This summer

This summer Papa Bear's sister is going to get married at Walt Disney World.  We are excited for her, and excited that the girls will get a chance to meet some of their favorite Disney characters.  We have hotels and tickets taken care of (yay for military discounts!), and have signed up for dinner with Cinderella and breakfast with some other princesses.  One of Papa Bear's co-workers got some autograph books for the girls to use, but I am looking for tips and advice from the blogging world.  Our girls will be barely 3 and 5 1/2.  I would like to know about the rides and attractions that they would love (or not!), as well as some of the cheaper and or healthy places to eat around Disney. Please share!
P.S.  If you know us in real life, please do not mention Disney to our girls.  They know about the wedding but not where it will be, we are keeping this as a BIG surprise!

Since October,

 this is our new normal

 ripping off siding, adding insulation, repairing, etc.

the work has all been done by Papa Bear and Papaw, with a little help from Mama Bear.

This project started in October/November and is still going.  All of the siding on the back of the house and west side of the house is done, and now we are working on the front.  We also replaced our back door.  The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow (finally!) so hopefully Papa Bear can make good progress this weekend!


Update:  Today we got some work done on the front of the house, but we aren't done yet. We got a late start and had to quit early so I could go deliver a sweet 16 birthday cake. Papa Bear said a lady driving by was in shock to see me cutting the siding with the electric shears (or maybe I was using the drill). We don't think she could see Papa Bear and maybe she thought I was doing it alone - ha ha! um, no.  I just take directions well.

Halloween pictures and germs

I'm behind on posting pictures, but here are our Halloween pictures

 Do you know who they are?

 Its Dora the Explorer and her monkey sidekick Boots!

They won a prize for cutest couple at our friends' annual Halloween party.

Boots got to go trick-or-treating for the first time this year

2 weeks ago Curly Bear was sick with a high fever and cough and then passed it to Goldilocks.  They were both sick for 6 days.  They looked at a lot of snow out the window that week!

Today I took Goldilocks back to the doctor's office because she was complaining of her right ear hurting.  She had already been on Omnicef for 5 days because her left ear was infected.  Sure enough, both ears are infected now, so we have changed over to a different and stronger antibiotic - has anyone else had this issue before?  Curly Bear had a stomach bug yesterday, but is fine today.   
germs go away!

Pumpkin carving

Goldilocks dove into the pumpkins this year and cleaned both of them out.  Curly Bear was confused. ha!

New Year

I haven't made any resolutions or goals for the new year.  I think I'm still trying to catch up on all of the previous ones such as spending time with family and friends, being more organized, reading the Bible more, exercising, etc.    I am already working on clearing out some of the clutter in our house.  After 9 years in one house we have accumulated too much stuff!

My apologies for the lack of posts lately.  Our computer's memory is nearly full so I haven"t dared to download any pictures from the last 2 months,
We have spent a lot of time in November and December doing two things.
1. Mama Bear has been baking pound cakes in jars and selling them.  Between the orders and cakes we gave away to family and friends, there was a total of 213.  That's a lot of flour, butter, and eggs! We never took a picture of a single jar, oops.
2.  Papa Bear and his father have been residing the house which has been an adventure to say the least.  I think they would be done by now if they weren't having to repair/fix the inadequate building they have encountered such as absence of boards, insulation, etc.  Today Papa Bear discovered that our front door was not set properly.  We are more than halfway done with the siding and then have to paint.  Our house will be well insulated and I expect to see fewer insects getting inside too!  Papa Bear is doing a great job and I will post pictures eventually.
3.  Goldilocks decided on her own that she wanted to cut her hair - no more tangles!  We are going to donate her hair to Locks of Love.  I will show a picture eventually.  We were supposed to have her birthday party last week but postponed it when she got a stomach virus.  She is going to have a princess tea party at our house and she doesn't know that Sleeping Beauty is going to pay a visit. 
4.  Curly Bear is talking and singing a lot.  We can now (finally) understand what she is saying a lot of the time.  She is enthusiastic about potty training, but it has not clicked yet.  She sits on the potty, reads a book, looks in the potty, says "no pee-pee, no poo-poo, no wa-de-pop (lollipop). oh well." She is only 2 1/2 yrs old, and I'm sure one day the light bulb will turn on and she will do well.