Redeeming myself:
Yes, I know, I'm a bad blogger. Things have been so crazy the last several weeks that I haven't felt I had the time to blog. We've been busy having tons of fun though! I was off for a week during which G and I did lots of fun things together. If I have time I'll post about that later. But, here's the big news. The Crowell family is on vacation. First a week at Disney World and then next week a cruise.

I've taken literally hundreds of pix this week. Here are several of my fav's so far.

We started the week off with a character breakfast at the Disney Contemporary Resort. Chef Mickey is super fun. Funny story, we actually had reservations for another restaraunt. That morning we were running late and accidentally ended up going to the wrong hotel. When we walked in, I realized my mistake and my heart sunk. I originally had a reservation there but had changed it weeks ago. I took a chance, checked in, and luckily they still had my original reservation in their computer!! It was a great time. G loves the characters and had lots of fun.

I look a little overly happy in this picture but its the best one of my and G

Monday was Labor Day. The crowd levels at Disney were supposed to be high so we decided to go to Gatorland which was actually really neat. G liked it a lot. After a few hours though, the humidity really starts to get to us all.

With Casey and the birds.

In the aviary with G. You could buy popsicle sticks with some kind of bird feed stuck to them that the birds really went for. G liked the birds a lot. Sitting on a real gator with Daddy. You can't tell in this one too much but the gator's mouth is taped. G was really excited about doing this but by the time it was her turn she was getting tired and grouchy.

You can see in this one, with Casey, the tape on the gator's mouth.

Brett's turned out the best I think.

There are all these gated areas filled with gators. These are the baby ones. The older ones are huge! Some of them weighed over 1000 lbs and were 13 feet long! We fed them turkey dogs. Wish I would have remembered to pick some up at the store on our way in (I'd read that hint on tripadvisor) they charged $5 for 3 hotdogs thereOur first day at Disney. We went to Animal Kingdom. Very cool place (actually hotter than the hinges of Hades but you know what I mean, right? This was also Brett's 22nd birthday!!! Happy birthday baby boy. We did a character breakfast there too at the Tusker House restaurant. They brought Brett a cupcake with a candle and a button for him to wear that said "Today is my birthday" Brett wore it all day, somewhat begrudgingly, and was wished a "Happy Birthday" by dozens of cast members throughout the day. I thought it was cute, Brett found it tiresome after awhile.With my beautiful little girl!

The safari ride was good. There were a lot of animals and they were mostly very close. G really enjoyed it.

This is Devine. She's a character that looks like a plant. She walks around. Very hard to get a picture of due to crowds around her but I thought this was a good picture of her face.

Brett and Casey with the crazy guy, hahaha!

G had to sit on this elephant. There's a petting zoo there. As usualy, G could have hung out with the goats all day. It was wayyyy too hot for that so I dragged her away after about 10 mins. This is G giving the goat a kiss. The characters are very accessible. They are everywhere which makes G really happy.Next day, Magic Kingdom. It really feels like you're at Disneyland which I have been to hundreds of times. I grew up in Anaheim. But, G has never been so it was all new to her. She loved the rides and the characters. The lines were basically non-existent. I don't think we waited more than 5 mins to go on anything all day. The longest lines were for character visits with the fairies (1 hour) and Woody and Buzz. But, after having a pretty miserable experience at the Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast, I complained to the manager and he gave me a handful of special fastpasses called "no strings" which we could use for any attraction to go straight to the front of the line! Very handy for the fairies and Woody visits! Now I know how celebrities feel :-)

On Dumbo with daddy:

With the princesses at the castle. It really was miserable. They skipped us and then it took them forever to fix the problem and then they gave us a really crappy table after we'd missed half the show. The good thing was that G was completely oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong. She ate, eventually visited with the princesses and had a great time wearing her Cinderella princess outfit.

In front of the "Liberty Bell" in Liberty Square right across from the Hall of Presidents exhibit. I kind of forced the family to go see the presidents. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid at Disneyland (my mom used to force me to go too :-) It was interesting to see it with all the new presidents (including Obama front and center). It was near the end of the day, dark and cool. G fell asleep which was a relief since she foungt it for so long. Thanks to our super fastpasses, G was able to see woody and jessie. Fortunate for her because I would have never stood in the sun for an hour (the line went all the way around the Splash Mountain ride!!!)

Brett rode Alladin's Carpets with G. I don't think they have this ride at Disneyland but they might, I haven't been in a long time. Its just like Dumbo so G loved it! I think they actually may have ridden it twice in a row. There was no line so you could just stay on the rides sometimes.At Pixie Hollow. Again, we used our super fast pass to avoid the 60 minute wait time. G really liked the fairies... mommy did too!

The Monster Inc show was really cute! Its an interactive comedy thing where the animated monsters are up on the screen and they have actual conversations with the audience and make jokes. Very creative and funnier than I would have expected. Bobby ended up being chosen as the main person, out of the 100s of people in the audience, they featured so his face was shown up on the big screen about a half dozen times. Each time G would yell "there's daddy on TV!!

