Something I’m thinking: I decided that I am going to do Cullen’s letter at the 4-month interval this time…mostly because it’s only about a week away from 4-months and I still haven’t finished the letter. I’m sure he won’t mind getting letters every 4 months between ages 2 and 3.

Something I’m reading: I’m still reading Prophet’s Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints, but I didn’t read as much as I would have liked this week.

Something Gabe is reading: I don’t think he’s doing much reading. He’s glued to his iPad.

Something I’m watching: We rented Captain America and managed to see The Avengers at the theater last night (yay, what a great end to a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend). I’m glad we saw Captain America before The Avengers (though I would have enjoyed it regardless). I saw Wicked at DPAC. This was my first time seeing this musical, and it was my first time experiencing DPAC. I loved the experience!!!

Something I’m playing: We’re still playing a lot of Mystery Manor on the iPad. Maddie is still playing a lot of Hisssss and Kids of Carcassonne with us. We played Stone Age with my parents this weekend.

Something I’m creating: I haven’t been very creative this week. I helped Maddie create thank you notes to her teachers for teacher appreciation week. She did a beautiful job with them. She decided what she wanted to write in each one, and I dictated how to spell everything for her. She decided how to decorate them. I’m so proud of her.

Something about both kiddos: Both kids had dental appointments this week. They did great, and the hygienists gave us kudos for doing a good job with their teeth. We know we can do better, so I give kudos to their spacing or diet or whatever. Little Einsteins is definitely their favorite show. Surprisingly, they both love it. They can also both sing the theme song and correct us when we sing it incorrectly. Both kids were apprehensive about Abby the dog at the start of our visit with my parents. By the end of our visit, they were giving her hugs and pats and not objecting to Abby’s generous doggie kisses. The kids had a great time at Discovery Place!

Something Maddie is doing (50 months old): Maddie’s “security blanket” was her belly button for a long time, but we thought she stopped doing it. She has recently rediscovered her belly button. She does it when she is nervous or unsure about something. I have to often tell her to put her shirt down. At Discovery Place this weekend, we saw a show about things that glow that made heavy use of a black light. I was impressed that Maddie actually raised her hand and answered questions. She speculated on whether something would glow or not, and she answered questions like, “what else produces light?” (her answer was “a flashlight”). Maddie definitely takes after me when it comes to breakfast. It’s her favorite meal, and she can eat quite a bit of it! We were impressed by the giant pancake that she had for breakfast on Sunday morning.

Something Cullen is doing (27 months old): Cullen was a great patient for his first dental appointment, though we were glad that the first one is a short appointment! He was ready to be done. The dentist noticed that he was starting to form a crossbite, and that this may be due to his pacifier use. The dentist suggested the paci fairy. Cullen gathered all of his pacis that night, excitedly handing them over with the promise of toys that the paci fairy would bring. Fortunately, the paci fairy had something in reserve that she could bring on short notice. Cullen ditched his pacis and is now the proud owner of horse figures from one of those animal tubes. He was excited, and he hasn’t had any trouble going to bed. The trouble comes in the middle of the night when he can’t get himself back to sleep. He has not asked for the paci since he kicked the habit. It’s been about a week now, and he is still waking in the middle of the night screaming for us. He makes the usual requests like asking us to cover him or sing him songs. He’s very difficult to soothe. If I come to cover him, he asks for Daddy. If Daddy covers him, he’ll cry because his feet aren’t covered. He wants us to sing him songs. And sometimes he just asks for random things, like one night he wanted a straw and one night it was chocolate. I’m not sure where those came from! Since we were all sharing a room at my parents’ house, his screaming kept us all awake on Friday and Saturday. He continues to make progress with potty training. He’s asking to go to the potty more often (versus prompting from us at regular intervals). He’s having less accidents. We even had a few days this week that were 100% accident free! He’s finally pooping in the potty more often than not. He continues to learn new songs and can sing most of the words to many songs now. Tonight at bedtime, he wanted to sing “Red & White” together over and over (Go State!). I love watching Cullen watch Little Einsteins! He interacts with the show and does all the things that they ask and answers their questions. It’s adorable.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I saw Wicked! It just might be my favorite musical ever. Elphaba was phenomenal. I’m tempted to see it again before the tour leaves DPAC. I think that Gabe would enjoy it!

Something I learned: The “real” story of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Something I’m looking forward to: The company festival, a planned lunch with a friend, and a cookout with friends.

Something captured: The one “thing” that I want most each Mother’s Day is a photo of me with my awesome kiddos.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that I’m hoping: I hope we’ll get to see The Avengers soon!

Something happening around the house: As usual, the cleaners were here on Thursday, but you wouldn’t know it now.

Something I’m reading: I finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for this month’s book club. I’m looking forward to seeing what others thought of it. I’m also interested in seeing what the movie is like. I started reading Prophet’s Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints since I’m curious to learn more about FDLS after reading Escape.

Something Gabe is reading: Technically, he’s still reading Feed, but he’s been playing iPad games instead of reading lately!

Something I’m watching: We’re watching the finale of The Amazing Race. It’s one of those seasons where I feel more strongly about who I do NOT want to win versus who I want to win. The kids have also branched out with their shows lately. They still love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. They have recently started watching Little Einsteins, Doc McStuffins and Handy Manny. Little Einsteins is my favorite of their shows right now.

Something I’m playing: Mystery Manor on the iPad, Kids of Carcassonne with Maddie, and Moods with the neighbors last night.

Something I’m creating: I sorted through the Disney photos this week. I’ll have to write up some posts when I get a chance. I worked a little on Cullen’s letter.

Something tasty: Fresh farmer’s market strawberries. YUMMY! I love local produce.

Something about both kiddos: We’ve been enjoying walks around the neighborhood and this week met up with friends a couple times. Maddie and Cullen were wondering where their friends were tonight! I love seeing them have a good time with other kids. We have been taking them to the soccer field next to our neighborhood to run off their energy before bedtime.

Something Maddie is doing (50 months old): Maddie and I did a sugar sculpting class where we played with fondant and created a teddy bear on a cookie with various colorful shapes. We both had fun! I think Maddie was more interested in eating the cupcake and cookie when we got home. Maddie has mixed results with her quiet time. She hasn’t napped at home in ages (two years? longer?), but we enforce at least a little bit of quiet time for her during Cullen’s nap. We tell her “you can come out when your clock starts with 3″ (or whatever time is appropriate). Sometimes she does really well and other times she comes out every 5 minutes and whines that it’s “NEVER GOING TO START WITH A 3….WAAAAAH!” She still loves playing games every night, but we are working on her sportsmanship. Like most 4 year olds, she doesn’t like to lose. Tonight, she was especially tired and threw a giant fit when I won in Carcassonne.

Something Cullen is doing (27 months old): Cullen had some progress with potty training this week. He even had a couple of accident free days at school! He pooped on the potty a few times, too, which is also progress. We have a little ways to go, but he’s getting there. His teachers have been very encouraging. Cullen took two super long naps recently. He did nap both days this weekend, and we are thankful for that! Cullen continues to do a lot of singing and can sing most of the words to quite a few songs now. He especially likes to sing in the car when Gabe and I are trying to talk. Ha!

Something I am struggling with: I had another upper respiratory infection this week. Fun.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’ve been thinking a lot about our Disney trip in the fall! We booked our plane tickets and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets. It’s going to be awesome.

Something I learned: Farmer’s market strawberries are even better than the produce box strawberries. YUM!

Something I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to seeing my parents at the end of the week. And I’ve been looking forward to seeing Wicked for as long as I knew that it was a Broadway show! I can’t wait! Maddie’s classroom has a Mother’s Day event, and both kids have dental appointments tomorrow (Cullen’s first ever).

Something captured: I love these kiddos more than I can possibly put into words.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Day 0, part 1 – getting to Fort Lauderdale
Day 0, part 2 – Fort Lauderdale

Day 1, part 1 – getting to the ship
Day 1, part 2 – settling into our cabins
Day 1, part 3 – exploring the ship
Day 1, part 4 – departing Ft. Lauderdale
Day 1, part 5 – evening activities

Day 2, part 1 – arriving in Nassau
Day 2, part 2 – starting the walking tour in Nassau
Day 2, part 3 – ending the walking tour in Nassau
Day 2, part 4 – departing Nassau
Day 2, part 5 – evening on the ship

Day 3, part 1 – at sea
Day 3, part 2 – at sea

Day 4 – St. Thomas

Day 5 – St. Maarten

Day 6 – at sea

Day 7, part 1 – at sea
Day 7, part 2 – Operation Set Foot

As I mentioned in the last trip report, I spent my final hours of the last day on the cruise ship with “Operation Set Foot.” We couldn’t believe all the places on the ship that we had not yet experienced, so we made a goal to “set foot” in as many of them as we possibly could (since our tour started after 11pm, many shops and some restaurants were already closed for the trip).

We started in The Royal Promenade on Deck 5 where we walked into Regalia, The Champagne Bar, and Bolero. Melissa and Jason also “set foot” in The Cupcake Shoppe. We had spent a lot of time on this deck, so many of the places had already been explored. We set foot in Bow and Stern. Previously explored by all of us was On Air Club, Starbucks, The Shop/Solera/Port Merchants, Cafe Promeade, Guest Services, Sorrentos, Adagio Dining Room, and the AquaTheater. We returned later in the tour to catch the Rising Tide Bar. The two shops Guess and Willow were already closed (we caught the fancy Regalia jewelry shop as they were closing, glanced at some diamonds in a case, and walked back out).

We decided to be systemmatic about our operation, so we headed to the lowest deck with public areas, Deck 3. We had already been in the Theater and Center Ice Rink/Studio B. We had obviously been in the main dining room. Melissa had not set foot in the Conference Center, so we headed there. This is where Jason, Gabe, and I had played live poker.

Next was Deck 4 where many clubs are located. All of us had been to the Theater, Comedy Live, Studio B, Hall of Odds, Casino (including the secret spiral stairs), and the dining room. We sat down in the fancy jazz club, Jazz on 4. All of us agreed it would have been a nice place to hang out and listen to the music. I liked the fancy chairs. We also went into Blaze where we were carded with our keys on the way into the club. We felt very out of place here! Most of the areas by now were sparsely populated as the cruise was winding down. Still a few people were left in the dance club.

We headed back to Deck 5 where we went by the Vitality at Sea Spa and walked a portion of the jogging track. We were amused by the motivational signs along the track. We then found ourselves behind the AquaTheater where we discovered The Shuffleboard Court! Every cruise has one, and this was the first time that we had seen it. Too late! We also took a look at the Rock Climbing Wall.

The next mission was to ride The Rising Tides Bar. Melissa and Jason had already had a drink on the bar, but I hadn’t yet taken a ride. First, we had to find the bar. We checked to see if it was at The Royal Promenade on Deck 5, and it was! So, we rode the bar up to Central Park on Deck 8 and each had a drink. I was glad to get the chance to ride the UFO, finally…

Now we were on Deck 8 in Central Park where almost everything was closed. We managed to set foot into Giovanni’s Table and Vintages. We had already been to the Park Cafe. We never set foot in Chops Grille or 150 Central Park. We had been by the Trellis Bar. The Coach, Britto Gallery, and Picture This were closed and remained unexplored by any of us. We had been in Dazzles earlier in the cruise.

Deck 9 only had Dazzles, and we had already explored both levels of that one. Deck 10 only has suites and staterooms. We made our way to Deck 11 where we set foot in the Library for the first time. Jason put a finger under the door of the closed Concierge Lounge. I guess none of us “set foot” in there, but Jason managed to “set finger” in that one. Deck 12 is more staterooms, and Deck 13 doesn’t technically exist. Deck 14 was next where we set foot in the Card Room. This is the same sort of place that Gabe and I spent more time in on our first cruise, but we didn’t even seek it out this time. That’s one of the big differences between cruising by ourselves and cruising with kids, family, and friends! We had already explored the Kid’s Avenue area with the Adventure Ocean things, though we didn’t see every room.

Before we left Deck 11 to continue to the higher decks, I showed Melissa and Jason the “secret balcony” from Deck 11, on the other side of the one where we watched the Belly Flop competition. It’s a very neat view of the AquaTheater, and everyone in our party who has experienced it has had it almost to themselves every time. It’s a neat place to watch something like the Belly Flop competition! The AquaTheater is pretty at night with all the lights.

We had another great view of the AquaTheater and the Boardwalk from the upper decks.

On Deck 17, we found the chapel, some fancy little lounge areas, and the cigar bar (which is for suite guests only most of the time) called the Suite Sun Zone. That one isn’t on the map (I think it was on Deck 17?). We set foot in the Viking Crown Lounge.

Next we explored areas of Deck 16 that we had not previously seen and even set foot into one of the teen-only areas. We walked into the arcade. We walked through the ping pong table “cage” where some people were playing, and I made a freethrow on the basketball court. By now, most of this deck was deserted.

We walked through the Solarium and found one of the cantilevered jacuzzis. I’m sure the view is more interesting during the day!

After all this, we decided to close the day at Sorrentos where I built my first custom pizza. They have an interesting toppings bar where you can request whatever you want. I chose ham, capers, corn, and cashews. I’m not sure that that combination would ever be a big seller, but I thought it was great! That was the first time that I can remember having cashews, corn, or capers on a pizza. I’d definitely have that combination again! YUM!

We ended around 2am for a few hours of sleep before departing the ship and heading home. What a great way to end a wonderful cruise! I just wish that Gabe could have joined us on the tour. Maybe we can arrange that next time!

Something I’m thinking: Should I wake him? We’re not used to waking kids up in this household…but it is dinnertime. I’ve always held the belief that sleeping kids need to sleep (at this age), and our kids have always been such terrible sleepers and early risers that waking them has been unnecessary. I ended up waking him after 6pm!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that he goes to bed smoothly tonight. I think an after dinner walk is in order this evening! His bedtime routine was fairly normal, but we did it a little later than usual since he slept so late.

Something I’m reading: I decided that I needed to start Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is May’s book club selection. I’m in one of those phases where I don’t feel like I’m reading enough to be able to read much more than book club selections. Also, June’s book is a long one: 11/22/63. I expect I’ll need some extra time for that!

Something Gabe is reading: I don’t think he read much this week either. He’s still on Feed.

Something I’m watching: Some of our shows are wrapping up for the season. It doesn’t seem like it is time for that, but I guess it is almost May now.

