Today was a beautiful day.  A beautiful day to celebrate Temperance's 4th birthday, Tangled style.  All week, I was worried about the weather and today, it turned out great!  It sure did put a smile on my face.  I was hoping to have professional pictures of Mimi's 4th birthday party, but unfortunately, something came up and it didn't happen.  So please excuse the blurriness of some of our pictures, because all we had was iPhones and no cameras, go figure.  I hope you enjoy!!!!

Around noon or so, I went out to pick up Mimi's balloons from Party City, which were not done, but I politely told them I needed them done by noon, which it was only 11:15am, and I would be fine.  I don't know if it was how I said it, but they had them done for by 11:30am.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the balloons, because honestly, I didn't really think about it.  But here's a shot of them stuffed in the back of my car.  Looking like they can barely breathe.

Once I got home, I cleaned Mimi up and began packing up my car.  Here's Mimi wearing rollers for the first time.  I was just trying to keep her curls from frizzing up :)

The party started at 3p, but I got up to Halyburton Park around 1:45pm, to begin sitting up for Mimi's Tangled birthday party.  Of course, I was stressed out, extremely stressed out and I don't think it got any better until "after" everyone was about to leave.  But, I did get through the day with a half smile on my face :)

We ended up not playing pin the frying pan on Flynn Ryder because I decided, painting and playing on the play ground was more than enough fun and I felt pinning a frying pan to Flynn would get pretty chaotic.  

What better way to server strawberries, cantaloupe, crackers, Hawaiian bread, gold fish, and apples, than in frying pans :)  Rapunzel's weapon of choice!!!!!

And of course, blue jello w/ seedless navel oranges on top (this resembles the boat Rapunzel and Flynn were in while waiting for the lanterns to come out).

And what does Rapunzel LOVE to do:

<-----BAKE

               

              PAINT----->         

>MAKE CANDLES<

Gifts/goodie bags for the kiddos :)

Let's begin the party and PAINT!!!!!!!!!!

Yummy cake/cupcakes made by Imaginary Bakery!

Happy Birthday to Mimi!!!!

Gifts

A big thank you too all of her friends/family for coming!  

 Keon, Nathan, Kayne (Mimi's little boyfriend from school)

 Savannah, Mimi

 Kayne, Mimi

 Ms. April/Ms. Tammy (Mimi's teachers)

 Mimi, Lana

 Aryianna, Savannah, Aubrey

 Alexis, Alyssia

 Kayne, Alexis

 Khalil

A big THANK YOU to everyone who came out to help celebrate Mimi's 4th birthday.  I know she enjoyed it and loved every moment!!!

Mimi turns FOUR

Today is such a special day.  Why you ask?  Well because Temperance Maleia turns 4 today.  I cannot even believe how fast time has flown by.  She tends to amaze me everyday.  I know it can be hard for her at times, but she is truly a fighter and she keeps going..............Just the other day, we were watching a signing time DVD and she was picking up on certain signs so easily:  tree, boots, rain, and a few more.  We haven't been watching the movies lately since I've been so busy with my "never slow down" life and the minute the DVD started, she began jumping up and down, dancing around.  It's so happy to see her happy and knowing she wants to learn something new.

Mimi continues to grow each and every day.  She has so many friends at her school and two wonderful teachers, whom I know she absolutely loves to death.  She's been working on matching colors and is doing fantastic.  I can't wait for to say the colors and be able to actual say it while pointing to it.  I know that day will come.  She can sign most of the colors and can say a few:  purple, green, blue.  She's still not potty trained, but I truly believe in my heart, she can do it.  She's just not wanting to at the moment.  This is going to be one of our goals for the summer.  Of course, she still sucks on her thumb.  Another goal we will be working on.  It's like she refuses to let go of her thumb.  Her nail doesn't even grow anymore, that's how much she sucks on it. alas.  Just something to work on, but we will get past it.  Because she's growing up so much and I know she can do anything that comes her way.
 

