Dropping like flies...

We had big plans for New Year's Eve that all got scuttled when Tate started acting puny Tuesday afternoon.  I'd spent a lot of time looking up family-friendly celebrations online and we had considered driving down to Osprey, Florida for a family celebration at Spanish Point, but were leaning toward trying out First Night St. Pete.  But it soon became apparent that Tate wasn't up to any of it, so after our church's New Year's Eve service, we settled for a celebratory dinner at Beef O Brady's.

Then we rented two RedBox movies and went to Mimi & Grandpa's so the kids could watch them in the movie theater.  While the big kids watched The Croods upstairs, a feverish Tate fell asleep on Grandpa.  Poor sweet sick baby.  Carigan was SO excited and kept exclaiming, "When is it gonna be Happy New Year?!!"

She and Anna Kate were both going strong at midnight on New Year's last year, so I thought she wouldn't have any trouble making it to 2014.  But around 10:30 she pulled off some of the protective covering on Mimi's iPad and when we told her to tell Mimi sorry, it turned into one of those past-her-point-deliriously-sleepy-refusals-to-do-anything.  She cried miserably and held on to me and kept saying, "I want you to do it."  I think she really did feel bad and just couldn't process her feelings of guilt.  A couple of times she whimpered, "Mommy, is it still gonna be a happy New Year's?"  Sweet stubborn thing!  Anyway, the whole stand-off ended like this ~ Fast asleep by 11 p.m., snuggling with Mimi on the couch.  Wesley kept reading his book.  :o)

Men, avert your eyes... I didn't have time to turn the photo below black & white to protect Tate's masculinity.  All his blue swaddles were dirty.  At some point I pulled out a pink one for backup and it's remained in the rotation.  It's okay... it takes a confident boy to wear pink!  Poor Tate really did not feel well.  Grandpa or I held him much of the night but I finally got him down in the Pack 'n Play for a bit.  But with literally about 60 seconds to go until midnight, I heard him over the monitor.  I ran to get him and got back just in time.

This is what we were doing when the ball dropped... we're real party animals.  Tate beat out Daddy for my first kiss of the New Year... but Daddy was close behind.  :o)

It was a total reversal from last year when the girls never ran out of steam but Wesley crashed before midnight.  Notice Anna Kate asleep there on Grandpa's lap in the background.  We carried the girls to their carseats and loaded up and drove home and put them to bed.  Once everyone was tucked into bed, We went on the front porch and did sparklers with Wesley.  Big exciting New Year's Eve!!!  ;o) 

"Statue of Liberty!" 

Staycation

Afternoon at the park...

I've tried Tate in our bucket swing in the backyard before, and it freaked him out.  Decided it was time to try again at the park and at first he didn't know what to think about it.  He oscillated between the two faces above continuously for about five minutes before settling on this face:

 1, 2, 3, 4 Rogers kids swinging at the park...

 

From the park to Lake Hollingsworth:

-BELOW- Carigan kept exclaiming, "Hyatt's house!"  You can't really tell in the photo, but from this spot on the bank we had a clear shot across the lake to Hyatt's house (that cream-colored blob on the horizon).  Too bad they were at Disney because we really could have used a potty stop during our walk around the lake!  

Wesley spotting a snowman atop a Florida Southern building.  The pink dots in the background are the girls frolicking.

Dona Julia's our "home" restaurant.  The coziest little hole-in-the-wall in all of Lakeland!  We had to say goodbye to Santa at Dona Julia's before they start decorating for the next holiday.  

Staycation means special bath in Mom and Dad's big tub.  Anna Kate spotted the camera in my hand and yelled, "Cover your booty, Carigan, she's gonna take a picture!"  

And the highlight of Wesley's staycation, and quite possibly the highlight of his entire Christmas... sneaking out of his room after the girls went to sleep to watch the REAL Star Wars movie for the very. first. time.  He's been looking forward to seeing Star Wars since he was four or maybe even three years old.  I distinctively remember a very toddler-ish Wesley excitedly telling Mr. Randal once that he was going to get to watch Star Wars when he was 10 years old!  Although one by one, all of Wesley's friends started being allowed to watch it, I stuck by my goal of 10 years old.  Mostly because Wesley has always seemed to accept that age and has just expressed MUCH excitement over turning 10.  And because if you've ever met me you know I grew up in a bubble and fully intend on raising my children in one as well.  Hey, bubble works.  I'm all for the bubble.

Well apparently unbeknownst to me, Michael told Wesley before the Christmas break that he and I would preview the first three movies (Episodes IV-V; It's been at least a decade since we've seen them!) and see which parts we would need to fast forward, and then let him watch them with us.  So Wesley's been asking me for weeks if I've watched them yet, but it would have to be done after the kids are in bed and I've been too exhausted.  Well Sunday night the girls were over-tired and both had little meltdowns as I was attempting to read the Bible story before bed.  Anna Kate wanted everyone to move so she could be on my left instead of right and that made Carigan upset and when I refused to acknowledge either one, they both turned up high-drama tears that are only fueled by my attention.  So I just walked away and told Michael to put them to bed.  But when I got up, Wesley sat there sweetly and said, "What about me, Mom?"  I told him I'd be back to read to him after Daddy got the girls settled.  But then I went to work on a blog (seriously, when the girls are in that mode I just need to be out of earshot or they crank it up), and I totally forgot about Wesley!