Something I’m playing: Mystery Manor on the iPad. We also played Mario Party 8 on the Wii for the first time in a while with friends on Friday. We’ve been playing Candyland, Hiss, and Kids of Carcassonne this week with the kids.

Something I’m creating: I’m trying to get through photos from Disney (and I’m still not done with the cruise ones). I hope to be creating blog posts soon and then photobooks, but I don’t seem to be able to find the time to do it all. I’m very behind on my photos this year. I’ve uploaded very few photos from 2012 so far. I think my mental block is not having the cruise photos from December finished. It continues to be a daunting task. I try to do something photo related every night, but lately I haven’t had enough energy to accomplish much.

Something tasty: We have been eating tons of fresh, local, organic STRAWBERRIES! We received 6 quarts on Thursday afternoon and have almost finished the last quart. We have had plain strawberries, strawberries in cereal, strawberry pancakes, strawberry cheesecake with strawberry sauce, strawberry-banana-chocolate milk shakes, and strawberries sprinkled with a small amount of powdered sugar.

Something about both kiddos: The kids absolutely love the Mr. Potato Head stuff that I got them from Disney! I filled two boxes with specialized Disney pieces like Minnie bows, Mickey feet, Mickey shaped snacks, Buzz Lightyear pieces, etc. They have been playing with the Mr. Potato Heads quite a bit!!! Somehow, the Little People sets have made a comeback this week as well.

Something Maddie is doing (50 months old): She still loves her daily board games before bed. Her favorites these days are Hiss and Kids of Carcassonne. She still says, “Bagels!” every time that she sees a piece with her color. When a piece doesn’t have her color, she says, “Awww, man!” She’s a competitive little thing. We’re still working on her attitude when she loses (though sometimes she takes it well) as well as her attitude when she wins. She’s a gloater. She’s getting more and more into the legos and can follow the instructions to build different models by herself. She’s been working more on her phonics at school as well as her world map. Of course, when I ask her which continent that she has been pin punching, she’ll say things like, “the pink one!” This week, she was able to tell me that she was working on Antarctica.

Something Cullen is doing (27 months old): As I suspected, he’s teething. He’s getting at least 2 of his 2-year-old molars. He’s always been a bad teether, so maybe that’s part of the reason that he’s had some potty regressions lately? I don’t know. He has had a day or two this week where he had zero accidents, though he hasn’t made it a full day this week without an accident. He did fairly well today with only accidents at naptime. Considering he took a 3.5+ hour nap, I think that is to be expected. He loves singing songs. He sings songs in the car quite a bit, and his favorites to sing are the ABC song (he can sing the whole alphabet now), Jingle Bells, and the Pufferbellies song. His current bedtime routine consists of a few stories and songs followed by numerous requests to go to the potty or be covered again or whatever else he can dream up that will delay his bedtime. His favorite songs that he requests us to sing are the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Wheels on the Bus, and Hush Little Baby. Sometimes Maddie sings his bedtime songs, and she usually picks Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song.

Something I am struggling with: I feel like I’m drowning in photos!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I forgot to mention that I finished my thank you notes for the MS Walk, I think. A few donations may have slipped through the cracks as I learned that the system isn’t complete. I wasn’t able to look up the donations to the team (nor do I even know how those were made).

Something I learned: I didn’t realize until yesterday that I’m already over a week late on Cullen’s letter. It wasn’t on my radar to do that yet. I will be working on that this week, I’m sure.

Something I’m looking forward to: We don’t have too many plans on the calendar this week. Lunch with a friend, dinner and games with friends, and a poker game for Gabe.

Something captured: I crammed 2 small boxes with all of these potato head pieces. Each box was only $20. I’d say that I got my money’s worth, especially considering how much the kids enjoy them!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m hoping: I hope that I will write up some of these things soon, but I know it might take me a while to sort through the photos. I don’t have a good track record these days.

Something I’m thinking: I didn’t expect to, but I’m thinking about buying the PhotoPass photos. We were photographed quite a bit on the last two days.

Something happening around the house: Mommy was missing for half the week.

Something I’m reading: I didn’t get to read much this week, but I did manage to finish Escape just in time for this week’s book club.

Something Gabe is reading: I don’t think he read any this week, but he’s still reading Feed.

Something I’m watching: Shows at Disney World!

Something I’m playing: Mystery Manor on the iPad.

Something I’m creating: Um. I’m thinking about creating photobooks, does that count?

Something tasty: It’s hard for me to decide which meal was my favorite at Disney World. It was definitely either Le Cellier or Les Chefs de France.

Something about both kiddos: They survived their first overnights without me (and Gabe survived it, too). I think it helped that I brought back presents. Maddie didn’t seem to miss me too much. She just wondered how many presents I brought back for her. Cullen missed me but apparently expressed it by entering “the terrible twos” and regressing on potty training.

Something Maddie is doing (50 months old): While I was gone, Maddie was into making books by binding pages together with a glue stick and making titles and gluing those to the front. I also got her a couple small lego sets for Gabe to give to her while I was gone. She is getting into the legos and is getting pretty good at assembling them all by herself. She follows the booklets and seems to want to get them exactly like the picture on the box. I think she takes after me when it comes to that. She’s been doing really well with watching the clock in the mornings and waiting until 7am to come out of her room. The last week or so, she has gotten herself dressed before coming downstairs.

Something Cullen is doing (27 months old): He practiced testing his boundaries and Gabe’s patience while I was gone. He’s suddenly quite defiant and has regressed on his potty training. Since I left, he has had many accidents. He seemed to be a bit better yesterday, but then today he had many accidents again. I’m hoping that it was related to my absence, and things will improve when he realizes I’m not going anywhere. I need to check his mouth and see if maybe he’s getting teeth. He’s probably due for his “2-year old molars” any time now. He has been wanting to play games more and played Candyland while I was gone. I think he’s going to be quicker to pick up games than Maddie was (she’s doing great now). Cullen didn’t take any naps this weekend. He has been having quiet time in his room, so I’m not complaining too much.

Something I am struggling with: Well, I tripped on a curb and fell on Disney property on Saturday. So, I guess you can say that I struggled with walking. By the end of the weekend, I had a really hard time walking likely due to some of the injuries of my fall. It was quite a fall. Disney took good care of me, though! I’m still bruised and scraped.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We booked reservations for character meals for our October Disney trip! I might need to take a look at the schedule now that I had my trip. I have some new thoughts on things we might want to do (and I think we’ll want more rests than the preliminary schedule allows).

Something I learned: So many things about DISNEY! Also, watch out for the curb.

Something I’m looking forward to: Book club and dinner and games with friends.

Something random: Audrey and I both sometimes do pre-trip fashion shows for our significant others (when deciding what to pack). I thought I was the only one who did that.

Something captured: We met some famous movie stars at Hollywood Studios.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking I should start packing for my trip.

Something I’m hoping: I hope that the kids will be perfect angels for Gabe while I’m away.

Something happening around the house: We had a great turnout for games night on Saturday. I’m glad the weather was nice so the little kids could spend some time outside. It seems a little less crazy when we can spread out a bit.

Something I’m reading: I’ve been reading more of my friend’s book and Escape for next week’s book club.

Something Gabe is reading: He hasn’t been reading much, but he has been reading Feed.

Something I’m watching: It seems like the shows are already wrapping up. It seems too soon for season finales.

Something I’m playing: Maddie’s favorite games continue to be Hissss and Kids of Carcassonne. We played Last Will with friends on Friday (interesting idea). I also played Die Burgen von Burgund, Dragon Delta, Ra, and No Rules Pictionary.

Something I’m creating: Hmm…not much. I’m still sifting through photos from the cruise. I hoped to have that done before my trip, but I see now that that is not going to happen!

Something tasty: We had very tasty burgers at our friend’s house last night.

Something about both kiddos: Aside from the time that I spent in the hospital during Cullen’s birth and when he was in the hospital as a newborn with a fever, this week will be the first time that I have been away from the kids overnight. The kids don’t seem to mind as they know I’m bringing presents back from Disney for them (and know that I’m telling Mickey that we’ll all be there later this year!).

Something Maddie is doing (49 months old): We were so proud of her at bike day last week! She rode her balance bike this time, and she coasted as much as she could. She did awesome! I’m starting to think we really will be able to go straight from the balance bike to a regular bike without training wheels. We will have to be sure to get her lots of practice.

Something Cullen is doing (26 months old): His potty training is going mostly well. He has had multiple days in a row with no wet accidents, but we’ve had very few successes when it comes to poop. I resorted to chocolate yesterday for the first time, and we had our first 100% success. I didn’t want to do the reward thing at all, but after two weeks of poop in the pants, I thought maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. He’s still wearing a diaper at night, though he has been calling us in the middle of the night to pee. He has been waking up dry most nights as well. He seems to be in a rebellious phase. He’s not often motivated by taking away privileges. When he’s doing something I don’t want him to do and won’t stop when I tell him to stop, I’ll say something like, “do you want a special treat?” He’ll reply, “no!” and then that leaves me scrambling for my next tactic. Yep, he’s keeping me on my toes.

Something I am struggling with: Sleep. I stayed up too late too many nights this week. Speaking of, I should go to bed.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We’ve been planning our itinerary and meal reservations for our trip in the fall. Woohoo!

Something I’m looking forward to: My trip with my girlfriend…to DISNEY WORLD!

Something captured: Maddie coasting on the balance bike!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m thinking: People are nasty to each other on Amazing Race this season (and Survivor, for that matter)!

Something I’m hoping: We took two family walks today around the neighborhood and the greenway behind our house. I hope we will be able to do this many more times in the coming months!

Something happening around the house: Potty madness!

Something I’m reading: My friend’s book and a little Escape, this month’s book club selection.

Something Gabe is reading: Feed by Mira Grant.

Something I’m watching: We finally were able to see The Hunger Games with members of the book club and some hubbies. I loved it! I look forward to seeing what the rest of the movies will be like. We also picked up Hugo from Redbox. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but it was quite different from what I thought it was! I thought it was great.

Something I’m playing: Hisss, Pengaloo, and Kids of Carcassonne with Maddie. The kids have also been playing Zingo together. Gabe and I have been playing Draw Something and Mystery Manor on the iPads.

Something I’m creating: I’m still going through the photos from our cruise in December. I have over 2300 photos left, and at least half of them are still terrible. It’s a tedious process.

Something tasty: Reese’s Pieces eggs. It’s probably a good thing that Easter candy season is coming to a close.

Something not so tasty: I attempted to make gingerbread pancakes this morning. The flavor was not too bad, but the pancakes didn’t come out right. I’ll have to try some more recipes.

Something about both kiddos: We did some tissue paper crafts with the kids this weekend (from a kit). The kids also did some stamp marker art using their new stamp markers from the Easter Bunny.

Something Maddie is doing (49 months old): When Maddie is playing Kids of Carcassonne, she says, “Bagels!” every time one of her meeples show up on a piece. I have no idea why she decided to start doing that. She loves playing games (which makes me very happy!). The Easter Bunny brought her her very first “real” Legos (you know, the teeny kind). We had a great time putting together her first creation, a cafe from the new Lego Friends series marketed to girls. She was able to follow the diagrams pretty well and handled the tiny pieces, too. She needed a little help here and there, and I helped her with following the instructions. I’m so excited that she is starting to get into Legos! Given how easily she puts together 100-piece puzzles, I thought she might be ready for them! It will be a while before she puts together something that complicated by herself, but it was a great project for us to do together! I’m sure we will be putting together the cafe over and over.

Something Cullen is doing (26 months old): Cullen’s week was mostly about potty training. It is going pretty well with 3-5 accidents every day Monday through Friday. We asked him to go fairly often, and he often will pee when sitting him on the potty. I think that the poop training is going to take a bit longer. Today was the first day he didn’t have at least half an accident (on his first day, he realized he was doing it and asked to sit on the potty). He had a few smudges in his underwear a couple of times, but that was it. I consider that a huge success! Yesterday, he had NO wet accidents, and he let us know most of the times he needed to go. Also, he’s been asking to potty at bedtime (usually after I leave the room). I thought it was just a delaying tactic, but he’s actually needed to go every time. Today, the only accident he had at all was after nap. I think he had been awake longer than we knew, so we were just a little too late getting him to the potty after his long nap. By Friday, we were starting to wonder if we were making progress, but today we feel pretty good about it! I can’t believe that we’re finished with daytime diapers (and wonder how long it will be before we’re completely done with diapers!). Oh, and this weekend he started insisting on standing when peeing. I wasn’t ready for that, but he actually seems to do pretty well with it. They teach them at school to put the lid up and lean against the lid, helping them with the aim. That technique seems to be working pretty well.

Something I am struggling with: I am still recovering from the laryngitis that resulted from bronchitis more than a week and a half ago. My voice is mostly back now. I’ll see how well it is tomorrow morning when I try to sing with the kids on the way to work.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I desperately need to write my thank you notes from Walk MS. It’s daunting with over 30 people to thank, but I am very happy for the generosity!

Something I learned: Target is closed on Easter Sunday.

Something I’m looking forward to: Dinner and games with friends and games night. And my trip to Disney (the one without kids) isn’t this week, but it’s next week!!!!

Something captured: Hoppy Easter!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m thinking: Gabe and I have been playing too many iPad games.

Something I’m hoping: If I had written this on Sunday, I would have hoped that Kentucky would win the National Championship. Since it’s the day after their victory, I guess I already got what I hoped for!

Something happening around the house: The usual. Clutter, clutter, clutter.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Wise Man’s Fear, and now I’m reading a friend’s pre-published novel.

Something Gabe is reading: He’s still reading Feed.

Something I’m watching: Kentucky win their 8th National Championship. Woohoo! Go Cats!

Something I’m playing: Kids of Carcassonne, Pengaloo, Hissss, and Teddy Mix & Match with the kids. Mystery Manor, Trainyard, and Draw Something on the iPhone/iPad.

Something I’m creating: Lots of drawings in Draw Something.

Something tasty: Easter candy, the best type of candy in the whole year.

Something about both kiddos: Gabe came to get the kids when I went to book club this week, and he usually brings them by my building so I can give them kisses. They are so sweet! Maddie gave me “purple” kisses for the first time in a long while. And Cullen gave me some colored kisses of his own for the first time ever. His first kisses were yellow and green. I thought it was great that he came up with his own colors instead of just copying Maddie.

