22,000 Steps

For a few months we have been talking to Adelyn and Odin about the "Big Surprise." Ben has occasionally given clues to them,for instance, we need to take a plane there. Well, on December 13 the Big Surprise was revealed - Disney World! It was funny... when we got to the property to check into our hotel, we told the kids where we were. We had 2 blank stares. They had no idea what Disney World was. But they quickly found out! We checked into our hotel and went off to the Magic Kingdom.

We spent the most time at the Magic Kingdom, but we also went to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios and Epcot Center. We did all the rides and shows that Adelyn and Odin would like. I was surprised as to how many rides Genevieve could go on with us. That was a nice surprise.

Our typical day was to sleep in, grab breakfast at our hotel, head to a park, go back to the hotel for naps, wake up for night time park fun. The kids did very well on this schedule. It was nice too, because at night the lines to the kiddie rides were very short. Didn't even need Fast Passes!

One day I decided to use the pedometer feature on my phone. By the end of the day I had more than 22,000 steps! The next day was pretty much the same. The amazing part - Adeyln and Odin walked most of those with us. Our last night we had the stroller for Odin, otherwise Genevieve was in it. I am so impressed with the amount of walking they did.

I could write a super long post, but instead I'll just list some highlights.

- Princess lunch with Belle and the other princesses
- Breakfast with Chip and Dale and Goofy
- Lunch with Winnie, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore
- Breakfast in Cinderella's castle
- Random invite to skip the line to see Anna and Elsa
- Everest roller coaster
- Animal safari
- Countless smiles and shrieks of delights

Thankful Tree 2014

In November we started a new family tradition - a Thankful Tree. I bought a stand-up tree from Target and cut out paper leaves. Several times throughout the month, we would share what we were thankful for. Then we added the leaves to the trees. Here is what we were thankful for:

Odin
I'm thankful for...
God
Boo-boo
Grandma reading to me and letting me paint on her tablet.
Mac and cheese and cereal
Watching Mickey Mouse movies on mommy's phone and TV.

Adelyn
I'm thankful for...
Mac and cheese
My family
Mommy and I like your shirt
Genevieve
Muffins

Ben
I'm thankful for...
My children coming in and snuggling with me this morning.
Mommy's back rubs.
My staff hiring someone without my help.

Me
I'm thankful for...
That we can spend time with friends.
That even though we [the girls] live far apart we are still super close.
Play dates.
That daddy let me go for a run.
Adelyn puts a smile on my face.

Woof: I'm thankful for grandma coming.

Dolly: I'm thankful for mommy.

Grandma: I'm thankful for being able to spend time with my 3 special grandchildren.

Heather: Girlfriends who travel lots of miles for a last minute weekend.

Andrea: I'm thankful for Grandparents and that they make girls weekend possible.

Cassie: I'm thankful for annual girls weekend. 11 Years and 6 Years.

October Fun

Yikes! I am way behind on this. I thought about skipping October and going straight to November, but there are some things I wanted to document, so here I am. In no particular order...

Oktoberfest - One thing I like about other countries is their culture. Being in America, I feel like we have a lack of culture. A while back I decided that perhaps we can do things as a family that is a reflection of our heritage. If nothing else, it's a fun family thing to look forward to. For our Oktoberfest I wanted to have a German breakfast. For us, that means brotchen. I looked up a few recipes and was all set to make it when I thought about the logistics. Quickly I decided that I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night to make it. Fortunately, I found a German bakery. The kids and I headed over there in the morning. We picked up the brotchen along with kinder chocolate and real German gummies. We had a yummy breakfast with brotchen, salami, and cheese. For lunch we had Nuremberg brats from Trader Joe's. They are Ben's favorite from his time in Germany. After lunch I taught the kids how to polka. We finished our fest with the Chicken Dance. We were going to make pretzels, but ran out of time. Next year!

Halloween - This year we once again headed over to the Lantz's for Halloween. We headed over there in the afternoon for some play time. Then we went to their club house for an early dinner. Dinner was good, but service was slow! After that it was time to change. Adelyn was Rapunzel again (she liked the pink and purple costume the best), Odin was Thomas the Train and Genevieve was Cinderella. We had a lot of fun. The kids got a lot of candy. We actually still have most of it left! The kids were more interested in playing with it than eating it.

Genevieve - Genevieve had her 2 month well check. She did great during the ridiculously long appointment. The appointment was at 11:30 and we got out of there after 1. We are switching doctors for sure! She weighed in at 11 pounds 4 oz and was 22 inches long.

Vegetables - The kids and I headed over to Gilcrease Orchards to pick some veggies. We ended up there the week before Halloween. It was packed! Everyone was busy getting their pumpkins. We picked beets, zucchini, sweet potatoes and a pumpkin. With two little helpers, it was a kind of pathetic haul, but it was fun. For a treat we had some of their apple donuts. Those were pretty amazing. I will definitely go back,but next time I will bring Ben and the baby carrier for G.

Brian's Birthday Party

When we first moved to Vegas, we spent a lot of time at the Platinum Hotel. The location was good. Prices decent. We had a kitchen and washer/dryer. But most of all, the staff were amazing! Most of our contact was with the valet guys. They knew us by name and were always super friendly. Especially to the kids. In addition to the valet crew, there was a guy, Brian, that worked security. He would pop into the lobby when he saw us and blow bubbles for the kids. The kids LOVED this. When we moved into our condo, Adelyn was missing her friends at the Platinum. So, one day we made cookies and pictures and went for a visit.

