Saturday, September 27, 2008

We are home

We made it home! The trip home was pretty non eventful and even though we did not want to leave Utopia aka Disney, we knew we had to! I will try to post more about our trip soon, but we are off and running hard this week with our schedule. I hope to at least post more pictures for you, I know that is what most of you want anyway!!

Blessings

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Where had the week gone?!

Oh where has the week gone?! I had such high hopes of journaling every night about our day’s activities but here it is Wednesday afternoon and I have not journaled since Saturday night! I hope I remember it all. To put our experiences in a sentence it would go something like, Hannah loves pretty much everything and Makenna is afraid of everything! How ironic is it that, the Makster, that usually has no fear is afraid of every character that we have seen and Hannah the quiet one (I mean quiet in the sense of being outgoing and doing things not talking!) has had a blast getting involved in every dance and character that comes along! The only exception to that rule is Pocahontas…Makenna sat on her lap for a picture, but only after she talked to her for a while. We are having a great time and the girls are also doing very well. We have had a character meal every day and Hannah has loved it. On Tuesday we had breakfast with the princesses. Belle greeted us in her beautiful yellow dress and there was a photographer there to take your daughters picture with her. Of course Makenna would have no part in that but Hannah loved it. She kept talking about how beautiful Belle was after we got to our table. Then one by one we had princesses come by our table to pictures and autographs. The really nice thing about the princesses and not characters is that they can talk. The characters cannot speak to the kids. Hannah wore her Sleeping Beauty dress and Makenna refused to wear her Cinderella so she wore her tinkerbell outfit! When sleeping Beauty came to our table and saw that Hannah had on her dress, she said, “Oh my little sister is here!” Hannah thought that was wonderful! We then had Jasmine come to our table. Hannah has yet to see Aladdin but Scott sure has and he was so hoping that she would be one of the princesses that would come to our table! When we visited Disney when the boys were in grade school, Scott got to see the real live Jasmine and has been a fan ever since! He did manage to snap a couple of pictures of she and Hannah….for Hannah of course! Mary Poppins was next to come out and then was Mulan! Hannah said Ni Hao (hello in Chinese) to Mulan and Mulan got so excited that she knew some Chinese. She came and spent extra time with us at our table. She also gave Hannah a kiss on the cheek with her red lipstick and left a mark. Hannah was so excited that she refused to wash it off all day. We only did a few things at Epcot that day. The girls were tired so we headed for home and to swim for a bit before going to bed early. We had breakfast reservations for 8:05 the next morning so my plan was to not have them nap. That worked fairly well but it was hard getting them up so early. I had read to have an early breakfast at Animal Kingdom’s Tusker House and then hit the safari ASAP because the animals would still be up eating their breakfast and you would see more of them. Well, it just so happened to be a little cooler that morning and the animals were up and about! We saw 3 giraffes running around the plains, I mean actually running! It was the most awkward looking run I have ever seen…Priceless. The lion was also out as well as hipps, rhino’s, and many more. This morning we had breakfast with Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, and Pooh. It was great fun and had a great spread of food! The girls have not eaten much since we have been here but I am hoping they are just too excited to eat. Tomorrow we have our last character meal. It is called breakfast with Chef Mickey. It is in the Contemporary hotel and supposed to be wonderful. They all have been great though. The characters know to stay away from Makenna but they also will offer her a high five to get her involved a little bit. The staff here has been wonderful. When they see the girls they usually greet, “Good Morning Princess”. Well, that is about all for today. It is now after 9:30 Wednesday night and Scott is waiting on our clothes to dry at the laundry mat and I am headed to bed! The girls are fast asleep and I am hoping they sleep all night. Hannah has done very well but Makenna has been waking up quite a few times per night. I am going to sleep with Makenna tonight just so see if I can get hr back to sleep right away instead of her fussing for a while. I will try to post pics soon of Sunday – Wednesday goingsons!
Talk to you all soon!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

pics from disney

DISNEY!!!!!!

I will try to get you caught up on our vacation journey! It is Sunday afternoon around 2 and we are back at the resort and the girls are lying down to take a nap. They have, for the most part, done very well on the trip. OK, I’ll start at the beginning with Friday….