Something Maddie is doing (49 months old): Maddie is very excited about playing games these days. We play at least a game or two every night before she goes to bed (after Cullen goes to bed). She’s getting pretty good at the ones that she plays. She’s also very fast at her 100-piece jigsaw puzzles. She’s been practicing her writing but still doesn’t show much interest in learning to read. She knows all the sounds, but she doesn’t want to sit down and look at words together. She has been taking books and copying words out of them, so she definitely shows interest in related skills! She is still enjoying The Magic Treehouse series every night.

Something Cullen is doing (26 months old): Cullen’s teachers called me last Tuesday saying that Cullen wanted to ask me a question. He got on the phone and asked if he could wear underwear. We have been telling him that he can wear his Mickey Mouse underwear that we bought a while ago whenever he was ready to use the potty. I guess the other kids in the class are motivating him, because he decided that he was ready! We decided with Walk MS this weekend that we should wait until after the walk and start on Monday. We started yesterday, and he’s doing pretty well! He’s only had a handful of accidents each day. He will probably be wearing his nighttime diaper for a while longer (though you never know…Maddie insisted that she wear underwear at bedtime after only 10 days of potty training because she “wasn’t a baby anymore.” Hard to argue with that logic!). So, we are completely done with diapers during the day. It’s hard to believe. On that same phone call, I told Cullen I loved him when we said our bye byes, and he said he loved me, too. He’s a very loving boy. I can’t remember if I wrote this before, but he’s very good at identifying his colors (and has been for a while).

Something I am struggling with: A few things that I’m not writing about (hey, I don’t share everything here). And Easter candy, but that will be over soon enough.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We raised over $5,000 for the National MS Society (so far? technically the fundraising isn’t completely over). I am so proud of our team! I need to write my thank you notes soon. I have only written one so far, and that was for an early donation a couple of months ago. I better get on it.

Something I’m looking forward to: We’re going to see The Hunger Games tomorrow! I’m excited to finally see the movie. I have been waiting to see it with book club people (and some husbands). The kids are excited because one of Cullen’s teachers, Dana, is coming to babysit. They love Dana! I’m also looking forward to a visit from the Easter bunny!

Something captured: Go Cats!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m hoping: I hope Kentucky continues to win!

Something happening around the house: Ugh, this week our garage door seems to be fixed, but the washing machine is on its last legs. It broke earlier in the week and someone came out to fix it, but we aren’t expecting it to last much longer. We also had a ceiling fan on the fritz (which Gabe fixed) and a light fixture that is having some issues. It feels like everything is breaking at once!

Something I’m reading: I’m still reading The Wise Man’s Fear.

Something Gabe is reading: He’s still reading Feed.

Something I’m watching: More basketball…

Something I’m playing: We’ve been playing Pengaloo and Kids of Carcassonne every night with Maddie. I played King of Tokyo and Pangea at the game day yesterday. Most of the time, I played the supervise the kiddo game. Gabe and I are still playing Mystery Manor on the iPad.

Something I’m creating: I’m finally catching up on the trip reports from our cruise. Woohoo! I’m still way behind on photos in general.

Something tasty: I made these bird nests with the kids. Thank you, pinterest! YUM!

Something about both kiddos: They are playing together so well! This morning, they played together 2 or 3 hours with very few squabbles.

Something Maddie is doing (49 months old): Maddie spouts random “facts,” and we’re not always sure where she learned them. Some recent ones are: “big thunderstorms have tornadoes,” “female mosquitoes are the only ones who bite because they don’t like you messing with their babies,” and “why is it light and then dark and then light and then dark? Because the earth is rotating.” Cullen teases her relentlessly and knows just what to say to get under her skin. She lets it get to her. She reminds me of me when I was a kid and my sister would similarly try to get under my skin (like when she would say that she’s older because her birthday is in February and mine is September, since February comes first in the year). She can definitely count to 20. She has been doing it a lot this week with no problems. It turns out that she can even count to 100 with a little help. She did it yesterday, and I only had to help her with 40, 90, and 100. She counted to about 110. She also can count from 10 to 0 backwards. I’m not sure how long she’s been able to do it, but she just did it at random the other day.

Something Cullen is doing (26 months old): Cullen continues new tactics and excuses to stall his bedtime. He gets out of bed and comes to the door/gate several times. This week, he added a few. One night, he kept claiming that he pooped because he knew we would come and check (at least the first time). Guess what? No poop. He also threw pacis and books where he couldn’t reach them and asked us to retrieve them. One night, he opened the door and said, “Go State! Wolfpack! Go State! Wolfpack!” Twice this week, he’s gathered his pillow and blankets and “slept” at the gate. This week he asked to read the NC State board book almost every night. He likes for me to sing the fight songs and alma mater. We usually sing a few more songs after we read books, and he requests the “NC State song” and “Wheels on the Bus.” I think he specifically requests “Wheels on the Bus” because it has more verses than a lot of the others. In the car this week, Cullen was making elaborate plans involving Maya and Tristan involving coming over to play with our blocks and build towers and maybe even a sleepover. Maddie started to chime in with more ideas, and he turned to her and said, “No. You not talk. It’s my turn to talk, and it’s your turn to listen. It’s not a competition. It’s not a competition, Maddie.” He gets the competition part from me, but the my turn to talk/your turn to listen comes from his teachers at group time. I think he’s going through another rapid phase of development which has resulted in him being more sensitive than others. Yesterday, he refused to nap and was extremely sensitive in the evening. He has a new “monster attack” that he does when wearing his hooded towel (especially the shark one) where he puts his arms out and walks in an exaggerated fashion and attacks you at the end. It’s a sort of zombie maneuver. He sat on the potty and peed twice this week for us, and apparently he’s been doing it frequently for the teachers. I see potty training in our near future.

Something I am struggling with: Work continues to be busy, but I think that it will be much better after this week. I hope so, anyway.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We’re raising a bunch for the National MS Society, and the walk is coming up this weekend.

Something I learned: I learned how to play Pangea.

Something I’m looking forward to: Book club! Walk MS is this weekend, which means we’ll get to see family and friends, too.

Something captured: Two photos this week of my sweet springtime kiddos.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

We had our 3rd and final character breakfast, this time with just my parents. We were still lucky enough to get the best seats in the dining room! I don’t know if we were so lucky because of the size of our party, or if we reserved the breakfasts earlier than most (we did reserve these quite early). Either way, we were pleased.

This was another Madagascar breakfast with Alex the Lion, King Julian, and Gloria. At all of these breakfasts, each character came out to music and did a dance right in front of our table before visiting each table one by one for greetings and photos. We started with Alex the Lion.

King Julian was next. It took quite a bit of coaxing for Cullen to get a photo with King Julian! He wasn’t a fan of him the first time he met him, and he wasn’t a fan this time. He did warm up a little bit.

The kids seemed excited about Gloria. Cullen told several people at breakfast about the How to Train Your Dragon ice show. “Fwagons! Fwagons….FLYING!”

After breakfast, we walked around the ship a bit (and probably checked to see if we could ride the carousel, but I guess it was closed). We went to the photo gallery to try to weed out more photos. We knew we were going to have to decide what we wanted to buy today, and we had dozens of photos to choose from. I’m glad we had two portfolios so that we could put our possible photos in one and the rejects in the other. They didn’t have a place that you could dump photos you didn’t want, so this was a very convenient alternative!

The kids got a bit bored of photo sorting (who can blame them), so we headed back to the cabin to get the strollers. We had a date with progressive trivia at 11am! The final round of Progressive Trivia was general knowledge, and some of the questions seemed quite difficult and random! We ended up getting 13 of 20 correct. This didn’t win us the round, but it was enough to be declared the CHAMPIONS of the Progressive Trivia!!! We had so much fun with our teammates. All of us were playfully competitive and joked with each other about winning it all. I mean, we joked, but we seriously wanted to win it! It was a pleasure and honor to play with a Jeopardy champion (he’ll tell you that he was a loser, but I still think that 2nd out of a tournament makes you a Jeopardy champion in my book!). We were so glad they asked us to join their team.

And, as a bonus, we won quite a bit of swag! Each of us won a tote bag full of everything that they gave out at all of the trivia events and then some. Inside each Royal Caribbean tote bag was a hat, magnetic photo frame, keychain, camera case, wallet, pen, and umbrella. I’m sure I’m probably forgetting something. It was awesome to have come so close to winning so many trivia events on this one, but we won the one that really counted! We also were awarded gold medals (which we wore much of the day) and a bottle of champagne. We felt that our new friends deserved the bottle of champagne. We wouldn’t have even had a team if it wasn’t for them, and they paved the way with a stellar first two rounds. The progressive trivia was a highlight of our cruise for sure!

We had to rush off right after the event to try to make it to the 12pm DreamWorks water show. We hated to rush after our big victory, but we were looking forward to this water show! Unfortunately, we soon learned that both showings were cancelled. We were disappointed! The ship was rocking so much that too much of the water was sloshing out of the AquaTheater pools, so it was dangerous for the performers.

We regrouped and decided to head to the Solarium restaurant for lunch. We got there and realized that the restaurant was also restricted to over 16, so we begrudgingly headed to Windjammer for the first time on our cruise. With so many options on Allure, we never felt the need to go to the Windjammer. We’ve found the buffet in the past to be mediocre at times (on other ships). It was actually pretty good. Perhaps it was a plus that we were fairly hungry and had low expectations? If this had been a meal earlier in the week, I’m pretty sure we would have frequented the Windjammer a few more times.

After lunch, we took the kids to the carousel since we knew our opportunities were limited now that we were nearing the end of our vacation. We took the kids back to the room for Cullen’s nap, and I headed to the casino to meet Debbie, my mom, and Melissa for the slot tournament. We all had a plan to enter together and split the profits. We hadn’t quite figured out what we were going to do if we won the cruise, though! I think we could have worked out something, I’m sure.

We soon learned that the tournament would take more than an hour! We had thought that it was going to be a quick thing. oops. We had to wait a while before playing our first round. The slot tournaments are amusing. We discussed our “strategy” – was it better to use one hand on the button or alternate? Was it better to use finger tips or your fist? Should you wait for the reels to stop spinning and pause in between pushing the button or just pound on it relentlessly? I mean, really, there’s lots to consider in such an important event. We made some new “friends” and rooted each other on (one of our friends photobombed behind Melissa in this photo of us getting ready to start).

It was so much fun to be lined up along one bank of machines! We were able to glance over at everyone’s machines to see how we were doing. We were doing awesome for a while with Melissa, Debbie and I in 1st, 2nd and 3rd! Twelve people were playing each round, and then the top 12 from the first rounds of play would play in the finale. Sometimes nobody qualified from an initial round, and sometimes several would qualify. In our round, Melissa qualified! Unfortunately, the rest of us were out.

By the time all of the first rounds were complete, we learned that they had enough entries to give away TWO cruises. We had a 1 out of 6 chance of winning a cruise! We had a 50% chance of winning at least our money back, so it was exciting! Unfortunately, we didn’t win anything except Melissa’s consolation prize of a bruised and swollen fist. Who knew that slot tournaments were so dangerous??

I had checked on Gabe a few times to let him know our slot progress and to check on the kiddos. I didn’t expect the tournament to take so long! I went back to the room, and we got everyone ready for dinner and headed to a pirate party/festival at the boardwalk. I think it was mostly for families whose kids were in the kids’ club. So, we ended up meeting the penguins again instead (Maddie opted to just ride the carousel).

And then we rode the carousel again and again. Again.

The kids posed for a cute photo.

We then headed to the Blue Planet show with Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents. The show started at 5pm. It took a while for it to start, and when it did it just wasn’t interesting enough for little kids. Cullen couldn’t be quiet, so I took him out of the theater. I was disappointed because I thought that I was going to enjoy the show!

I tried to stand near the back of the theater, but the show just didn’t keep his attention. So, Cullen and I went exploring. I let Cullen completely lead me around the ship. It was entertaining to see where he wanted to go. We met Po the Panda.

We went to look at the Christmas tree and car in the promenade. We went up and down and up and down and up and down the marble staircase in the promenade. We went into the Boardwalk, and I was shocked that he walked right past the carousel! He paused a little bit to play on the play structure next to Rita’s Cantina. He then headed for a set of stairs that I had not previously explored next to the AquaTheater. We saw a beautiful sunset. He went up and down those stairs as well. He then said, “I’m done. Let’s go.” and lead me to a door that ended up taking us directly to the hallway with our cabin. We were on the ship for almost a week, and I had no idea we could get to the AquaTheater this way!

He walked down the hall and went to the elevators where he pressed the down button and we rode down to the promenade again. He climbed the marble staircase again and we ended up at the Boardwalk and rode the carousel over and over for the last time. We met Mort near the carousel when we were leaving.

I then took him to the photo gallery where I glanced at our photos again, and we were in the right place at the right time for the final flash mob.

We headed towards dinner and ran into Patsy and Jim who were joining us since Mick and Debbie made reservations at one of the specialty restaurants. Somehow after being on the ship for almost a week, I managed to try to find our table on the wrong deck of the dining room! Oops!

During dinner, the waitstaff sang the customary Royal Caribbean farewell song. Almost everyone at our table couldn’t decide between the key lime pie or the brownie sandwich, so we all ordered both desserts! The brownie sandwich was fabulous. YUM!

Melissa, Jason, my mom, and Gabe’s mom all went back with our family to watch the Move It Parade from our Promenade window. That was a neat place to see the parade (and great for people watching throughout the cruise), but it didn’t engage the kids as well. It was still fun! We could see Patsy and Jim in the promenade near one of the kiosks. They had a great place to view the parade, and the characters stopped several times right in front of them to dance.

We had done some packing earlier in the morning, and we did a bit more packing after the parade. My mom came by to watch the kids while we went to the photo gallery with Jason, Melissa, and Gabe’s mom to make our final decisions and purchase our photos. I headed back to the cabin while Gabe had one last hurrah in the casino with his mom. I did some more packing as we had to have our checked bags out in the hallway by 11pm.

Gabe came back with just enough time for me to make it to “A Selection of Fountain Shows” at the AquaTheater where I ran into Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents. I was glad that we went to that as it was like a mini Bellagio fountain show. I wondered if the same people programmed and built the fountains, but I don’t think that’s the case. I put some of that in the highlights video.

I checked with Gabe, but he was ready to crawl into bed with a book. Melissa, Jason, and I initiated “Operation Set Foot.” Our mission was to set foot in as many places as we could that at least one of us had previously not explored. I’ll post all of those places and photos in my next cruise post.