Fast forward to last week. Adelyn started being sad that we weren't at the Platinum. Somehow she got it into her head that it was Brian's birthday and that we should make a cake and have a party. Wasn't sure about the party part, but I figured we could always bring a cake over. Adelyn was so excited!! I let her pick out a cake mix and frosting at the store (pink and pink because she insisted he loved pink). We made the cake and headed over there.

Unfortunately... Brian no longer works there. Adelyn was so disappointed. But I give her tons of credit - she handled it so well! After talking through our options, she decided we could give the cake to the valet guys. So we stepped outside and were immediately greeted by name! It was a slow time so we chatted for a few minutes with them. It felt like seeing friends again!

Getting Our Greek On

The end of September was the Greek Food Festival. We decided that sounded like fun. Parking was a little on the crazy side, but it didn't take us too long to find a spot. The kids had fallen asleep on the drive there, so I fed Genevieve in the car while we let them rest.


Our first stop was for food, of course. We had way too much... gyros, pita and hummus, Greek fries, saganaki (fried cheese), loukoumathes (deep fried dough with honey) and of course baklava.


Near the food tent they had a stage with live music and dancers. Adelyn thought it was too loud, but we enjoyed watching and listening.


After our tummies were stuffed, we walked over to the rides. Adelyn and Odin picked the kid Ferris wheel to go on, followed by a bounce house. They both had so much fun.


By then we were ready to go. Mostly because it was getting chilly and for some reason we didn't think to pack jackets. Silly us.


On our way out we bought Adelyn a scarf with coins sewed all over it (think like a belly dancer). It seemed like all the little girls were wearing them. Odin wanted one too, but the nice lady at the booth found a light-up toy for him instead. Adelyn has been having fun with the scarf. It makes a bunch of noise when she dances. :)

Thirteen Years

On September 15, Ben and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. Well, we celebrated the weekend before, but you know what I mean.

Rick and Mickey came into town for the weekend, so we took full advantage! On Friday we went shopping. I did a horrible job of packing non-maternity clothes when we moved back to Vegas. I literally did not have anything to wear for a nice dinner. Oops. We found an awesome store at Fashion Mall. Can't remember what it's called, but I could have bought just about one of everything in the store and would have worn them all. Only down side of this store is that it is expensive. Of course. So, I settled on one dress for Saturday night.

Friday night we had friends in town, so we met up with them for a drink and a walk around the Linq and the Strip. It was fun to see them and spend time with them.

Saturday afternoon, Ben and I headed over to Mandalay Bay for their day club. Krewella was playing at the pool. We had a lot of fun. The girls rocked it!

That evening Ben and I went out to dinner. It was my pick. I almost went for Steak n' Shake, but decided that since the kids like that place, I should pick a place that they don't like. So we went to Sushi Roku. We had some excellent hunks of fish. So good. They gave us free dessert. So nice!

After that we walked around the mall a bit, mainly to get out of it. But we stopped by a cool gallery. We found a print we both really liked. Turns out it could be ours for the low price of $6800. Hmm... Maybe not. Then we went on a hunt for dessert (don't judge! it was our anniversary!). The first place we tried to go to didn't exist. So we walked to the Mirage. That place didn't exist either. We ended up at BLT Burger. They have awesome shakes. So we got that. So full.

On Monday, our actual anniversary, was busy with laundry and running around getting things for Ben's trip to Peru the following day. We ended up at a Greek restaurant for dinner. The kids didn't really like it, but Ben and I were in gyro heaven! Their pitas so so good!

And thus concluded our 13 year celebration.

Firsts

Even though Genevieve is our third child, we still had some firsts with her.

She was the first to have formula. Before leaving the hospital, they checked her bilirubin. It was elevated. Ben and I weren't concerned since both other kids had this and everything was fine. But for some reason they freak out about that here. So, our choices were one more night in the hospital while they put her under lights in the nursery, or supplement her feedings with 20 ml of formula for 24 hours. We would rather be home. So we agreed to formula. Her bilirubin dropped drastically by the next day when we brought her in again. No more formula!

She went to her first buffet at about 36 hours. We had both sets of grandparents in town. I felt great. So, Sunday morning we all went out to brunch. The hostess was a little appalled that we took our newborn out. To a casino. Where there are germs. Someone else thought that we had the baby and then flew to Vegas. But one thing is for sure, the Bacchanal Buffet is AMAZING! The food was terrific. And you should see the dessert counter. I would pay just for that! Genevieve did great.

She was the the first to co-sleep with us. Honestly, this was due mainly to the fact that I was so completely tired. I would just snuggle up with her to feed her and fall asleep. When she fussed, we would roll over and she would eat some more and I would go back to sleep. As I got caught up on sleep, or my body got used to the lack of sleep, I started to get paranoid that she would suffocate - she really liked to snuggle into me. So, gradually we transitioned her to her crib. I miss my snuggle bug, but I think it's the best for both of us to get a good night's sleep.

She is the first to like tummy time. Just a few times I've put her on her tummy. Absolutely no complaints! Adelyn and Odin would basically scream bloody murder until we moved them back to their backs, or they figured out how to roll. Genevieve does not mind one bit. In fact, I think she likes it. I'm trying to take advantage of that.