We had fairly uneventful flights, other than both of them being delayed after we were loaded and supposed to keep the girls in their seatbelts, HaHa! Hannah did very well and Makenna did, well, Makenna did it Makenna style! Those of you that know her know that she is only still for 5-10 seconds at a time, well, that did not change just because we were 20,000 feet in the air! Just like the long trip from China home, as long as there was a steady supply of snacks she would sit. We had a couple of times that she had to be in her seatbelt and she screamed and kept unbuckling her belt. It only took a small tap on the leg and she’d comply. She is getting a little better about realizing that what we say is what we mean. By the time we landed in Florida, the girls were tired and exhausted. They had been up for 7 hours and only had granola bars and snacks. We had planned on purchasing them McDonalds for them in Atlanta but since our flight from Akron Canton was delayed 30 minutes and we only had a 45 minute layover, we did not have time. You’d be impressed, we made it with 2 toddlers, 2 carry ons (the girls carried their own carryons), and the strollers through Atlanta airport, on the shuttle, up an elevator, then back down, to get to our next gate in 15 minutes. They were boarding as we made it to the gate. After we got the rental car, we headed to Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Mike’s house and swam for hours in their beautiful pool. Hannah, who is terrified of dogs and they have a German Shepard, was usually calm around Macy. Then they started throwing Macy’s ball in the pool and watching her swim to retrieve it. It was a great time and the highlight was the girls got to roast their first hotdogs on an open fire and follow it up with roasted marshmallows! Makenna had some spots on her before we left and we were unsure of what they were from and while we were swimming, she got some more. She had a very rough night Friday night, running a fever and scratching continually all night long. We got up Saturday morning and had a bowl of cereal and headed out. We drove past a stat care and stopped in to see what was wrong with Makenna. Well, the “doctor” said they were bug bites, even though Hannah has some too and there had been no bugs while swimming. They did give her a Benedryl injection to help with the itching and we were on our way again. We stopped by Walmart and gathered water, juice boxes, snacks, benedryl, cooler etc and we finally made it to our resort around 1:30. We had been told by our car rental company that we could drop the car off at one of 2 locations inside Disney but then found out the closest one was outside of the Disney grounds and they closed at 2 so we’d be charged another day rental……not happy at all about that but we will talk about that later! We headed to Magic Kingdom and the girls were so excited to pull up to the gates. As we walked through the gate there was a band playing and dancing going on. The look on the girls’ faces was priceless! I was choked up and could speak for the first 10 or 15 minutes of being there! Am I a sap or what?! We decided that since we only had a little over an hour before our dinner reservations that we would go find Liberty Inn where we were going to eat dinner. We found it without any problems then just wondered around until it was time to eat . As soon as we got up on the porch to enter the restaurant, the heavens opened up and the rain poured, and poured, and poured. We did not have the extra rain ponchos on the strollers so they got drenched but we were dry! We had the most wonderful meal for supper. It was served family style and they brought a salad and rolls with honey butter for starters. After we were finished with our salad out came the plate of meats, carved beef (the most wonderful beef I can remember having for years and years!), sliced turkey, and pork loin with a pineapple/mustardy tasting glaze on it, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and macaroni and cheese. After our long 2 days with not much in the way of a meal it was so filling and wonderful. To top off the meal, they brought homemade apple cobbler with ice cream! It sure hit the spot! While we were eating this entire time, Minnie mouse, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale all came around to each table to sign autograph books and get your picture taken with them. Well you know brave Makenna and wussy Hannah you can imagine how that all went! WRONG! Makenna was terrified of them and Hannah went right up to them and hugged them and had the time of her life! Makenna had to hang on to Scott when they came around the table and she’d be screaming in fear but still waving bye bye to them. She even blew them kisses through her tears! It was the funniest thing to watch. By the end of dinner, she still didn’t really want much to do with them but would at least give them high fives. When Goofy was at our table, Dale was at the table next to ours and Goofy pulled Dale’s tail then blamed Hannah! It was too funny to watch Hannah talk her way out of that. Hannah had found 2 acorn type tops on the ground outside and insisted on taking them in the restaurant for Chip and Dale for them to eat so when she gave her top to them, they gave her the biggest hug! As we were out walking around later on, the bear jamboree bears were singing and dancing and invited kids to join in. Hannah ran right out and danced and did the hokey pokey with them and had a blast. She has been so fun to watch her blossom on this trip. We came back to the room and gave the girls a bath and they were out! They slept so well last night and woke up excited for their new day! I’ll post more about our day today a little later. We are going to upload our pictures onto the Disney site then we will post some here soon! Wish you all were here with us!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