Favorites from Day 7:
Gabe: Winning the Progressive Trivia
Kerry: fountains, Winning the Progressive Trivia, and Operation Set Foot
Maddie (her words): Meeting the Alex and the characters
Cullen (my best guess): Exploring the ship with Mommy

On the other hand, Shrek came out almost immediately after we sat down. Half the people hadn’t even made their way into the dining room yet, including most of the rest of our party. They pretty much missed Shrek! Cullen wouldn’t have anything to do with Shrek. As soon as he saw Shrek, he said, “I don’t like Shrek.” I guess he doesn’t like big ol’ ogres.

We had the best seats in the dining room, again. Lucky us! By the time the rest of our party arrived, Shrek had moved onto another section.

Everyone was ready for Puss in Boots, and we got a rare photo of everyone in our group. The lighting was challenging in the dining room, so our photos didn’t come out too well in there.

Fiona was our favorite character from the breakfast (and perhaps our favorite on the cruise!). She was very animated and sweet with the kids. Cullen was absolutely smitten with her!

After Fiona left our table, Cullen blew her a kiss and looked after her wistfully and said, “Come back, Fiona!”

After the breakfast, which was another chocolate breakfast, we headed to the pool. It takes quite a while to get everyone in their swimsuits and to apply the sunscreen. Cullen hated being contained to the tiny pool, especially since Maddie wasn’t allowed in that part (technically). Maddie had a great time in the pool with Grandma and Daddy. She continued to enjoy the family hot tub. Cullen just wasn’t happy, so the two of us went back to the room to shower and change while Maddie stayed at the pool a bit longer.

Cullen and I headed to the carousel. We rode it many times!

My parents had attended a special event at the AquaTheater which was some sort of session with Captain Johnny (motorcycle and all). Maybe it was the Crown & Anchor event?

The AquaTheater and carousel are in the same Boardwalk area, so they joined up with us afterward at the carousel.

We also saw Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents. Everyone rode the carousel with Cullen. He was having so much fun! I can’t believe that Cullen convinced Jason to ride the carousel. Jason was against riding it, but he softened when Cullen batted his blue eyes at him. So cute.

Maddie and Daddy eventually joined us when we were getting some specialty hot dogs from The Dog House. I had a chicken hot dog with bits of apple mixed into it. I got Cullen a plain one and cut it into small pieces.

Next, we headed to the How to Train Your Dragon Ice Show. Cullen was excited to meet one of the “fwagons” (his word for “dragon” on this trip). Maddie refused to eat a hot dog, so Gabe ended up taking her to get a sandwich on the way to the show. They were about 45 minutes later than planned, since Maddie had been having such a wonderful time at the pool!

Amazingly, all twelve of us made it to the show! Gabe’s mom had not been feeling too bad, so she decided she didn’t need her patch the day before. Unfortunately, she was feeling quite seasick for most of this day. She felt better for a little bit, so we were glad she felt well enough to join us for the show! The ship was moving quite a bit almost the whole cruise.

The How to Train Your Dragon ice show was great! This was one of our favorite shows from the cruise. The kids loved it, and one of my favorite moments of the entire cruise occurred when the first dragon appeared on the ice. Cullen gasped and exclaimed in awe, “DRAGON!” It was priceless.

After the ice show, most of us headed over to the AquaTheater to see the belly flop competition. Melissa, Jason, Mick, and Gabe headed for the theater itself, and Debbie, my parents, the kids and I watched from the 11th floor balcony. The 11th floor balcony was a neat place to watch! We could hear a lot of what was going on, though sometimes it was difficult. We had a neat bird’s eye view. We almost had the entire balcony to ourselves. I guess not very many people know about it since several (most?) of the balconies overlooking the AquaTheater are special suites with huge private balconies. You can see the balconies on the other side in the next photo of Cullen.

The belly flop contest was amusing, and it looked quite painful. Unfortunately, Gabe’s mom started feeling ill again and had to go back to her cabin at some point. The winner of the belly flop contest made a giant slap when he hit the water. Ouch! Every time a competitor did a belly flop, the audience would hold up fingers indicating the score from 0-5. The activities director “counted” our votes from way above the theater as well. We had a video (from the theater) and photos from several vantage points of the final group belly flop.

The kids were a little cranky and restless during the belly flop competition. It wasn’t an interesting enough thing for them, and it certainly wasn’t engaging for them to be so high above the action. The kids were obviously tired, so we took them back to the room for nap. Gabe put Cullen down for nap while Maddie played her DS. She kept getting frustrated by the game, so I had her lay down on the bed while I rubbed her back. She must have been a very tired little girl as she actually fell asleep (that never works!). Gabe read his book and snoozed while I went with my mom, Patsy, Jim, and Melissa to watch Jason do the FlowRider.

Jason had already done it once, but we convinced him to do it again. I showed a clip of him in the cruise highlights video. Here’s a photo Melissa took of Jason on the same try.

Melissa, Mom, and I went to the Win-a-Cruise bingo. Mom and I shared an electronic “card” where you play 30 cards at once. At least they still give you a paper card or all the fun would really be taken out of the experience! I got very close to winning once with only one number left for bingo, but none of us won. I checked on Gabe, and everyone was still snoozing. I went to the Movie Character Photo Quiz with Melissa and Jason. We did fairly well with this trivia, but we were 3rd (again). As a bonus, I picked up a quiz for Gabe since the photos of the movie characters were on a worksheet type printout.

I headed back to the room where we had only a few minutes to get ready for dinner because we had a date with our Progressive Trivia team. The category for this session was sports. Jason and Gabe were the primary contributors. We only missed two questions, though it wasn’t due to much of my knowledge! After this session, our team was still in first place.

We headed to dinner which was the 2nd formal night which was also lobster night. I didn’t get the lobster, but a lot of our people did. Cullen made a mess with his fruit soup and “formal” clothes, and then he wanted to be all sweet and sit on my lap and hug me. The photographer came around a few minutes later, and I couldn’t resist this photo since it tells a story (and how sweet is that little boy??).

We all headed to 70s music trivia where we did better than expected again, and we almost won…but we ended up with 3rd place. Again! We still felt pretty good about our trivia performances on this cruise, and we had a lot of fun participating in all of them. I especially like the name-that-tune type trivia sessions.

Gabe took Cullen back to the room and put him to bed while Maddie and I hung out a few minutes with Melissa and Jason and then decided to go see Fiona and Shrek who were appearing back to back in the promenade. Maddie was so cute with Fiona! She was very excited to see Fiona and hopped around with joy. She also did a crazy dance in the promenade just before Fiona appeared (which I also caught on the video). Maddie and Fiona danced together, and Maddie was so excited.

Shrek appeared a few minutes after Fiona disappeared. He’s not as fun and interactive as Fiona.

Melissa and Jason needed to check on email as they were in the process of buying and trying to sell houses. Maddie and I explored a little more, and then I took her back to the cabin for bed. It was a late night for her.

I ended up seeing Jason and Melissa a little later and spent a little time with them in their room with Melissa’s parents before going downstairs to see the 70s dance party in the promenade. Gabe could hear and see the festivities from the room.

Gabe was tired and wanted to relax in the room instead of going back out, so I grabbed him a soda and arranged to meet Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents for a drink. I found my parents and we went up to the Solarium Bar where we were supposed to meet the others. We thought it was odd that they scanned our cards when we went in. I guess they made sure everyone was over 21 or something. We couldn’t find the others and gave up after a little bit. They had ended up going to a different place, as we found out the next day. We were all tired anyway, so I headed back to the cabin to go to bed.

Favorites from Day 6:
Gabe: playing with Maddie in the pool and when Cullen said, “dragon!” at the ice show
Kerry: Maddie dancing in the promenade with Fiona and the moment when Cullen said “dragon!”
Maddie (according to her): pool and dancing with Fiona
Cullen (my best guess): fwagons!

So, where was I? Ah, yes, I had finished our “at sea” day, so now we’re ready for our port day in St. Thomas. St. Thomas was new for the four of us.

We woke up around 7:15am, which is a fairly normal time for our family. The kids seemed to have slept better the night before. We had plenty of time to get ready for our shore excursion to Magens Bay. Gabe’s parents were going to breakfast at the same time, and they shared their beautiful views from their balcony as we were coming into the port. We were already much more impressed with St. Thomas than we were with Nassau!

We ended up with the a la carte service in the dining room for breakfast while Gabe’s parents tried the buffet. After breakfast, we tried to see our photos but the photo place wasn’t open. We then went to see if the carousel was running, but it wasn’t either. We were getting ready to head off the ship to head to our excursion, and Cullen required a last minute diaper change. I suppose his timing could have been worse (like just as we were boarding the bus).

The first thing we noticed when we got off the ship were all the iguanas on the rocks! I was then happy that I could get my free Diamonds Direct charm as I thought I wouldn’t be able to get the one from St. Thomas. They had a store right at the port, of course.

My parents did an excursion that involved a sailboat, snorkeling, and drinks. Melissa and Jason did an excursion that involved a boat, beach, and snorkeling. Melissa’s parents had an excursion as well. I think that Gabe’s parents explored St. Thomas on their own.

We experienced some confusion when trying to find the meeting place for our shore excursion. We were then told to follow “that guy” and “that guy” high tailed it “that way.” We had a hard time keeping up with him! Luckily, we kept up with the guide and boarded our open air “bus” (making sure to put the kiddos on the inside). We attempted to apply sunscreen on the kids on the way, but that was quite a challenge.

Our “bus” made two scenic stops as we climbed the summit overlooking the harbor. St. Thomas is quite beautiful.

We met Lady Gaga, the donkey. Melissa’s parents told us later that they had seen Lady Gaga, too.

The “bus” ride was a little scary at times, especially with two small children. Magans Bay Beach was much narrower than I expected it to be, but it was absolutely beautiful with few people. Right away, we wished that we had brought our swimsuits. The water was so calm, and the weather was perfect. We could have easily taken the kids into the ocean here!

They were happy to play in the sand.

And walk along the beach barefoot.

And spend time together in the sun!

We had a difficult time getting decent photos, despite the beautiful settings. We were happy that a stranger offered to take one, even if it isn’t awesome of the kiddos.

The kids enjoyed flinging sand into the approaching waves. It’s a good thing that the beach wasn’t crowded. They ended up flinging sand all over.

Oh, and I got pooped on by a bird! Somehow that didn’t seem so bad with such beautiful surroundings. Hooray for wet wipes!

We had overpriced mediocre food at the “restaurant” on the beach, continuing our trend of sub-par dining experiences when not on the ship.

After lunch, we had just enough time to glance in the gift shop and take a potty and diaper break. We hurried back to the parking lot to meet the bus. And then we waited for an hour. We were annoyed. Fortunately, this wasn’t an excursion that was cutting it close for departure time on the ship, but have you ever waited an hour for a bus with two kids under 4? They were getting restless, to say the least. We were already pushing Cullen’s naptime back an hour or two, so this didn’t help matters!

He looks happy here, though, doesn’t he? Between the beach and the parking lot were some interesting trees to run around.

When the bus driver showed up, she didn’t even apologize for being so late. The ride back seemed even scarier than the way there. I imagine the driver was in a hurry to get back to port. Cullen didn’t want to be on the bus and cried the first 10 minutes or so, saying, “I want to get off the bus. I want to get off. I want to get off.” Fortunately, we made it back safely.

We made it back to the ship and got everyone showered. Showering the kids in the tiny shower on the cruise ship is an interesting experience. Thank goodness for the detachable shower head/sprayer! We let the kids relax with some cartoons. Cullen was obviously not going to nap as we missed his window of opportunity.

We tried to see our photos again, but the photo gallery was closed. Again. We ended up meeting up with Melissa and Jason, and we all lingered by the Progressive Trivia since it was the music round. We weren’t planning on playing, but one woman got our attention and asked, “hey, do you know this song?” I said, “you’re trying to cheat!” She convinced us to join her team, though we warned her that we couldn’t promise to make it to other trivia rounds. The husband and wife were the trivia champions from rounds 1 and 2. Also, the husband had placed 2nd in the Jeopardy Seniors Tournament some number of years ago (how cool is that?). This was the 3rd round, and the name-that-tune trivia wasn’t their forte. Fortunately for them, we knew most of the answers. We always manage to meet some fun people from each cruise, and we were so glad by the end of the cruise to meet Sandy and Jerry!

We ran the strollers back to the room and ended up being about 15 minutes late for dinner. Maddie insisted on sitting next to Grandma, of course. Cullen was a bit restless due to having no nap. He did enjoy the fruit soup again tonight, and he especially enjoyed feeding it to himself. Of course, much of it was all over the front of his shirt!

Gabe took Cullen back to the room a few minutes early to get him ready for bed. Grandma and I followed soon after as Grandma had offered to babysit for us this night.

We headed to the comedy show with my parents and Melissa and Jason. The comedy club is a very small place, but somehow we never noticed that Melissa and Jason’s parents were there, too.

The comedy show was very entertaining, though I learned that it can be awkward to sit next to your parents at a comedy show. You probably don’t always want to know what your parents will find hilarious. Of course, I’m mostly joking about the awkwardness. It didn’t outweigh everyone having a good time seeing a show together!

We had some time to kill between the comedy show and Qwest. We first went to get our photo taken with Puss in Boots at one of the scheduled photo ops.

We chatted a bit with Melissa’s parents in Central Park, and then we headed up to play mini golf. It was far too crowded, so we played the first and last hole and wandered around trying to decide what to do.

At some point, we walked through the Promenade, and I grabbed some tasty pizza from Sorrentos.

We went to Dazzles to watch the Finish the Lyric Game Show. It was entertaining enough, but most of the songs were lame. We ended up leaving partway through the game show so we could grab seats in Studio B for Qwest.

We have seen Qwest many times, but this was the first time for Melissa and Jason. It’s an adult scavenger hunt, and it just has to be experienced. I’m always amazed at the crazy things that people will do. Usually, you form your own teams and our team generally bows out about half a dozen questions into the game. This time was different since the venue is so large. They divided us into 8 large teams with two team captains each. Most items were passed down to the captains, but sometimes items required audience members to come to the stage. Melissa ran down at one point and wiped out on the slippery floor (and almost took out the camera man!). Fortunately for Melissa, people did far more embarrassing things on purpose. It’s a crazy event.

When it was over, it was late and we headed back to the cabin to relieve Grandma of her babysitting (and napping with Maddie) duties.

