We are done, finally!!!!

Yeah, we finished Isabella's big girl room. We finally got everything hung up and pictures in place. We really had a great time painting together, it was good time spent and she was thrilled to be doing it with me. She would say as we were painting "dude my hands on fire" I need a break, of course I had to take a break also cause if she wasn't painting...neither was I. We told jokes, talked about school. Took lots of water breaks. It took much longer doing this while supervising, but I would not change it for the world. She picked out these decorations a long time ago and I kept saying "keep your room clean and we will do your room" "Have a better attitude and we will do your room" The list goes on, finally I said what in the heck am I waiting for. So it is her "I am starting Kindergarten and a big girl now room" and she has kept it clean.
This is her craft corner. She will also do all her homework here.

This says it all, this is her vanity, she primps and preps here. She **tries** so hard to brush her hair here.

Abby loves Isabella's room.

Isbaella showing it off, and posing.

She is so funny.

Silver Springs

We made a day trip to Silver Springs and it was so nice. We started out with a glass bottom boat ride and that was really cool. There was an alligator (gotta love FL) that swam next to our boat for part of the tour. I have to say that was a little creepy. I kept looking down at the glass bottom part for ANY water leaks, at one point I was sure there was water coming in, but Nick assured me it was just the caulking around the glass. I relaxed a bit and enjoyed the ride. There is alot of history in the water, there was a canoe from the Indians when they were doing searches on the springs. There are old statues that were thrown in there from many, many years ago. I marveled at the landscaping and beautiful flowers. Here are some pics.

This is in the glass bottom boat, if you look in the middle of the pic all the way down, there is a cave.

This palm tree has grown strangely, they say if you take pic inside the circle root you will have good luck for 20 years or something rather :)

Bella with her fish food, ready and waiting to throw it.

If you look closely here, far out you can see the alligator that had followed us.

My BIL holding an alligator...baby one of course, I touched it and it was very leather like. You can see me far in the back, on the right, just my head poking out.

Beautiful flowers that I am so glad I stopped to marvel at...Hannah style :)

Isabella loves these flowers also.

Me and Abbs, she was fascinated with the birds, she kept saying "what about" thanks to Nick.

MGM Studios

We decided to let Isabella choose one place she wanted to visit before school starts. Of course she chose Disney world. Well we have been to Magic Kingdom several times in the past, so Nick thought it would be a good idea to choose a place we have not gone to and MGM was the one. It was alot of fun, very hot, not crowded, we never waited more than 10 min. in line for anything. We spent a small fortune on water though :)

Here are some pics of our fun trip.

Family pic!!

At the Indiana Jones show..

She was bored and more interested in the camera and her pic being taken.

Daddy lifting her high at the Playhouse Disney Live show.

Me and Belle and the Playhouse Disney Live show.

Isabella at the "Honey I shrunk the kids" play park.

Abigail at the same play park, but on the big ant. Remember that?

Isabella on the big ant also.

Can't you just feel the heat coming off of her in this pic.

Time flys by!

I swear the closer we get to school starting I get more and more anxiety about not having my Bella with me during the day.

We have started on her "big girl room" this week. I posted about starting it on the weekend, but Nick talked me out of it saying she would really enjoy that time with me re-decorating. He was SO right. WE started on Monday and she was thrilled. We started painting and she whispered "mom I am so glad we are doing this together....you rock" I must have had the biggest smile on my face when she said that.

Here is Bella modeling her new bathing suit, sent courtesy of Ms. D. Living in FL we buy bathing suits year round.
She loves to pose for the camera

Can you tell??

Oh my, look at Abigail grow.

Not what I was looking for!!

So my whole "set up to have a great day" post, didn't work out how I had hoped.

