Not feeling the MAGIC

I say I'm not feeling the magic, because here we are just a few days before Disneyland aka the happiest place on earth, and I feel like the kids are at their worst.

Particularly, my cute, little, Rachel has been giving me all sorts of trouble these days.

As an incentive for getting to buy a toy at Disneyland, Rachel has been trying to earn "disney dollars", and it has been hard to find opportunities to give them to her, but much easier to take them away.  She's been pushing her brother, getting her panties wet (an ongoing issue depending on the month ... please be a phase she'll grow out of), yelling (can't imagine where she picked that up.. eh hem), talking back like a teenager, not staying in timeout and lots of whining.

There are lots of positive things about her these days as well:  Good playmate to Andrew, eats meals on her own so well and tries everything, fairly easy to fall asleep and she sleeps in her own bed, she's a trooper when she gets sick (which is very often) and she never dwells on it when she gets hurt (brave), she loves to be read to, and gives thoughtful, sincere prayers that make my heart smile.

Story from this week:  on our way home from Five Guys tonight (oh man, it was my first time - thank you Dobson's for the introduction!), we were dropping off a Redbox movie, and Brandon was teasing Rachel about maybe leaving mommy at the gas station.  She loves me, so she of course said, "No Daddy, don't leave mommy".  Then he said, "Well, what does mommy do for us that we need her?"  Rachel replied, "She cleans the house, drives us to stores, and takes out the trash ... and drives us to more stores."  Yep, that pretty much sums it up, although I disagree that we shop all that much.  And I do take them to parks quite a bit, but of course I don't get credit for that.

These kids are MESS MAKERS!  All I do is clean, and it doesn't even look that awesome.  I probably haven't done a great job at enforcing "one toy at time" policy, but is that even possible?  And it is such a fight to get them to help clean it up unless I am right there helping, right when they're done playing with something.  I try to look at the positive side ... at least they are entertaining themselves.

Guilt moment:  I have been terrible at any sort of art projects with the kids these days.  Rachel could do art for a long time, but it is hard with Andrew because he wants to be involved, but I don't have much patience for crayons, markers and paint with that boy.  Crayons to him = snack.  However, I am good at getting the kids out of the house daily.  Either a trip to the park or walk around the block or playing in the backyard ... what are we going to do this summer?!

Rachel's favorites:  "Gnomeo & Juliet", the movie, daddy's nightly "Fluffly the Turtle" or Mickey stories and someone to lay by her for a few minutes, her cousin, Kennedy.

Andrew's favorites:  "treat", cows, family prayer, "movie" (Baby Einstein, Mickey or Gnomeo & Juliet), "no no no no", the color blue, singing songs

Movie time - I took a picture because they were sitting so close together, it was cracking me up.

I gave them yogurts, and the next thing I know,  they're eating them together inside a box - of course they are!