Lobster and Lightbulbs

Less than 2 years after moving in, all six of the lightbulbs in our living room have burned out. Not that big of a deal, except that our ceilings are crazy tall and changing them is no easy task. Brett offered to come over with his 16 foot ladder and help us out. Ryan was in Boston yesterday and brought home a couple of live lobster, so we decided to make a night of it. Lobster and lightbulbs.  None of us were lobster experts, so Ryan printed off instruction sheets for each of us on how to crack it open. We all decided that next time maybe we should just go to Boston and have someone extract the meat for us. 

Thanks, Jess and Brett for the fun times and for bringing light back into our living room!

Testing out the waters. We used a light bulb changing pole as well.

Disneyland, 2014

After spending half of our Hawaii trip in the hospital or stressed out, we thought it would be fun to do a make-up trip with the kids. Where else to go but the happiest place on earth? We tried to find the week that would be the least crowded (after Spring Breaks, but before school let out) and off we went.

We had a great time. Although it started of with a little glitch. We had decided that it would be worth the money to get a room with a kitchen in it so that we could have more control over Ella's food. We ordered groceries online, had them delivered to the hotel, and were ready to go. Until we got to our room and realized it was a two bedroom suite, but the suite part only had a sitting room, no kitchen. When we talked to the manager we found that there had been some miscommunication and not only had we not booked a kitchen, but there were none to be had. After some discussion, Disney really showed their commitment to making things right (or to not getting sued by the parents of a Diabetic child...still not sure of their motives) by giving us our room at a discounted rate and covering all of our food during the trip! As much as I wanted to avoid the breakfast buffet, you can't argue with free, and the girls LOVED being able to eat with the characters. So score 1 for Disney. 

Ella's favorite ride was still Splash Mountain. Anna liked the tea cups. Being pregnant made it easy to decide who was going to go with Ella and who would stay with Anna on any of the exciting rides. Ryan and Janet were the thrill seekers and Anna and I scoped out the characters. We were disappointed in how busy it was. I think that even though it was an "off" week, the fact that some big rides (Pirates, Small World, Indiana Jones, Grizzly Rapids) were closed made the other attractions more crowded. But we did have amazing weather. We had debated going the second to last week in May, but settled on the last week. Good choice. The week before we came the temps hit high 90s every day. We had high 60s to low 80s. Thank you California. 

Disney really is a racket, but you can't help but being enthralled when you are there with a 3 and a 5-year old. Even not really being Disney people, we were this close to buying a season pass. Thanks Janet for joining in on the fun, and thanks Disney for bringing the magic. 

Anna bug

With all of the hullaballoo of Ella's diagnosis, Anna has been ever so slightly neglected. Starting with her birthday 'party.' I made a cake, but we were still new to counting carbs and it was quite the process to weigh out each ingredient for the cake, calculate how many carbs were in the entire thing, weigh Ella's piece and then calculate out how many carbs she was getting. I think we sang to her...honestly can't remember. Good thing Anna was just excited about the tiara on the cake and didn't notice much.

Another milestone in this little one's life came with her first visit to the dentist. He took one look at her teeth and asked if she was a binky lover. Yes she is. She only gets it when she is in her bed, which made bedtime and naptime a breeze. She happily would lie in her bed with her binkie. But the dentist said it was pushing her teeth and no more binkies for her. Amazingly, that was that. She listened to him and took it at face value. No more binky. She never asked for it, fussed about it or complained. But now there was no incentive to go to bed, and naptime/bedtime turned into a whole different ballgame. What was once an easy 1 minute routine turned into an hour (at least) ordeal. And the decreased sleep, combined with having a sister who had quite a bit of attention focused on her, combined with being 3, made our Anna bug not quite as sweet as she once was. Thankfully she has turned a corner recently and the meltdowns are fewer and further between. But we had a rough few months. 

One of the things she does lately that cracks me up is add the word "silly" to the end of her sentences that are directed at you. Like, "Mom, give me some more milk, silly!" Or "Mom. I need a ______, silly!" She does it so naturally that even though it is a bit rude, it is so funny it almost always makes me laugh.

Anna loves her big sister, and wants to do everything like her. I'll ask her what she wants for breakfast, or how where she wants to sit, or if she wants cheese on her sandwich, and typically the answer is "What did Ella choose?" 

I love this video of Anna figuring out "this little piggy..." The first few times she tried she did it perfectly, and as soon as I tried to video her she forgot it all.