Meanwhile

So check our my new toy.  It's one of these papercutters. I love her, and this little man loves pushing her buttons for me. For several minutes last week Grady stood patiently on a stool, pushing buttons as instructed to help make his birthday "cards". You may know them as birthday invitations. He would hit the buttons, then do a little dance while the machine did its cutting. Very adorable. Again we have a picture that focused on the background, oh well. You can see the happiness in his face, even if its blurry.

Besides making birthday invitations, we've also been practicing our cocooning. Not really. We're practicing being babies. The weekend after we got back from Disney, GG stopped through to visit on her way home from new baby Logan duty. She was telling the boys about how she fed and swaddled Logan, and the boys apparently wanted to get swaddled.

Grady is a blur here because the kid can't be still.

Which means he has to get retucked. This is not unlike when he really was a baby and was swaddled. I'd have to reswaddle that child several times a nap and at night.

We enjoyed our time with GG, as we always do.

You know what else I also enjoyed? Making a dark chocolate and sour cream sauce to cover a brownie last night. Please remind me that I went out of my way to do so the next time you hear me complain about the tightness of my waistband.

I would also enjoy it if our house would sell. Sheesh. And whenever we got into the next house, this would be the house's interior color pallette. Or close to it, since I doubt Keith will let me pay Farrow and Ball paint prices. And per my longtime friend Lex, I'd have to have some of this fabric in there somewhere. I agree with her.

Speaking of eating chocolate, I've been spending some time with this lady. She's really good at what she does, but she might be a little crazy. Do her total body workout and please tell me that you're not also laughing hysterically when she tries to get you to do those moves in segment 3. If you remember bear crawls from high school gym, you might have an idea of what she makes you do. Or tries to make you do, in my case. My legs just don't move like that.

Oh! Karen and her gang are headed to Disney this weekend. Shhhh, though, it's a surprise for her kids. Karen was out of town for three weeks for her work training (she's going back to flying the friendly skies), and once she got back they planned this trip. Like I said, the kids have no idea, they just think they are getting to go to the zoo sometime this weekend. And not only are they going to Disney, but they get to fly on a big airplane. How exciting. I trust she'll take pictures to share...right?

Let's see...what else...my kids are really adorable. Have I mentioned that? Oh, I have, huh. Ok.

Boys' Birthday Trip: Day 5, Back in Water

We're coming up on another birthday in our house, and I'm in full prep mode. How could the boys possibly be turning three already? It doesn't seem right. I told myself that since we were taking the boys to Disney, we would not do a party this year because its always more work than I expect, it costs more, they won't remember it when they're older, blah, blah.

I wonder if Keith was chuckling to himself when I said that to him during a PM couch-sitting and tv-watching session. I know he knew I'd change my mind. I always do. Here is the simple beauty of having one set of twins: you only do most things once. Except potty training, that you start over and over again. But most other milestones you deal with once and you move on. Waking up all hours of the night? Sure, it lasted a while, but that's done. Bottles & formula? Done. Spitting up? Done. And birthday parties? They come once a year.

Which brings me to the spreadsheet and 2 pages of planning I do for the party. It's not an elaborate party. It involves construction paper for crafts, some music for dancing, cake and hotdogs, but I like to be prepared and I also like driving Keith crazy with my lists.

So before any birthday stuff starts, let's wrap up this trip, shall we?

By the last morning I had tired of the hotel's free breakfast and we headed to a pancake place. A pancake place where they had a balloon animal person! WHOA. We got dinosaurs. Dinosaurs that remind me a little bit of those diaper genie's. You know, you put the diaper in, twist it, and repeat, repeat? And then later you take the bag out and you see something like this...

Not seeing the dino part? Take a look at Blue, below. See the long body part, right? And then the green is his back. And close to Grady's hand is a leg, and the other leg is extending to the left of the picture. At the top is the head, the small white bubbles are teeth and the large white bubbles are the eyes that stick up above  the head. See it now?

Breakfast went well, we all ate pancakes and Blue and Green sparred across the table.

And back to Sea World we went.

We went to a few places we skipped the day before. The dolphin nursery, my favorite. Loved this place. In college I worked as an intern aboard a whale watch boat. I did environmental education during a portion of each trip onto the water, but while we were watching whales I assisted in collecting behavior data. Each behavior has a code, and it was my job to stand there with a small clock to note the behaviors the whales do. Breathe, breach, sounding dive, spyhop, etc. When we stood around the dolphin nursery, just staring and enjoying, I found my mind wandering to those days. And naturally then when I looked back at the dolphins, I couldn't help but categorize their behavior. See the dolphin below? S/he was about to spyhop as s/he was checking us out. Most of the other dark shadows in the pool are small dolphins, there were quite a few.