Saturday, we will be celebrating her 4th birthday, Tangled style.  I will be sure to share pictures :) 

Mimi 1

Mimi 2

Mimi 3

Most recent picture of Mimi :)

Mimi is my love and my life!  I love her more and more each day. I know it gets hard for me and her, but I know, we will get through every obstacle that comes our way.  I am so proud at how much she has accomplished and learned over the past few months.  She has blossomed into a young beautiful little lady, whom I love from the bottom of my heart.  Happy 4th Birthday Temperance <3

Malakai's First Cruise (Disney Dream)

Friday, April 27, 2012

At about 3ish in the morning, I got myself up and packed Malakai in the truck.  It was time for us to hit the road.  I've always been the one to drive in the middle of the night.  Since I'm going to be on the road for close to 10 hours, I feel as if it's best to hit the road as early as I can, so I can bypass traffic and get through South Carolina, which has close to 200 mile markers on I-95.  Ugh!  Kai doesn't fall to sleep right away, but he is asleep by the time we cross the border into SC.  He ends up waking up briefly and we discuss getting breakfast, once the sun starts coming out.  Before I can even get to the exit, he falls back to sleep, so I keep driving.  I'd rather stop later, than sooner.  Kai finally fully wakes up around 9ish or so, and we pull off and enjoy a quick and nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  My goal was to not stop too much on the way into FL, just when needed.  So as we are approaching the GA state line, someone has to go to the bathroom, so I decide to go ahead and pull over into the rest area to take a break, use the bathroom and walk a bit.  I don't think we ended up stopping again in GA, maybe for a gas break, but nothing out of the ordinary.  We then go ahead and stop at the rest area once you cross over in FL for yet another bathroom break and just to wiggle our legs a bit.

So we are finally in FL.  I'm sure a sense of relief came upon me when we crossed the border.  We still however how about three more hours to go.  Our next destination was to make it to Downtown Disney :)

Which we eventually did and unfortunately, I just wasn't impressed with what they had down there, so I mainly just enjoyed the atmosphere.  Kai however, found plenty to blow his little bit of money on.

 

Once we were finished at Downtown Disney, we traveled back up to Winter Park, FL, to spend the evening with my step dad.  I called myself trying to find short cuts, and instead ended up on the turnpike, which cost me a little bit of money.  Once we did get there, it was a good evening and Kai got to talk/mingle with my step dad.  It was interesting to see how both reacted towards one another.  

Saturday,  April 28, 2012

I was hoping to sleep in a little bit, but nope, woke up right before 6am.  Woke Kai up so he could use the bathroom, I did not want him to pee in the bed.  Kai gets up and instead of going back to sleep, he ponders into my step dad's office and decides he's not going back to bed. The plans for that day were to enjoy a few hours at Islands of Adventure (Universal Studios) and then hit the road to Cape Canaveral, FL.  Since Mimi is usually with us when we travel, it's hard to incorporate big kid rides or roller coasters, because Mimi is too small.  So I decided we'd hang out at an amusement park that I knew Mimi would care nothing about anytime soon.  Once we got there, I don't know who was more excited:  me or Kai.  Let me tell you.  We both had a blast.  The first ride we got on was the 3D Spiderman ride and Kai so enjoyed it.  We eventually road it once more before we left.  All the roads Kai was able to ride (except a few water rides), we got on at least once.  When we finally got to Dr. Seuss Landing, we enjoyed time talking to the characters, snapping pictures of one another, and looking at the Lorax set up they had.  I thought I was going to go money crazy in that area, but I controlled myself very well :)  All I ended up getting for myself from there was a mug that says:  Mother of all Things.  It's super cute and unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it, but will later, maybe.  I got Mimi a Lorax bag to go with her shirt, bow, and book I got her for her birthday.  Oh how I wish the movie would be out by next week, but I think it's set for a release date in June.  Oh well.  Here are a few pictures of us enjoying Dr. Seuss Landing:

 

Because mommy was having way too much fun and Kai wanted to take pictures of me :)

So by the time 2 o'clock gets around, both Kai and I are starving, so I took this opportunity to try out Bubba Gump.  Minus the prices for the meals, the food was amazingly good/yummy :)

The image in the right top corner are hushpuppies with fish, shrimp, and corn.  They were actually pretty good.  The left bottom corner was a platter of different types of shrimp.  Kai is slurping on an expensive glass of mango fruit (something like that) slushy, that has a light that blinks when you press the button on the bottom of the cup, next to the caption "hand wash only."  Umm yeah, read it and still put it in the sink of hot water the other day.  Doh!

Once lunch was over with, we hit the road and head towards Cape Canaveral, FL and once again, I made the mistake of trying to get somewhere thirty minutes quicker and ended up on another road that contained several tolls.  FL roads just aren't meant for me.  Once we get close, I try waking Kai up from his nap.  Yep, he fell asleep.  Apparently he was a bit exhausted from the park.  Go figure!!!  He kind of wakes up, but falls back to sleep.  Once we get close enough to see cruise ships, I attempt again and this time, of course, I've got his full attention.  We eventually get to our hotel, Country Inns and Suite, and get settled for the night.  We do some last minute errands by driving up to Walgreens/CVS up in Cocoa Beach I believe, pick up pizza from Pizza Hut, and Kai enjoys a short swim in the pool before he eats.  Then, it's night time for the both of us, because we have a BIG day ahead of us!!!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The DAY has finally arrived.