Day 4 favorites:
Kerry: beautiful beach views
Gabe: the beach
Maddie (according to her): the beach
Cullen (according to him): the water

We were docked on the Dutch side of the island (called St. Maarten), and we chose a tour that would take us to a beach on the French side (called St. Martin). I grabbed some muffins from the Royal Promenade and some towels from the pool deck for our beach excursion. After not having our swimsuits the day before, we didn’t want to make the same mistake twice! Melissa and Jason decided to join us on our tour.

We had to wait a bit to get to our bus, and the kids were anxious to get moving. We got on the bus and sat in the very back where Maddie sat with Melissa and Jason and Cullen sat with Gabe and me. Once again, Jason tried to steal one of our children! Melissa looked like she was in on it this time. We had a running joke the rest of the day that Melissa and Jason had special custody of Maddie that was only valid on St. Maarten. When the tour guide came by to check our tickets, she assumed Maddie was their child.

Our tour guide gave us some good information about the island and how the French and Dutch sides interact and the differences between the two countries. At some point, we heard a loud noise and maybe even smelled a rubber burning sort of smell. Before we could make it to the beach, our bus broke down. Those of us near the back wondered if some belt had broken, and sure enough that is what happened.

We had to evacuate the bus and wait for a replacement. Our luck with buses was not stellar for this trip! Fortunately, we weren’t delayed for too long. Maddie thought it was hilarious that we made a joke that the belt busted because the bus ate too much at the buffet. We were only delayed about 15 minutes, and they compensated with a later departure from the beach. They greeted us with fruity beverages, and we had reserved lounge chairs on the beach. We had the option to buy umbrellas, so we took advantage of those.

The kids spent a lot of time playing in the sand.

Unfortunately, the waves were too strong for the kids at this beach, and the beach had a ton of seaweed. Maddie wasn’t a fan of the seaweed (and I don’t blame her!). She didn’t like that it kept getting tangled up in her feet.

We played on the beach a little bit and then had our “free” lunch at the restaurant. This beach was a bit more developed than the one that we had visited on St. Thomas, but the food wasn’t much better. We were glad it was free! They even gave us some extra fries for the kids for free. While we were eating, we heard a big thump and assumed that maybe a coconut dropped from the palm tree next to us. We looked over and saw a huge iguana! The waiter then chased it back up the tree. Those things are everywhere.

After lunch, we played some more on the beach. We had been warned ahead of time that the beach would have dozens of peddlers trying to sell towels, sunglasses, toys, necklaces, and other assorted souvenirs. The tour guide advised that we can get all of these things near the port cheaper than what they are probably asking on the beach. She advised us to simply say “no thank you,” and by the end of our visit to the beach both Maddie and Cullen were telling the vendors “no thank you.”

Early in our beach adventure, we saw a very cute doll with a long dress. The doll was “reversible” with another head instead of feet so that when you flipped her over she had a differently patterned dress. One side had a sash that said “St. Maarten” and the other had a sash that said “St. Martin” representing the Dutch and French sides of the island. We thought that was very neat but we resisted buying it the first time. We figured that we would get it back in port, but the more we thought about it, the more we wished that we just had bought it from the first lady. We didn’t see another one for a while! Finally, either the same woman came through or another one with the same doll, and we decided to buy it. I’m glad that we bought it since it was actually more expensive back at the port! Maddie was thrilled.

Melissa, Jason, and I went for a swim in the ocean which was wonderful. I did a little body surfing and swimming around in the waves. We had to be mindful of the undertow, and we kept getting swept down the beach. It definitely wasn’t a kid-friendly place to swim.

We were at the beach for about 3 hours which is more than long enough to get sand everywhere. We had a difficult time getting the sand off of us (especially since the shower was public and most of the sand wasn’t in public places…though the beach does allow you to be topless and not far down the stretch was a nude beach. I preferred to keep my suit on, thanks!).

We headed back on our original bus which had been repaired. Maddie and Cullen fell asleep almost immediately.

We had two tired kiddos!

Melissa and Jason opted to get off the bus in town and take a water taxi back to our ship later. Gabe and Cullen headed to the ship while Maddie and I explored the shops near the port.

We walked around together and bought some souvenirs.

We ended up getting a St. Maarten monkey for Cullen, a shirt for Maddie, and a shirt for Daddy. We listened to a little bit of the steel drum band and then headed back to the ship.

Cullen decided that his short little nap on the bus was enough for the day, so we put the kids in the stroller and walked around after showering. We ended up at “Who Am I” interactive trivia where they showed pictures of famous people. We got 17 of 18, but they were having technical difficulties with the interactive parts. We did end up getting a prize after all. Cullen wasn’t terribly happy.

Gabe and his mom went to play bingo with Maddie while Cullen and I ditched the stroller and went to walk around the ship. He was a little difficult since he didn’t get enough of a nap. We explored the upper decks where he found a row of pool chairs and had to sit in every.single.one. It was on this little excursion that I realized that I had trained Cullen pretty well to stand in front of things and pose. He did a lot of walking up to random things and standing in front of them waiting for me to take a photo.

Cullen and I hung out with Melissa and Jason and Melissa’s parents until we went to dinner. Melissa’s parents had dinner with us this night since my parents had reservations at Rita’s Cantina. Cullen pointed out that Melissa’s mom, Patsy, was “not Nana.” This was the night that the waiter did the mouse trick for Cullen where he folded a napkin to resemble a mouse and made it “jump” onto the table. Cullen thought this was great, and he tried to mimic it. You can see Cullen trying it in the video.

I cracked up every time I saw this photo of Melissa and Jason being shocked at the size of Allure of the Seas.

Gabe took Cullen back for bedtime while the rest of us (Melissa, Jason, Melissa’s parents, Gabe’s parents, Maddie, and I) headed to 50s and 60s music trivia. We surprised ourselves by getting all but two questions correct! Unfortunately, we still lost.

I took Maddie back to the room where Cullen was already sleeping. Gabe and his mom went to the casino for a bit, and Maddie and I read some books. I started to look at the Cruise Compass schedule for the next day, and I marked a few things that we would be interested in doing. Maddie asked, “Did you mark the pool and carousel?” I snoozed a little bit with Maddie until Gabe came back with his mom. His mom offered to snooze with Maddie while Gabe and I went to play poker. Gabe had won about $30 in the casino.

We spotted Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents in the promenade from our cabin window. We went down there in time to see Melissa purchase hats for Jason and her dad.

We checked out some more of our photos in the photo gallery and ran into my parents at Rita’s. It seems like everyone was having a great time! We chatted for a few minutes with my parents and Melissa’s parents, then Jason, Gabe, and I headed to play poker.

The poker game was perfect with so many players throwing around their money without a clue as to what they were doing. Unfortunately, my cards were less than perfect. Gabe’s last hand had him losing his stack with a set of Kings to a runner-runner straight (and he did not slow play any of it). I lost the rest of my stack with two pair AK versus a set of Queens. Oh well. It was nice to play some real poker, and we wished that two small kiddos weren’t going to be waking us up bright and early the next morning! We were at the kind of table that can be very profitable given a longer session. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to play for very long. It was a little frustrating!

Favorites from day 5:
Gabe: watching the kids play in the sand
Kerry: swimming in the ocean
Maddie (according to her): the beach and sand
Cullen (my best guess): playing in the sand

Something I’m thinking: I think that Gabe is quite pleased with his new iPad. He couldn’t wait for its arrival on Friday. He kept thinking that he could hear delivery trucks with many false alarms.

Something I’m hoping: I hope that work will be calmer this week. We’ve been very busy with some big project deadlines.

Something happening around the house: The garage repair people came back for the 3rd time, and we think that the door is fixed. Fortunately, they didn’t charge us very much the first visit. The other two visits were free. The guy who came out the third time said that his boss said, “Get it right this time!” I think that this worked out in our favor. Since they didn’t get it right the first time, the extra parts and labor didn’t cost us a thing.

Something I’m reading: I’m enjoying The Wise Man’s Fear. I’m going to be sad when I finish it as I’ll have to wait at least a year for the next book to be released.

Something Gabe is reading: He finished the 4th Percy Jackson book and is now reading Feed by Mira Grant.

Something I’m watching: Basketball, basketball, and more basketball. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I’m watching Gabe watch basketball?

Something I’m playing: Kids of Carcassonne, Pengaloo, and Zingo with the kids. Gabe and I have been playing Mystery Manor on his new iPad.

Something I’m creating: I finally published Maddie’s letter. Since then, I haven’t been creating much but I have been trying to catch up with photos. So many photos!

Something tasty: I tried a new recipe for sugar cookies after sampling a friend’s batch. YUM. We had fun decorating the cookies with colored icing and tons of sprinkles.

Something about both kiddos: The kids had fun decorating the sugar cookies! They helped pick out the cookie cutters that we used and the icing colors. They then “decorated” with a TON of sprinkles. I used to love doing this as a kid, so it’s so fun to do it with my kids. We also did some Easter egg decorating and hiding. I predict we will be staging many hunts between now and Easter! The kids have even been hiding eggs for each other around the house (which we think is great). I predict also that the kids will be begging to visit the neighbors and their trampoline. They had a great time hanging out with the neighbors and especially enjoyed jumping on the trampoline. Cullen was ready to move into their house and didn’t want to leave.

Something Maddie is doing (48 months old): She had a few new lessons this week and seems to be making progress on both her geography/map and her phonics lessons. She’s been working more on counting. Once again, I think that Maddie is sandbagging us on things that she knows. She claims that she can’t count to 20 and always asks for help between 10 and 20 (meanwhile, Cullen chimes in and tells her 11-13). She wanted to count to 20 over and over today but wouldn’t do it on her own. We finally said we weren’t going to help her and she successfully counted from 1-20 all by herself. We’re not surprised! This reminds us of when she was 1 and pretended not to know her colors until one day she said, “hand me that blue cup.” We’re onto you, little girl. Maddie started playing Monkey Math School Sunshine on the iPhone. It has a bunch of math games with addition, subtraction, counting, and patterns. She’s doing well. She has no issues with operating the iPhone and similar touch devices. Her Wii skills need work! She can do a little bit with MarioKart, but the games that require you to point the controller at the screen seem to baffle her. I think we’ve neglected her video game training. Maybe she’ll do better with the new Wii which incorporates a DS-like device (which she also “gets”).

Something Cullen is doing (25 months old): Cullen is such a happy toddler and a funny little guy. He’s quite chatty, like his sister. He always wants to be a part of the conversation. He is the perfect audience if you’re telling a funny story. He often laughs in the right places. Of course, he laughs quite a bit. He can have a bit of a temper and knows how to throw a tantrum. When he gets tired or sick, he gets very sensitive and can be laughing one second and throwing a huge fit the next. He had a cold earlier this week, and it’s been lingering. He continues to come up with excuses to get out of his bed and come to the door, requesting us to do something for him. This week, I had to do some work at home and “check” on things from time to time. One of the times, Cullen came to his door and I said, “Cullen, get back to your bed. It’s bedtime.” His reply was that he was “checking on something.” I asked him what he was checking on, and he said he was checking on the gate. Too funny! We had trouble getting him to nap this afternoon, and Gabe went up there to tell him to get back into his bed. Cullen had taken his pillow and blanket and was laying next to the gate.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We’ve been raising money for the National MS Society. Our walk is in two weeks, and we made a lot of progress with fundraising this week! This week was MS Awareness week. Please take a minute to learn more about MS and how it affects over 400,000 people in the United States.

Something I learned: Every year during our Walk MS fundraising, I look forward to experiencing generosity from friends and family. So many people have supported Team B-Patrol over the last few years. Every year, we exceed my expectations with fundraising. It’s an amazing experience, and the one good thing that I have to say about multiple sclerosis.

Something I’m looking forward to: Gabe is probably looking forward to the start of his fantasy baseball season. Somehow he’s signed up for FOUR leagues this year. I’m looking forward to playing games with friends.

Something captured: My sweet family enjoying the beginning of spring!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Dear Maddie,

As I’m thinking about writing this letter celebrating your 4th birthday, I’m starting to regret the decision to do these letters every 6 months now. I have so much to tell you. I think you are going to enjoy reading these letters someday. Last night before bed, I told you a little bit about the day you were born and our anticipation of meeting you. You wanted to hear us tell you several times. Tonight before bedtime, you asked us to tell you again. I think you especially liked the part where you were very quiet on your first day but then screamed for the next 5 months. You loved how the nurse said, “wow, you have a loud one! Congratulations!” Of course, it’s hard to say whether you were more interested in the story or in delaying your bedtime! Either way, it’s sweet to see your reactions to stories about you as a baby.

You and your brother shared a Mickey and Minnie themed birthday party this year. As I mentioned in my last letter, you decided probably 8 months ago that your birthday party theme was going to be Minnie. I love how you make up your mind about things! It makes it easier to plan your party in advance or buy your Halloween costume while you can still get a good deal. You happily agreed to have a “joint birthday” with your brother. We had a small party at home, and I made a Mickey cake with cute, colorful cupcakes. You had fun watching me tint the icing, helping me decide on the colors, and watching me create the swirls on top of the cupcakes.

I look forward to decorating cakes together! We made a cake together for Cullen’s “actual” birthday (not to be confused with the day of your party or your “actual” birthday, as you have been saying). You spread the icing with a little help and put the sprinkles on top. You have tried your hand at sprinkle decorating on several cakes for family and friends.

Yesterday, we had a fun family day, similar to what we did on Cullen’s birthday in January. We started with breakfast at our favorite breakfast restaurant. You were excited about having plain pancakes, though I think you ate more of Daddy’s special red velvet pancakes. As Daddy said, it’s a little like cake for breakfast. When we went there for Cullen’s birthday, you and Cullen ate quite a bit of my gingerbread pancakes. Maybe next time, we’ll get you two the special pancakes instead of the plain ones!

We then went to Target where you were allowed to pick out anything you wanted. This was the highlight of your day and the thing you were looking most forward to doing. For weeks, you have been saying that you’re going to pick out a new game, and you did! You got Zingo for Christmas and love it, so you picked out Zingo 1-2-3. You’ve already played it a few times, and you love it, too. I’m thrilled that you are getting excited about games! You play Go Away Monster (your brother especially loves that one), Kids of Carcassonne, Pooh’s Heffalump Game, Hissss, Candyland, and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. I’m so excited about how well you’re doing with taking turns and grasping the rules.

We have board games “nights” with friends about once a month. Until recently, it’s been an afternoon of games for the adults and a play date for you and your friends. It’s fun that you’re able to start playing board games on these days, too. It’s still mostly a play date, but I can see many family board game nights in our future!