Cole was in deep thought, too. I wonder what he was thinking.

Grady and Dada snuck away at some point to meet up with us later. They went and rode the carousel.

After we all joined up the boys wanted to see the polar bear, so we went into the artic exhibit. The beluga whales were being trained, which was neat to see.

We also went into the shark house glass tunnel exhibit. Neat.

Saw some frogs.

And then were getting a little restless, so we decided to head over to the kiddie ride area again. Cole wanted to play in a sand pit, but Grady wanted to take on this huge net contraption. I wished Keith luck as they set off. This plaything was huge. HUGE. And once inside, Keith realized Grady's feet fell through the netting, so Keith had to carry him through the whole thing. THAT is a workout.  

When they rejoined us Grady looked happy and Keith exhausted. Next up, a very fun ride. I don't remember what its called, but you sit in it, you get pulled up onto a tower, and the tower drops you a little, then pulls you up, and drops a little, and so on. Make sense? Fun.

More spinning things.

And then, someone rode a big boy ride. For this ride kiddies needed to be 38 inches, and Cole was not. So he and I stood aside waiting for the other duo to get done. For a second I thought we could get away with it, but the ride operator actually pulled Grady from the ride to measure him. He passed, and was very pleased to get a paper bracelet that said "38" on it. He was very pleased about that, and his face beamed with pride, Keith said.

By now Cole and I were in position, and waiting to see the Shamu coaster go by with our two favorite people. Waiting...

The anticipation was killing us. Where IS our broder? Sorry for the blur below, but at least the tree is in focus, right?

Here they come! Look in the last car to the far right. Grady hasn't spotted us yet.

A little closer, but he's still waving at the big lady who was standing next to me. As a sidenote, I really like those stripes on the awning above the ride.

He sees us.

And he's still peeking at us. And up the ramp my big boys go!

WHEEEEEEEEE. I tried to get a picture of them in action, but holding Cole so he could see + successfully using camera=not happening.

Poor Cole said he wanted to ride it once he saw Grady do it, but I quickly mumbled something about being too short and then distracted him.

One more time on the ride that spins and goes "high in da sky".

Behind Keith you can see the huge net contraption he and Grady traversed.

After this ride, we knew we were on borrowed time. Everyone needed naps, we just needed to decide if we wanted to do more rides and go, or just go. The 5 minutes Keith and I stood discussing options was just enough time for the boys to decide they wanted to play in the water fountain.

Have you ever been to the beach when its a little cold, and there is a family from Ohio or something swimming despite the cold? 'Cause dammit, they've come a long way to the the big sea, and they were getting in regardless of temperature. I think that's what our kids looked like. And we let them.

They were so happy.

At some point they decided their clothes needed to come off, but we insisted that the pants stay on. And, I'd like to point out to the lady running the concession stand, that they did not catch pneumonia the next day.

They played in the fountain for at least 45 minutes before admitting that they were very cold. A quick change of clothes and a snack later, we headed home. For nap, to be followed by pool and mac and cheese. All good things.

At some point this day Cole and Grady each got a stuffed animal. Grady picked Pinnie the Pooh, and Cole got a shark. He named him Sharkiepooh. And later that night, after Keith and I put them to bed, we heard that little guy talking to Sharkiepooh after his brother fell asleep, so we let Cole come back into the living room for a bit. To play sharks.

So, that's it. A great birthday vacation.

Boys' Birthday Trip: Day 4, Sea World

Update: Y'all have got to be better about telling me about typos, misspellings and omission of large sections of a sentence. Seriously. I fixed it, so all is well again, but considering yourself warned. 

Second update: My boy S at the hair salon made me look real good today. I dread washing my hair and then it being at my mercy again. 

I made it out of the house with much less drama today. And I even walked out with a cup of coffee. Double score. AND, I am getting my hair cut today, so its gonna be a good day, today is.

What was also a good day was the day we went here.

50% of our household loves marine mammals. And 25% seems to like them, and I don't know about Keith. Through our local friendly AAA office we got buy one day, get one day free tickets to the marine mammal world, which made us very happy. We saved this park for our last two days and luckily had great weather. A bit cold at times, but overall very good.

