Florida Vacation

I spent a week in Florida with my sister-in-law and her three kids the week of Halloween.  We had lots of fun doing school, riding bikes, going on Mario Brother adventures, shopping and watching movies.  When the kids went to bed, Liesel and I got to have our pick with Netflix movies that our husbands would never want to watch with us. I have now seen Driving Miss Daisy, Steel Magnolias, High School Musical, and some Halloween Disney Cartoons.  I've still got to watch HSM2.  Is there a third one?

Cute Molly stood still long enough to do a quick photoshoot.  If only it wasn't cold this day and she didn't have a runny nose because of it.  Perhaps I'll be able to photoshop it.  She walked along anything that was like a balance beam.  The curb, the actual balance beam at the park, and the wooden post fence in her front yard.  On the latter, you have to hold her up up there and walk along with her.  It was super cute and as the aunt, I didn't mind walking back and forth about 50 times with her to do it.  It did cross my mind though, that her parents might not like me for it if she starts to demand they help her walk the fence beam over and over and over.  You're welcome!

Dom and Will are really good at riding bikes.  Dom can stand on the pedals and go up and down curbs.   Will's tricycle is not like normal trikes though.  The pedals are connected to the front wheel in such a way that he can only go as fast as he pedals.  So in normal conditions you would think that he'd be flying down hills, but he really just goes down them at a normal speed or as fast as he wants to go. Watching it made it look like an oxymoron.

Halloween was awesome.  Their neighborhood had so many kids walking around and so many people handing out candy.  Everywhere the boys and I went people commented on their costumes.  I taught them both to say "Mama Mia" in their best Mario and Luigi voices after they got their candy and it was a major hit.  Two girls commented that they were really cute and Dom came back to me and said "Why is everyone saying we're cute... we're just boys."

The next day, the Mario Brothers, Molly and I decided to go on an adventure around the neighborhood.      We ran into one of Bowzer's traps (sprinklers), hopped on some garden rocks (for coins), built a fire and had breakfast, ran from imaginary fireballs, and rescued Molly from Bowzer's growl (the airplanes and bombs we could hear from the base).  

We pretended to play school too.  I picked them all up in the wagon and we "drove" down the road to come mailboxes.  I gave them each a "ticket" (a leaf) and we put it the mailbox and then pretended to get our school papers out of it.  We stopped at someone's front yard and had science class.  I attempted to give them a 5 minute lesson on palm trees, florida cactuses (I have no idea what they were really called so florida cactuses seemed like a good fit), and taught them how rocks become smooth by years and years of water washing over them.  Then we went to history class and I quizzed them on state capitals.  I don't remember my state capitals though, so I had no idea if they were telling me the right answer though.  Then I gave them each a different kind of leaf and told them we were going to the library next!  We turned back towards home and I dropped them off.  They ran inside and picked out a book and then the librarian, Liesel, checked them out for us.

Dominic also lost his first tooth Thursday morning.  It was very loose the day before and he says it just popped out the next morning when he was messing with it.  Liesel and I both woke up to William saying "Are you going to tell Mom that you lost your tooth.  Your VERY first tooth!"

And here we are exploring the massive, awesome store that is Old Time Pottey.  Thankfully, the kids entertained themselves in the cart, because it's not exactly a store you want them running around in.  

Liesel gives really good anecdotes and now I have one.  I hope I'm not taking one of your post ideas!  So on Friday, the day we paid rent, went to TJ MAXX, 5 Guys, and Old Time Pottery, we were also going to leave going to the beach as a option if the kids were up to it.  So about half way through the day Liesel told them "hey guys, we might go to the beach later, if no one is melting down".  Dom asked "what is melting down?".  Liesel responded "well, it's like,  you know when Molly gets cranky and starts crying and I say, okay, we need to leave and put her down for a nap?... that is melting down"  And then, Dom thought about it for a second and with the most matter of fact straight face said " I'm melting down."  And Will chimed in later with the same comment.  At the end of our day, we ended up not going to the beach because the boys were done with being out and about and were requesting to home and were apparently "melting down".  It was really funny, but maybe you had to be there.