The Big Surprise...

On Christmas morning after Santa, there was another big surprise on its way. Daddy walked in with this box wrapped in Mickey Mouse wrapping paper.

They were very surprised at the size of the box.

Imagine their surprise when 7 balloons floated out:

Attached to the strings were cards with 1 word on each balloons. They had to put it together to read "We're going to Disney World in 34 days."

Next they found wrapped gifts in the bottom of the big box, 1 for everybody. When we all opened them they contained matching shirts that said "Dodd Disney Days 2010". When I asked the kids why Nana and Pop might have shirts too, Ashton was very excited to figure out that they were going with us!

I'm so glad to have a daughter who squeals and shows all the excitement I was dreaming of (as opposed to my oldest who follows in his father's relief pitcher footsteps and doesn't show his excitement!).

We will be proudly sporting our matching shirts THIS Saturday!!!

The great part of this surprise was the week before Christmas Ashton started saying I wish we could go to Disney World in January and even called Nana and asked if she take her to Disney in January! It was so cool to be able to grant her wish!

An amazing Christmas surprise that has kept me so busy preparing that I'm just now getting around to blogging about it 20 hours before we leave- yay!!!!!

You Know You're in the Terrible Twos with Two If..." #17

You know if Will is quiet you should go look for him, especially if he has escaped and is upstairs. It helps if his sister comes screaming downstairs that "Will is in your bathroom and he has gotten into your shaving cream and he has sprayed it all over the carpet and the shower curtain and himself and you better come quick."

And you do. And he had...

And he was very pleased with himself.

And didn't seemed to be ashamed at all...

Where Have I Been?

I'm sure the entire world has been wondering why I haven't been blogging. I'm sure my entire readership of 22 people have been bereft at my lack of posts. At least I know my Mawmaw has been because she let me know at Christmas that she's been checking it every day and.... A little guilt, but at least it confirmed I have one reader anyway :)

To answer the question of where I've been I'm afraid I'll have to take you all the way back to Thanksgiving. or as I like to call it "The Thanksgiving That Began My Mental Break Down." I realize that I am beyond blessed to have my entire family close by. For example, I've never had to pay for a babysitter (although I'm ready to at this point- keep reading...). Of course, all the family means a very busy holiday. We had 4 Thanksgiving dinners (and 8 Christmases but it'll be a month before I get around to posting about those!).

Here's a list of what my 2 2 year olds accomplished in those 4 Thanksgiving get togethers:

1. Probably placed some long distance calls:

2. Flushed a yellow crayon and stopped up the potty.
3. Table danced later jumping off it:

4. Never.sat.still.for.a.minute!!!
5. Tried to flush a volleyball, yes a volleyball!
6. Laughed and enjoyed getting their hands washed after playing with the volleyball while it was in the toilet:

7. Fell and but by the grace of God blinded himself on the corner of Nana's aggregate stairs:

8. Discovered an entire container of ring pops and began trying to eat them all:

9. While everyone else was eating a healthy dinner snuck in and got into the ice cream cones:

10. And for the grand finale: got into my grandmother's hearing aids which then ended up being stepped on and broken and are going to cost us FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS to repair. There is not a picture of that because I was too busy trying not to throw up imagining how much it was going to cost us!

As you can obviously see, life has been very busy and highly stressful for me and blogging has slipped down my list of priorities, after unstopping the toilet and contemplating going back to work and signing them up for daycare! I hope to get back on the bandwagon and will probably be going back to work part time anyway to pay for the hearing aid and plumbing damage wreaked by my Destructive Duo.

Pray for me, seriously- pray.for.me!

Nothing Beats a Happy Will...

Jon and I have this saying that nothing beats a happy Will. I have to say that Will has been our most challenging child to date. Wesley can be a bully, Ashton can be a whiner and Jackson has a mouth on him but Will is just a challenge. He can throw fits with the best of them. He is inconsolable if you don't meet his needs immediately. I honestly worry about the fact that he bangs his head when he's mad to the point of bruising it. He tends to be very prone to fit throwing especially in the mornings (if I do the unthinkable of not having his waffle ready when he awakes!). This may be due to the fact that Wesley wakes him up most mornings and maybe he doesn't get his sleep. He's like me and Jackson and requires a lot of sleep. However, at night he is the funniest most adorable child ever made. He's has fun, giggles and entertains us to no end- there's nothing better than a happy Will:

So, even though he's a challenge I adore this precious little boy. I love how he sleeps with his arms tucked under him and his little bottom in the air. I love how lately he tells everyone, "Bye, Merry Mismas!" (Merry Christmas). I love how whenever you ask him a question he says, "Nuh uhh". I love how when Wesley hurts him and I tell him to say sorry Will always says sorry to Wesley, even through his tears! I love how he will push his cars back and forth for hours. I love the feel of his sweet little body in my arms.
I love my Will even down to the little self-inflicted bump on his head- morning and night!

Taking Their Baby For a Walk...

As I said, when I am in the kitchen, I never know who or what is going to walk by. I was pleased on this day to see this lovely couple going by taking their child for a walk:

Isn't their baby a cutie?

I'm amazed at how they get him to do these things!

You Never Who You'll Find In My Living Room...

I mean it's not like we live in a mansion and I am off in the west wing or something. I am rarely out of their sight for more than 5 minutes. I had left my children in the living room and was 6 feet away loading the dishwasher for about 4 minutes and turned around to find the holy mother in my living room:

There are times when we crazy homeschoolers dress up for different projects, but this literally came out of the blue. To this day I have no idea why Ashton felt like dressing up like a living nativity nor did she act out the Christmas story or anything. For about an hour she just went about her normal day,dressed like this! You just never know what you are going to find going on in my living room. Exhibit B:

I have no words for this one but am pretty sure the "Mother Mary " had something to do with it!!!!

You Know You're in the Terrible Twos with Two If..." #16

You are washing your twins because they now continually take their diapers off and tonight while you are trying to scarf down your soup before they get into something else you hear the sound of water only to discover that one (Wesley) had pee-d in the floor and the other one (Will) thought it looked like a good place to tap dance (yeah, I know- EWWW) so you run them both up to the tub and had just finished washing them when the pee-r strikes again this time hitting his poor brother on the shoulder. Good times, good times.

Oh yeah, and while you are trying to see the humor in the situation and share your tribulations with the blogging world, the now clean tap dancer sitting in your lap leans over and pulls a button off his daddy's work computer. And I was afraid I might run out of stories for this little feature on my blog, ha I wish!