This day started a little rough. Emelia woke up late and told me she needed to dress as a book character for school today, for her Fall party. Which basically means the Halloween party at school. I didn’t realize (being mom of the year and all) that the party was today rather than, well… you know … on HALLOWEEN! Amanda plans her costumes so far in advance, she plans every little detail down to her eyelashes. Emelia is a bit different. She just digs through the big box of costumes of years past when it makes it’s yearly appearance from the attic. She finds something interesting and claims it. She was the most beautiful Snow White ever in Kindergarten. I ordered the prettiest gown from Disney and with her hair color and complexion she was breathtakingly beautiful! Really. Last year she was “glamor witch” which is basically a witch with a lot of feathers. I am opposed to anything “scary” or “evil” … but there wasn’t anything scary or evil about this outfit, trust me! Anyway, she looked in the box several weeks ago and said she was going to be glamor witch again. Fine by me. The problem this morning was that the character had to be a book character. I didn’t have time to find a book about a glamorous witch so I knew we were in trouble. I convinced her to stay home for the morning so that we could figure this out.

Let me back up a bit. We have well water. Our well or more specifically our pressure tank has been acting crazy lately and we have been planning to replace it when needed. Today it is needed. This morning as Matt showered and the kids all did their teeth brushing and face washing the kitchen lights began flickering which is never good. Never. We turned the power off on the breaker box to the well and Matt left for work. That left me with no water.

Okay, back to Emelia. I had also signed up to send a treat of some kind to the party. This would all be so simple if it was next Wednesday as my weekend to do list included… Emelia’s costume for school and school snacks… SO, Emelia had Minnie ears from our recent Disney trip. I remembered Amanda was Minnie around Emelia’s age and HALLELUJAH there was a minnie costume in the box! Yippee! Missing the tail, and the black tights, and the white gloves, and the black turtleneck. But we did have the ears, the dress, and the bloomers… and it was so cute! I made a dash to the store and got all the missing pieces along with snacks for the class and raced home to put it all together, iron, sew some spots that were broken loose from all the crazy trick-or-treating of past… and off we went to school.

I walked her in only to be told that she had to be dressed in plain clothes for school until 2 p.m. No exceptions. I’m like… but, but, but… ) I said, “Can she take the ears and gloves off? Then it is just basically a red polka dotted dress over black leggings?” NOPE was the answer. It’s still a costume! UGH. You know, this is one of those times you want your kids to remember the grace and politeness you carry so I simply smiled and thanked them for their time… and we left. I suggested to Emelia we just come back at 2, but oh no… she couldn’t miss another second of school. So I brought her home, had her change into some pants, and put the dress on a hanger. Back to school! That was all before 11 a.m. ya’ll! Poor Izzy was run ragged this morning )!

I just hope this silly water situation is resolved. TODAY. It is really hard to be without water. I kept Izzy home today because I couldn’t give her a bath etc. Very frustrating.

I saw this over at Vader’s Mom and thought I would play along. I am supposed to tell you where I was 10, 20 and 30 years ago.

10 – I was pregnant with Emelia. Amanda was 7 and Bailey was 3. I lived here. Same house.

20 – I had just graduated high school. I was going to college and working. Dating Matt, really engaged to Matt and hoping to be married sooner than later. I had marriage on the brain!

30 – I was in third grade. Mrs. Taylor’s class at Choctaw Elementary.

So where were you 10-20-30 years ago????

Kari’s cousin Joey passed away last night. I am so sad for her and her family. He had been in my prayers and the prayers of many. Please pray for their family.

Thank you Nancy for the blog friend forever award!

(I’ll be back in a bit to pass this one on… Izzy’s in the stander and it’s time to get her out!)

We started our morning (Monday) visiting with Pluto and Mary Poppins.

Pluto was a sweetie!
The girls with Goofy.

We left the village and headed to Universal Studios!

Our first ride was the Dr. Seuss ride.

Izzy really did like this ride! After the first spin she was really holding on though.

We stopped in the I Love Lucy shop

Not long after we came out we saw the actress playing Lucille Ball.
She was so sweet. The girls were up on the sidewalk taking her picture and she stepped down into the ‘street’ and knelt down to visit with Isabelle and told her how beautiful she is. Very sweet. I didn’t spend a lot of time visiting the characters, but found her attention to Izzy to be very endearing and genuine.

Another ride that we all loved including Izzy was the E.T. ride!

Here’s Izzy on the E.T. ride!

Well, that almost concludes our trip…. We spent our last evening at the Villa, had dinner and packed. It was a wonderful wonderful week! Thanks for sharing it with us.