First day of preschool







Well, it has finally come and gone! Hannah has officially started preschool! We started last night with picking out the perfect outfit, making a new hairbow to match and getting to bed about 8:00. I had to wake the girls up at 7:30 which I found out needs to be by 7. Hannah needs snuggle time and to lay in my bed, drink her milk or juice and chill for a bit before she can start the day, alot like me!
We got all ready for school, grabbed a granola bar for breakfast, tried to snap a few pictures of which she did NOT want to do, and head to school. We met up with her buddy Caleb that lives across the street and had to have pictures taken together. Makenna was feeling left out so she got in on a picture, of course Hannah not wanting her picture taken, was being very uncoorperative. How can we be photographers and not get a picture of our own daughter?!
Hannah marched into her room without looking back. I snapped a picture outside as I was leaving looking in at her little class. She was of course talking to the little girl next to her! After we left the church, Makenna and I had our first story time. Can I just say NIGHTMARE?! She is not ready to sit down and listen to a story, basically, she isn't ready to stop. She is on the go from sun up to sun down! She pitched a few fits, refused to color her craft, only wanting the glue stick to play with. She did enjoy the bells that we all got to jingle and march in a circle to music. All in all, I am not looking forward to our next session! We stopped by our friends house to visit since we only had about a half an hour before we had to pick up Hannah and Makenna was not a nice girl there either. She started rubbing her eyes so we left and I drove around a bit hopeing she'd drop off to sleep before getting Hannah and Caleb but no luck.
We went to Hannah's class to get her and she ran out of her room with an apple cutout that had a sticker that said "I survived my first day of preschool"! We had to then wait in line for Caleb since he is in another class and we headed to the "mailboxes" to get our mail. Hannah was prancing around so I knew she had to go potty but she refused to go. As I was trying to keep 3 toddlers together, grab mail, and get Hannah to the bathroom, Makenna is pulling boxes off the shelve...what a time. Hannah proceeds to announce that she has peed her pants! This child is so afraid of those darn automatic flushing toilets that we cannot hardly get her to go out in public. I have no idea what we will do in Disney next week!
She had a great time, played with playdoh and in the kitchen. That was all I could get out of her! She asked for a nap this afternoon so I guess she was warn out!
I will attach a couple of pics to show how adorable she was!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

family update

Just time for a quick update on the Ferrell family! We have been quite busy around here lately! I guess one of the biggest milestones is that Makenna Grace is beginning to speak!! She attempts to say new words daily and is so very proud of herself. She has proven herself to be a true daddy's girl, crying for him at night and whenever mom puts her in timeout or gives her a swat on the behind! We have started bedtime bootcamp here trying to break the cycle of her waking up every night at 3am and wanting to come to bed with us. So for 3 nights in a row, mean mommy goes upstairs and will lay on the foot of her bed and calm her down. She gets VERY upset that I refuse to take her downstairs and screams for DaDa and then Ryan to save her from this horrible mom! She kicks, screams, and actually will turn circles in the bed as she pitches her fit! Hannah, laying beside her usually sleeps through the whole thing! The shocker is when Hannah used to sleep in our room, if we were sneaking out of the room after she was asleep and the floor would squeak, she'd wake up and she can sleep through Makenna's 20 - 30 minute fit 3 foot from her head!!
Hannah gets to go meet her teacher tonight at preschool! She is very excited but also reserved. Not too sure she will love it as much as mom thinks she will!
Ryan is working nights at Walmart doing remodeling which means he is sleeping during the day. I try to keep the girls quiet so he can rest. Poor guy is pretty pooped! He also starts a new job tonight at Best Buy and then will go to Walmart right after and work until 7ish tomorrow morning!
TJ is trying to get recruiter assistant and come home for a few weeks. It looks like it will be postponed until October.
Scott and I are swamped between the photography business, my uppercase living, and wrangeling 2 toddlers. I have been working at our county fair this week at a booth for uppercase living trying to get some leads, so hopefully that picks up soon too.
Hannah had "professional" pictures taken by a very nice lady here in our town. She has posted a few on her blog at http://imagesbykaren.typepad.com. Makenna is a few posts back.
That's about it. I have the girls at the sitter so I can clean my house today. Hard to keep them in the family room where they are quiet for Ryan to sleep and clean the rest of the house! Figure one day at the sitter is cheaper than a maid!!

On a serious note, please keep my friend in prayer as she is in China and just received her baby. They are having some difficult issues and covet your prayers.