Merry Christmas

Santa was very good to our family. We finished our gift opening and now we are enjoying the company of family while we cook our cajun Christmas dinner. YUM fried turkey, pork stew, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, peas and cheese. Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas, from our family.

Fa la la la la..... la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Bye Bye Binky (for real this time)

I waited to post this until it was for sure. It's been a week since Preston bit a hole in his beloved binky so I told him we had to throw it away. He gave it a kiss, said bye bye and put it in the trash. I admit I did tear up a little. I mean he has been best friends with binky since birth. Binky made many appearances in the first year but once Preston was a year old we only let him have it at bedtime. Preston knew when he got out of bed Binky had to stay behind. He always perched him up on the rail of the crib by the wall to wait until it was time to sleep again. Binky was a world traveller, always going on the airplane with his bff. Just recently when we went to Florida Preston was holding Binky up to the window and saying "you see it, Binky, you see the airplane" Seriously the cutest thing ever. The Binky Preston had, well we had 3, the duck, the horse and the dog. We just cute the pacifier off and now he has Binky dog.

As we leave tomorrow for our flight I hope Preston is happy with just the dog.

So long Binky we will miss you!

Home for the Holidays!!!!

I literally took the suitcases out this morning. This week has been so busy. With us doing our Christmas last Sunday, then me trying to finish up some last minute gifts before leaving. Me and the twins will actually be staying in Texas until Jan. 16th. I am attending a retreat for CCMand hosting a baby shower for my friend Jenn, who is pregnant with boy/girl twins. So instead of flying back I figured it would be best to just extend this trip and do it all while I was there. Of course this also means I have to be fully prepared for the shower, retreat, Christmas, and New Year's. I think I am all done now and completely packed. I finished the last load of clothes, zipped the last suitcase but now what's for dinner. I guess this is a night we will order in.

Even though it's been busy I love that I can take the kids outside to enjoy the snow. It doesn't take as long this year to get them bundled up and they love going outside. Once we get done putting on socks, boots, gloves, snow pants, jackets and hats it's time to head out. Here is a cute video I took yesterday and a few pictures of our snow man.

Silent Sunday!

Toddler times

When we decided to remove the front part of the twins cribs I had no idea what I was getting my self into. Bedtime has been great but until yesterday nap time was laugh, cry, remove diaper, take off clothes and play time. Well this momma wised up. I went up to their room for the 10th time put back on their diapers, dressed them again except this time I put tape on their diapers and put their zip up pj's on backwards and moved Lily to the guest bedroom. She can not climb out of a pack and play so this worked VERY WELL! With the tape, backwards pj's and no one to play with they slept for 2 1/2 hours!!!

Here are a few random pictures for you:

Christmas traditions

We don't have alot of Christmas traditions as far as gifts. We do wear Christmas pajamas to open our presents on Christmas day, watch The Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation about a hundred times during the holidays and buy an ornament for each kids every year. I would love to start a new tradition since Preston and Lily are young enough and Ashley is old enough. The tradition is involving gifts. Every year I take a look around and think these kids have way too much. I can remember growing up there were years we had alot and a few years we had very little and I mean like 1 gift that my parents had to scrap money together to buy. Now that Ashley is older she is at the age where if she asks for something, within reason, she gets it. She is a good kid her grades are good, she does things around the house and helps with the kids. There isn't anything she needs. Preston and Lily are the same way. For all my kids before summer we get a few summer outfits before winter we get snow suits, jackets and the necessities. Then Christmas comes around and I am completely stumped. What in the world do I buy this year. I saw somewhere online a tradition that a family has started that I absolutely love.

4 gifts only:
Something they Want, Something they Need, Something to Wear, Something to Read

That pretty much narrows the gift giving down. I would love to try this next year. I have also wanted to adopt a family through maybe a women's shelter or something. Hopefully by doing this my kids will be able to see the reason for the season is not an over abundant amount of gifts. I love hearing about traditions that families share. What are yours?

Toddler beds

Since we got back from Florida Preston and Lily have been climbing out of their cribs. It's been mostly at nap time I think because it's more light in their room. At night they can't see a thing in there. So all week it's been a fight trying to get them to stay in their cribs long enough to fall alseep. I have been paranoid about them climbing out and getting stuck and hurting themselves. So Aaron and I decided today we would take the front off the crib and make it more of a day bed. We stuck to our same bedtime routine of bath, book, bed then tucked them in and said goodnight. We first heard the door open, laughter, then crying. I think they just thought we were going to give them free reign on the whole house. We put a gate up at their door and when they saw that they started yelling "mommy" I went upstairs put them back in the bed without saying a word (just like Supernanny says) and came back downstairs. Repeat about 6 times but then ........... 45 mins later they were sleeping. Really that's it, it was so easy *knock on wood*. Now I face the challenge of naps. One of my friends told me they may be done with naps *hold on while I scream* What do you mean done with naps? I have lots to do during the 2 hours that they sleep, don't theses kids know it's Christmas and we leave for Texas in 2 weeks?! ?! Oh god if they are done with naps it's going to be a looooooong winter.

