FL Day 4

No new photos to post today - I need to download some from the camera from day 3 though.

So day three big c, little c, and I went to a little County park, E.G. Simmons.  There is a boat ramp, a beach and a playground.  We played around for a bit.  Found lots of hermit crabs had 3 in the pail at once and one got fiesty and started attacking the other two, so we had to remove that one.  Big c got to see one crab change shells.  We watched as a smaller crab crawled out of a larger crabs shell.  We had fun and a snack and little c got some playground time too.

Big c had a work meeting in the afternoon, so the girls, little c my mom, and I went up to Sun City Center for a pedicure and to visit my grandmother Martha.  We had a lovely visit and and relaxing time getting our nails done.

Today, we went into Bradington for  farmers market, picked up some great tomatoes, blueberries, kale, pastries and cookies.  Followed in up with a stopmzt a family run meat market, they have GREAT roast beef, and smoked corned beef.   After a stop for some regular groceries, we dropped Grandma and Grandpa and little c off at the house so big c and I could go check out a rib festival.  Had some great ribs from  local place T & L BBQ, very good sauce and friendle people.  Back to Mom and Dad's place where we met up with mom and little c at the pool.

Currently a few of us are ready for a nap, not the littlest though.

Day 2 in FL

Our first full day in FL.  Visiting my parents.  We got in yesterday at 4 pm, and had a nice dinner and visited the pool.  We all slept very well.

Today we were up  and off to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium home on Winter the Dolphin, an amputee dolphin.  There is a movie based on her life, which we watched as a family once, little c and I watched at least 5 times last month while we were all sick.  So for a suprise we took her to meet the real Winter.   While at the aquarium we also got to see nurse sharks, otters, sea turtles, and rays.  There was a baby dolphine named Hope, who lost her mother, but has now found a home at the aquarium.  They have two facilities so we rode a trolly betwwen the sites.  Little c declared the day alot of fun, trolly rides included. 

We came back for a late lunch and some much needed rest.  Then it was back to the heated pool for a swim.  Little c wore her life vest today and was swimming around like a little fish.  She jumped in several times from the edge - thinking that was lots of fun.

After cleaning up grandma A and little c worked on some art.  Little c was posing to be drawn.  The photos today are of her posing, Ill have to down load from the other camera the pictures from the aquarium.

Princesses dress up

Just a little playtime aftershool and before bed.  I fashioned a princess dress for little c out of her collection of play silks.  Then she wanted to eat.
She got to dance while her sandwich was being made.  I love how versitile the play silks are and how much fun she has with them.

Her collection of playsilks has grown through christmas presents, easter gifts and possible some for her birthday.  I dyed them, first with kool-aid and then over that with store bought dyes since I wasn't crazy about the results the drink mix gave us.

Another Ski weekend

So I've had a head cold/ sinus thing that kept me feeling awful, so I took saturday off from skiing.  We left my ski stuff at home to keep me from being tempted - and I was.  It worked out for for the best as Big c had lessons all day and little c fell durring lesson hurting her arm - it's fine, just a little bruise.  She is doing better and skied the next day even.  She did decide she was all done skiing for saturday though.  So we drew togther.  Below s a little scketch I did of our favorite ski area

Another weekend on the mountian

Very lovely day on saturday.  The snow conditions were a bit firm but still fun.  Today was very cold but SNOWING!!!  Took the morning off,  even though the little one went out for a full day.  We enjoyed lunch with her and my awesome in-laws.

Little C Skiing

OK it's been ages since I've posted.  But here are our latest adventures.

We spent Christmas vacation week learning how to teach little C to ski with a local ski area, Cochrans.  We were in a 4 day program, with a group of other children (ages 3-5) and their parents.  We had 3 or so instructors and got 1 run with them a day.  The first day we worked with an instructor towords the end of the day and they told us we could go ahead and ski backwards with little C skiing on her own with a tip lock, but that the next day we would work on taking the tip lock off.  Little C totally got the wedge and putting her skis on edge.
The second day we took the tip lock off after 2-3 runs our run with the instructor had us working on just playing follow the leader with little C, no more skiing backwards in front of her.
Day 3 there was no run with an instructor - nothing else to teach her, just log ski time.
Day 4 - More ski time, we took 1 run through cones with the instructor - not really educational, just fun.  Little C was skiing with an Olympic gold medalist!!!!

Little C's stamina has increased and she shows a lot of control when on the slope, she still needs to learn the fine points of skiing etiquette and responsibilities.  But she is doing great.  We plan on checking out Cochrans a few more times this season for their lollipop races - just so she can try them out. 

And now for the photos & Video.

Potty Update - The Last

We are potty trained, nighttime and daytime.  We've been potty trained for some time, I think I realized we were totally done when little C started using public bathroom stall all by herself, and daycare sent home her nap-time pull-ups, which she hasn't used for about a month or a little more.

So here it is a big step in her development and I can't really pin point a time or date when it actually happened, except to say about 2 months ago.