Day 4 was Epcot. Epcot was the park I was most looking forward to primarily because I could never get through my head what it was all about. So far its been my favorite because its so different from any other theme park I've been to. Epcot is huge so we decided to break it up into two days. On the first day we did the left side of the park --its broken up into east and west but for the life of my I have no idea what direction the "left" side is.

Test Track is really fun. We did rider swap but, again, there was no line. Brett and Casey ended up riding 4 times in a row without every getting out of the car! Twice with Bobby and then twice with me.

At the Epcot Character Spot. You wait in one line (one of the longest of our day at about 10 mins) and they have all the characters lined up so you can see them one after another! G was in heaven!

Bobby, G and I did another character meal at the Akershus in Norway. Fortunately this was a much better experience than the day before. G adored Belle and the food was really good. I love this picture of G with Belle. I think its just beautiful and of course G looked lovely in her Snow White tutu costume. With Snow White. I got the impression that not a lot of the girls dress up as Snowy. Everyone just raved about G's princess outfits. Even the photopass photogs were very complimentary which I thought was something considering they look at little girls in assorted princess dresses all day long. G felt very pretty wearing them.
By this point in time G had gotten very good at posing with the characters and it really shows in the quality of the pix which was nice for mommy!

With Ariel, not one of G's favorites.

In front of a viking statue in Norway outside the restaraunt. G just loves her brothers and they love her so much. This picture really captures that I think.

With Mulan in the China pavillion. G showed Mulan her shirt and told her "I was a baby in China." Mulan was so sweet to Georgie and spent about 5 mins talking and playing with her. G actually got a bit shy but she enjoyed it very much. I don't think the people waiting in line behind us were quite as thrilled by the amount of time Mulan spent with Georgie but I can tell you that I really appreciated it. No photopass photog with Mulan though, I guess she's not that popular. Too bad. I like that Mulan is a warrior princess... she's tough. She's actually my second favorite. I've always liked Belle, she's smart and likes to read!

G in front of the terra cotta warriors exhibit. It made me regret once again the fact that Bobby and I didn't make it to Xian when we were there. I can't wait to return to China with G someday.

More to come....

Circus day, part 2
After a well deserved nap we did a walk around the neighborhood. Grabbed the camera and got some cute pix of G in her circus outfit. I cannot even tell you how much she loved wearing this set. I think it might be her fav so far.

G encountered this super long worm and was fascinated. She really wanted to pick it up but got scared every time it wiggled.

This is her "scared" face

Second attempt but still too scared. In my effort to avoid G turning into a prissy girl, I played brave and picked up the worm... but then it wiggled A LOT and I dropped it. So much for that lesson in bravery :-)Again, the "ta-duhhh!!!" pose

Circus fun!
G was really stoked about going to the circus. We'd been talking about it for awhile so she had some idea of what to expect. Leading up to the big day I'd ask her "G, what are we going to see at the circus?" she'd answer "elephants and monkeys and lions and clowns." I have no idea where she came up with the monkeys and lions part. I looked at the website for Ringling Bros and it seemed pretty clear that there would be no monkeys or lions but that's what she was expecting.

I hadn't been to a Ringling Bros circus since I was a little kid. Overall I think it was a great show--awesome pre-show when the kids could interact with the clowns, wonderful costumes and the elephants were fantastic. The only disappointment was the tigers who other than standing on some little platforms didn't do too much although they were super pretty. There was an interesting assortment of animals including llamas, donkeys, ponies and exactly 1 dog. There was also a sphere of death thing with 7 motorcycles all driving in circles inside a giant metal ball. That was Bobby's favorite part for sure. Even without lions and monkeys though, G had a GREAT time dancing to the music and waving at the clowns. It was a fun day.

The only bummer was that my pix really suck. I had my flash turned off on my camera and for some reason didn't even notice it wasn't going off (insert me smacking myself on the forehead here). So, all the pix are blurry and a little dark. Again, bummer but whatcha gonna do??

These first few pix are at the preshow. We got there early so G would have time to hang out with the clowns a bit. Again, she was not afraid at all and totally LOVED the clowns.


They were giving away these little red clown noses bringng Bobby's inner clown to light!

The requisite man on stilts.

This is G's newest photo pose... its always accompanied with a "ta-duhhhh!!!!"

Cow Appreciation Day 2010
I've mentioned a few times that we are Chick Fil A fans. We can be seen there at least once per week and are on a first name basis with the owners of the local store. Yes a bit embarrassing but what evs! Being such fans we naturally had to get in on Cow Appreciation Day which was this past friday 7/9/10. Bobby, Brett, Casey and I all put some cow stickers and a cow mask on ourselves so we could get a free sandwich --oh the silly things people will do for some free food!! -- but I got G this little cow print dress cuz I thought it was super cute. She loved it and kept walking around saying "Moo!!" to anyone who was listening... and to quite a few who weren't :-)

My silly girl!

They had the costumed cow there and some other cute stuff but, unfortunately, I did not have my camera on me. Bummer. Oh well. Here are a couple pix of G in her dress. The last one is so Georgie. She's always picking things up from the ground to investigate and she LOVES flowers.

