We're going to Disney World!

Well, the McDowell family is now the proud owner of 3 Disney Annual Passes, and on Saturday, July 25, we took Bailey to Disney World for the first time. Emily had been there a few times before but she didn't remember it, so it was all very exciting for her, too. We had a great time despite the 100 degree weather (well, it might have been a little cooler than that but it sure didn't FEEL any cooler!!). Emmy rode the Barnstormer rollercoaster and Bailey rode the Dumbo ride! The kids loved It's a Small World (especially Bailey, who was fascinated) and the Winnie-the-Pooh ride as well. We missed the Tiki Room this time around but it is definitely on our list for next time--I know the girls will love that.

Just wanted to share a few fun shots from our day!

"I 'berry' sad..."

Lately whenever Emily is disappointed about something, she says, "Mommy, I berry (very) sad about..." and puts on the biggest, most heartbreaking pout you can imagine! The other day she'd asked me to buy her some gummy worms at Target, and I told her that if she behaved while we were in the store, I'd get them. Well, I forgot, and she didn't say anything until I was strapping her into the car. Then she works up her pout, puts on these HUGE puppy dog eyes, and whimpers, "Mommy, I berry sad about the wormies." I felt so bad!

All this week, it's been, "I berry sad about my bed being all white" because I changed her sheets on Monday (like I always do) but I didn't ask her which sheets she wanted (and I usually do). She only has four choices but she is a girl who knows what she wants, that is for sure! Well I happened to choose the plain white sheets but apparently she wanted the white ones with the purple flowers, and every night when I put her to bed she gives me guilt about it. I told her when we change her sheets on Monday she can choose. What a stinker!

Conversations with the girls

Lately I have been having some very interesting, funny conversations with Emily and Bailey. Here are a few memorable ones:

At Chick-Fil-A, Emily, Bailey, and I were eating dinner in silence, so I said to Emmy, "What should we talk about?" Her reply? "Hmmmm. We can talk about Twinkle [Twinkle] Little Star!"
Me: "Okay."
Emmy: "Well, Twinkle Star was up in the sky. VERY high. And then she saw a diamond! And then she played for five more minutes, and then she went home and she slept in her bed ALL NIGHT! And that's all!"
Me: "Wow!"

Bailey was eating her breakfast, a cereal bar and some of those freeze-dried yogurt bites that Gerber makes. Well apparently I didn't give her enough food because she's in her high chair yelling, "'Nack, 'nack!" So I went over there and said, "Bailey, what do you want?" She picks up a yogurt thing, holds it up to me, and says, "MUH!" (which is how she says "more"). Too cute!

After swimming one day, I asked Emily if she'd like to take a shower to wash off the chlorine. She said yes and we headed inside. Once the water warmed up, she got in the shower and said, "Mommy, you have to wait your turn in line (which she pronounces "lion"). Wait there on the blue (not sure why she said blue; nothing in the bathroom is blue) line." Hah!

Bailey doesn't say too many words, but she is very good at communicating what she wants. Last night I tried to get her to go to sleep, but she was still hungry because she didn't eat her dinner. So I'm holding her, telling her it's night-night time, and she is shaking her head no. I said, "What's the matter, Bailey? What do you want?" She points to the floor and yells, "'NACK!" I put her down and she headed to the kitchen, where she started banging on the pantry door, saying, "'nack, 'nack!" over and over.

While we were swimming, I asked Emily if she wanted to play a game. She said, "Sure. I'm Ariel, Daddy's Prince Eric, and you're the Sea Witch." :(

And my favorite of all: this morning Emily said, "I love you, Mommy. You're my big girl."

More duh-duh

Emily used to call any food that she couldn't name "duh-duh." If she didn't know what it was called, or couldn't say the name, it was "duh-duh." And she would always say, "More duh-duh!" Well, I couldn't think of a good title for this blog so there you are.

We had a fun weekend. Emmy had her class at My Gym on Saturday morning and while we were there I signed both girls up for their sibling class, which is for 1-4 year olds and focuses on building the sibling relationship through teamwork! I am very excited for them to start.

On Saturday night we went bowling with our families and friends to celebrate Will's birthday. It was lots of fun, even though I was outbowled by three 3-year-olds. :) Emily LOVED it; she keeps asking when we can go back to the "ball pit." Hah! Bailey didn't really like it but then she doesn't really like anything that involves large crowds or lots of noise. She didn't get to bowl, either.



On Sunday we had a family shopping trip and I chose some new paint colors. I want to repaint my family room, kitchen, hallway, and bedroom. I'm planning to go a little darker in the family room and also a little more "mossy" green than "minty" green. I want to do some kind of beige or tan in our room and get rid of the border, too. I think it'll give our house a good facelift since it's been almost 8 years since it was painted last!

So, that's it!

Happy birthday dear Daddy...

Yesterday was Will's birthday, so we made a special dinner of salmon and asparagus with crescent rolls and salad. Emily was a huge help in the kitchen; she made the crescents and helped with the salad, and she broke off all of the stem ends of the asparagus. After dinner we served Daddy a brownie with a scoop of ice cream and Emily and Mommy sang "Happy Birthday" while Bailey clapped. Then we had an impromptu dance party in our living room: I turned on the Kids Only music channel and we girls danced around. Emily was the instructor, saying, "Now, jump three times. Now spin around. No, not like that, Mommy. Like this!" Bailey was dancing too, exactly how SHE wanted to. It was absolutely adorable and such a nice evening. Happy birthday, Daddy!

