October

Obviously I'm behind on blogging, as I'm posting Halloween pictures over Thanksgiving weekend. It's been a rough few months, with all of us sick at some point and Bella and me sick almost the entire season.

Boo at the Zoo

Ladybug Bella flying in the pumpkin patch


Peter Pan and Tinkerbell


Exploring a fire engine


Daddy stealing a kiss in front of the pumpkin lights


Tinkerbell Gabi and Peter Pan Daddy at the train station


Choo-choo!
Raking leaves

The first of our autumn leaves


The girls love to rake leaves with Daddy!


We thought this was a lot of leaves...


until Daddy raked 41 bags of leaves in November!
CityFest

Bella and Gabi riding a turtle statue


Girls with a giant Bob the Tomato


Sharing a smoothie


Jumping in a bouncy house
Playing at home

Bella rocking on Tigger


Peek-a-boo, Bella!


Gabi reading her sister a bedtime story

Disney World

In mid-September, we took a family vacation to Disney World with Lolo and Lola. Gabi still talks about this trip and how fun it was. Bella then mentions riding on a boat (and perhaps Donald Duck).


Princess Gabi with Daddy in front of Cinderella's Castle


Bella on the Mickey ears at the Contemporary hotel
Our first day, we went to Epcot and ate dinner at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway. This was perhaps the best meal of the trip, although I had a stomach bug. Disney was running a promotion with a free dining plan, so we had a scheduled sit-down character meal once a day. It was fantastic! The additional quick-service meal each day turned out to be plenty of food for the rest of our meals, even with Bella not old enough to have a dining plan and just eating off our plates. An extra benefit of eating at Cinderella's Castle: showing off for Cinderella was great motivation for Gabi to start walking on her cast!


Cinderella at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall


Troll of Norway


Bella banging on the drums


Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground at Hollywood Studios
On day three, I came down with the flu (probably swine flu). Bella also caught it. Given that it has about a two-day incubation before symptoms hit, I'm guessing we caught it on the plane. Boo! The flu was miserable, but at least I had lots of help caring for the kids. The little market in our hotel even had children's medicine for Bella, which helped her sleep better at night, only waking up coughing about four times a night instead of every 20-30 minutes like she did before I gave her Benadryl. The flu lasted over a week for both of us, well after we had returned home.


Prince Charming visited us at dinner at 1900 Park Fare


Sleeping Beauty came to breakfast at Cinderella's Castle
Gabi says, "No more pictures! You promised: just one picture!"


Bella running around Toon Town playground


Gabi's "birthday" cupcake
(We celebrated Bella's 2nd birthday while at Disney World,
so we had to celebrate Gabi's "birthday" as well.)


Lolo and Bella investigating a warthog skull at Animal Kingdom


Bella up close to a live crane!


"Minnie Mouse" Gabi with Mickey


Seeing double!


Bella with her favorite Mickey bush at our hotel
On the last day, Gabi got up early to go to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique inside Cinderella's Castle, where a fairy godmother turned her into a beautiful princess! Just today she proudly told me that she still has a little of the bluish "Cinderella's slippers" nail polish on her fingers from the boutique at Disney. Gabi requested that the hair extension match her own color hair, which I thought was an excellent choice. She looked quite glamorous! She even wore a butterfly jewel on her cheek. As you can see from the pictures, we brought all of Gabi's princess dresses from home to wear while at Disney World.


Chasing bubbles at the Magic Kingdom: a definite highlight


Princess Gabi in the bubbles


Gabi flying on Dumbo with Lola


Tigger signing Gabi's cast


Piglet hugging Gabi


Bella kissing Piglet
(Don't give him your swine flu!)


Gabi on a ferry between hotels


Bella exploring Wilderness Lodge
Michael rode "It's a Small World" with Gabi seven times over the course of our trip. Gabi also enjoyed the teacups and Figment/Imagination and even Peter Pan once she got over her fear of trying it. She watched the Dream Come True parade three times because the characters came up to interact with her.

Besides the boat rides, I think Bella's favorite part was running in the rain (which was on-and-off in the afternoon our first two days) and splashing in the puddles. Once Bella got sick, her favorite part was definitely going back to the hotel for a nap, poor baby. I guess that's why two-year-olds are free!

Gabi's broken leg

Last Monday, while I was cooking dinner, Gabi fell in the playroom and said she hurt her leg and couldn't stand up. I expected a large bruise to appear, although it never did. When my kiss didn't help, I gave her an ice pack, Tylenol, and Motrin. I had to carry her to dinner and to the bathtub and to bed. At bedtime, I explained that she needed to sleep because when she rests, it gives her body energy to heal itself. She thought that sounded silly, but she trusted me.

The next morning, Gabi sweetly told me, "Mommy, I must not have slept enough because my leg still hurts." Since she continued to insist that she could not stand up, and she was having pain just moving her leg or flexing her foot, I took her to the doctor. He could not find anything wrong on exam; her leg wasn't even swollen. When he asked Gabi how she hurt her leg, she told him that she fell trying to jump off the slide in our playroom. (News to me!)


NOT what the playroom looked like when Gabi fell
(I told Gabi that she hurt her leg because we had too many toys out in the playroom,
and that's why she needed to put her toys away.)
The doctor told me that he'd seen kids stub their toe and refuse to walk for weeks; however, he'd also had a little girl just sit and smile at him while he poked and prodded her arm, but an X-ray revealed that both the girl's bones were broken. So we got an X-ray for Gabi. Gabi's X-ray showed a non-displaced spiral fracture in her tibia, so we headed to Children's hospital for a cast around lunchtime on Tuesday. The next day, Gabi informed me that when she fell off the slide, she landed on Bella's door. (Maybe I'd have taken her to the doctor sooner if I'd known that.)


Gabi was very decisive about which color cast she wanted.


Gabi was surprised that her new cast was hard.


Thinking of a name for her new puppy from the ortho docs/nurses


Daddy took time off work to be with Gabi while she got her cast.


At physical therapy, learning to use a walker


She did it! (and has since refused to try again)


Gabi pointing out her friends' names on her cast
After a week, Gabi is much more comfortable in her cast and moving around. She still doesn't want to walk on it, but she has put some weight on it just fine. Here are some pictures Gabi's teacher took at school before Gabi broke her leg.


Gabi's PreK class on the first day of school


Omari, Nathan, David,
Gabi, Kate, and Isabel


Gabi and Isabel


Kate and Gabi