Little Princesses

It's always dress up time here .... here's my three little princesses for the day!

~V

January in pics

January never seemed to slow down for us. It's normally a very quiet month and it's great to have our anniversary to look forward to but this January was B-U-S-Y!!! Here's some random pics we snapped along the way:

Ria loving her track suit from Ma and Thata .... big plus that its purple!

Every time Ria put her house shoes away, she put them in between Javan's.

My sweet little guy .... still in love with trains. We're trying to get rid of his train table but its a no go. He just plain loves them. He loves building the tracks and just really being imaginative with it. Not gonna squash that love!

He brought this Mickey train at Disney with his own money and is so proud of it.

A little shoe swap

crafting a wooden train.

Tutus and Sunday smiles

A little bit of snow

they loved trying to eat it

More Sunday smiles

We make popcorn pretty often - not the microwave kind but the old fashion pop on the stove kind - and their excitement never gets old. They LOVE waiting for the first kernel to pop!

Finally got Ria's big girl bed set up. Been on the hunt for some cute bedding. I want to redo her whole room but J is still loving the tree mural and colours so we're going to compromise ... all 3 of us:)

And a few more Sunday smiles:)

We tried Sweet Frog frozen yogurt and I think we'll stick to Menchies  and Orange Leaf:)

Working on some Math. We got some good news this week. Ria has a spot at Javan's old school. We're going to phase her in during February and she will start in March. We haven't told her yet but we know she will be excited. We'll most likely do 3 days a week.

Pure sweetness right here

and somehow laundry got the better of me this past week. I CANNOT stand having laundry pile up and this really stressed me out, but its put away now but of cos the cycle starts again!

And January is done. The first month of 2013 is OVER. How did that happen SO fast? 
~V

Nine Years

Dusting of the ol' cobwebs here ....

J and I celebrated our nine year wedding anniversary on the 19th. And the best part? We got a four day weekend to be together. Couldn't have worked out better ... thank you inclement weather! We did a ton of cleaning and organizing around the house. Even got the garage cleaned out and it was bitterly cold to do so but it looks so much better now. Other than that, we didn't do anything extra special but just spending time together was perfect. The kids had parents night out on Friday (18th) so we went out to Bonefish Grill for a special  dinner.

 Bang Bang Shrimp .... mmmmm yum-o! J had pork chops and I had salmon and dessert was creme brulee with ice cream of cos!

 What a fun night out with my sweetheart!

Saturday was perfect and lazy and just full of family time. Javan wanted to know if J had to kiss me 9 times since it was the 9th birthday of our wedding:) I love how kids think! Ria wanted to look at the pictures of when I was a princess. It was pretty sweet listening to her commentary about them.
We went out in the afternoon for some window shopping and got a treat at Orange Leaf

We had dinner at Olive Garden and ended our day watching Hope Springs with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. It was pretty funny.

I love the card J got me:

Remember when we were first together,
and we would talk and kiss
and do whatever we wanted for as long as we wanted?
I wish it could always be that way,
but so often it seems there just aren't enough hours in the day
to accomplish everything we have to do
and still squeeze in some special time for us ...
So on our anniversary, remember that no matter how complicated
or crazy our days may get,
one simple, timeless truth is forever in my heart
I adore you.

Just perfect. I love this guy so much. We've been through so much these past several years and I know the best is yet to come.
~V

Vacation Wrap Up

I still have so many pics to sort through but I am going to try to wrap up the rest of our vacation with this post. You know in Orlando the weather is always so unpredictable. Rainy one minute, sunshine the next. The rest of our days had a mix of both. It actually rained all day Friday so we stayed indoors most of the day, did a lot cooking and when the rain eased up headed out to the mall for a little bit of shopping and then dinner out.

Saturday brought more rain so Dad watched his soccer game

and Ria got a manicure/pedicure

After lunch the sun came out so we got ready and headed out to Downtown Disney, but first a few pics at Paradise Palms

Downtown Disney was hopping ... guess everyone wanted to get out after the rain

The rest of the evening was spent packing and just making the most of the last night together. The kids were starting to realize that Ma and Thata were leaving soon and it wasn't sitting too well with them.

Sunday morning came all too quick ... and just like that a whole week of fun and family time was about to come to an end. We were up bright and early, got breakfast, loaded the car and headed to Orlando airport.

It was hard saying goodbye.

 From the moment they woke up all we heard was 'but I don't want them to go' or 'I want to go too' or 'why do they have to leave.'

 It was heartbreaking.

Javan is old enough to understand exactly what was going on and he was completely devastated. My heart was broken watching them hug and kiss my parents. They had a really tough time accepting that their grandparents had to leave. But at 6 and 3, I am sure any kid would. Heck at 35 I still have a tough time saying goodbye to my folks.

 My sweet Ria finally realized something was just not right when she saw them walking through security. Through her tears all we could hear was 'I want to go to my Africa home. I want Moma and Thata' ... sweet and painful at the same time.

We stayed and watched them go through all the check points and made sure the kids could get every glimpse of them

 And once they couldn't see them anymore, it was a non-stop sob-fest.

 Javan could not stop crying, Ria too, but he was just beside himself and so, so, so devastated.

 They didn't want to leave the airport so we let them have some time to soak in what just happened. At this point I couldn't keep myself from crying. It was hard enough seeing my parents leave but watching my babies be so heartbroken just broke my heart for them.

We finally made it back to the resort and got all our stuff together.

It was such a beautiful day and I wish we could have stayed in the pool. Would have been a nice distraction for the kids.

On our drive back seemed like every time I turned around to check on the kids, Javan had tears streaming down his face and was just sobbing. It really just made me incredibly sad. We told him its okay to be sad and we talked about the fun we all had over the last few days. I showed them the pics from our time together and it helped a little.

I really do hate this part of my life. I so want to be closer to family. This was the first time we experienced heartbreak (to this extent) from the kids. We got home pretty late and Javan wouldn't go to bed until we talked to them. Thankfully they were in New York boarding their flight for Dubai so we said quick hi and he was happy.

I am so thankful to my parents for this fun vacation. But, it really wasn't about that. Jermaine and I knew that Disney was not the important thing. What was most important and what we really wanted the kids to focus on was to know how special it is to be with family and make memories. We asked the kids what their most fave time of the trip was and both said playing in the pool with Ma and Thata. It really is the little moments. They will never forget this trip and they are talking about it every day. In fact Ria's prayers every night really pull at my heart strings 'Dear Jesus, thank you I go to Disney, please let Moma and Thata come back to the hotel, thank you I see them again and we have a fun time.'
~V