Kai:  Mommy, you know what time it is?  (Yes Kai, I know.  But this could of waited a few more hours)

So, we get up.  Eat breakfast, watch TV, and head on down towards the port.  Our check-in time is 11:30am, so we head down there a little after 10:30am, because we still have to park.  I decided to go ahead and park myself and pay the stupid fee of $75 instead of doing a shuttle because I knew once it was time to get off the boat, all I was going to want to do was get in my car and head on home.  We park and then STOP to take a few pictures before we enter the terminal.

Kai and I in our matching Disney Dream 2012 shirts made by coming up baby.

We finally get in and let me tell you, the terminal is packed and I could feel my blood pressure rising.  We ended up being in group 7 to board, so it wasn't too bad.  I'm pretty sure we were on the boat before 12:30 or at least close to it.  Since our room wasn't going to be ready until 1:30ish, we decide to find the children's club/lab so Kai can get his wrist monitor and then walk up to the top of the boat and just explore/sit around.  

 Kai posing in front of the clip board from Andy's room from Toy Story.

Sitting on the deck, waiting for our room to open up.  Kai with his wrist monitor :)

Finally, a little after 1:30, our room is ready.  We were on Deck 2, mid-ship, ocean view room.  At first, I was nervous about the lower deckage.  Let me tell you, I absolutely LOVED it.  I hardly ever heard any traffic outside our room.  Then I was afraid we would have a little window, NOPE.  I was highly impressed and thankful for the room we ended up with!!!!

Gift from Mickey and the gang (mommy) created by Perfect Gift Floral & Gift Basket Shoppe.

 Our AWESOME window!

Our fish extender (FE) created by coming up baby for our gift exchange.

Once we located our room and everything, we went back up towards the top deck to go our life jacket safety and then afterwards, head up to the pool deck to enjoy the sail away party :)  It was getting close to dinner, so we ended up leaving right before the boat even left to sail off.  We had early dinner at 5:45pm, so we needed to get dressed and head down towards the Enchanted Garden.  I was hoping we'd get the chance to sit in the tea cup booths, but ended up with a ocean view table, which was perfectly fine.  I enjoyed the fact that we had our own table.  All the cruises I've been on in the past, you shared with other families, so it was nice to have a table to ourselves.  

Dinner was quite enjoyable.  I made Kai eat mainly chef selection menu items and not something he could make at home or get else where and he seemed to enjoy everything he got :)  I highly enjoyed my appetizer, which was a creamy asparagus soup.  It was beyond delicious.  Both our waiter and assistant waiter were very helpful.  The assistant waiter even did some magic tricks for Kai after dessert, which he excitedly enjoyed.  After dinner, Kai wanted to go back to the club/lab, since they finally opened for services at 6p.  So I took him there, hoping to return around 8ish, so we could go see the first show of the trip.  Wrong, didn't happened.  I got so distracted in delivery my FE gifts and exploring the boat, that time went by and I hadn't a clue until I looked at my phone and it was pass 8:45pm and the show started at 8:30pm.  Bummer!!  I still went to go and get Kai, so we could head to the room, because honestly, I was already tired and he was tired/cranky.  Both of us were in bed by 10p and I'm sure asleep, not to long after :)

 I came to the room before picking Kai up and this is what it looked like.  That is a squid made from my blanket.  The stateroom lady happened to be close by and was curious on what type of bed Kai would want to sleep on, since she turned the couch into a bed.  I informed her that he sleeps in a bunk bed at home, so she turned down the bunk bed for him to sleep in :)

 Enjoying a walk on the boat, losing track of time......

Enjoying my second drink of the day, pineapple mojito, losing track of time even more............. 

 Finally, picked Kai up from the club/lab since I lost track of time and missed the show.  He decided he wanted to go find the missing puppies (a detective/mystery game on the boat).  Our criminal ended up being Hook!

And of course he saw Chip and Dale from a distance and insisted on me taking pictures with him :)

Gotta love him!

Then it was time for bed finally..........................Hope you enjoyed our first few days of our vacation.  The rest will come soon :)