Kids in the Leaves

Robert spend several hours yesterday cleaning up the leaves, and of course the kids had to get in on it.






I guess I didn't have my camera on the best setting, but they're cute pictures nonetheless.



When Benjamin saw what was going on, he ran toward the pile, going, "Me too! Me too!"

Five in a Row - Madeline

We recently finished a Five in a Row unit study and lapbook on Madeline.

If you know me at all, you know that I always get my ideas from other sources and never come up with anything original on my own. If you wanted to be kind, you could call me resourceful. If not, you could call me unoriginal and uncreative.

Thus, here's a couple interesting things we did with Madeline:

The FIAR board archives had a link for a virtual tour of France, so we did that one day.

The archives also had a link to make the Eiffel Tower with Legos.


I got a few shots of the girls with their Lego tower -- oh look, Rebecca's still in her pajamas! :)


Here's one of Rachael by herself. My, she is looking so old these days, isn't she?



Here's a better picture of the tower itself.

What's for dinner? So glad you asked!

I've always thought -- even before I had kids -- that the hardest thing about cooking was not the cooking itself, but the planning of it.

What should I make this week? (Or tonight.) What haven't we had in a while? Let me dig around the pantry and see what we have in the house ... let me write down everything I need to buy to make a lasagna, and a chicken and rice casserole, and a chicken pot pie ... no, that's too much chicken in one week. Can get away with having eggs for dinner again one night?

Oh wait, don't we need to actually need to eat vegetables with all these things? Do we have any in the house? Oh ... there's all in the crisper drawer, rotting away.

My husband has no idea how much time and energy it takes to feed everybody all the time.

And I actually like to cook.

So I am very excited about this website I just discovered, Six O'Clock Scramble.

Every Wednesday they come out with five days of meals -- and the side dishes to go with them -- along with a weekly shopping list.

You make one shopping trip for the week, then each day make what's listed for dinner.

Done.

I'm doing it this week, and so far I love it. When I went shopping on Sunday, I bought more produce that I normally do in a whole month -- corn, green beans, baby spinach, red potatoes, apples -- and hey, it won't end up rotting this time!

Monday we had Penne Pasta with mushrooms and peas. The side dish was salad with beets, pecans, and goat cheese.

Tuesday we had tilapia "fish sticks" (although mine came out more like chunks.) The side dish was apple and carrot salad.

Tonight I am making apricot baked chicken. Side dishes are kasha, plus green beans with lemon and garlic.

I was telling somebody at the park about this today, and they asked how the kids liked it. Well ... Rachael loved the fish. Rebecca didn't mind the carrot/apple salad once we forced her to try it. Benjamin ate the pasta, but not the mushrooms.

But honestly, they don't like most "cooked meals," especially Rebecca. (If you're wondering what that means, I mean that they like things like certain types of fruit, baked beans, yogurt, cheese, etc.)

So this is no worse than normal. It may even help, as it's giving them a bigger variety of foods to try.

This is kind of funny, but it almost feels as if someone's making me dinner. I just look at the list, see what's for dinner, then spend about 30 minutes putting it together. Yum!

Misc Disney Photos

Last set of Disney photos ... then I'm off to start putting together that scrapbook!



Here's Benjamin and I at the aquariums in-between The Living Seas with Nemo and Turtle Talk with Crush, at Epcot. That was a lot of fun. I loved Epcot. There's so much to do there.




The kids -- especially the younger two -- had a lot of fun with the water sprays in Adventureland in the Magic Kingdom.



Speaking of Adventureland, I had heard that a Pineapple Dole Whip Float was one of the best snacks in all of Disney. I would second that notion.



The Kilimanjaro Safari at Animal Kingdom is a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures, but didn't want to bore you with too many. And yes, they are real animals. Some people who've never been there aren't sure about that, what with it being Disney and all.




In the Magic Kingdom, one neat thing that Robert suggested was taking the raft to Tom Sawyer's Island. This was a nice little break and a change of pace from standing in line to ride Dumbo and Peter Pan. Here's the girls playing checkers before we took the raft ride back.

Hope you enjoyed these! :)
Feel free to ask me any Disney questions -- I feel like a semi-expert now!

Our friends at the Animal Kingdom

Is anyone getting bored with these Disney posts? I haven't heard any comments ...

Either which way, I'll post one more after this, and then move on to Bigger and Better Things.

On our last day, we went to Animal Kingdom. I know a lot of people don't like Animal Kingdom, but we liked it quite a bit. For one thing, it was shadier and cooler than the other parks. Robert particularly liked that it wasn't as crowded.

And the lines to see the characters were much shorter (and cooler).



Here's the girls with Pluto, looking at their autograph book. They had to wait in line for less than four minutes.




We took the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch, and inside were Pocohantas, Rafiki, and Jiminy Cricket. There were literally no lines -- maybe just one person in front of us for each.



At Camp Minnie-Mickey, there are about five lines for different characters -- Minnie and Mickey, of course, being among them.



I'm not sure what this was all about, but when we went up to see Goofy, he started "kissing" me repeatedly. [Robert was over at "It's Tough to be a Bug," so I guess Goofy thought I was available.]

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that.

Rebecca was just giggling about that the other day. "Mommy, I think Goofy wishes he could marry you!"



Chip and Dale were also at Camp Minnie-Mickey. One of the Cast Members told us you can tell who's who because one of them has a nose like a chocolate "chip." Ah-ha! :)

Fun at the Magic Kingdom

My goal (no, seriously!) is to get all these Disney photos in a scrapbook album within the next 6 days.

Maybe I'm setting myself up for failure for saying this, but it's true.

I have the hard copies of the photos, and I have the Creative Memories Disney scrapbook and paper kits. All I have to do -- hopefully tomorrow -- is open it all up and begin.

And really, as much as I love digital cameras .... I haaaaate how people hardly ever hard copies of photos anymore. I'm sorry, but seeing a few photos on Facebook just isn't the same as being able to sit and hold an album that tells you a little bit about the pictures.

I'm sad that the photo album/scrapbook seems to be dying, and I'm trying to at resurrect it a little at my house.

Now, on to digital photos ...


Rebecca always did love Minnie Mouse. When she was two and a half, she had a Minnie costume that she wore almost every day for about two months.


The girls had fun in the little shop outside Pirates of the Caribbean. Um, where is Rebecca's shoe...?


And here's Rachael, still wearing the hat that her grandparents bought her when she was four and we all went to Disney World together. (Well ... I don't mean that she's been wearing it for four years ... you know ...)


Not surprisingly, Rebecca particularly liked dressing up as a Girl Pirate.



I figured people might be wondering when I was going to post a picture of myself.

Benjamin loves Pooh and Tigger, but his face here basically sums up how un-interested he was in actually meeting any characters.

Disney Photos -- Port Orleans

We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside, a "moderate" Disney resort, and I loved it. I actually enjoyed it more than the Grand Floridian -- it seemed more our style, somehow. I guess we are "moderate" type people.


We went to the pool ... I think twice.






There are actually something like five (or more) pools at the resort, but this is the main one, and as you can see, it's very nice. It had fountains, a slide, and a playground kind of behind it.



Benjamin is very interested in bridges these days, and there were plenty at the resort to keep him happy. This water wheel was outside the resort food court, which we visited often.