Around 10:45 I finished my computer work and Wes heard us talking in the den and he came out.  I said, "Wes!  What are you still doing awake?"  He said, "Well I couldn't really sleep."  I said, "Did you have caffeine today?  How 'bout chocolate?"  Wesley shook his head and said, "No.  Well I just couldn't sleep because I was waiting for you to come read to me."  UHHHH... dagger in the heart!  Suddenly wanting to do something really special for him I patted the couch cushion next to me and said, "Well... why don't we just stay up and watch Star Wars?"  Oh my goodness, I've never seen him so excited.  It wasn't a hopping up and down and hooting and hollering excitement... it was like an intense excitement that shook his whole body as he nodded his head and a huge grin spread across his face that he couldn't wipe off the whole night!  As I was getting it ready, he kept rubbing his hands together and saying, "I can't believe I'm going to watch Star Wars!!"

I knew the earliest Star Wars film was the least violent, so I figured it would be safe to watch it with him and just fast forward if I was uncomfortable with something.  I really do plan to preview the other films first because I know there are definitely scenes to fast forward, but the spontaneity of granting one of Wesley's longest-running wishes in his young life was so worth it.  He snuggled up in my arms and we made the greatest memory.  And it really didn't scare him at all because he already knows the ENTIRE story line, scene by scene from playing Lego Star Wars.  He always knew what was coming.  We watched until Tate woke up just before midnight (he's been waking up 4-5 times a night since he got in the habit with ear infections over a month ago.  Yay), and then we told Wesley to go to bed and we'd let him finish the rest after the girls went to bed the next night.  So ALL day Monday it's all Wesley could talk about!  You've never seen a kid so anxious for bedtime!  I told him he had to pretend to go to bed and then I'd go get him after the girls were asleep.  He was the Bedtime Nazi all evening and marched straight to his bed at 8 p.m., giving me a wink and a thumb's up.  I got him up a bit later and we picked up where we left off on Episode IV.  This time I thought to take pictures.  His favorite Christmas present EVER.  It was worth making him wait so many years, if only to make this memory! 

Holiday FantaSea

By Friday morning I hadn't left the house since Christmas Eve, so I was ready to get out and do something!  Michael got an email that it was Holiday FantaSea (Get it?? Cute, huh?  I'm still looking for the free Fanta though) at the Florida Aquarium, so we decided to check it out.  The big highlight was an outdoor area where kids could play in "real" snow, but just as we arrived they temporarily shut down to "refresh" the snow, so we enjoyed the play area while we waited.

Look!  It's snowing!  The slides are part of a splash park, but in an effort to set the mood for a winter wonderland, they turned off the water. 

We were the first ones in... notice what a long line people are willing to wait in to play in snow in Florida!  Luckily we had been lurking nearby so we didn't have to wait long at all.  -BELOW- The moment that Carigan realized that snow is really cold!  Although the kids got to see actual snow in Kentucky last month, it was frigidly cold outside there so EVERYTHING was cold.  For some reason I don't think Carigan expected snow to be quite so cold in warm Florida!

There was lots of slipping and sliding!  We were the only people there that had brought winter coats... but hey, these kids are true Floridians and I knew they wouldn't do anything but stand there if I didn't bundle them up!  More than an hour after arriving, we finally manged to convince the kids to go inside and do aquarium stuff.  But their favorite aquarium attraction was hands-down the escalator.  There wasn't much of a crowd so I let them run down the adjoining stairs and ride the escalator back up several times in a row. 

Wesley wanted to go straight to the stingrays so he could pet them.  Carigan was too scared to pet them but she made a friend anyway.  This stingray followed the girls up and down the tank.

This river otter did one back-flip right after another, kicking off from the glass.  He did it a couple of times but then the girls got him riled up and he kept doing it forever as they motioned with their hands.  He swam off a couple of times and then raced right back to them and started flipping again.  I'm trying not to exaggerate how many back-flips he did, so I just went back and counted the photos I took, and I have 31 pictures of this otter doing back-flips!

Anna Kate was our only child brave enough to touch everything in the touch tank... sea anemone, starfish, sea cucumbers, etc.  So cool!  Shark encounter:

The other big highlight of Holiday FantaSea was the mermaid show.  Carigan of course refused to get too close (and Wesley had to display enough masculinity to feign disinterest), but Anna Kate was front and center the whole time.  -BELOW- The one time a shark got a little too close for comfort... I was keeping my fingers crossed that Holiday FantaSea wasn't about to turn into Santa's Slay (That's a little nod to my favorite Christmas movie).  ;o)

After swimming around mysteriously to new age-ish Christmas music for awhile, the mermaids started acknowledging the children and basically working the crowd.  The girls thought the mermaids were pretty cool.  On our way out we noticed that the long lines for Snow Zone had disappeared and there was no wait, so we bundled them up and let them play one  last time. 

Then we surprised the kids by taking them to their very favorite restaurant - Buca di Beppo (Or Boogety Beppo, as they used to call it)! It's their happy place.  :o)

And for one last surprise, we quietly signaled to the waitress to bring us the giant sundae.  We NEVER order dessert at restaurants, so the kids were beside themselves.  Such a fun day - I'm loving Christmas break!