Left foot, right foot, feet, feet, feet

Well we McDowell girls had a great day today!! We went to the park and although it was hot, hot, hot, we played for about an hour! Even Bailey was climbing all over everything (so Mommy was, too!) When we got home, the cutest thing happened: Bailey chose a book from Emily's shelf (The Foot Book, actually), came over to me, sat in my lap, handed me the book and said, "Buh!" So I read it to them (twice). It was like our own little story time.

Emmy and Bailey are really starting to interact with each other a lot more. Yesterday they had a tea party together--so cute! And today they played cars on the floor--Emily has one of those "road rugs" and they were all over it.



My friend Susan referred me to a great website that Emily LOVES--I could hardly pry her away! I am teaching her to read and it is so great for that. Here's the address in case anyone is interested: http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f

Will is in VA tonight and tomorrow so keep me in your thoughts (although I think I mostly have this mom thing down for now).

Things that made me smile this week

This conversation:
“Oh, no! Look, Emmy, it’s raining!”
“That’s okay, Mommy. We’re safe in the house.”
“I know, but we have to drive to the pet store.”
“Well, we’ll be safe in the car.”

Where is Bailey? Where is Emily?
I’ve been singing (to the tune “Where is Thumbkin”) “Where is Bailey? Where is Emily? Where are they? Where are they? I can’t find my Emmy; where’s my baby Bailey? Where are they? Where are they?” While I do, they both stand behind me (and dance—soooooo cute!) and then at some random point one of them will pop her head around and look at me. That’s when I act shocked to see her/them. They giggle so much that it makes me laugh every time.

Emily’s explanation of The Little Mermaid
Emily is watching The Little Mermaid in the car. Since I can’t see it while I am driving, she feels that she needs to give me a play-by-play (never mind that she has watched this movie 5287 times and I could probably recite it by now). She always says the same things at the same parts of the movie. Today was, “Mommy, Ariel has to get her voice out of her and then she gets legs and she turns to a HUMAN!”

My personal trainers
Bailey loves to climb on me whenever I get on the floor, so it really shouldn’t have surprised me that when I try to do an ab workout, she is all over me! She especially loves to sit on my tummy when I am doing crunches, or to climb on my legs when I am lifting them up so she can go for a ride. And this morning Emily joined me for the workout: “Look, Mommy, I exercising too!”

Emily’s conversation with her friend, Bella
While driving to lunch after visiting the pet store, I overheard the following conversation between Emmy and Bella:
B: “Where we going to eat?”
E: “If you eat your lunch all up, then you can play! That’s the rule!”
B: “But what we going to eat?”
E: “Bella, you eat your lunch all up, then you play! Does that sound like a [good] idea?”

And finally…
Bailey walking around the house with a plastic colander from Emmy’s kitchen in her mouth! Even funnier, she knew we were laughing at her, so she kept doing it to TRY to make us laugh!

fun at Petco

So today I took the girls to Petco for a field trip with the moms' group we belong to. It was fun! They love looking at the animals (I've actually taken them to Petco quite a few times just to do that) and there was a staff member who took some animals out for them to see up close. I was a little disappointed that they didn't get to touch most of the animals--I know Emily REALLY wanted to do that. Bailey was super excited about the fish; she also loves the birds and the cats! Emily is such an animal lover that I'm sure she'd take them all home if I let her, but she told me that her favorites today were "the swimming turtles." Best of all we got to spend time with our friends! Emily said it best: "Mommy, that was a good fun day."

Afternoon musings...

Rocking Bailey to sleep for her nap is one of the best things I do all day long. There's nothing like cuddling with a sleepy baby: I hold her on my lap, she rests her head on my chest, I wrap my arms around her, and she wraps her arms around mine. In less than five minutes, she is peacefully sleeping and I have had a few blissful moments of quiet, peace, and calm. Somehow even though I don't often get to nap myself, I feel refreshed after spending those few minutes with my sweet baby girl.

It's a wonderful life!

I've been tossing around the idea of starting a blog for a while now. I think I may have even signed up for one in the past, but I don't remember where it was and I don't think I ever wrote anything! I was just looking back over some things I had written down about Emmy when she was a baby and I am SO GLAD I did because I don't remember them!! And she's only 3! SO maybe if I keep some of our stories online here, that will serve a dual purpose: to keep you informed as to what's going on with us, and to remind me when I forget!

So, McDowell fans, here's what's going on with us lately:

Will is attending UCF, working on his PhD. He is also working as a program manager at a company based out of New Jersey that has an office here in Orlando. He's also Daddy to two of the cutest little girls EVER (in my humble opinion).

Jennifer is not currently using her teaching degree but is staying home with Emily and Bailey, the aforementioned cutie-pies. She has undertaken many new tasks this summer, including teaching Emily to read and write (it's going well!!) and growing a vegetable garden (it's GROWING well!). She loves being a mommy and is excited to see the girls growing and learning and just blossoming.

Emily is 3 1/2 and very much a little lady. She is one of the most easygoing kids I've ever known. She's up for just about anything! Right now she is taking a gymnastics class and she's doing so well!

Bailey just turned 14 months and she has truly reached that "toddler" phase (tantrums and all, unfortunately). She's started talking more, too; just today she said "dog" very clearly and the other day she said "ball."

So what else can I say? We are all doing great; we're happy and healthy and just enjoying life. Now I'm off to clean some windows!