In addition to the game, you got a couple preschool workbooks. One has letters and the other has mazes. They are both reusable with dry erase markers, so the combination of your love of mazes and the novelty of erasable markers has you excited about the new books. You have been doing a great job with your letters. You’ve been working on your penmanship, and you even write your own thank you notes now! They are short and sweet, and you aren’t always in the mood to write them, but you are doing them. Of course we have to tell you which letter comes next. You still have a few left to do from your birthday party a few weeks ago. You also created valentines for all of your classmates that said, “XOXO,” had stickers decorating them, and said “FROM MADDIE” at the bottom. I gave you some choices of what to write on the cards. I thought it was smart to choose “FROM MADDIE” instead of “LOVE, MADDIE.”

You have recently started working on your lowercase letters. You have shown some interest in reading and know the phonics for most of the letters. You went through a short phase where you wanted to work on those skills, but lately you have been more interested in other things. We have some early reader books ready for you when you decide that’s what you want to do again!

You have rekindled your love for jigsaw puzzles. You received a 100-piece puzzle of the solar system at your birthday party, and we were impressed with how quickly you put it together. The first time you put it together, you got a few pointers. You can do it by yourself now. You usually will put it together in one sitting which is much faster than I could, I’m sure. One of the things you wanted to get yesterday was another puzzle, specifically one with horses. I think that Grandma might have given you that idea when she was visiting. Fortunately, we found the perfect 100-piece puzzle with ponies yesterday. You’ve already put it together once, and you started to put it together another time. I’m impressed with your jigsaw puzzle skills!

Part of our special day was a haircut for you. The stylist cut a bit more than I intended, but you look adorable. You like having your hair cut short. You often refuse to have pigtails or hair bows. You just don’t want to take time out of your busy play schedule for hair dos. I can understand. Shorter hair tends to stay out of your way (and has a better chance of staying neat and tidy). It always makes you look a bit older when you get a haircut!

And I guess you really are getting to be such a big girl. It won’t be long before you’re a “graduate” at your school. This means you’ll get special privileges like weekly French lessons. You’re already talking about how you’re going to go to kindergarten when you graduate from Children’s House. You’ve been learning so many things at school. You no longer make bracelets and necklaces every day, but you bring home lots of papers with scribbles and meticulously colored pages (often with all of your coloring within the lines). You went through a phase where you drew our family often and wrote our names (Maddie, Cullen, Mom, and Dad). Drawing our family is still one of your favorite things to draw. I loved when you learned how to write all of our names! You also love to scribble random shapes on the paper and call it a map, and sometimes you’ll roll it up like a treasure map from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Sometimes you’ll draw random squiggles and call it a maze.

You’ve started to get interested in math. You are great at counting objects, and recently you’ve started asking me to quiz you on addition problems. You use your left hand for one number and your right for the other, and then count the fingers to give me the sum. I asked you to add 6 plus 2 the other day, and you said, “I can’t! It has to fit on my hand.” Maybe I’ll get you to start using your toes, too. One of the new lessons you had last week involved counting farm animals and making a bar chart! This was particularly exciting for me since it is directly related to my job as a software developer (creating graph components). You’ve been bringing home quite a few “pin punch” shapes, and you’ve been working on your scissor skills at home. You’re a great worker both at school and at home, though sometimes you’re just not in the mood for learning and practicing your skills. When you’re not in the mood, you just act like you don’t know how to do anything and whine rather than tell us you don’t want to do it. I have a feeling that you may not always demonstrate your abilities to your teachers, due to your stubbornness and, at times, your shyness.

You also still often like to observe new things and take in all the information before you act. You participated in more ballet classes, this time with the same instructor through a program at my work. It was nice to be able to get you from school and walk you over to the gym for the ballet class. I’m not sure that ballet is going to be your passion. I don’t think that grace and agility runs in your genes. You were easily swayed by your friend for a few classes. She kept trying to get you to do “something different” and not listen to the teacher. For a class or two, you succumbed to peer pressure and did not listen very much to instruction. We had a few talks before your last two classes, warning you that we wouldn’t be going to dinner with your friends if you didn’t listen to the teacher. That seemed to motivate you to pay better attention. You had fun in the classes with your friends from school, but after about 8 ballet classes, we’re ready for a break. We hope to sign you up for some swimming classes this summer.

You had a few more new cultural experiences since my last letter. You attended your first play in October. The Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia performed stage adaptations of Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon with puppets and black lights and glowing props. You seemed to really enjoy it! You got a bit restless towards the end, along with the rest of the audience. I think your favorite part was probably the cookies and juice afterward!

We attended a Sugar Plum Fairy Tea with Sophie, Sophie’s Mommy (Marie), Keira, Keira’s Mommy (Shannon), Aunt Heidi, Grandma, and Great Grandma Scotty. Heidi, Grandma, Great Grandma, and Dylan visited us for a few days in November. We had a lovely brunch and then attended the Sugar Plum Fairy Tea festivities where we had cookies and chocolate. We saw performances by ballerinas, and you had the opportunity to meet the ballerinas. It was a very special holiday event that we were excited to share with friends and family.

The holidays were wonderful this year but very busy since we had a vacation in December. You were very into the idea of Santa this year, and you even wrote him a few notes letting him know what you and your brother wanted. You and Cullen went to see Santa, and he asked Cullen what he wanted. Cullen was a bit timid about Santa, so Santa was trying to make Cullen more comfortable. He asked if Cullen might like a new truck. I told Santa that Cullen actually was asking for dolls like yours, and you chimed in, “oh, I want a truck!” You asked Santa in your note to him later for a truck, a Mickey Mouse, and an airplane set. Santa did bring you all of those things, though you did say, “Cullen’s airplane set is better than mine!” Your biggest gift from Santa this year was a Leapfrog LeapPad Tablet, which is like your very own kid iPad. You have several learning games and some interactive books on it so far. Other big things you received were a dollhouse from Nana and Papa and a kitchen for you and Cullen from Kristin and Chad.

Santa sent you a personalized video on Christmas Eve, and it was so cute to watch you watch his message. You were so excited, and you listened to him very carefully and seriously. You were very certain to get into bed on time that night. You didn’t want Santa to skip our house!

On Christmas morning, you saw the presents that Santa left “under” the tree and right away started saying, “Cullen, look! Santa brought you your dolls, Cullen! Cullen, you have a new stroller for your dolls!” You were so excited about what Cullen was getting. It was so very sweet. When you were opening your stockings, you had a doll outfit in your stocking. You said, “Cullen, look, you can have these doll clothes since your dolls don’t have very many clothes.” I love seeing the two of you play together, especially when you are so sweet!

You and Cullen love each other so much and are really playing together well. You engage him with your imagination (“Cullen, you be Jake and I’ll be the pirate princess!”) and suggest activities (“Cullen, let’s run away from the monster! Brudder, let’s play a game where you run and try to catch me! Try to catch me! That’s the name of the game! You’ll never catch me!”). One of your favorite things to do is to turn your Anywhere Chairs upside down and make a fort with a blanket across the top. The two of you call this “jail” for whatever reason.

You don’t call him “baby” or “my baby” or “baby brother” very much these days. You call him “Brudder” quite a bit. Due to this, Cullen insisted for a while that his last name was “Brudder.” The other day I said that I liked how you call him “brother,” and you asked why. I said it was sweet. You replied, “Sometimes I call him ‘brud.’” As far as I know, you had never called him “brud” before, but you called him that for the rest of the evening and the first thing the next morning.

You play together nicely every day, but you also have your fair share of squabbles every day. Cullen learned at any early age how to tease you. You are always fighting to be first. “I’m going to be first” is often your mantra. Since Cullen hasn’t demanded to be first too often, you typically get to be put in the car first or are first to sit at the dinner table. Cullen learned early that he just had to say, “Me first” and it would irritate you to no end. You’d cry and whine and say, “Cullen said he’s first!!!!! But he wasn’t first! I was first!!!!” We have told you over and over that it doesn’t matter that Cullen is saying he’s first. We have tried to get you to ignore your brother in times like this, but it still gets under your skin. You are listening, though. The other day, Cullen was telling us that he didn’t like something. You said, “we don’t care what Cullen says, right?” Um. Wait, that’s not exactly what we were trying to say.

You often get into screeching matches in the car. Actually, typically you will say something like, “I see a schoolbus!” Cullen will then say, “No, I see a schoolbus!” You’ll argue back, “NO, I SAW THE SCHOOLBUS,” and then Cullen will screech it back at you. You guys will cry and whine and screech until you just about drive your mother crazy. I can’t tell you how many times a day I say things like, “It’s not a competition. You can both see the school bus.”

Your brother has added some conflict at times, but I think overall you have more good times than bad. You were sick a few times since the last letter, including one time where you were miserable in the middle of the night with a 104 degree fever. You’ve always run high fevers, so we don’t get too alarmed when you do. We took you to the doctor, of course. You woke up in the middle of the night crying that you were “burning hot” and that “Cullen got [you] sick.” He had been sick a few days earlier, and we tried to keep you two separated to avoid spreading germs. You were also upset that being sick meant you would have to be separate from Cullen. We are not typically successful when trying to keep you separated. You insist on being together whenever possible, and it seems inevitable that everyone in the household is going to be exposed anyway. I love how you both want to sit next to each other at the dinner table!

You had a routine appointment with your orthopaedist to check on your little foot. He didn’t seem to have any concerns. It had been two years since our last visit with him. They did x-rays and examined your foot. This is the first time that he mentioned that your high arches could cause issues later, though that doesn’t concern me too much since I also have very high arches. The doctor wanted to see you back in a year. The biggest concern with your feet continues to be finding shoes that fit. Your left foot is about a 7.5 and your right foot is about a 9. We have one pair of shoes that is a 7.5 and a 9.5, so it really depends on the shoe. The problem right now is that your left foot is solidly in the toddler shoe sizes and your right foot is solidly in the preschooler shoe sizes. Few styles are in both sizes, so our choices are quite limited. We still manage to find shoes for you, but it can be frustrating at times. We often stop at one of the Stride Rite outlets on our trips to Atlanta.

We took two trips to Atlanta since my last letter and an almost trip. The almost trip was in January. We made it to the Stride Rite outlet near Gaffney, and we decided to turn around and go back home. Daddy and Cullen had a stomach bug, so we didn’t want to expose everyone else to our germs. You and I caught the bug, too, though you had the mildest case of it, thankfully. We took a scheduled trip to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. On that trip, we stayed in a suite with a separate living room and bedroom. This was the first time that we tried to put both of you in the same room for sleeping. We had mixed results! You took turns keeping each other awake, but you were both happy. We over heard you saying to Cullen, “don’t go to sleep, baby!” and Cullen would lean over the pack and play and look at you and say, “wake up!” You must have been tired the second night because you guys went to sleep pretty well that night.

A few weeks later, we tried again when we went to That Board Gaming Thing. We stayed in the hotel several nights, and one of those nights Aunt Kristin came to babysit. She reported to us that you two were keeping each other awake, and that you kept getting out of your bed. Kristin had to go in and tell you two to go to sleep and get back in bed. After one such time, you said to Cullen, “Cullen, we can’t let her come back in and see us!”

We made an unscheduled trip to Atlanta in November when Great Grandpa passed away. You understood that Great Grandpa had died and that you would not be able to see him anymore. I was sad to explain this to you, and you missed seeing him during our visit. He was extremely proud of you and Cullen and was just amazed at all the things that you two can do. I don’t think that there has ever been a prouder Great Grandpa. The first time you met him will always be one of the highlights of my life. Great Grandpa wanted to hold you as much as possible. He loved you so very much. We will be sure to tell you stories and show you pictures in the hopes that you will continue to hold onto your memories of him. The night that we told you about Great Grandpa, I was putting you to bed and you said, “Great people live in Atlanta, right?” You’re absolutely right, sweet, little girl.

Your bedtime routine remains about the same. You go to bed around 8pm. If it’s a bath night, you and Cullen share a bath. You two love playing in the water, squirting each other, and pretending to be fish. After bath, you sometimes get a little play time with us or some time playing your LeapPad, the iPhone, or your DS games. You are doing very well with your electronic games, and your favorite game on the iPhone is Monkey Lunchbox. You also like Angry Birds, Siege Hero (which you call the “knock it down game”), and Fruit Ninja (which you call “Fruit Ninjer”). Sometimes we play board games together after Cullen goes to bed or you work your puzzles or you practice writing your letters. You are always trying to get more time before going to bed, so we started setting a timer on the iPhone. We call this the “duck timer” since it quacks when your time is up. This works pretty well, though sometimes you ask for “bonus time” after the timer is up.

You then get into your pajamas (if you aren’t already) and brush your teeth. If we forget to brush your teeth, you will come out of your room 15 minutes later in a panic! You do not like to forget to brush your teeth. Of course, I’m not sure if you’re more concerned about your dental hygiene or whether you just love getting every minute you can where you’re not in bed. You often ask for a glass of water or beg for orange juice before brushing your teeth. You’re a master at delaying the inevitable. We read you stories, and the books that we read have become more involved. Currently, you are very into the Magic Treehouse series. This is the first set of books that we have read to you that we read a few chapters at a time. You now have a bookmark that we can use to mark your place. When we’re done reading, you then ask for us to lay with you “for just a couple minutes” and to “tickle your back” (rub your back). If we stop rubbing your back for a second, you wiggle and whisper “tickle me!” You mostly sleep through the night, but fairly frequently you scream for us in the middle of the night and want someone to fix your covers. Sometimes you “forget” to go to the potty just before bed so that you can come out in 15 minutes to say you need to potty.

You haven’t had very many potty accidents since the last letter. You were in a phase around that time, which I assume was related to the big changes moving up to preschool. You also don’t like using the potty at school if you can help it. I think you get that from your Mommy as well. I have been told that I wouldn’t go to the potty the entire day I was at school, so I can relate.

You take naps at school more often than you do at home, though that isn’t saying much since you almost never take naps at home. I need naps more often than you seem to! You have been pretty good at having some quiet time in your room where you will play quietly with your dollhouse or play your electronic games or hang out in your closet reading books. We try to keep you to quiet activities while Cullen is napping. You use this time to work on your puzzles and often get a little bonus television time. Your parents need this midday downtime, too!

