to get home so we could go to a fun birthday dinner today as a family. A & D both picked Jardin Corona. (Our little Mexican local that we love and frequent. Knowing that they could almost literally go anywhere, J and I were SHOCKED to hear their request.) So, we headed to "the beer garden." Our favorite "senorita" was there tonight. (The one that always asks about the "babies" whether they are with us or not.) Tonight, she led the wait staff in the birthday song, complete with maracas, Mexican noise makers and a sombrero, although since they only had one, we passed on that argument of who would get to wear it.



It was truly a GREAT day!!!!!

Birthday Trip 2008!!

As most of you know, we were convinced my our dearest friends that "birthday trips" are the way to go. Since we technically had taken a birthday trip when Little Miss A and Mr D were 2, we decided it was only natural to continue the trend with a trip every other year with a party in between. One of our favorite cities in Texas is San Antonio. Since our Little Man is constantly asking when we can go to San Antonio, it seemed the perfect place to go. However, since we do go so often, we thought it would be more fun, exciting and memorable to see a different side of San Antonio and do things we hadn't done before.

With Halloween on Friday night, we packed things up after a fun filled day/evening and hit the road after trick-or-treating. With a super busy day on Friday, it was really nice to take it easy Saturday. We took in new sites of the city and of course, the kids LOVED the River Walk. No trip to the river walk is complete for D without a "light saber" so, of course, our Buddy Boy got one of those and Little Miss A found a light up wand as well. :)

We took the kids to an IMAX while we were there. The options I narrowed it down to were Deep Sea and Dinosaurs. A & D both chose Dinosaurs. I should have known when the intro states that parental discretion is advised that we may have made the wrong decision. But from the kids that have seen their share of "shows" thought that maybe they'd be okay. That was half right. Little Allie, though she had to sit in my lap, was fine through most of the show looking and commenting on the cute little babies and trying, fruitlessly, to grab at anything that jumped at her. D, on the other hand, sat in Daddy's lap with his head buried, saying "I just don't wuv it!" Poor buddy. Although when asked if he wanted to leave, he said no. I guess we may need to start previewing these shows prior. Oopsie!

We took another river cruise. They are both always so mesmerized by the boats, I think we seriously need to start contemplating a "boat" purchase so we can join our BFFs in weekend boating trips.

Our MAIN goal for the weekend was the zoo. Ranked one of the top ten zoos in the country, the San Antonio zoo was amazing. (Boy, did that sounds like a commercial.) I am so sad that was our FIRST trip to that zoo. It was really was AWESOME!!! Their exhibits were great. Little Miss A and Mr D definitely loved it all. They had a great "Tiny Tots Nature Spot" filled with lots of hands on learning experiences for the kids. I think A & D could have spent the ENTIRE day in that area alone. A's favorite area of the zoo was narrowed down to two: the monkeys and the elephants. D's favorite animals at the zoo were all of the "ocodiles". Boy, they sure were a lot of them, many varieties I had never even heard of. (I was actually kind of shocked that D didn't mention the elephants in his "favorite things" of the zoo trip. While we were visiting the "elephant house," as A kept calling it on her map, the trainers were basically having one do "tricks." Well, while trying to get up, she "tooted!" You can probably guess what kind of reaction this got from the kids. D, as loud as he can, says "oh my gosh, that elephant tooted!!!!" I didn't think he was going to stop laughing. A wasn't quite so sure about the whole experience at the time, but it apparently came out on top regardless. :)

What an awesome way to spend quality time with the kids!!! This is definitely going to be a standing tradition in the Caswell house. :)

Halloween!!!

What a fun day! With the start of the day from the great pumpkin "bringing treasures to good girls and boys" the day was off to a roaring start. It was hard to leave the house with all the treasures from the morning at home. Add to that the special events at school throughout the day...a parade, pumpkin activities in class and LOTS of treats. It had already been a full day when I picked the kids up after school. Combine all of that with some good old fashoined trick-or-treat fun from the evening and you've got one very jam-packed day!!!

The kids really got into "trick-or-treating" this year. Granted it took a few houses to warm up to tthe idea of talking to strangers. Saying "trick-or-treat" BEFORE saying "thank you" was our next challenge of the evening. Some of the houses in our neighborhood really get into the Halloween spirit. Offering mini hauted houses, spooky entrances and full out party style treats. Wonder Woman and Batman were still VERY leary about all of these "specialty houses". Especially after Mommy was screaming like a little girl at the entry of one house where some lunatic jumped at me. (Okay, I totally knew it was going to happen, but I just couldn't help it.)