Christmas from Disneyland

All I want for Christmas is Disneyland...at least that's what April thought BEFORE we got there and realized how many other people had the same idea!! :)

Ok, so there were a million people, but seriously, watching the girls' reactions to everything was priceless!

Emmy is still scared of all the characters...

K was wearing her Ariel dress that day so she was pretty stoked that Ariel was the princess she got to meet. She told Ariel all about it!  Yes, I know, her outfit is ridiculous!  It was cold and I refused to let her go without warm clothes on and she refused to leave without her princess dress on, and below you have our compromise.

Oops, this is out of order but right when we got into the park K just kept pointing around and saying, "Oooh, wook at how pwetty!"

While we were at the castle of princesses, we watched a show, learned how to dance and even danced WITH the princesses! This is spinning a ribbon around a pole.

K found Aurora, or in K language, "Me!!" (she thinks she is Aurora or Aurora is a representation of her, whichever way you want to look at it). She came back and told me she held her hand, but I honestly didn't believe her until I saw this picture that April had taken! :)

K was very upset when I told her we had to leave so I told her I would take a pic of her sad face and we would come back later...

In Mickey land, there are a lot of toys!

She's in there, driving, but you almost lose her in all the colors going on!

K's favorite spot...

After it was all done, we asked her who her favorite was and she said goofy, cause he danced with her...it was really cute!

Waiting for the parade, K got to interact with some older girls and they were showing off their dresses so K thought that was what she was supposed to do...show you her dress.

The girls loved the parade! I thought it was going to be too boring for them, but K sat and waved at all the characters and both girls just watched the entire time...utterly entertained.

K got tired and needed to take 'bear' with her, even on the rides, but when I asked her why she needed him, she said, "Bear is scared. I need to keep him safe." So when she put him in her seat belt, I had to snap, even if it meant a giant shadow on the side! :)

While I took K on dumbo, April took Em on the carousel.

LOL!  This makes me laugh!

She kept calling Dumbo Eva...an elephant gimmick used to convince kids to take their medicine and the name she has given to the elephant in Curious George Two...and no less than three kids felt the need to correct her while we waited in line.

Main street at night...

This is April's favorite picture...it makes her laugh. We call it the real story of Disneyland. Waiting in line is not the easiest thing on children and by the time we were past their bedtime, they just wanted to be held. I was holding both of them when I lost the grip, right when April snapped a photo. Ha! The truth comes out!

Emmy just kept climbing on whoever was in charge of her at the time...our little monkey...two!

It was so windy that they couldn't do the fireworks, so they made some extra snow...yeah, those are my California girls.

And when the day ended, there was peace at last!

So the final tally is that Disneyland at this age is awesome, super exciting, exhausting and stressful! We had several fatigue meltdowns and simply the lack of understanding about why it takes an hour to 'wait my turn', but I am pretty sure it was a giant hit. Why? At all three meals today, K prayed that God would keep the princesses safe so we can go back to Disneyland and see them. As only K can say it, "Peas(please) be wiff(with) the fincesses(princesses) and keep them safe so they don't have owies and we can go back to Disneyland and see them."

April decided that we all need to take a lesson from kids...let the little things in life bring us joy and GET EXCITED about life!! Seeing the world through their eyes is one of the greatest joys of parenting! God Bless!!

Disappointing Eye Results

Well, my heart is sad today as the reality of our visit to Emily's retinal dr sinks in. As it turns out, her eyes have already taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Or as they say it, "Her eyes are severely more near-sighted than these glasses are accommodating." Apparently Emily's weak eye may be up to 7 diopters weaker than her glasses (which are already -12) and both eyes are crossing in when she tries to look at something close up. She isn't using her weak eye like she should either so it is drifting inward too much.

In other words, we need new glasses cause her eyes have gotten way worse since we saw her doctor only four months ago. Most likely she needs bifocals. We can't get in, (because of the holidays), until the middle of January and then it takes a while to get glasses this small so there is no quick fix. Her weak eye is also getting lazy, so we have to start patching again. This morning she was very upset about it and kept pointing to her patch and softly crying while taking her glasses off to get at it. It made Mama quite sad.

If I am honest, I have a lot of pictures like the above with evidence of her eyes turning in but I never post them on the blog cause, well, it's sad.

Anyway, I came home and cried a little as the reality of the frailty of her eyes struck me once again. As you pray for her and the physical issues of her eyes, also please pray for me in that God will open my eyes to the dreams HE has for her. One of the hardest things for me to accept in all this has always been the death of all my dreams for the baby I was bringing into this world. Each time that I thought I had lowered my standards far enough, something would happen and I would have to lower them further. I tend to think, "So she won't be an athlete or a pilot or even be in the regular classroom for a while, but at least she can be a dr or accountant and do something with her brain." And then her eyesight gets worse and I say, "Well, not a surgeon but maybe family practice?"

I find that I cling to her having some sort of sight because in my mind if she can see and read, she still has opportunities out there for her. So when I get smacked with the reality that she could very likely lose her sight completely someday, I crumble all over again. I believe in my heart of hearts that the plans God has for her are awesome and worth every moment we go through with her. The problem is that when I am in my Mama moments and I see one more thing being taken from a little girl who wasn't given everything to begin with, little doubts creep in and I start to wonder if I can keep trusting.

All of that to say that I am starting to think that maybe I just need God to open my mind to what HE has in store instead of getting stuck in my own world of possibilities and impossibilities. Maybe He just wants to prove He can make the impossible possible and I need to let go in utter faith and stop trying to figure it all out in my head. I need to let go of what my brain tells me and trust that God is good and that He designed Emily and carries Emily and loves her so much more than I do and that His purpose will be perfect. Pray I do that all the time, not just most of the time.  Thank you.

God Bless! Your prayers are welcome in this home!

Christmas Part II

Well, here is part two of our first Christmas...we tried again for some family photos down at the ruins...it was freezing so we had to quit before we got Em to look up. :)

This is the lake that is less than two miles from my parent's house...and people really wonder why we want to live up here...in the trees? With lakes? Where there is more green than gray? Really? :)

Oh, and this was the kitchen I left...

Oh yeah, we went to the blacksmith demonstration down the street. That was pretty cool and I think the boys learned a lot.

A better shot of one side of the street.

Let's see, at the park with some of our old friends.

We find it funny to compare kids with these friends...they had two girls like we did only they are 6'9" and 6'1" tall and M and I are 5'9" and 5'3"...their youngest is seven months old and even though it's hard to tell because she doesn't stand up straight yet, she is only a couple of inches shorter than Em.

And their oldest just turned two...K will be three next month. :) If you needed to see both extremes, there you have it!

My little princess in her sweatshirt and dress while climbing a rock wall at the park. I love it that she has both sides!

Daddy and his little girl.

And now back to activities at the house...

The boys made Christmas breakfast for us all...

M told me the other day that he knows he has girls cause he picked up a Minnie Mouse mug and never even noticed that he was using a big, pink mug until someone tried to make fun of him about it. :) So I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that he is holding a princess umbrella while smiling at his daughter...

Just a classic Emmy shot.

And another one...

So cute

Riding my uncle

Auntie MoMo and two of her other nieces.

I had to take a pic of my parents for the church directory but thought it was cute, minus the boring background. :)

And so we took one of us.

That was our awesome Christmas vacation and the girls were great! 10 hours in the car and not even crying...until we got home when I heard, "I don't wanna go to MY house! I want to go to Nana's house!" It was 10pm and K hadn't slept yet. We had a lot of fun and other than being jealous of my own parents because they get to live where we want to, it was great! :)

God Bless!!