Sea World is a big park and can become confusing. Lucky for us our boys are really good at reading maps. Our first stop was the dolphin theatre, which you can see Grady located on the map.

On our way there we got distracted by flamingoes. Flamingoes that are actually the pink/orange color you expect, not like the pale ones at our zoos. Yes, I know its based on what they're fed, but how different is the food at Sea World from the Atlanta Zoo?

We were almost to the dolphin area when we spied the touch pool, and it was nearly deserted, so we went to touch. Cole LOVED this. See how the ray is saying hello? Well, this one particular ray (and yes, i could tell it was the same one, it had a scar) kept swimming by and then popped its head right up and out of the water. Cole squealed and giggled. And when I told him that meant the ray was saying hi, he giggled more. And then he started waving at the ray and saying hi.

He was a little unsure about the touching part, but I wasn't.

They were really not happy to leave the touch pool, but we promised cooler things awaited us. So off to find a seat in the dolphin theatre.

You've heard me complain about the National Aquarium's dolphin show here, and I dont want to sound like a broken record, but can we all not just enjoy hearing about the dolphins from the trainer? Must we be subjected to some form on crazy storyline and extra theatrics and excessively loud music?

We tried to block the storyline, and enjoyed the dolphins. Thankfully, at one point one of the dolphins did not cooperate, (Perhaps shared my distain for the excessive dramatics?) so the trainer came out and did a little oldschool talking to the audience about the dolphins. That, I loved.

And of course I loved the jumps.

But oh boy, here we go with the dramatic shite. Grady did love this. Wook, da ladies! See the parrot lady swinging?

And there were more parrot people. See the lady in blue on the walkway? She was Grady's favorite. When she left the area and the dolphins came back Grady kept asking "where the ladies at?". So, take a look at the blue lady below. Probably somewhat embarrasing to wear all those feathers. But you know would be more embarrasing? Being one of the three guys dressed in the very festive birdlike costumes behind her on the walkway.

For a few minutes those dudes stood there and we had no idea why. Until...

I'll concede the diving was cool. The flying ladies? Not so sure about that. And I would have liked the divers more if it were a water-based cirque de soleil show, but it wasn't. It was a dolphin show. Show me dolphins and tell me about them, dammit.

Another cool thing was the parrot guy. While the lady parrot was floating above the pool, real trained birds fly through the amphitheatre and landed on this dude, who just so happened to stand near out seats.

And then that show was done and we went to the sea lion show. Cute, but I'll spare you my critique. I did miss part of the show due to someone's unfortunately potty accident. It's hard to focus on holding peepeee when you have so much going on, you know?

The boys are getting really good at getting their way. They wanted to play the penguin game, so instead of asking repeatedly or throwing a fit, they just stood quietly and gazed longingly at the penguins.

Naturally I told Keith that they HAD to play it, give them each three dollars! you pick a penguin out of the water, and look at the colored sticker under that penguin. The color of the sticker dictates whether your price is a small, medium or large stuffed penguin.

Grady picked.

Cole picked. And wouldn't you know, both of them got the small penguin. Amazing, the coincidence.

I jest. We all know there's probably only one penguin marked for a medium or large stuffed animal.

Then, to our favorite part of the park. Or second favorite. The kiddie rides. This one was fun. Goes up in the air and spins.

Then another ride that was like a boat that swooshed back and forth and side to side. We liked that a lot.

And then, the killer whale show. The cheesiness factor of this show was lower, but again, one of the animals did not want to cooperate. I liked this because the animal trainer came out and talked to us, and that was cool. We listened intently.

And then the show resumed and we saw some neat trained behaviors.

But, because of the pause in the show earlier, Grady was over it. He was more excited about playing with my face/lips/double chin (yikes!) than watching the show.

I really should have put some lipstick on.

And here, friends, was the hands-down winner of the day. While Keith ogled some college football player he recognized, the boys played in the fountain. For a long, long time. So, let's recap.

Touch ray? Eh.
See dolphins leap? Eh.
Watch ladies dressed as birds fly? Eh.
Kiddie rides with no waiting lines? Eh.
Killer whales? Eh.

Fountain with frigid water? WOW. Amazing! Thank you mom and dad for driving us 8 hours to play in this fountain. This is really cool.

Who knew the water would be so fun? When it was time to leave to go take naps, we were not, I repeat, not happy. But we sure did nap well.