It's been HOT!!! And I do mean HOT here. It's been in the triple digits for two weeks and we are kind of over it. I don't like to complain, but we have had to get kind of creative on how to spend our time. The girls get a bit stir crazy being cooped up in the house all the time. (or is that me?) ;) We started the summer being able to go to the park and play in the back yard, and have picnics. But lately we have been going to the library a bit more, playing at the mall play area, and doing play-dough at home. Life isn't too bad I guess. :) 

The girls have both been nursing some summer colds lately. It started with Gwen, but hit Braelyn a lot harder when she got it. She's had a cough and runny nose for a couple weeks now. I did end up taking them to the doctor last week because Braelyn had a fever for a few days too. She is darn cute when she is sick. Quite a bit more whiney, but cute nonetheless. She will yell from across the room, "Mom! My nose is ringing!!!" That means her nose is "running". Cracks me up each and every time. 

Gwendolyn has really been rocking her crutches as of late. She's still slow and tentative about them, but she can do it without ANY help from me now! I can't wait until she masters these like she mastered the walker. I think it will be so good for her. My hope is that she is able to use them at school by the time she turns 3. I have added a little video of her using her crutches in our hallway. You can tell it still takes me a bit of encouraging to get her moving, but don't let her fool you with her whining. She loves the independence. :) And I actually caught her asking for "holpe" on video! This cracks me up too. Her asking for "help" is the cutest thing ever!

Enjoy our pics from the past couple weeks and stay cool!!

She's brilliant, what can I say. 

Working on one of our projects. Which is really just practice with glue sticks and scissors.
 Good 2 year old fun, let me tell ya!

Bath time!

Doesn't she look so grown up here!!??

It takes practice!!

Please excuse the twin sister coughing in the background. But I am SO proud of this little rockstar!!

The HAPPIEST place on Earth!! (well, there were moments) ;)

So, I will give a bit of a disclaimer before I begin writing the post on our fantastic trip to visit Nana Castellano and our trip to Disney. Most of this post will be pictures. I'm not even sure if Blogger puts a limit on how many pictures you can post per entry, but I just may reach the max on this one. Because the story of our Disney experience is best told via pictures I think. ;)

Our first day we went to Epcot on a mission to meet some characters! We had really built up to the girls going to visit "Mickey's House", so they were ready to meet them some Mickey I think!! The day started out pretty great. We did some rides, ate some lunch and rested in some AC out of the heat all in great anticipation of our reservations to have dinner at a restaurant where the characters come around to meet you at your table! So, the characters came and went. Braelyn attacked them with great joy and lots of hugs and kisses. Gwendolyn cowered by her daddy and wouldn't say a word until they walked away. Then and only then would she say, "Daddy! Where did Mickey go?' She enjoyed more of a long distance relationship with the characters. She liked them, but only if they were not standing anywhere near her. :)

Some of you that are friends with me on Facebook may already know what happened next. This is the part of our trip where I realized that Disney is not ALWAYS the "Happiest place on Earth". Gwendolyn was sitting on a booster chair and leaned over to play with her cousin and sister and fell head first onto the floor, and directly on her shunt. I immediately ran to her and picked her up. She was extremely pale, her body was a bit limp, and her eyes were rolling back at times. This is about the time I panicked. I told Chuck to come with me and I took our baby out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. The rest was a bit of a blur. I remember someone asking me if I wanted the medics to be called and I told them yes, and as quickly as possible because she has Spina Bifida and a shunt and she is not acting herself. The medics took what seemed like forever to get there, but they finally did. They put her on a stretcher and asked me a few questions. We were in an ambulance a short time later on our way to the nearest hospital. (A hospital named Celebration of all things. I couldn't get that irony out of my head let me tell you.) We got to the hospital and Nana, Chuck, and Braelyn met us there. I noticed immediately after arriving at the hospital that Gwendolyn had a pretty nice bruise right where her shunt is. The doctor decided to be on the safe side and ordered a CT scan. To make a long story (and an even longer wait) short, everything came back fine. Her shunt was fine and there was no sign of brain trauma or anything. We were allowed to take her back to the hotel for the night. It was very late by this point, so we were more than ready to get out of there. We had plans of going back to Disney the next day, but decided to just take it easy at the hotel, let the girls nap, and take a little swim in the great hotel pool.