Just got home from Emelia’s fourth game in the tournament! Her team lost this game as well as the other three. The good part is that they played so hard this last game. The team only made 2 points on them the whole 20 minute second half. Emelia is totally in it for social reasons, but she just so happens to be the tallest girl out there (no pressure)…

Another fun part of the day… a girl (lady) walked up to me at the game and asked my name. I told her my maiden school name and she said, “you look exactly like you did in high school, brat!” Now, I don’t like being called a “brat” but I sure didn’t mind the other part of the comment. I sure wish I could have returned the compliment. I just smiled and told her it was nice to see her.

Dad’s here, just got carryout pizza… football on the television… I’m going to snuggle in with Izzy and hang out at home (or run off to the bedroom and watch Waitress which I rented today after reading such good reviews on so many blogs!)

I didn’t do a menu today. It’s Monday. I still don’t have a menu for this week. Shocking!
Matt informed me he wants to eat low carb. I don’t get that at ALL. I love carbs. They are my favorite food group actually. So, for dinner I made him some herb crusted sauteed chicken breasts with salad and beans… I had a baked potato and some broccoli. Did I mention I’m on a diet? I am. I have lost about 17ish pounds. I am hoping for at least that many more before Christmas. Before you start saying, “You don’t look like you need to lose that much …” remember I am over six feet tall and so I really do. Anywho. The holidays are great motivation for me to lose weight.
I took Izzy to see Bear today. He showed me a few new exercises for her hips. We did therapy early this afternoon and I tried them out on my own. He is better at it. That’s why he is the specialist I suppose. Oh well.
I’ve got about one more post to wrap up the vacation. I hope your not getting sick of seeing all the pics. It’s seriously as much for me to have it written out as anything else. It was so much fun. I keep waking up every morning wishing I was still there. Really.
Amanda and Bailey went to a youth conference this weekend with church. They had a really good time. There have been several confirmations of our church choice being the right choice this weekend. I am so thankful that God has led us to this place. It is a blessing.
The sermon yesterday was about the paralytic that was lowered through the roof by his friends to see Jesus. These four friends knew the power of Jesus. They had faith. Otherwise they would not have gone through so much trouble to get this friend to see Him. I think we are to surround ourselves with friends like that. Full of faith. It was a very uplifting sermon.
It is 48 degrees here and raining. It’s cold ya’ll. Welcome Fall.
Tomorrow is Tuesday. Come back and describe the most serious accident or illness you have had. (sounds fun huh?)

Shawna tagged me for this meme from Karen at Surviving Motherhood, who was tagged by the original creator of the meme, Claire at One Passion…One Devotion. Those participating are supposed to share the five things they want their kids to know before they “grow up” and then leave a link to their meme in the comment section of Claire’s original post.

Here are my five.

1. God loves you.

2. God’s word holds the answer to your problems.

3. Who you are inside is so much more important than what you wear or have on the outside.

4. You are a blessing in my life.

5. Always pray and listen to God before making a big decision.

There are so many other things that hopefully my kids will know before they grow up.

I’ll tag Nancy, Jenny, Jenna, Julie, and Amanda.

We got up Saturday morning and drove an hour and a half to Melbourne Beach.
It was beautiful. The water was so powerful and I could feel the power and presence of God there. I sat on the beach, holding Isabelle and a devo song came into my mind…
“have you ever stood at the ocean,
felt the white foam at your feet
heard the endless thundering motion,
then I’ll say you’ve seen Jesus my Lord.”
I got a little teary eyes singing the song to myself and enjoying the view.

The kids loved playing in the sand and water.

Here we are letting Izzy feel the white foam and waves on her feet.

Here’s mom & izzy sitting on the beach!
Emelia building a sand castle.
Amanda
Emelia & Bailey just enjoying the water
I couldn’t resist writing Izzy in the sand…
So, we left after we all got really sandy and wet and headed back to the villa to change and eat lunch. We had plans to go to Disney MGM for the afternoon. It was a perfect afternoon, no rain!

The kids posing at the Chronicles of Narnia display.
I love the shrub of Snow White behind the kids…
We ended our MGM tour with a ride!
The Tower of Terror!!!
It was very scary!
I barely opened my eyes.
That was the end of Saturday, day four of our trip.
We went back to the villa and then went to dinner.
They had a princess and pirate party there so we walked around a little and then headed to bed.
We had to rest up for Sunday (Seaworld)…

Chicken Chili…

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans great Northern beans
• 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers
• 1 roasted chicken, bones and skin removed, meat torn into bite-size pieces (I use frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts)
• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoons cayenne pepper
• 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
• 1 (8 ounce) package shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Put everything in crockpot except sour cream and cook on low all day … add sour cream and stir a few minutes before serving… and top with cheese.

visit Sandra to see more slow cooker recipes!