Alice and her Queen

I truly couldn't find better suited costumes for my girls. Ella, being my curious, imaginative, sweet girl wanted to be Alice in Wonderland. Madeline, the little tyrant, dominating girl who doesn't accept "no" for an answer was the Queen of Hearts. I have to say I think their costumes were adorable and watching them trick or treat was hysterical. Ella would run up to every house leaving poor Madeline to fend for herself. Ella would approach each house quietly, whisper "trick or treat" get a piece of candy, say "thank you" and run down the driveway. Madeline on the other hand would slowly walk up the driveway, and hold out her bag for candy. The person would put candy in her bag. Madeline would then stare them down for more and hold out her hands and they would actually give her more pieces of candy. She would walk away triumphantly, stomping down the driveway, putting her bag on her forearm like it was a Louis Vuitton and move on to the next house. Her personality is a riot. The girls collected lots of loot (which I am still eating on this last day of November) and I collected tons of adorable memories with them.  

With cousin Philip:)

Trying to break in for candy!

Forgive me...

For I have abandoned my blog...big time. I just can't get back into it. I get this momentum going and post a few things and then disappear for weeks.  I LOVED blogging when Tom was away in Korea. It was my reprieve at the end of a long day. But with this deployment, at the end of the day all I see are the backs of my eyelids or my Kindle screen. I would much rather read than type out what we did that day. To be honest...it's just not that interesting. At least when I was on my own in Oklahoma I was killing scorpians, fixing garbage disposals, traveling the world with a two year old, and really finding my independence. This time, I have my whole family around, tons of friends and these two beautiful little girls to keep my world busier than EVER. There are only so many playdates or trips to the park I can blog about before even I become bored. So please forgive me. I will definitely keep blogging in order to ensure the girls have a semi-accurate portrayal of what their year without daddy was like. And I will try to make it more interesting, but the posts might be few and far between. So let me play catch up with the month of November...ummm I mean October too because I just found some Halloween photos! Geez. I really am bad. 

Birthday Weekend Continued...

I woke her up in the morning bright and early and sang to her like I do every year, with tears in my eyes. I'm such a sap. Really. I do need to stop all the crying, but I just love her (and really want to keep her my little baby forever!). When she went out into the living area it was full of balloons and birthday presents and she was all smiles! She knew about Disney though because SOMEHOW it came out (hmmm maybe by my MIL the night before...hahaha). We asked Ella what she wished for and she said "a puppy." I told her that won't be happening, so she she wished again and this time it was for her daddy. The waterworks flowed and I made her pick a 3rd wish. Thank goodness it was for Disney World! I hate to disappoint!

Ella loves this place. There's not a ride she doesn't fear. Her first choice: Haunted Mansion. She was finally tall enough for Thunder Mountain, too. I remember that was MY favorite ride when I was a kid. I expected the look of fear on her face at the end of the roller coaster ride, but instead she was smiling from ear to ear and asked "Can we bring daddy here so he can ride this, too?!"--My fearless, yet very cautious little girl. We tried the teacups for the first time as well. I thought the spinning ride would make me sick, but I held it together and spun the cup really fast...so fast that I looked over at Ella at one point and her head was all rocking back and forth hahaha. Guess I got really into it!

We finally watched one of the parades, too. At the end of the parade the characters sing this happy birthday song. Well Ella of course thought they were singing to her. All weekend she kept saying "how does everyone know it's my birthday? My school friends, my soccer friends, the hotel gave me a button..." It was so cute! I just kept telling her it's because the world loves her and she's one special little girl. And she is. I hope I was able to make her 4th birthday extra amazing and extra memorable for her. I know she wanted her daddy there more than anything in the world, but hopefully a weekend with her favorite girls in her favorite place sort of made up for it;) 

Her little smile when she saw the balloons

And of course Madeline had to be involved in the gift opening

I think Madeline might just hate her bow.

My wonderful mom made the girls these shirts and I absolutely LOVED them!

It's TEACUP time!

She was able to drive this time!

Holding up her driver's license all proud!

Happy Madeline...

Monster Madeline...

Angelic Madeline

She has a lot of personalities.

The gang

Jungle Cruise

Always happy eating Mickey ice cream

Watching the parade from Mommy's shoulders (I missed Tom for this one!)

YAY she finally napped!

Obviously, this mama was really exhausted by the end of the day. But who can resist that smile of Ella's? So we stayed until the sun went down.

Ella's Magical 4th Birthday Weekend

My baby girl turned four over the weekend, and yes, I caved and took her on a surprise adventure to the Magic Kingdom. Disney isn't exactly the happiest place on Earth to me and I prefer to have Tom there with me, but I was lucky and had my mom, SIL, and MIL with me for extra help. The girls were so good and I felt really grateful by the end of the weekend to have such great kids. I know Madeline gets out of control and might have a lot of energy and likes to climb everything, but she is a sweet girl and does give kisses on demand:)

We took Ella to Downtown Disney and let her go crazy in the enormous Disney store there, picking out whatever she wanted. She didn't get it all, but she still had fun. We had dinner at Rainforest Cafe and she LOVED it, as did Madeline. Ella thought the thunder was awesome and watching the elephants move had her mesmerized throughout the meal. When we got back to our cool Nickelodeon Hotel, I took her mini golfing and we ate cookie cake late at night until she finally ASKED to go to bed.  I didn't want to let her go that night and almost dreaded the morning because I knew my little three year old would be yet another year older...another year further away from my itty bitty six pound newborn I gave birth to four years ago:(

Downtown was decorated so cute!

Me and my babes

The almost birthday girl

"Wow..these pumpkins are way lighter than the ones from that patch"

Yum Wetzel's Pretzels!

Posing by the Lego statues

Granny P and her first grandbaby

Getting a tattoo at the hotel:)

Dinner at Rainforest Cafe

Now this is a miracle. They are sitting together for a picture!

Late night mini golf

I loved our mommy and me time
To be Continued:)

Thankful

30 days of Thankfulness have begun. I will try my hardest to add something I am thankful for over on the side of this blog each day in November. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> *Maybe that will get my blog back on track, too* If my girls don't have baby albums, they better at least have a blog to look at one day;) Thank you to Mollie @Me and My House for this cute blog idea!

Happy November!

Another new month. I love changing months for the mere fact that it brings me closer to July 2012. For those of you who are wondering if Tom will be coming home with the rest of the troops before the holidays, the answer is no. He's one of the lucky people staying behind. I do, however, appreciate all of the thoughts, prayers and well wishes hoping he would be home by Christmas. They mean a lot to me to know you are thinking of us!

I took the girls to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins to carve, but this was more like a four-squared size lot of rotting, nasty warted pumpkins that these poor people couldn't give away for free to me. But the girls loved picking them up and to me...it was just an opportunity to take some pictures of them enjoying what fall has to offer here.