Butterfly Garden

This is one of the 5 butterflys that we raised from caterpillars that the kids got for Easter this year.
One afternoon when Mikayla got home from school she saw a this lizard on the kitchen counter (yes INSIDE my house) climbing on the caterpillar container. We still don't know how he got in or how he could smell them all the way outside, but he must have been real hungry!

Caution-may be crude.

I have to write this down for when my kids are older even if it is crude but don't worry no pics:

Buddy wants to potty train (sometimes) but he wants to be in the bathroom by himself (trouble) and he wants to squat on the seat (feet on the seat while squating, takes talent) I am embarrassed to say he learned this from Mikayla. She also taught him (not intentionally of course, but Zach just loves to copy us) to go around shaking his bum when he is naked and making farting noises. It really is so hilarious to see him do. He loves it even more when we laugh about it. Annoying when Mikayla does it.

Zach is my best helper of all! Crazy being the youngest. He will actually pick up his toys. He runs out to the car to meet me and help bring in groceries. He is so strong he can even carry a jug of juice. Then he proceeds to take the food out of the bags and hand it to me to put away. He also know how to put away clean silverware from the dishwasher. What a good helper. We will see how long it lasts.

Something to remember about kenzie: She sometimes will just decide she wants to be helpful and clean. The other day she was on the floor in the kitchen cleaning it with a papertowel. Then she moved to the kitchen table. So nice, unfortunately it didn't last. The next day I said Kenz you want to help me wipe off the table? "No thanks." At least she is poilite about it.

Mikayla: She got a note home from the teacher the other day, becuz she had scratched a kid with a stick. I asked what happen. Her response shortned: I am the leader of a club, and he wasn't part of the club, I am in charge of keeping him out becuz of that. I of course went on to tell her that we should be nice to everyone, etc. She wasn't buying it. And actually she said she didn't scratch the kid another kid (in the club) took the stick from her and did it. Didn't know 8 yr old kids had clubs. They also meet in the woods at school.

Castaway Key

Mikayla after toy story boot camp
Yes that really is our boat in the background! 10 levels.
Mikayla wore my wetsuit that I got in Aruba (for only $6, great buy!) while snorkling. Funny story: I have learned recently that Byron likes to push the limits. We had to be back on the boat at 5pm. They close the water at 4:30pm and then you have to walk a mile and take a tram to the boat. Byron still playing in the water with the girls at 4:30 (last ones in) then goes and showers. My dad and I are frantically trying to pack up and get the stroller and all of our snorkling stuff together, Byron still in water having fun. We hurry to the tram, Byron second to last one on the tram. Mikayla trailing behind him. We get to the boat with 10mins to spare but the captin was pointing at his watch and there was only 1 family behind us then they shut the doors. Byron just didn't want to leave I guess he was having too much fun!

Castaway Key

This is us on Disneys own private island, Castaway Key. We loved it here. We all snorkled (no zach)This is the youngest chillin while byron, gpa and mikayla were out snorkling. The sand here is nice not muddy like ours. Zach didn't like it at first but got used to it. We also got unlimited choc chip cookie dough ice cream. Yummy!
Mikayla wasn't feeling so good, so Zach went over to cheer her up, I thought it was such a sweet picture.
On the island they have a game pavillion with ping pong, shuffleboard, bball, chess and more. We loved playing ping pong, even buddy was trying to play, he actually hit the ball a few times. Mikayla really liked it to.
This is not a backdrop! I will proudly say we may look like dorks, but only kenzie got a little burned on her legs.
This is the real ship used in the movie Pirates of the Carribean.

The princesses

At different times during the day the princesses and other characters will take pics with the kids.
As you can tell Kenzie loved it.
This is the girls eating breakfast on the outside deck in their princess pjs. We went up to eat waiting for buddy to wake up.

Nassau Bahammas-First Disney stop

Each night there was a broadway show to see, toy story, disney dreams with all the princesses singing and dancing and the golden mickeys. We loved all but toy story. We come back to our room each night about 9:45 (late for our kids kenzie still kept waking up at 6:20 every morning. by the last day she was so tired she wailed most the way home and threw fits on the floor while standing in the custom lines to get off the boat) To find a different animal each night on our bed, I didn't get a pic of the monkey.

One day we spent in Nassau Bahammas, nothing really there but a flea market with overpriced fake purses and the Atlantis resort. So Byron wanted to take the girls to the Atlantis resort. They have a aquarium (in the background) that you can see for free with manti rays (it used to be bigger but now they charge to see all of it) and we toured the beautiful grounds.
As you can tell the lack of sleeping is really getting to Kenzie. Boy were we glad to be gone only 3 nights!

Disney Cuise

They even had Mickey shaped pasta and waffles!
We were blessed to be able to go on a 3 night disney cruise and have Ambers dad joins us. We found a really good deal were 2 rooms was cheaper than 1 room with all 5 people.
Gpa and Kenzie enjoying thier dessert! Of course cruises are all about the eating so here are some pics of us enjoying our awesome food. The choices are sitdown dinners with like 5 courses, buffet, wraps/salad/fruit bar, pizza parlor, grill. You can eat from all of these places all day as much as you want. To our suprise we did not gain any weight, must be because we were climbing lots of flights of stairs with kids all day! One night they had a pirates party with fireworks at the end over the ocean and 56 desserts to try, and all the disney characters were dressed up as pirates dancing to music.
Poor Mikayla started to feel sick on the way down and then had a high fever the whole time we were there, but it actually made her much easier to handle. She was more cooperative and took nap/rest time for a few hrs during the middle of the day to recoup. She still seemed to have fun.

Gosh hes so cute!
The sad thing is I wasn't ready for reality yet so for our first meal (dinner) back home we ate cereal, popcorn, and sweet potates. Oh how we missed the good stuff.