Georgie V. 2.5 and July 4th re-do
OK, first things first. We had our July Tutu pic redone because I just did not like the first ones much at all. We had a much better day today, G had lots more fun and it really showed. I love these new pix so much, they better represent the real Georgie. So cute! This one has just a hint of tutu under the skirt... still counts right?

Next, Georgiana was exactly 2 yrs, 6 mos old on 7/7/10! Georgiana Version 2.5 has all the same features as the earlier versions but with some significant improvements ;-)

I can't believe how she's grown. She is a happy, joyful little girl who --although smack dab in the middle of her Terrific Twos --seldom has a bad moment. I say moment because that's what they are. Every once in awhile she'll be exasperating or uncooperative but then, after some correction --sometimes a hug, sometimes a 2 min timeout--she's done. She sleeps well, eats like a trucker, runs and plays and loves to laugh. She's taken to random screeching lately which just cracks me up because it comes out of no where then she'll laugh like there's no tomorrow. What a goof!

Georgie loves to do crafts and will happily sit and draw or color for an hour or so. She loves it! Give her some markers, stickers and scissors and maybe some glue and she's a happy camper. She's really not that great at using scissors --no matter how many types we try she just can't get them open without using both hands --but she loves them just the same.

Her vocabulary continues to amaze me. She's become quite adept at expressing herself. We recently began talking about opposites ie up/down, on/off and within a week or two she came up with some completely on her own "open/closed, that's opposite mama" or the other day when she was putting some frozen french toast sticks on her plate she said it was "coooollld" and gave a little fake shiver. I said "its cold? what's the opposite of cold?" she thought for just a second and proclaimed "cold, hot, opposites!" uh, yeah, that's right. We gets me is that's not one we've ever talked about, she's just picked up on the concept.

This kid amazes me at least once every day. Yesterday, she was sitting on my lap facing me as I chatted with her babysitter. I looked down and noticed that she was buttoning my blouse... regular small shirt buttons and she was doing a pretty quick job of it too! Tonight she was in the bath tub with some kind of tub crayon, as I read a book she was happily drawing around the side of the tub when she said "C, cuh." When I looked inside the tub, sure enough, she'd drawn a C. Then she proceeded to do a few more letters. I was super surprised. We talk about her letters regularly and she knows them by sight but we've never written them. She truly amazes me.

She loves to sing and does so with gusto. She rarely uses the correct lyrics and often smushes the words of several songs together to create her own song. She likes to do puzzles, which she's so bad at it makes me laugh, although I'm sure someday she'll get the hang of it. She loves for me to paint her nails (we use a pink so light its almost imperceptible to anyone else), curl her hair, and choose earrings and bracelets that match each day's clothing. She's very girly but doesn't seem at all prissy which is good because I find prissy kind of annoying.

I know I say it all the time but she's just awesome!!

The pix
G's in bed so I have a chance to post our pix from today.

This was G first thing in the morning giving me her standard "cheese" smile

G as The Thinker


G's supposed to be squirting the duck to make it move. Daddy had to lend a hand

They had this thing set up based on the Minute to Win It tv show. First you had to bounce ping pong balls into water glasses to form a tic tac toe, then there was a shoe kick (mommy did that one), a skittle sorting game...

and at last a pull the paper without knocking the bottle over game. Bobby finally got the hang of it.

The rope bridge...step

by step...

by step...

by step...

by step...

by step...until she finally made it to the end!

family pic (minus casey, he was sleeping)


G loved the little playground there


Time to go home!

That night, sparklers in the backyard. Casey, his normal photogenic self

G loved the fireworks... she danced around and sang songs. So cute!

Kaboom!!
We've had a nice and relaxing day so far. Got up this morning and went to breakfast then off to Claremont to enjoy their festivities. Its a small thing, a few carnival type booths, some activities. One thing that's kind of neat is that there are lots of political groups that have booths and hand out literature. There's also a speaking corner where people can sign up and then talk about whatever they want for 15-20 mins. I must admit that I've never sat and listened to any of them --lots of people do --but its still pretty neat that citizens are being encouraged to participate in the process.

Anyway, G got to touch a tortoise, toss ping pong balls in water glasses and walk a rope bridge... which she was great at by the way. The guying manning the thing was completely shocked that she could do it on her own and hardly believed me when I said she was only 2-1/2 yrs old. Truthfully I wasn't completely sure she'd be able to do it but encouraged her to try.

She was exhausted by the time we came home so it was time for a nap. Then we did a few crafts, hung out, and BBQ'd some hot dogs. Its now 8pm and we're waiting for dark so that G can do her sparklers. She's really excited about them although she has absolutely no idea what they are :-) We decided to pass on a big fireworks show again this year. I think by next year she'll be ready to enjoy it.

The pic below is July's monthly installment of The Tutu Two Year Old. Not actually my favorite and I was thinking about having them redone but you get the idea. I'll post more pix later. Until then, Happy 4th of July to all from the Crowell Gang!!!