A Day at Sea World, Orlando

Yesterday we went to SeaWorld with some good friends of ours who were visiting from Virginia. We had a wonderful time. Katie really enjoyed the turtles, pelicans, Shamu, and splashing in the Happy Harbour with Barry (the only adult of our group willing to get wet - thanks for taking one for the team, Barry!). Ryan really liked being outside and watching the people, especially other children. He did get very relaxed during the Shamu show so I guess he enjoyed that too.

I guess you can tell it was a long day for the kids when you see this last picture where they are both sacked out!

The Artist

Katie has really enjoyed playing "artist" lately. I have a great picture of her daddy modeling the same "artist hat" with the "paint brush" in hand but I promised him I wouldn't post it, so you can just imagine instead! After all they are alot alike, and as her t-shirt says, "I get my good looks from my dad!"

Getting Along

I love it when my kids are getting along. As they are interacting more with one another it just brings me such joy when we have those peaceful moments. I've actually caught a few of them with my camera. I look forward to many more!

Her Age

Well I guess today Katie finally shared with me some insight into why we've been having some behavior problems of late... I thought she was two going on three... my mistake! I asked Katie how old she was going to be on her birthday (in late April) and she said, "Six!" I said, "Six? I thought you were going to be three." Katie said, "Actually, I'm just two now, but I will be six." I guess that explains it, or something!
We've been having some struggles with Katie wanting to always get the last word, I'm sure we've all known people like this, but it's especially tough when it's your almost three year old and you know she is wrong. One example was last night when Katie got into her long-sleeve Dora Jammies, she said, "I am wearing the short-sleeves." So I said, "No, Daddy has short-sleeves, and so does mommy, see how our shirts don't go past our elbows on our arms?" She insisted, "No! This is short-sleeve." I told her, "Katie, you're being silly, those are long-sleeves." At this point she got very upset, "No, these are short-sleeves. Hmmmpffff" So I said to Sean, "I guess I'm going to just have to let this one go." So Katie followed me into the next room still insisting that she was wearing short-sleeves and waiting for me to agree with her getting more and more upset all the while. What do you do? Agree even though you know she's wrong thus giving her a false sense of rightness... or do you recognize that she's tired and needs sleep and it's really not worth fighting over? This parenting thing is tricky sometimes.

Zany Bowling

Yesterday we experienced another family first! We went bowling! We were there with a group from our church for a Zany Hawaiian Bowl.
Our fearless leader, Jeremy, was wearing a grass skirt and t-shirt with two coconut shells on it, because we exceeded the amount of items we were trying to collect for a local charity.
Katie, wearing slightly large size 8 kid bowling shoes, was even able to roll a 6 pound ball down the lane. I think we would still be there bowling had we just let it slowly roll down to the end under her own power every time, thankfully she LOVED having daddy help her!
Katie beat mommy and daddy - of course having the bumpers up helped her a bit, not to mention that this was a Zany Bowl and so we were bowling with one hand on our head, or on our knees, with our non-dominant hand and even blindfolded (thankfully one zany thing each frame and not all at once)!
Ryan enjoyed hanging out and watching everyone and he helped to balance mommy out once or twice! This was the first time that Sean and I had been bowling since we were dating (back before the bowling alley became a smoke-free place). It was an awesome family (and church) experience! We even won tickets to come back and bowl again, we're looking forward to it!