Your favorite TV show these days is Jake and the Neverland Pirates. You also still enjoy the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. You have seen a few new movies since our last letter, including Puss in Boots in the theater. We watched Shrek quite a bit for a little while in preparation for the character meet and greets on our cruise. You were introduced to The Lion King while you were sick, though I talked you through the intense moments since I wasn’t sure how you would react. You haven’t been watching movies as often lately. When we watch TV, it’s usually 20-30 minutes of Jake or Mickey Mouse.

We met Shrek, Fiona, and Puss in Boots (from Shrek) and Penguins, Gloria, King Julian, and Alex the Lion from Madagascar while on our cruise in December. We also spotted Po from Kung Fu Panda and characters from How to Train Your Dragon. We went to three character breakfasts (which to your delight were also chocolate breakfasts with bonus chocolate pastries) and numerous meet and greets. I loved seeing your reaction to meeting these characters! You especially loved the penguins and Fiona. One of my favorites moments from the cruise was when you danced in the Royal Promenade with Fiona! You were so sweet and so excited afterward. You danced with King Julian when you first met him, too.

In addition to the character breakfasts and meet and greets, they had shows and parades. We saw one parade from a prime spot in the promenade and the second from our cabin window overlooking the promenade. While we were on the ship, you saw several shows. Your favorite show was probably the How to Train Your Dragon Ice show, though you enjoyed both ice shows. Both you and Cullen especially loved seeing the dragons! The DreamWorks water show was cancelled, unfortunately, due to rocky seas. We were disappointed about that, as I’m sure you and Cullen would have loved it!

You have now been on the largest cruise ship in the world! The Allure of the Seas had so much to offer for young kids! You loved meeting these characters, but your favorite part of the cruise was either the carousel or swimming pool. When I asked you your favorite part of the cruise, you went back and forth between these two answers most of the time. You spent quite a bit of time riding the carousel! I am pretty sure you rode every animal on the carousel (and on the last day realized you hadn’t taken a ride on the sleigh, so you tried that one out, too). You were a little timid of the swimming pool at first, but you requested to go back several times. We were concerned when you accidentally walked from the 3 inch section into the 2.5 foot deep section. You disappeared completely under the water, and you were understandably a little upset after Daddy pulled you out. I’m glad that didn’t keep you from the water. I think your favorite was the “family hot tub,” kept at a lower temperature than a normal hot tub. I don’t blame you as the water in the rest of the pools was quite cold!

You have now been to The Bahamas, St. Martin/St. Maarten, and St. Thomas. We visited beaches in Ft. Lauderdale (our origination port), St. Maarten, and St. Thomas. You’ve decided that you actually do like the beach, finally. Our previous beach trips haven’t gone very well, so we were thrilled that you enjoyed it. You mostly liked playing in the sand, building sand castles with your brother. You had fun putting your feet in the water at Ft. Lauderdale and St. Thomas, but the beach at St. Maarten had seaweed and you weren’t a fan of that! We did get a really neat doll from St. Maarten that you took to school for show and tell. The doll has a skirt that can be flipped back and forth showing a girl from the French side or a girl from the Dutch side.

We went on this trip with Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents. You enjoyed all the attention you got from everyone! We joked that Jason kept trying to steal you and Cullen from us. At one such moment, Jason took you over to trivia while Melissa and I visited the restroom. When I got there, I found out that the waitress had visited and offered to bring you a Shirley Temple. I don’t think that they see too many little ones in the Schooner Bar! I wasn’t sure I wanted you to have a carbonated, sugary beverage (though I was glad it was made with a caffeine free soda, Sprite). I figured that there wouldn’t be any harm in letting you try it. You took a sip and got this panicked look on your face! You were NOT a fan of the carbonation! I was glad and ordered a special orange juice for you instead. I’m glad that you weren’t a fan of your first taste of soda.

You loved having so many special people with us on the trip. You particularly were attached to Grandma which was wonderful for her as well. You insisted on sitting next to Grandma at every meal possible. Grandma was thrilled to be your best buddy.

The last six months have been very full. The cruise made the holiday season quite hectic, but we still managed to make and decorate sugar cookies and build gingerbread houses. We did these things together as a family on Christmas Eve. We also had to make chex mix (for the reindeer, of course). I love our holiday traditions!

We are forming so many great family traditions in the fall. You and Cullen made up your minds (well, rather, you made up your mind for both of you) to be Minnie and Mickey for Halloween. You were the cutest pair! I know we probably won’t have too many years of coordinating costumes, but I have been enjoying the extra cuteness!

You participated in your first “fall parade” at school, though you looked absolutely miserable the whole time. You aren’t a big fan of being out in the cold, and it was a bit chilly that morning. When we asked you if you had fun, though, you claimed that you had a great time. It’s so hard to tell with you sometimes! We had a great time on Halloween evening trick-or-treating despite the rain. Melissa and Jason came over, and they helped us give out candy so that both Mommy and Daddy could go with you two gathering candy. We ended up carrying you both quite a bit with the rain!

We gave you the option to keep all of your candy or to choose your favorite 10 pieces and give the rest to the “Halloween Witch.” We heard that the Halloween Witch takes baskets of candy and exchanges them for small gifts. You choose to give the majority of your candy to the witch. It was fun to see which pieces of candy you wanted to keep and which ones you wanted to give to the witch. You slipped a few to Daddy as well. Once you got to your 10 pieces, you traded a few for tastier morsels. You kept every single lollipop. That was your top priority! The Halloween Witch brought you and Cullen each a small Minnie Mouse and a small Nala “buddy” (you still call all stuffed animals “buddies”).

We went to the same pumpkin patch this year, this time with Aunt Kristin, and you had even more fun than last year. They had a new addition this year with a giant “pillow” that was somewhat like the bouncy houses without walls. You were in heaven jumping on that thing! You went down the giant slide all by yourself. I was worried about you, especially when you came flying out of the tube with your limbs flailing everywhere. You had the biggest smile on your face when you picked yourself up off the ground. That’s my girl!

You seem to have a bit of a daredevil nature in you, and I’m sure you get that from your roller coaster loving Mommy. You and I joined friends at the State Fair, and we rode lots of rides. We both learned that spinny rides aren’t really our thing, but you absolutely LOVED your first roller coaster ride. The carousel was your second favorite ride. We had a wonderful day while Daddy was working and Cullen was at daycare. I can’t wait to see how much you will enjoy Disney World when we take you later this year.

We have had other fun excursions in the past 6 months. We went to the zoo with Sophie and Keira’s families. This was your first trip to the zoo, and we all had a great time. It was difficult to cover much ground with four kiddos under 4! We visited several museums since my last letter. We renewed our membership at the Museum of Life and Science and visited twice already. We went once with Nana and Papa when they were visiting for Christmas so we could see their holiday model train display. Papa is quite the train fanatic, so this was a neat display to see with him! You and I spent a day in January at the Museum of Life and Science with Sophie, Keira, and their mommies. We always have fun there! I’m sure we will make a few more visits this year with the membership!

We went to our local children’s museum for a birthday party and the new children’s museum near Nana and Papa’s house. We had been wanting to go there for a while and combined that with our trip to Davidson for Thanksgiving. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Nana, Papa, Kristin, and Chad where we had the traditional Thanksgiving feast with turkey, country ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, steamed veggies, bread, and sweet potatoes.

You are a decent eater these days, though you have a fairly limited set of things that you prefer. Chicken fingers is your favorite. You will eat some veggies, and you claim that carrots are your favorite food. Daddy and I sometimes pick you up from school and take you to the cafe, and this is a very special privilege of being at Children’s House! We love having that special time with our special girl.

At school, you had another bike day in October. We debated which bike or scooter to bring, and you decided you wanted to ride your tricycle. You were almost too big for it, so we’re pretty sure that was the last time on the trike! Many of the bigger kids have training wheels, but you have become pretty good on your balance bike since then. You want to ride your balance bike at the next bike day! We are still hoping that you can go straight from the balance bike to a bike without training wheels, so we will see how that goes. You’re getting great at picking up speed and coasting. Our mild NC winter this year has allowed you to get some extra practice.

You’re getting great at your balance bike, but somehow you manage to fall out of your chair at dinner almost once a week. You cannot sit still! I don’t know how often I have to say, “please sit on your bottom” and “sit in your chair, please.” Sometimes when you’re especially wiggly, we make you stand for the rest of the meal. You don’t like that much, but I’m not sure how effective it is. I’m just not sure you can sit still. I think you get this from Daddy! He gets antsy if he has to sit still for too long.

On the other hand, you get your love of talking from me. When you’re at home or in the car, you’re talking non-stop! Your brother seems to be the same way now that he’s talking in complete sentences. It’s a good thing that he’s talking in more complete sentences now, because you started to develop a habit of talking in fragments like a baby or toddler. Now you have regular conversations together, and these are often quite amusing! I’m not sure how he gets in a word edgewise, but he has managed to figure out how to hold his own. You are quite a bit shy in new situations and around people that you don’t know well. That’s just about the only time that you stop talking!

A month or two after my last letter, you and I did a little project where you illustrated and narrated a little book. We never quite finished it, but it was quite entertaining. I highly enjoyed hearing you tell the stories, even if you didn’t spend much time illustrating it. You called it “The Conkatee,” and it seems to be a cautionary tale filled with pages that described various places. “This is a very, very fiery place. You should never go there.” and “This is the place with a smiley face and yucky mud. You should never, ever go there.” You’re a funny girl!

You love picking out your own clothes, and you’ll often pick out dresses and skirts. You do a fairly good job with matching your clothes, though you often pick out crazy socks because they have a little bit of the same color or pattern. You’ll say, “See? They match because my shirt has dots and these have dots!” One day, you picked out a shirt that said, “Peace, Love, and Rock & Roll” and said, “Look, it has a heart and a pretzel!”

You’re a big fan of pretzels, chips, cookies, cake, and especially chocolate. Daddy and I decided that you could eat whatever you wanted, within reason, on Christmas. It didn’t take you long to figure out what was going on. You asked me if you could have a lollipop, and I said sure! You went running to Daddy, “Daddy! Daddy! Mommy let me have a lollipop!” Daddy replied that it must be a special day. Your answer was, “Yeah! You can have candy whenever you want!” I wonder if maybe we’re a little too restrictive on a normal day, ha!

You are still a Daddy’s girl, but you’re my sweet little girl, too. When you are upset, you always cry for Daddy (even if he is nowhere in sight). I think it’s almost like saying “ouch” or “help me” now. You prefer Daddy in most situations, but I know you still love me big bunches, too. You are such a wonderful and amazing four year old. I love you more and more every day.

Love, Mommy

Something happening around the house: Well, I thought that our garage door was fixed (again), but it still doesn’t work right. Argh! We’re probably going to have to buy a new garage door at this rate.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Name of the Wind and started on the second book in the series, The Wise Man’s Fear.

Something Gabe is reading: Gabe finished book 3 of the Percy Jackson series and started on book 4.

Something I’m watching: We went to see the Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil show today. We had great seats (thanks to the connections of our friends!). It was the first time I’d been that close to the Cirque performers, and it was neat to see the details of the costumes and the performers’ facial expressions.

Something I’m playing: With the kids, we’ve been playing Zingo, Pengoloo, Teddy Mix and Match, and The Kids of Carcassonne. We played Die Burgen von Burgund on Friday. On Saturday, I played Europa Tour, Traumfabrik, Wits and Wagers Family, and Circus Flohcati. Gabe played everything except Traumfabrik and also played Pandemic.

Something I’m creating: Hmm. I don’t think I created very much this week.

Something about both kiddos: The kids this week have been so cute, calling each other “brud” and “sissy.” They tell each other to “have a nice day” when I drop them off at school. Sometimes they also say, “I love you, Brud” and “I love you, Sissy.” I just love to see them getting along like that!

Something Maddie is doing (48 months old): We’ve been trying to encourage her to be more proactive in requesting new lessons at school. I think she did a few times this week. At home, she has been doing a lot of work with her scissors. She enjoys cutting pictures out of catalogs and making collages. She continues to write her letters very well and is getting a good handle on her number writing, too. She can spell simple words when I help her sound them out, but she is rarely interested in doing more than a few a at time. I hope that she’ll show a little more interest in reading soon!

Something Cullen is doing (25 months old): Cullen is a funny little guy these days. He laughs so much. I love it! You never know what he is going to find humorous. Earlier this week, he kept looking at Gabe and saying, “Gabe!” and then bursting into giggles. They celebrated a birthday at school this week, and I heard that he was laughing like a crazy person at the little party, too. Last weekend, he didn’t take any naps. It’s getting more difficult to put him down for naps. Bedtime is getting more challenging this week, too. One day this week, he was still trying to come out of his room at 10pm! He usually goes to bed around 7:45pm. He will get out of his bed and open his door (which has a gate on it) and ask for various things. He wants me to read another book or sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (lately, he wants me to sing to him before bed). He’ll want me to come back in and put him in bed. He’ll want me to cover him. My favorite excuse is when he wears the footed pajamas (which we call footies) and puts pacis in his footies and needs us to retrieve them. Earlier this week, we were in the car and I heard Cullen say, “I just took the booger out and put it in my mouth. That’s yucky. Ew! Gross!” When Cullen talks about things that he wants to do, he often ends his sentences with “right now.” The other day, he came to me crying. He was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand him. I often say, “Cullen, can you use your words?” and he is often able to tell me things. He said, “Yes. Daddy won’t let me go up the stairs right now.” He’s just getting so articulate.

Something I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to the nice weather later this week! I’m also shocked to report that we have no definite plans for this entire week, including next weekend.

Something captured: Maddie working one of her 100-piece puzzles. She looked up at the camera and said, “this is my real smile.”

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m thinking: My friends (and husband) were right, I really am enjoying The Name of the Wind.

Something I’m hoping: I hope that we can get our garage door fixed. We’ve already had someone out to “fix” it, but they obviously didn’t do everything that needs to be done. I fear it’s going to mean getting a new door.

Something happening around the house: Our garage door won’t open automatically at all.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Illumination, and I think it had two interesting concepts: the glowing pain and a book of love notes. The love notes were notes that someone wrote for their wife every day and stuck on the fridge. I liked this daily reminder of love. The book just didn’t stay together for me. I think it started out strong and the last few “chapters” (each chapter shows a different person) were weak. I wouldn’t recommend it, though I think a book club would find a lot to discuss. I started The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I was checking my wish list of kindle books at the library and noticed that it didn’t have a waiting list. I decided I was ready to read it! We already have the kindle version of the second book, so I should be able to dive right into that one after I finish the first. Unfortunately, the third book in the trilogy won’t be out until sometime next year. I’m about 80% finished with it. I’ve been reading a lot lately!