If I sound like I have no idea what I am doing it's because I don't. I should mention that Ashley didn't come out of her crib until she was almost 3 and by then she pretty much knew what stay in your bed means. People say the first year is the hardest they obviously don't remember 2.

Trust me I will keep you up to date on the toddler bed transition. Any advice on this transition is greatly appreciated and needed.

It's taken me long enough!

We have been home from Disney for almost a week and not one single post. It's been a rough week. As soon as we got home I kicked it into Christmas gear. I spend the day Monday shopping online. I love that I can shop online and ship the gifts to the recipients. Makes traveling and shopping so much easier. Now getting the gifts home from the states to Canada is a whole other process. Then there was the house that needed to be cleaned, the laundry that needed to be done and oh about 1300 pictures that needed to be uploaded and gone through. So here I am finally ready to tell you all about Disney. It really is a magical place. There is not a detail that the folks at Disney have left out. If you can dream it they provide it. We had a lot of fun and felt like everyone at Disney really loved being there and loved their jobs. Not to mention the food at every place we ate was amazing. Special thanks to my sister and her husband for allowing us to tag along on their yearly Disney trip. We will have to do it again. We visited all 4 parks, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Our favorite was Magic Kingdom. I love that all the parks had rides and entertainment for all ages. Preston and Lily were able to ride most of the rides that included shows like Haunted Mansion &Pirates of the Caribbean. They were even brave enough to ride on Tomorrowland Speedway, Dumbo and the Dinosaurs in Animal Kingdom. We didn't really have much of a plan to our day we just went on the morning then came back to let the kids rest for a few hours before heading back out. We did stay late on night at Magic Kingdom to catch the fireworks. It was worth it the lights, the music, the fireworks were amazing. It was an awesome way to spend my birthday! And now for some pictures. I will put some up here but if you click on the link you will be able to see all of them.

Disney World 2009 Pictures

Notice Preston quickly moving out of Eeyore's way!

Is it me or does Lily look older here?

Florida {picture overload}

Some of you may know we are on vacation in Florida, which is the reason for my absence. It was pretty stressful the week before not knowing if Aaron was going to be able to go with us. He has a huge project at work that started the day before we were leaving. He decided to stay behind in Newfoundland and meet us in Disney on Wednesday. It gave him enough time to get the project started and to a point he felt comfortable leaving. So Ashley, Preston, Lily and I arrived on Saturday. We stayed at Floridays Resort outside of Disney since we didn't actually go to Disney until my sister and her family got in on Tuesday. As soon as we stepped foot off the plane we were driving all over Orlando. We rented a car and drove to Wal Mart, hotel to check in, then to Olive Garden for dinner. The kids did well on the flight especially Lily since she didn't sleep at all on any flights. She did fall fast asleep as soon as we got in the car though. I guess she was afraid she might miss something. We went shopping at the outlet malls on Sunday and got some Christmas stuff. I say malls because Orlando has 2 huge outlet malls. Monday morning we woke up bright and early because we had a date with a big black and white whale named Shamu. We had such a good time at Sea World. Ashley rode a BIG roller coaster called Manta. The riders lay on their stomachs and it's supposed to simulate gliding through the water like a manta ray. Ashley had fun and mentioned she thought she was going to throw up because she was so nervous waiting in line. I stayed behind with the babies and watched the sea turtles. It was her first time on a big roller coaster and she did it solo. If you are ever at a theme park with 2 toddlers or 1 for that matter I would highly recommend a kid leash. I always said I would never put my kid on a leash until I had twins. It was so nice to be able to let them out of the stroller to walk or run and burn some energy while not worrying about where they are disappearing to. Most of the time we held onto their hands and just used the "tail" as we call it as a back up. Tuesday we drove about an hour to Cocoa Beach. After being in St John's weather we were in for some sun and sand. It was so nice to see the water and relax by the ocean. Even if the relaxing was short lived. Preston and Lily were all over the place. Preston has no fear, he was running into the ocean and laughing when the force of the water swept him off his feet. Lily would just put her feet in and would scream bloody murder if she fell down. It is so funny she has no fear when it comes to animals but is terrified of the ocean. She was the same way when we went to the pool. She would get in up to right above her ankles then get out. Ashley managed to get some boogie boarding in. She went over to the Ron Jon surf shop and bought a board and attempted to ride the waves. She did well and I even got some pictures in between soothing Lily and making sure Preston didn't get swept out to sea.

Tuesday afternoon we drove back to Orlando and met up with my sister, her husband and their daughter. We moved over tot he Animal Kingdom lodge where we will remain for the rest of our trip. Aaron got in safe and sound on Wednesday and we have been going ever since. Stay tuned for all the Disney fun!!!!

Ashley is 2nd from the left. I took this picture from under the roller coaster.

The cutest sleeping seal ever!

Silly hat we all tried on.

Preston was the only one who wanted to play in the water!