First I drop the girls off at Mimi's cause Nick was still golfing. I proceed with a little shopping, I wanted to find something to wear for "the girls night out". I was so convinced I would find something, I did NOT even pack clothes to wear that night. I went to Old Navy...nope nothing there that was flattering....then I went to Dillard's and shopped the bottom floor, only to find out it was the teen dept. (no wonder nothing fit, even in my size normally) so I then ask where the woman's dept was and a woman pointed up the escalator. My friend decides to look at shoes downstairs while I go on my last search. At this point it is getting late and we had our spa treatments I had reserved for us. I had little time to find something, and remember I didn't bring anything with me to wear as back-up. I start up the escalator....it is slow....so I decide to start walking up it, as I am doing so, I suppose at some point missed a step and fell flat on my face.....yes....going up the escalator I fell. How do you do that? Well I let out a small scream as I was falling and apparently attracted the attention of some employees and they proceeded to the top of the escalator to make sure I was alright. EMBARRASSING can we say. OK so once at the top, I go the opposite direction of the ladies who came to check on me, cause I wanted to get away as fast as I could. I finally find an outfit, very cute by the way and we leave.

OK so now were booking it to the spa, we can NOT find parking once there, we are driving all over. Once we do finally park and get inside (drenched in sweat from walking so far) I give them our names and tell them our appt time and they are searching the computers, then someone else comes and searches the computers. Then a manager comes out and tells me the person who booked our spa treatments is "new" and apparently never entered our appts in their systems, even though she took all my info, including my debit card. She then proceeds to tell me unfortunately they have no appts available for body treatments. I am about to cry at this point, I am so disappointed at how my day has gone thus far I just wanna throw in the towel and head back home. She then tells me how sorry she is, and this should never happen, blah, blah, blah. So a few min later of her searching the data, she tells me she does have room for 2 pedicures. Well after the spa we were going to go to another place and get pedicures anyway so we say what the heck, might as well. The manager tells me she is going to discount our service, and also future services for the inconvenience. So I am like, "wow what a way to handle it" very professional and they must want my business. We get our pedicures and they were nice, only a few differences from any other place you can go around the corner here. OK so we come out and I go to pay for both of ours (I was going to treat her to the massage so I figure I will just pay for the pedicure instead) and my total with the discount for 2 pedicures is.....are you ready for this.... $ 120.00. I was like what kind of a discount is that, I should have looked at the prices before I agreed to their pedicures :) While the massages would have been more than that, for a pedicure I was not prepared to pay that much, and on top of the discount for my inconvenience? I think they sold me a banana in the tail pipe. I walked away from there feeling very taken advantage of for some reason, what happened to businesses wanting your business and doing whatever they could to keep it. I Guess that is not how it is anymore.

I won't bore you with the rest of the evening, aside from my continued lack of grace, we had a great time. I swear if there is something to trip over, I am in the path of it.

Relaxation

I am set up to have a really wonderful day! At 3pm I have an appt for a massage at the spa, a friend of mine is coming down from GA to go with me. Before that I am hoping to get out and get some shopping done (for myself this time) and after the spa were going to a hotel to check in and then get some dinner and then have a fun girls night out. I am so excited. Nick is so awesome, wonderful, perfect, he is staying home to look after the girls, and has NO problems about me going, which just makes me feel better about leaving for the night. He is so caring and understanding and never gives me a hard time. I LOVE THAT MAN!!

Our house was so quiet last night, Abby was in return very quiet also, without Isabella here bringing life to the party. Every night when I ask Abby if she is ready for bed, she says "yeth...mommy weeewock" she wants me to rock her for a min. IS that not the cutest thing ever. When we rock I ask her questions about where body parts are (cause that's the one part of the day I have 100% of her attention) and she points to them and giggles. Tonight I said I love you Abby and she said "Yove ewww" then she went on to say who she loved, and named everyone in our family. The first person she says she loves every night is "paw paw" I think it is sweet. It is 9:02 am and she is still asleep, I think I may need to check on her now :)

Tight Squeezes

Abigail grows in front of my very eyes, we never have a dull moment with her! She is such a little cuddle bug! She usually will give you a hug and sloppily wrap her arms around you, not tight, no rhyme or reason to how she hugs, she just hold her arms out and throws them where they land. Today I asked for a hug and she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and squeezed me ever so tightly and stayed there for a second, then she steps back and puts both of her hands on each of my cheeks and kisses me. I am melting today.

