Summer vacation

We just got back from our summer vacation in Florida: four days at Disney World and two days at the beach. It was a fantastic vacation -- everyone had a great time.

Nyla was really at the perfect age to go. She was old enough to ride on everything -- including Splash Mountain and Space Mountain -- but young enough to have her eyes light up and jaw drop when she would see Cinderella in person. And there were a lot of fun rides for Celia too. Nyla's favorite rides were Peter Pan's Flight, the Astro Orbiter (where you control your own rocketship), and the Barnstormer (her first roller coaster!). Celia's favorite rides were Snow White's Scary Adventures, The Haunted Mansion (which I thought would be too scary for her; go figure), and the Tea Cups. Celia loves Snow White, and was lucky enough to meet her:

Wyndee and I shared a romantic meal at the restaurant from The Lady and the Tramp:

Celia also loved The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, which had the most fun line to wait in. I believe Celia is pretending to eat the honey in this picture:

Celia looks nice and gloomy (maybe more on the pouty side) here in Eeyore's Gloomy Place:

Nyla tried to pull the sword out of the stone, but alas, was unsuccessful. England must continue to wait for a new Queen.

Pretty much every day ended with Celia fast asleep before we even got to our car:

We even saw a rainbow over Cinderella's Castle -- how magical is that?

Then we headed to Fernandina beach for two days:

Nyla appears grumpy here because she didn't want to be in the picture, but it's the only one of all four of us. It doesn't reflect Nyla's actual mood at the beach, where she had a great time, as you can in the following picture:

The ocean was a bit cold and the waves were a bit rough for the kids, so we spent most of our time playing in a little pool that formed at low tide.

Wyndee: Celia, do you want to go back out into the big ocean?
Celia: No.  Little ocean.

So we called it the "little ocean" for the rest of the trip.  Here's a picture:

What a wonderful trip!

Derby Day

This is a bit belated, but here's Celia looking cute in her Derby hat on Kentucky Derby Day:

Sisters

Nyla and Celia have been fighting a bit lately -- they just can't seem to resist antagonizing one another.  I think they're just at that age.  We thought that the following exchange, which occurred after Celia called Nyla a name, was quite humorous:

Nyla: Celia hurt my feelings!  You're the meanest sister ever!
Celia (angry): I not sister meanest ever!  I great sister!

Lego fest!

We went up to Cincinnati this weekend for Lego Fest!  Nyla actually took this picture:

I'm glad we taught her to use a camera; otherwise it's hard to get pictures of both Wyndee and I together.

Wyndee and Nyla made Lego mosaics:

Nyla's (left) is two rafts floating in the water.  Wyndee's (right) is a beautiful, moonlight evening.  Most of the day was spent playing with Legos, whether in the big brick pile:

or in several of the themed building areas.  Nyla's favorite was the girl-oriented Lego Friends area, with lots of pink and light blue bricks, but also a lot of cool pieces for making houses: big windows, columns, arches, pillars, etc.  Celia is a little too young to really build a whole lot, but we watched one of the lego competitions.  In the one we watched, teams of kids had to build a lego bridge about 4 feet long and the winner was the bridge that could support the most weight.  The winning bridge supported 25 pounds.  Nyla also really liked vacuuming up Legos:

But the activity that made for the best pictures was our tour of the Lego model museum:

Unfortunately, Celia and I made Lego Bruce Banner angry:

Wyndee and Lego Hermione became friends:

A giant Lego shark ate our two children, but luckily they later emerged unscathed:

Nyla is reading!

Nyla is really reading lately.  We've been reading isolated words on flashcards for a while now, but she's actually starting to put it all together, sound out words without help, and read whole books all on her own.  We bought some beginning reader books (~20 pages), and she's already read the first twelve.

Cute kids

And they're both smiling!

Lately, Celia has taken to putting on Nyla's dance outfits and calling herself a "dancerina".

Girls in the snow

Well, it's getting warmer here in Kentucky, and I'm not sure it's going to snow any more. So, I thought I'd post the only picture we took this year of the girls playing in the snow (CORRECTION: Wyndee informs me that she took additional pictures of the girls playing in the snow):

Not a snowy winter by any stretch of the imagination, but the girls did get to play in the snow a few times.