The day after that we went to Magic Kingdom where the girls had a blast going on rides like the teacups, Dumbo, and their favorite, the carousel. We also set up a time to go and meet Mickey and Minnie. Again, Braelyn was on cloud nine, and Gwendolyn cowered on Daddy's shoulder. ;) The highlight I think was the Electric Parade that night. We took Gwendolyn in her new wheelchair to Disney so we were allowed in the handicapped reserved section. They were amazing seats and we saw all of the floats right as they came out. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, the girls, or me. :)

We didn't have the hotel reserved for any more days, so we headed back to Nana's house to get a bit of rest before hitting the third day of our 3 day passes. On Sunday we decided to hit up Animal Kingdom. It was great. We saw the Lion King show which was really, really cool. The girls sat in absolute awe of the whole thing. I was worried they (Gwen) would be afraid, but she really wasn't. She liked it a lot! We also went on the Safari tour which was extremely cool too. The girls got a really up close look at amazing animals like elephants, rhinos, and their favorite giraffes.

So, in a nutshell that was our Disney experience!   Enjoy some of our MANY photos!!
(In no particular order, cuz that would have taken me FOREVER!!) ;)

First Haircuts!!

Well, I figured it was about time our little ladies got their first haircuts. They usually wear their hair up anyway, but it needed a good trim. The girls have inherited Mommy's natural curls. (Yes, I straighten it every morning) ;) But all those curls makes it hard to realize just how long their hair had actually gotten! When it was wet you could see that it was actually half-way down their backs.

I wasn't sure how well the girls would handle getting their hair cut. In fact, I really thought they would hate it and cry the entire time. Especially Gwen. ;) BUT, I was proven wrong! I did prep them profusely ahead of time. We watched about five You Tube videos of other little girls getting their hair cut. I kept saying things like, "See how that little girl sits up really high in the chair?" and, "See? The nice lady is using scissors, but it doesn't hurt." Yep....I'm that kinda mom. ;) Daddy even came to meet us at the beauty shop because he didn't want to miss out on this "first" either. (yep...he's that kinda dad) ;)

I of coarse took a bazillion pictures and brought little baggies with their name and the date on it to keep their first cut locks for all time. It just kept going through my mind that the hair that she was cutting off is some of the same hair that was on those cute little newborn heads I loved seeing so very much. You can see from the pictures below that the girls did amazingly well, I only teared up once, and we celebrated with some Red Robin!! All was good in the hood. :)

Admiring the finished product. 

Ahhh.....the chipmunk smile. You know she's  doing some serious smiling when she breaks out the "chipmunk". 

Our celebration dinner and Gwendolyn's finished product.




The following is just my Braelyn being Braelyn. Yes, it's 107 degrees here and she is still sporting her cupcake stocking hat. (thanks Aunt Liz! );)

If you remember, Gwendolyn was always our binky fanatic. But, Braelyn found this in our old diaper bag and pretended to be a baby for a good 30 minutes. We thought she was becoming too attached though, and when it was time for us to take it actual tears were shed. Awwww..... :(
(binky was promptly thrown away  so there was NO more confusion) ;)

Mommy did some more garage saling last weekend and scored pretty good! The  highchair and dolls has been a huge hit at our house. All for about 8 bucks! Love me some garage sales!!

This is Braelyn's usual after nap routine. Poor thing. It takes her a bit to wake up.

Look at our girl!!!! She's using forearm crutches!! Definitely still a work in progress, but she's doing really well!!  We have a system. I sit on a scooter board that I had ordered to help her learn how to crawl and scoot myself backwards down the hall while supporting her a little bit as she walks with the crutches. And then when she gets to the end of the hall she climbs on my lap and I scoot her real quick all the way back down the hall on the scooter board. And then of coarse I have to give Braelyn a ride as well. ;) We probably look crazy, but it works!! It will give her so much more freedom when she can master these crutches. So much easier that the walker. We are praying that she gets the hang of these quickly. 

Gwendolyn has also really enjoyed the new highchair. She walks all over the house on her knees pushing it. Such a big girl. :)

We will be doing a little bit of traveling coming up pretty soon to a very "happy place" so it may be a little bit until our next post, but the wait will be worth it!! Great pictures to come! Stay cool out there!!! :)