Isabella is gone with Meemaw doing some school shopping for Gabriel, and it is so quiet here without her. I have gotten alot of things done, like laundry folded and put away, floors swept, and my bedroom is free of one single toy, magazine, notebook...all the things she trails along with her. Of course my next task is to hunt down all her shoes and put trackers on them (kidding of course) but she loses shoes like nobody's business, and she has far more pairs than I. I keep wanting to call out for her to help me do something, or just to ask for tight squeezes too. I think she is spending the night at my moms and I may surprise her with a new big girl room (since she is starting kindergarten) I have all the decorations that I bought a while back in my closet and since she no longer likes Disneys princesses, we are far due for an update. Maybe a trip to Home Depot is in store for us today for some paints Bella picked out last week.
I just have to post this one, Isabella did a lip synching contest a few weeks ago and this girl had no stage fright, she went out there and twirled and dance and sang with the best of them. Of course there were many older girls there also and she was never discouraged or shy. I was very proud of her.

Some Thoughts!

The girls had a dentist appt. today, both of them. I was dreading going for fear of them both freaking out. Isabella was called back first, and Abigail cried out for her sister "Bewwa". First let me say that Isabella fell in the bathtub back in 2005 and knocked out (or I should say rearranged her teeth to face backwards) her 3 front teeth and managed to damage her permanent ones in the process. We rushed her to the dentist where they did surgery and removed the yucky ones. While we were waiting we sat on the floor in the children's play room at the dentist office. I remember feeling like that room was so huge, my pain and guilt for that happening was on my mind and wondering how my little Bella was faring back there in that room. Well when we went today Abigail and I were in that very same playroom and it was so tiny. I guess I was feeling very small and vulnerable at the moment of Isabella's accident that the world around me felt huge. Today's visit was nothing like that one and the room was so very small. Funny how your perception of things is different when facing opposite situations. We got a clean bill of health for both girls no cavities..yeah! Isabella's "pito partial" is doing well and we are expecting for it to be removed around the age of 7 or 8. I had no idea kids don't get their permanent teeth till then. When her perm. teeth come down we will see the exact extent of the damage of those.

This is Isabella and her dentist right after she got her "fake" teeth put in last year.

It has been a relaxing few days, we have lounged by the pool, played games, made puzzles. A few errands here and there.

We are just taking it easy and trying to prepare Isabella for school (me too). I am really dreading losing her for 6 hours a day. Of course I know she has to go and it will be easier on her than me, but still I can't help but to feel anxious, nervous. Like will she be able to defend herself? Will she listen and obey? Will she be scared and want me all day (probably more me than her but still)? I will miss her voice surrounding me ALL DAY. I mean this girl is a chatterbox, she will talk about anything and everything. I will miss those slow rising mornings, you know the ones where you can still lay in bed but be awake and snuggle and talk when she comes in ready and roaring for the day. I know it will be a huge adjustment for me, and it will be for her also. She has never gone to daycare, babysitters, nothing. She is in for it real soon. Surprisingly she is really excited about the prospect of new friends, and bigger birthday parties, playing, PE, cafeteria. I am not sure she quite understands she is going to be very structured here. I know we will get through it, we always do! :)

Inspired

I have been inspired to start a Blog. I am certainly not the best with words but will try.
I have been inspired by a sweet little angel named Hannah. Funny how someone you never met could have such an impact on your day to day life. She made me realize how short life is and to live every moment exploring, and loving everything you see and touch. Her life was cut short and yet she is living through so many people, her life had so much meaning, such an inspiration that little fancy Hannah. Things that used to matter so much to me seem so silly now to even worry about. Every day I have with my kids is another day of memories, love, smiles, giggles and just breathing them in. Playing dress-up to go to the store (which Isabella tries to do all the time) is no longer a big deal, I mean who cares what she is wearing to do a little shopping right?
I will post some pics when I figure out how to do that.

This is Isabella who is 5 years 8 months old, my sunshine!

This is Abigail who is 2 and my girl of few words.