Downtown Disney

I decided after having a decent sleep, and realizing I was able to eat toast and bland food that I should try to integrate myself back into society.  We headed off to downtown Disney for the morning.  Very rough for me as I was weak from lack of food and was getting dizzy and weird feeling.  I ended up sitting outside for most of it, but at least i was out and on the mend!

Outside the Lego store.  Mike had been very excited to visit this store again!

Lego friends! Paige is holding a small set to buy. 

Incredible Hulk!

Rosie making a Lego person

Bins of loose Lego.  All you can stuff in a container for $7 or $14 I think. 

In the Disney Store.  Rose wanted a Snow White dress, and Paige decided she didn't want a princess dress at all. 

After a little bit of shopping we went to Earl of Sandwich for lunch.  Later in the afternoon we went swimming.  I even attempted a bit, but was tricky as a buoyant baby stomach that has recently been not so well doesn't feel that great.

It was either this night or the previous night where we discovered the 9pm onwards beeping in the hall which would plague us for the rest of the trip.  Every night we would call and say, "Just calling again about the beeping outside our room...".  Super Annoying.

Sick day

The first night we slept in the hotel I kept waking up in the early morning feeling nauseous.  I assumed I was just tired, hungry, etc., but as the day began I just felt worse and worse.  The plan was to go to the hotel restaurant.  I debated staying back, but Mike convinced me that maybe it was just from the travel, so I went anyway.  I had 2 bites of food and headed quickly back to the room.  Stomach flu of some sort. Ugh.  Spending the day in the hotel bed/bathroom was not my idea of fun on the first day of vacation, but very necessary.  

In the meantime, everyone had a nice day swimming and playing at the park.  It must have warmed up really quickly as it was cool when we went for breakfast! Not much more for me to report as I was not part of the action at all!

Walking to breakfast

Large pond in middle of the resort

The few minutes i was there for breakfast

The main pool

While mommy was resting

Off to Orlando

As expected it was tricky to wait around all morning to go to the airport.  I really do prefer to get up and go.  But, it was nice to have the extra time to make sure everything was done.  We set off and got to the airport in record time for our usually late arrival family.

We had a unusually long wait to check our bags, but the girls were well behaved and just pulled their suitcases along.  Actually, by the end, Rose was demanding water, which we didn't have due to security regulations.

After the long wait and a quick trip through customs we met up with Grandma Val.  The girls ran and gave her big hugs.  Rose even threw her suitcase aside to say hi.  I think talking to her on FaceTime really helped Rose to not be shy around her.  We had a quick bite to eat in the lounge and then boarded our plane!

Rose with her Hello Kitty headphones from Christmas.

Eating a lollipop from Grandma Val's treat bag. 

Three of the girls on one side and Mike and Rose on the other side.

The flight was uneventful and everyone was perfect--seriously. When we landed in Florida I think it was 7:30 ish, and not super warm, but still warm enough and humid and tropical feeling as always.  When we got to our rental car we realized it was too small to fit in comfortably, but realized we could just get a van for the same price (even though online it was double the price).  So roomy in a van.  Better get used to driving one anyway as we'll be getting one soon enough!

By the time we got to our room the girls were tired and headed for bed pretty quick.  The rest of us were tired but excited and stayed up late

Disney on the road!

Well, here we are on our last evening of our vacation and I clearly haven't done the "blogging from the road" that I claimed I would do. I have made a few notes and will have to catch up at home! The trip has been great, and packed with fun.  I didn't wake up early most days, which I usually do at home, so didn't really have any quiet time to work on the blog.  I also figured that as I didn't have any means to load our camera photos onto this laptop, that I may as well wait and didn't really make any real effort to do any blogging.  Stay tuned on the weekend for Disney pics and fun...

Getting dressed

Rose is at a stage where every day she wants to get dressed the instant she wakes up.  As soon as she has fully woken up and someone has come in her room she decides she wants to get dressed.  She likes to do it herself, and would prefer to wear one of her dresses every single day.  The 2 dresses that she will wear are often (usually) dirty, so she will then pick stretch pants and a t-shirt.

Paige on the other hand, would prefer to stay in jammies all day long if she could.  She wouldn't normally pick a dress and mostly picks some sort of cozy pants and a long sleeve shirt.  Definitely never jeans.  Her jeans got too small and I never replaced them.

Both girls prefer no socks, and I literally have to remind Paige every day to wear socks if we are going out.

As for the winter attire, Paige likes wearing her winter coat, toque, mitts, boots and snowpants if neccessary.  Rose freaks out about getting dressed every time and only ever wants to wear "Stripey jacket"--a plaid fall coat, with no mitts, or hat.  If she sees my hand even pass by her snow pants, "I don't want SNOW PANTS!!", she yells. Huge meltdowns over getting out into the cold.  Florida will be a welcome reprieve from this issue. 

Rose-ism's

• If she doesn't want something, as in an item of clothing, a type of food, etc., she will whine, "Nooooo that's too good" in her whiniest voice.  

