Arrgh!

Be ye scurvy dog, landlubber or sassy wench, Mr. Potato Head would like to wish ye a happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

we're back!

Back from Disneyworld, that is. Once I finish sorting through the 5 loads of laundry and 468 pictures from last week, I'll have a much longer blog post (or three). In the meantime, here's what turned out to be pretty much my favorite photo from the trip:

That was at Animal Kingdom, and I guess it makes more sense if you know the story behind it. See, at AK they really, really want you to recycle (pretty much like all zoos with their obligatory conservation message) and to that end, in one area of the park there is a walking, talking recycle bin. Seriously. And it's actually kind of amusing to watch the thing interact with the park guests (do NOT call it a trash can - it hates that).

Anyway, Porter apparently liked the recycle bin a lot so he started following it around. And the recycle bin (or rather, the person controlling the recycle bin via remote control) thought that was funny, so the recycle bin was singing "We're following the leader..." from Peter Pan in its little tinny robotic voice. I love this photo because you can tell how much fun Porter is having, even if you can't see his whole face. I think the recycle bin was his favorite part of the whole park.

(A few minutes later we went to the petting zoo, where he tried to sit on the goats.)

Anyway, I think this photo kind of emphasizes what's so great about Disneyworld. See, we can sit on goats and be nagged about recycling at the zoo right here in Indianapolis. But seeing our 2-year-old try to run away forever with a recycling bin? That, my friends, can only happen in Florida.

Overheard while at Disneyworld

"Airplane broken!" (Porter)

"Water with no ices is yucky." (Betsy)

"I a pirate. Arrg!" (Porter)

"Jasmine has boobies, but we don't talk about it." (Betsy)

"Hey, let's put tattoos on the kids." (Matt)

"The soap is blue just like Dory is blue!" (Betsy, every single time we washed our hands)

"Dinosaur broken!" (Porter)

"When we went to the Little Mermeraid show, my Sleeping Beauty toy was getting wet." (Betsy)

"Mickey Moush broken!" (Porter)

Excitement!

I went down to Bloomington yesterday, to see my new nephew.

My brother Mike and his wife Mandy had their first baby on Thursday. His name is Miles and isn't he cute? Mike said that he's never seen a more alert newborn and I have to say I agree with him. I've never seen a 2-day-old able to keep its eyes open for more than 5 minutes at a stretch. But when I was holding Miles he stared at me with wide-open blue eyes for at least 20 minutes. Eventually the effort wore him out so much that he fell asleep, of course. Or maybe he was just feigning sleep so he wouldn't have to look at me any more.

Anyway, it's kind of interesting. I was the first one in my family to have kids - and from four years, nine months ago until last Thursday, I was the only one. So I suddenly feel like the experienced, even the responsible one. But I think it will be fun to see my other siblings transitioning into parenting. Mike in particular is probably uniquely qualified, being the oldest of eight kids. I know when I had Betsy, it didn't faze me a bit since I'd been changing diapers since I was about 9.

My kids are excited to have a cousin that actually lives in the same time zone as they do. Betsy knows her cousin's name is "Baby Miles." Porter saw the above picture on my computer and said, "Wake up, baby!"

Oh, and also... we're leaving for Disneyworld TOMORROW. Betsy's been saying for so long, "We can go to Disneyworld for four more months" that it's kind of crept up on us. I have a packing list made and I'm... somewhat packed. Fortunately our flights aren't until 10:30 a.m. or something reasonable like that so I can stay up until two in the morning packing and bouncing off the walls.

Happy birthday honey!

Matt is 33 today!

I celebrated by giving him & Porter haircuts last night. (Hey, they'll look good in pictures!) How lucky is my husband, getting a national holiday to celebrate his birthday? The thing is, though, it's kind of an anticlimactic day... since we're leaving for Disneyworld in one week, Matt couldn't think of anything he really wanted besides a trip to Disney! I did find something at Hobby Lobby (really!) for the kids to give him. And we'll be having cake. Betsy was really excited to pick up the 3 candles at the grocery store this morning!

Four down, 176 to go

So, this week I started teaching seminary. That's where the high school age kids in our ward all get together and do scripture study - this year, it's the Old Testament. Since we don't live in Utah and don't get school release time to do it, the class meets at 6:00 in the morning. It's not at my house - I never did have to clean up the dead spiders - so I do have to get up a few minutes earlier to drive over to the house where it's being held, but on the other hand the other teacher has a nice finished basement, so that's good. We've had four classes so far and I've covered some of the basic stuff - how to use the footnotes, for one - and it seems to be going well. The kids have actually behaved decently, I think because they are too tired to cause much trouble.



And I am e x h a u s t e d. But I think it will get better.



I got some glasses, so I won't have to put in my contact lenses at 5:30 in the morning (which just seems wrong to me somehow). I haven't worn glasses since I was 20 years old and had no fashion sense. I picked these little beauties up yesterday and aren't they cute?