47 months

We had a great time while the cousins were in town. We took them strawberry and tomato picking at our farm, had dinner at our favorite local restaurant Wolves Head and went to open gym at Nana's work. C has been before and wasted no time bouncing around the place from equipment piece to equipment piece. She hangs on the bars like a monkey and with a little practice could probably do a flip! She got to try out the big balance beam and was fearless jumping off of it. She'd probably be good at gymnastics if I let her give it a try, not sure I want to go down that route though.   

The last day of Christmas Break we took a girls trip to Disney, even in the freezing cold it was manageable, and I think it made it a little more magical! We had almost two weeks of cold weather and C kept saying "Elsa needs to unfreeze Florida!". We ferried across the lake in 32 degrees all bundled and blanketed up, we had to pull out our Winter hats from Texas, hadn't seen those in a few years. We got there early enough to see the opening castle show/rope drop and wasted no time hitting the rides. Thanks to my new FP trick we got a lot done in six hours! We rode lots of rides and met quite a few characters, even Ariel had to put on an extra layer that day while in her Grotto to keep warm. Even though we did a lot it wasn't too overwhelming and we took time to just stroll, snack and shop. C boogied it down after lunch at the Move It Shake It Dance Party, they heard the music coming out of lunch and we had to race to the castle circle. I love that she is not self conscious at all and doesn't have a care in the world as to who is watching her, she makes me crack up and my heart melt when she dances, in that moment she is pure bliss and makes me forget the naughtiness she has! Amazingly enough it was a day of no fighting, meltdowns, tantrums or whining, maybe we should just go to Disney every day so we can all be happy!

Back to school and somewhat of a routine made mommy pretty happy! She was excited to get back and see her friends but upset it meant having to sleep in her own bed again, there were many sleepovers with her sister and cousins over break and many nights they stayed up past their bedtime! She had her first little incident in school where the teacher had to talk to me about her not letting one of her friends play with her on more than one occasion and hurting her little feelings, finally my angel at school shows a little of her devil side! We had a talk about this, she colored her friend a picture and gave it to her along with a big hug and an "I'm sorry" the next school day. What is it about kids and having a hard time saying sorry or apologizing? It's like pulling teeth with my two to get them to do it. C can write most of the alphabet by herself, guess we need to pull out some of the practice books at home and has mastered list one of the sight words. We've moved onto list two and she's already learned about 6 words, you can tell she is so proud of herself and learning to read.

We needed a little family time with all the crazy that was going on and took and went to Epcot at the last minute MLK weekend for a quick little get-a-way. We drove over in the AM, stopped at the outlet mall on the way, had some McDonalds for a quick lunch and were in the park just past 1pm.  C was FINALLY tall enough and got to ride Soarin for the first time, she set next to mommy and held my hand, there were times I look over and she looked as if she wasn't sure what was going but at the end of the ride she said she liked it! Let's see if we can get her on it again. Her love of Mickey continues and she just bursts into giggles and laughs every time she meets him, there was a lady training a service dog behind us so we got to watch the dog meet the characters too, was really cute to see the dog interact with them and how great the characters were to him. Late afternoon we made our way back to the to see Princess Aurora and have pizza for dinner at our favorite spot in Italy! We called it a night before the fireworks because it was cold and the girls were a bit cranky! We did see some from a distance as we drove to the hotel, enough to please them but not mom! Monday AM we went to Disney Springs to walk around and do a little shopping before we headed home. It was a 24 hour much needed get-a-way and some uninterrupted family time, it's nice to live so close and we can plan a last minute trip on a Friday night!

We did a lot of strawberry picking this month! The cooler weather has made the picking more enjoyable and the berries not so soft and better for little fingers to pick and not smush! We've also been able to find the queen bee in the bee display every time we have gone, last year we had a hard time finding her, not sure why it's been so easy, even C has spotted her and her red dot on her back. She is also a pretty good broccoli spotter and we have enjoyed fresh broccoli each week. It's our nice little Thursday outing for just the two of us. C had a date to McDonalds and Dairy Queen night one Saturday night with daddy when it was just the two of them at home. Maybe this girl needs some more 1-1 time to help with her tantrums!

The night before her birthday as we were preparing for our Disney weekend we let her open the presents from us, a new Rapunzel dress for the trip and an little Elena figure set. They are very into the amount of presents they get right now and constantly ask if there is more, maybe we should stop giving them things so they appreciate what they have! Three years have gone by in the blink of an eye. While I don't wish her to grow older I hope her tantrums to stop soon, very, very, very soon! She is so peaceful when she sleeps, why can't she be like this all of the time!

Here are the pictures from the month.