• When counting, as in hide and seek particularly, she will say, "1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...11..8...9...10...Ready or not here I come!"

mommy update...

My most recent self photo.  Maybe a week and a half ago. 

I'm still feeling pretty great! I'm at week 25 of this pregnancy, and haven't slowed down too much.  Of course it's harder to do things, but all things considered, things are going better than they were at this point in the previous 2 pregnancies.  I have realized this week that if I walk too fast I get cramps like you would if you run as a non runner. It's hard to slow down as it's so cold outside, and my body says walk as fast as possible.  I think I've gained 15 pounds or so, most in the torso, as far as I can tell, and from what others tell me. My lululemon pants are still good that I wore in the summer.

Of course, as I said, Disney will be a challenge.  I'm hoping the swimming days and general laziness around the hotel will make up for the excessive walking at Disney.  I didn't want to rent a stroller for Paige at Disney, but it will make more sense for me not to carry a purse, and have 2 strollers to store all of our stuff! Paige is small too, so won't cause too many people to look at a 5.5 year old being strolled around.

So anyway, I'm trying to eat as healthy as possible, and exercise too.  I'm definitely craving sweets though.  I bought some chocolate buttons so I could nibble on those from time to time without going crazy and getting anything huge.  I still crave a subway veggie sub constantly--I've only had 2 in the pregnancy.  I'm thinking Disney will be a great place to fulfill all of my cravings, and hopefully burn off the calories from these cravings.  I brought the exercise ball up from the basement and have been sitting on it to do weights.  Even just moving around a bit on the ball stretches out my hips.

I find that sleeping is getting rough, only because by the wee hours of the morning I am so stiff and uncomfortable that I find it hard to get comfortable enough to get back to sleep.  Oddly enough I am not tired during the day though, so my wake ups must not be as long as they feel.  Yep, still going to bed at normal time and everything.

Perhaps all of this positivity and generally feeling good is because it's a boy this time? I kind of thought that was an old wive's tale, but now experiencing it first hand...

Hoping to get a better "pregnancy photo" in Florida in a nicer outfit out in the sun. All of mine are the selfies in the bathroom with my phone. 

Rose's songs..

Rose has a couple new favourite songs:

"Girl on Fire"
"Call me Maybe"

Over the Christmas break the car seats were in Mike's new SUV, which has an iPod hookup.  We were able to fulfill song requests for 2 weeks.  Now that we're back in the Touareg, I don't have the same ability to play these songs.  Rose requests them every time and has little meltdowns about not being able to listen to them.  One day she was even full on crying and yelling "I want Daddy!!!!" because I couldn't play "Girl on Fire".

When she hears them though she sings along with her version of the words, and sometimes even makes things up like "this woofies on fire", and "Call me woofie".

Both girls love the part in Call me Maybe that says "all the other boys, try to chase me, so here's my number, call me maybe".

In general, Rose loves singing now.  She makes up little songs in tune to children's songs, as well as singing to the popular songs she knows.  She loves going up high on snowbanks and yelling "I'm the king of the castle, you're the dirty castle!" haha.

Paige's neck!

On Monday morning Paige woke up with a super stiff neck at 6:00am.  "I can't move my neck!" she was yelling.  I managed to get her back to sleep for an extra hour, but when she woke up it was the same.  She was in agony in the morning, crying and unable to move her head very much.  It was basically stuck tilted slightly to the left.  She could lie on her left side only.  We tried heat, massaging it and medicine.  I took her to the doctor as well, just in case.  Doctor had no new suggestions at all.  She got through the day just taking it easy, having a quick nap (think the heat pack and medicine put her to sleep!), watching a movie over dinner with random food that was easy to eat, and then she went to bed with a heat pack.

 She slept fine that night and woke up in a good mood, but still unable to move very much.  I sent her to school as the doctor said it could take a few days to get better anyway.  I warned the teacher about the issue and told her to let me know if it was a problem.  At 11:30 I got a message that Paige had been crying a bit, so I picked her up.  I think she was just frustrated at school not feeling herself, because when she got home she was acting happy and normal. I called a physiotherapist and booked an appointment for the afternoon.  The lady massaged/stretched out her neck and I could see her slowly moving it back into place.  By the end of the appointment her head was at least straight! Huge improvement.

That was on Tuesday. Now on Thursday she still doesn't have full movement, but is mainly keeping her head straight.  Yesterday I was having to remind her not to hold it tilted to the left, as she had become accustomed to doing that. We had booked a follow up with the physio tentatively, and I think we'll keep it.  She can probably work on it to improve the motion even further.  Poor Paige.  So young to have such a problem.  She was upset that she had to miss gymnastics yesterday as well.  

Dancing

Rose has been seriously feeling the music lately.  I hope that translates into some serious skills in dance class next year when she is old enough to join, but for now she's into the dancing at home.  Mainly to dance music--"Party Rockers", "Firework", and any other current hits.  Paige loves it too, but Rose is hilarious for the young age of 2.

Here's a quick video of Rose dancing to "Santa Baby" before Christmas.  She's in her gymnastics outfit: