Revenge

My husband...

Do I love him more than anything in this world? Yes. 

Does he drive me crazy (on purpose) most days? Yes. 

Enter trip to Kansas City to the Royals game a few weekends ago. All I wanted was a nice picture of the two of us but the hubby was purposely being uncooperative. What I got is below... Warning - this is not pretty.

I give up. 

Big Boy Dave

Dave turned four two weeks after my Dillon turned two. It's so fun to watch him grow up, but yet painful to realize how fast time is flying by. For Dave's birthday party, we just did a low key cake and ice cream at our house. 

All David wanted for his birthday was a Mario cake. Mommy delivered... after crafting this amazing (ha) beauty into the wee hours of the morning. However, I will say that I used a marshmallow fondant recipe that I found here and it tasted pretty darn good and was easy to manipulate. 

After Dave blew out the candles I asked him what he wished for... "I don't know!" he replied. :)  - Photo taken by Papa Sam

Love this picture of the guys (that's Grandpa in the background) supervising.
- Photo taken by Papa Sam

 

PRESENTS!!!

Daddy gave Dave a tackle box.

I had been telling Dave that right after his birthday we would go to see a movie. I secretly and selfishly want the boys to love going to the movies so I have some movie watching partners. Jeremy is not one to go to the movies (we've only been to one since we got married!) and although I have some friends that like to go, it can be difficult to plan times out to do that. 

We saw Monster's University. It was good, not as good as Monster's Inc, but David was pretty good throughout the whole thing. I think if there wasn't 30 minutes of previews prior to the movie, he would have made it through the whole thing without any attention issues. 

Obviously we saw it in 3D. I wish we wouldn't have spent the extra money and would have just seen it in 2D because Dave wasn't that impressed and neither was I. 

The kid put away some popcorn. :) We have one of those popcorn buckets  (refills for $3.50) and I swear Dave ate 3/4 of it all by himself. Funny side note, he was a little bored towards the end of the movie and started freaking out because he had shoved popcorn up his nose! I had to use my phone to get some light so I could dig out a couple of kernels. I would have really hated to be the people in front of us!

The boys got these sweet bean bag chairs from Granny Lolly, Mike and the girls for their birthdays. They LOVE them. 

Just Like His Momma

When it comes to Dave, the apple does not fall far from the tree. And when I reference the tree... the tree is me.

Dave can be a handful and certainly isn't a replica of his mother when he's acting up (then he's just like his dad!) but sometimes I look at him and think, oh no... you have a lot of your momma in you.

Case in point would be Dave's preschool graduation. The kid sang. Loud as could be. He did the dances and pretty much put on a good show. Made his momma proud.



Accepting his diploma

Dave and his friend Marlie

The tree in front of my parents house. Every graduate in our family gets their picture taken here. :)

Aunt Boo

High/Low

"Mommy? What was the best part of your day?" "And what was the not so good part?"

Dave, Dill and I (and sometimes daddy) have started to play a game that we used to play on Classy Cats. Basically, a few times a month we would all sit in a circle and tell what the highs/lows of our lives were currently. I loved this because while we were all important to each other, we didn't always have the time to touch base with each person to provide support and share in the joys of each other's lives. Of course, you always had your best friends on the team who knew your daily trials and tribulations, but this exercise gave those other friends, that you still cared about but weren't as close with the chance to catch up as well...

 

 

I'm hoping that this daily ritual will give the boys and I the foundation to be able to share both the big and little joys and worries of each day. And in all honesty, it gives me a chance to reflect on what really matters in life.

So far Dillon's highs and his lows have been "NO!" which is his favorite word. I don't think he's enjoying the game yet. Dave's have been a little more inventive... "Eating Watermelon" "Playing in the big pool and Journey and Jeremiah's" and "Going to the Park" have been some of his highs. And most of the time he says, "I didn't have a sad part of the day." Which proves he's mostly a happy boy! :)

Two

 

I have been pretty much non-existent on the blog for the last 6 months and I'm quite sad that I have not been updating everything that has been going on in our lives! There is a ton of changes that have been going on in the McDiffett household. I'll fill everyone in on all of that, but most importantly, we had a big birthday in our house in the last week...

Dillon Turned TWO!!!

Dillon's birthday was a pretty normal day. They went to the babysitter's and had snacks and we just had the dinner of Dillon's choice that night. He wanted spaghetti, so I whipped up some spaghetti when we got home. However, the poor kiddos got jipped because we only had half of what we needed for spaghetti noodles and had to use broken up lasagna noodles for the rest!


Thankfully, he didn't mind and we had a great rest of the night snuggling.

 

 

The next night David had a t-ball game so we had a quick bbq at our house with close family and some of the opposing team (which just happened to be Dwight and have some good friends on it).

 

Dilly and Papa



Grandpa and Uncle Steven



"Mal-Gal" and "Little Amanda"
I can't wait to watch these beautiful girls grow up. I just find them to be such sweethearts!

 

Blowing out TWO BIG candles!!!

Yummy Cake

 After Cake, Dillon got to open presents. However, I think the other kiddos were more excited about opening them that he was! One of his favorite gifts was a bubble machine. So cool!





 

It blows me away how fast time goes. I had a hard time with Dilly's b-day because when David turned two, I had already had Dillon. It is crazy to me that Dillon has now reached the age Dave was when he was born! I always think of the Kenny Chesney song, "Don't Blink" when I think of how fast times passes. And it's so easy to sit back and watch it go on past or to get wrapped up in the many daily things that don't matter. What truly matters are those special moments that don't necessarily always seem so important. Those sweet moments like when you husband reaches over to hold your hand when driving down the road (ha ha... I think I'm dreaming) or you realize that your boys are wrestling in the living room like boys are meant to do... and the younger one is holding his own against the older! I know I've said it before, but our house can be a bit of a circus sometimes, but I always need to remember to cherish that three ring circus. Someday that circus is going to slow down and eventually end, and I'll be wishing to have it back!

 

 

 

Disney Adventures - Part Three

Day three of my Disney trip with Leilani started off with a pre-opening tour at Epcot. This tour was not on foot but done by SEGWAY! Think... Paul Blart Mall Cop. 

The Segway tour was fun. We learned quite a bit about the park and riding a segway was actually pretty fun. Driving on a downward slope was a little hairy at times... and it certainly was even more frightening thinking you would run into another park goer once it opened! 

If you don't know much about Epcot at Disney World, it is very different from the other parks. Half of Epcot is the "World Showcase" and the other half is "Tomorrowland." I won't get into the vision of Walt Disney, but it is pretty interesting what his vision was for what is now Epcot. 

After our Segway tour, we rode the "Soarin" ride, which is an aerial ride that takes you through the different areas of California. In hindsight, this ride was probably one of my favorites that we rode the whole time we were at Disney. It was very cool and wasn't roller-coaster-ish which still being exhilarating. 

Next we rode the "Mission: Space" ride and I did not like it. This was a simulator and you could pick two levels at which you'd like to ride. I chose the "tougher, more manly version" and wimped out royally. Pretty much thought I was gonna puke for about 30 minutes. Quite embarrassing. Leilani was a good sport but I'm sure she was thinking... I warned you Amanda... 

A very cool part of our trip was that it was during the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We got a passport book that had foods from different countries and tried out many of them. Fortunately and unfortunately we had a dinner reservation at the French restaurant in France at Epcot. It was good but we had to cut our Food and Wine tour snacks early. It was quite yummy. I would recommend this event for adults and I guess adventurous kiddos. I believe they have it every fall and it really was a blast. However, because it does have wine and other beverages, I believe there might be an unusually high amount of tipsy and intoxicated individuals as the night draws nearer! 

I took this picture when we were in Germany at Epcot. Germany was modeled after the German city of Rothenburg , Germany. I thought it was pretty awesome because I have been to the actual city of Rothenburg in Germany when I was in middle school. My dad and I visited two of my very favorite people in the world, my cousin Doug and his wife Marybeth, who were living in Germany and we took a weekend trip to this amazing city. See this wikipedia link on information on Rothenburg. 

I'm fairly sure this was taken in Norway...

Food and Wine Festival

After the food and wine festival, we headed to the other side of Epcot and rode "The Seas with Nemo and Friends" and saw the show "Turtle Talk with Crush." 

We didn't do a few rides which I think would be really fun, especially if you were going with kiddos... "Living with the Land" and "The Circle of Life." We just ran out of time... there is seriously SO MUCH TO DO HERE!!!

We had dinner at Chefs de France. Remy from the movie Ratatouille joined us for dinner. :) Dinner was quite yummy and I had French Onion soup for the first time ever. It was good but a little too oniony for my tastes. Leilani, however, had a seafood soup and it was excellent!

Sometime after, or before, dinner we went to the show in America and also saw an a Capella group that was amazing. I loved hearing them sing and I believe Leilani said this is one of her favorites while she is here too... seriously amazing. 

I guess I thought since we were in Florida that it would be warm and I wouldn't need to worry about sweatshirts or anything long sleeved. Wrong. Leilani and I spent some time in the gift shop trying to find something to buy since we were both FREEZING in the evening. I wish I would have bough a sweatshirt the first day... it was considerably more chilly than I had expected!


Another random story of the trip... as we were heading from the countries back to the "other side" as I like to think of it, we ran into Alice from Alice in Wonderland. After a quick photo op, we headed on our merry way. We then ran into a very intoxicated woman who had been partaking in the Food and Wine Festival and the "bar" in one of the countries. I say "bar" lightly, because obviously at Disney, it is not the intent to go to a bar and get intoxicated. The lady informed us of much trivia about Epcot and proceeded to entice us to go to the bar itself. In Aggieville or another bar district, this might not have been that weird, but at Disney, it just seemed a bit out of place.

We found Mickey, Minnie and Pluto in one of the buildings outside of the Epcot sphere.

What a cute pic!

Probably my favorite character picture of the trip, aside from those with Ariel -  as she is my absolute favorite

The evening show at Epcot was good, as they all are. It was cool because it was over the lake and was more of a laser type program. Music plays all around you out of speakers that are hidden everywhere in bushes, trees, etc. Epcot was not my favorite show... what can really beat Cinderella's castle?... but very cool anyway. 

This might surprise Leilani, but I think my favorite part of the entire day was the O'Canada presentation in Canada. Canada is seriously a beautiful country, that I genuinely want to visit as soon as possible, and the presentation given in the video really highlights the country. Maybe it was also because I was dead-tired and it was a relaxing show... but who knows!?! I do know that I would like to take in every video and show the different countries have to offer in Epcot. Apparently I'm nerdy like that and I want to learn on vacation. :)