Something Gabe is reading: He’s reading the 3rd Percy Jackson book.

Something I’m watching: It’s March. We’ll be watching a lot of basketball.

Something I’m playing: I’ve been playing a lot of kid games this week. Both kids still love playing Zingo almost daily. Maddie is very into The Kids of Carcassonne, and we played it almost every night this week just before bedtime. She gets some special privileges after Cullen goes to bed, and this week it has been board games with Mommy and Daddy. We just picked up Pengolo which is a cute little memory style game with little wooden penguins hiding colored eggs. We played that one for the first time last night.

Something I’m creating: I’m still working on Maddie’s letter. I wrote most of it, but I am having some writer’s block for the last few paragraphs. Hopefully, I can get it finished this week. I also worked on the thank you notes from the kids’ party. It has been about a month now, so I feel bad about taking so long. Maddie’s have been done for a couple of weeks.

Something about both kiddos: I have forgotten to mention that the kids have an imaginary playmate. I guess that is what you call her. They talk about “Cabea” quite often, and when I ask questions about her age or where she lives or what she does or how they know her, they tell me that they don’t know. But they are always talking about how they are going to go to Cabea’s birthday party or take a trip to their house or they are making some drawing for Cabea. I’m not sure where this came from. When the kids say goodbye to Daddy in the morning, they always attach some adjective. For a while, they were saying, “Goodbye stinky Daddy!” I agreed that perhaps he was stinky since this is always before his shower. Lately, they have been saying, “Goodbye good Daddy” or “Goodbye happy Daddy.” I think Daddy likes these goodbyes much better.

Something Maddie is doing (48 months old): We got a progress report from school. They know that she has ability, but sometimes it’s a challenge to get her to try new work. She doesn’t often ask for new work. She did start working on her world map this week. They use pin punching to create the shapes. I was excited to hear that she’s finally working on the map. We did “moveable alphabet” work at home, but she hasn’t started it at school. They mentioned in her report that they will get her to do that soon. She has to sound out simple words and figure out how they are spelled. She seemed to do pretty well with it at home! Otherwise, she hasn’t shown much interest in phonics and reading, but she has been very interested in practicing her writing. This week, she asked me to create worksheets with uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers for her to practice. She created some of these herself at school, too. We put a clock in her room on her birthday, and we told her that she needs to stay in her bed until the first number is a 7. She has been doing really well with this! The best part is that it has reduced the number of days that she stands at the top of the stairs and whines for Daddy to get her from like 7 days a week to 1 or 2. It’s a miracle! She comes downstairs all by herself, uses the potty and washes her hands, and then comes to wake us up. This week, she said, “Carcassonne is my favorite game ever!” I’m so proud!

Something Cullen is doing (25 months old): I forgot to mention when we went out to eat for Maddie’s birthday, Cullen tried to join another family. He saw a cute little 5 year old girl at the next booth and said, “I want to see the pretty girl.” He had caught their attention a few times and went over and said hi. They adopted him and let him sit at their table for a few minutes. He was thrilled and wanted to stay with them the rest of the night! He was disappointed when I told him it was time to come back to our table. He’s been “reading” more of his books. Just now, he was supposed to be napping and he kept getting books from his shelves and “reading” them to his stuffed animals and dolls. He can “read” many of them almost word for word, but “Red Hat, Green Hat” is my favorite right now. He cracks up when the “chicken” (it’s really a turkey) does silly things with his clothing. I managed to get it on video this week. He has been doing really well with his color identification, and he’s getting good at identifying whether someone is a girl or a boy. He told his first “your mama” joke this week. He has been saying that Clare’s mommy is stinky (just part of his “stinky” is a funny word phase). When I told him about Clare’s birthday party, he said, “Clare’s mommy invited me. She’s a stinky mommy.” He giggled. Then he paused and said, “No. She’s not stinky!” and giggled again. Another pause and, “YOUR mommy is stinky!” He is getting more and more articulate, of course. This week, every time he saw a large truck he would say things like, “That truck is too big for the garage. It’s too heavy.” I love how he still talks with pauses between every word. I’m going to be sad when I realize that he no longer does that!

Something I am struggling with: The plans for this weekend changed due to some unhappy circumstances.

Something I learned: The DPAC announced their new line up for the fall and early next year. I’m excited about seeing a few of those!

Something I’m looking forward to: Cullen is invited to a birthday party next week for one of his new classmates. The invitation was one of the coolest things I’ve ever received, and it includes a personalized shirt that he is supposed to wear to the party. We also have dinner and games with friends and games night.

Something random: My 12-year old cousin has a game in the app store!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m thinking: It’s hard not to think about this giant sore in my mouth that is the result of me biting my lip a few times earlier in the week.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping to find the motivation to work on all of my personal projects. It’s almost March, and I haven’t finished the trip reports from December…or Maddie’s letter. And then I need to get moving on the photobooks from the cruise and 2011. I haven’t even finished sorting through photos from 2011 (the cruise alone still has thousands of photos that I need to sort through). Every time I think about it in the evening, it makes me tired and I just go read my books!

Something happening around the house: I can’t imagine the disaster that we would have in this house if we didn’t splurge for our every other week cleaning service.

Something I’m reading: I finished the Phantom Tollbooth. That was a fun read! I remembered bits and pieces from my childhood. I don’t think I ever read the book, but I remember I watched the movie several times. I then decided to read the first few pages of Before I Go To Sleep, which is March’s book club selection. I knew several others who have been reading it, so I was intrigued. I had not planned on starting the book this early because I like to time my readings to where I finish it much closer to the book club meetings. Unfortunately, the book sucked me in and not only did I start reading it, but I finished it the next day. I couldn’t stop reading. I look forward to seeing what others in book club think. I started reading The Illumination which centers around the concept of what it would be like if one day we woke up and could view everyone’s pain. Cuts glow and shimmer, cancer shines through the skin, and joints glow with pain. It’s an interesting concept, though I’m starting to think the book started better than it is ending. I’ll probably finish it, but I think maybe the concept is better than the book itself so far.

Something Gabe is reading: Gabe finished Ready Player One, and he loved it! I’m glad he read it. I knew he would enjoy it. He started reading the 3rd book in the Percy Jackson series.

Something I’m watching: We’re watching tonight’s Amazing Race as I write this.

Something I’m creating: I’ve been working on Maddie’s 4-year old letter.

Something about both kiddos: I can’t remember if I have mentioned this before, but Maddie and Cullen have screeching wars (often in the car or at the dinner table). One of them will say something like, “I see a school bus!” and the other will say, “No, I see a school bus!” “No, you don’t see a school bus, I see a school bus!” I can’t tell you how many times a day that I have said things like, “It’s not a competition. We can all see the school bus!” Both kids have started saying, “it’s not a competition” about various things, so obviously we say it a lot! On Friday, they were particularly screechy in the car. I told them calmly to use their indoor/calm voices. I said they were welcome to screech outside when we got home. So, they did. They had a good time screaming outside. They did it two other times before dinner. The neighbors were on their porch, and I didn’t notice them until they started screeching back. I think they were amused!

Something Maddie is doing (48 months old): Her birthday was Monday, and we went out to lunch with her at the cafe and out to dinner with friends after work. She had a great day, though I couldn’t tell if she enjoyed the restaurant waiters singing to her until the end. She looked scared at first! We brought a cake to celebrate with her classmates on Wednesday. She had her 4-year check up on Thursday where she weighed about 31 pounds and was 39″ tall. She did fine with her vision and hearing tests, though she got a bit fidgety and bored at the end of the eye test. She’s been doing math problems in the car. She wants to add numbers, as long as the numbers are 5 or less so she can do one on each hand. We started doing subtraction problems, too. I’ll ask her, “if you have 7 objects, and someone takes 3 of them, how many do you have left?” She really has been enjoying doing these questions. She did a new lesson last week that I forgot to mention in the math section. She had to count different farm animals and color in blocks to make a bar chart representing the number of animals. I love it!

Something Cullen is doing (25 months old): Maddie always says, “Daaaaaadddddddyyyy” when she’s crying and hurt or upset about something. She always wants Daddy for comfort. Cullen has picked up on this habit (even though he really wants Mommy when he’s upset). He’s been a sweet boy lately. When he’s upset, I ask if he needs an extra hug. He often says, “yes” in a pitiful little voice and climbs up into my lap for cuddles. This week, he really started telling us that he loves us (in response to us telling him). We say, “I love you big bunches!” and sometimes he replies, “I love you big bunches, too” and other times he replies with a sweet little grin, “I love you little bunches.” He also looks at me lovingly and says, “You are my mommy.” I know he is saying he loves me when he does this, too. This week before eating something, he said, “bon appetit!” All week, he was very concerned that we were going to drop him off at the old classroom. He did not want to go back to that “baby” class! I’d say that he’s handled the transition quite well. He has called me on the phone a few times, though he doesn’t say much. He’s not quite getting the concept of the phone just yet!

Something I’m looking forward to: Book club and girls weekend!

Something random: I never look at the clock when I can’t sleep or when I know I’ve read longer than I had intended. Psychologically, I feel like I do better when I don’t know how little sleep I have had! I could tell on Friday that I had not gotten enough sleep, though! I was up way too late reading Before I Go To Sleep!

Something captured: Maddie and the “beegan” cake (so her classmate with allergies could enjoy it).

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m thinking: Four years ago, we had just gotten the news at around 5pm that they wanted to induce the next day. We were nervous, gathering the hospital bags, and dreaming about the arrival of our little girl.

Something I’m hoping: I hope Maddie enjoyed her special day!

Something happening around the house: The usual. Kid chaos across every inch.

Something I’m reading: I finished A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. It’s not the happiest book that I’ve ever read, but I thought it was a good one. I started and finished Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin. I thought it was better than her last one (Love the One You’re With). It was a quick read. It seemed like a bit too much potential reality for me, especially when it started with a young child getting badly burned in an accident. I started The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I remember seeing the movie as a kid, but this is the first time I’ve read the book.

Something Gabe is reading: He’s enjoying Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Something I’m watching: Amazing Race and Survivor started this week.

Something I’m playing: Gabe and I have been playing Reiner Knizia’s Skyline on the iPhone. It’s a fun little puzzle game. Maddie picked out a new version of Zingo, Zingo 1-2-3.

Something I’m creating: I am going to have to write Maddie’s 4-year old letter.

Something tasty: We got fancy cupcakes from Gigi’s Cupcakes. I like cupcakes fine, but I’m not sure that I’m crazy about them. I mean they were good and all…but…I don’t know. They are just cupcakes.

Something about both kiddos: We saw some new deer statues this week. Cullen said, “Bambi! Bambi!” I said, “yes, those are deer. Are they real deer or pretend deer?” Maddie said, “They are pretend. If they were real and we were in Chapel Hill, you would have bumped them.” Um, wow. She’s referring to when I hit a deer on the way back from Chapel Hill. The incident happened almost a year and a half ago!

Something Maddie is doing (47 months old): Our little girl is turning FOUR tomorrow. I can’t believe it. We had a day of fun, very similar to the one we had for Cullen’s birthday. We started at our breakfast place. They didn’t have the gingerbread pancakes, but they did have a special red velvet pancake that Gabe ordered. Maddie ate quite a bit of his special pancakes! We then went to Target where Maddie got an owl pillow and Zingo 1-2-3. We also got her a few reusable preschool workbooks with mazes and letter practice and washable dry erase markers. We got some new clothes for the kids from Target and Kohls – winter clothes on clearance and a few spring clothes. We had a 30% off coupon from Kohls, so it seemed like a good time to pick up a few things. Maddie picked out a few special outfits. She’s been asking to get her hair cut for a while, so we did that today. They cut it shorter than ever…a little shorter than we intended! It’s cute, though, and she was excited to get beads put in her hair. We had lunch at Noodles and picked up a new 100-piece horse puzzle from a specialty toy store. Maddie has already put it together once. She’s really doing well with those puzzles!!! I’m impressed. We also picked up the special cupcakes and sang a lot of the “Happy Birthday” song over and over. When we got home, Cullen napped while Maddie put together her new puzzle and practiced her workbooks. She requested Mickey and Minnie PB&J for dinner. Yesterday, Maddie went to a birthday party for one of her best buddies and her twin sister. It was at the Natural Science museum, and we had a great time at the party and exploring the museum. Maddie pointed out that all the dinosaurs died. They died a long time ago. The dinosaurs died, mommy! They are dead.

Something Cullen is doing (24 months old): Cullen had a big week and started his new 2-year old class! He visited on Monday for a couple of hours, but he still had lunch and nap and the rest of the afternoon in his old classroom. On Tuesday, he was asked where he wanted to take his nap. He said, “In my classroom. Here.” It didn’t take him long to make that transition! He was ready for new challenges. He is doing a lot of new work, and he already brought home a folder of artwork from his first week. He’s been communicating with his classmates and teachers. He was in the housekeeping area, and one of his new friends asked if he wanted help. He said, “No, keep your hands to yourself!” I’m glad he’s using his words! We’ll work on being more courteous to our friends, though. Poor guy has been fighting an ear infection this week. The tubes are doing their job and the icky fluid is draining out of his ear, but I think it’s bothering him. On Tuesday, he had some drainage and then later in the day he told his teachers that his ear was hurting. I’m impressed he was able to communicate this! He has started doing jigsaw puzzles (as opposed to the peg/shape puzzles). He is getting pretty good at doing the 12-piece puzzles.

Something I am struggling with: I love my kids, but they can be totally exhausting!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I saw Les Miserables, and I loved it! I had to concentrate to follow the story, but I was able to follow it for the most part. I got a little thrown a few times when a decade would elapse. We were all the way in the back of the theatre, so it was difficult to see who was singing or to tell the difference between certain characters.

Something I learned: I think that I’ll stick to better theatre seats in the future. I do like to save money on tickets at times, but I think that shows that are new to me should be seen from a better vantage point!

Something I’m looking forward to: We’re taking Maddie to lunch tomorrow for her birthday and bringing cake for her classmates on Tuesday. I’m not really looking forward to wearing a mouth guard at night, but I’m getting mine this week. We have Maddie’s 4-year check up, too. Gabe has poker, and the family has a birthday party to attend.

Something random: It’s snowing outside tonight, and it was like 70 degrees and sunny yesterday. How’s that for random?

Something captured: Maddie looks like such a big girl with her haircut!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey