Oh, the Irony!

So, have I mentioned that my children love the Wiggles? Maybe you might have picked that up in a couple of my posts. Last year, when the girls were not even 1 year old we took them to go and see the Wiggles live. It went really well, even though they fell asleep for the last 15 minutes of it. So, of course, when I heard the Wiggles were coming back to town I had to get tickets. So, I convinced my mother to get them an early present and buy floor seats for the live show. You have seen the video of them dancing at our house, so I was so excited about them being able to dance in the aisles with the other kids at the show.

My dreams were almost ruined when I get an email confirmation from Ticketmaster confirming the show that day with a reminder email that all children over 1 year old must be ticketed. I had only bough 2 floor seats since the girls were going to be sitting in our laps. I frantically called the venue and a nice lady there came up with the ingenious idea for when we get to the show to just buy 2 of the cheapest balcony seats they have ($20 a pop) to get in the door and then keep them on our laps at our floor seats. Crisis averted.

We headed downtown for the show.

Did our pose in front of Anthony's drumset again....


and waited for the show to start. Some brilliant marketing guy had put programs on all of the seats that had games and pictures for the kids. It was the perfect diversion for our children until the show started.


Maddie was pointing at the Wiggles sign that was lighting up that she was obsessed with.

Then the show started! Lights down, music on and out come the characters! We had PHENOMENAL seat.

Look how close we were to our Aussie friends!

What could possibly ruin this family moment for us?

>Madilyn Jane.

The moment the lights went down and the music came on the child completely lost it! I am talking screaming, clinging on to me for dear life yelling, "No, Mamma, No!" in between the tears. The first song they sang was "Rock-A-Bye-Your-Bear" and there was nothing but blood curdling screaming. So, I took her out in the hall to try and calm her down. Minutes later I was followed out by my husband who was sopping wet. Ruthie had peed all over his shirt. So, he took his shirt off and had his undershirt on with Maddie while I changed Ruthie. By the time I made it out of the bathroom with Ruthie, Mark was outside the bathroom drenched again. Maddie had peed on his undershirt...and was still screaming. So, I sent my pee-soaked husband back into the show with Ruthie and stayed out with Maddie.

She did ok out in the hallway for a little bit. She kept trying to peek around the curtain when she would hear the songs. Then I would ask her, "Do you want to see the Wiggles?" and she would burst into tears and scream, "No, Mamma, no!" Then Maddie decided she wanted her "sissy", but she didnt want to go back into the show. It was a dilemma for a 2 year old, so her solution was to have a complete meltdown. I went in and got Mark and we left 30 minutes into the show.

Parenting lessons learned from this adventure.

#1. Never assume your children will like anything based on a previous behavior

#2. Bring a change of clothes for Mark when going out on family adventure

#3. Priceless moments actually do have a pricetag. This one was $135.

The Beach

When I thought about vacation this year at the lake I was so excited about the girls playing on the beach and in the lake. They love swimming and water. They love buckets. It is the perfect combination. Considering I spent my entire childhood playing at this lake, it felt like life was coming full circle. One of those memories I would cherish forever. Instead, this is what I got.

They hated playing in the lake. In fact, they wouldnt even go near the water without screaming. And the sand! Wow! You would think I was making them walk on shards of glass when they had to put their feet in the sand. It was a disaster. I was determined that we were going to have family time at the beach, if they liked it or not.

We were able to distract Ruthie with some sort of a game that involved collecting rocks on the beach and putting them in a cup. That held her attention and stopped the screaming for about 20 minutes.

Me: "Here Maddie! Play with the rocks with Sissy!"

Maddie: "AHHHHHHHHH......NO! AHHHHHHHHHH....NO!"

Maddie: "Oh, play with rocks? I thought you said socks! I will play with rocks."

Maddie: "Wait! I hate rocks! And socks! AHHHHHHHH.....NO!"

She was finally made content by sitting in the chair with Maddie Mostoller eating Cheetos.

The one thing that was a big hit with both of the girls was the jet skis.

Who knows? Maybe next year will go a little better on the beach! If not I will just bring more Cheetos.

Flexible...Not Unbreakable

Something doesnt look right here......

Hmmmm....what could it be?

Oh, maybe the fact that my almost 2 year old tore apart her glasses? Great! Who needs to be able to see? Who cares that they were actual glasses and not play glasses from the dollar store?

She actually has done so well with her glasses, but I dont think she is completely to blame for the broken glasses. Her glasses were fine until Friday when I put them on the patio table while she was swimming in the pool. I went in the house to grab something and when I came back I saw Maddie sitting on the table and Ruthie's glasses bent into very strange position. Maddie automatically gave me her "uh-oh, Momma" line. I was able to twist them back into a shape that resembled glasses and ran Ruthie back to Vanderbilt to see if they could fix them before the weekend. Alas, they could not! They ordered some new frames for her, but they were still wearable, just very loose on her. Then, this morning in the car I turned around to see that they were in 2 pieces.

They made it a whole month and a half! New frames wont be in for 5 business days, so Ruthie is glasses-less until then!

Adirondack Animal Land

We have gone to Sacandaga Lake for our family vacation every year since I was born. So, every year we have passed by Adirondack Animal Land. As their website claims "The largest ZOO in upstate New York and voted the area's #1 Tourist attraction 3 years in a row!" Granted, it is in Fulton County, so there really isnt much else to do there. I think their only competition would be "Meatland" which is off of Rt. 30. I am not making that up. It actually exists. But, Adirondack Animal Land has beat Meatland for at least 3 years in a row!

Halfway through this trip my camera broke so I was unable to take picture of the roadside view of Animal Land. I wish I had a picture to show you so that you could get a better idea of what this place looks like from the road. Needless to say, we have made fun of Animal Land almost every time we have driven past it on our way up to the lake for as long as we have had the ability to make fun of things.

We were all about making fun of Animal Land until my sister took my niece there a few vacations ago and we discovered that it actually is a pretty neat place. Dont get me wrong, it is no San Diego Zoo. In fact, it probably is the most random collection of animals in one place. They didnt have any elephants, or lions or tigers. But, they did have giraffes that you could feed!

They dont have any turtles, but they have a statue of one. And really, to a two year old, there is very little difference.

Moments later I tried to get a picture of them on the turtle. Note to self: large metal turtles in direct sunlight will burn your children if you try to place one on it. Lesson learned.

We went on an "African Safari" that was pulled by a tractor. Not very African in my opinion. Also not very African were the goats, cows and pigs we saw on the tour. I guess if you think of the animals you might find in some remote African village then the tour was very African. Anyways, there were a TON of these guys!

They get REALLY close to you too, as Maddie is noticing below.

It was very soon after this picture that one actually put its' head on my shoulder and I completely freaked out and grabbed my kids and ran to the middle of the trailer we were bring pulled on. A little too close for comfort for me.

I of course made my daily attempt at a cute picture of the girls again. This was before the camels attacked.

One day. One day they will both look at me and smile. I know it!

Animal Land actually had a lot of really cute play areas for the kids that I would love to show you, but my camera broke right after this picture.

Overall the girls had a great time. If we didnt have to be back for naptime I think they would have played there for quite a while. I was pleasantly surprised with my visit there and think the girls will have an even better time next year.

Vacation: Ruthie and Maddie Style

I have my memories of vacation this year with the girls, but these were some out takes of the girls just being themselves that I couldnt resist posting.

Ruthie was in rare form playing on the bed one day.

The girl cracks me up!

Both the girls got a lot of reading time in with Grrmam, which they loved.

Ruthie even stopped texting for a few minutes to listen to Elmo's Potty Time book.

Leave it to Maddie to find trouble to get in to. If there was quiet, then she was getting into something.

All of the diapers being thrown all over the bed....

Newspaper being shredded....

At least she is cute while doing it.

More vacation pics to come. I just have to sort through them all!

We're Back!

We have made it back from our week at the lake!

AND the girls had their first successful flight in my dad's plane to go to Twinpalooza in New Hampshire!

So much to post, so stay tuned!!!

Camp Hunt

Camp Hunt: Where Friendships Begin. It is also where complete exhaustion kicks in. That isnt on their t-shirt for some reason!

We just returned from our 5 days up at Camp Hunt and we leave tomorrow for our family vacation. Nothing says vacation like running around like a mad woman with two toddlers! You may be wondering what it looks like to pack for 5 days at a camp with toddlers. Something like this.

You cant see the 4 suitcases behind all of this junk, but they are there. Along with the two pack n plays. Oh, and this was before I had to put the portable high chairs in there. I think you get the point.

My nephew, Jamison, posing by the old Camp Hunt sign. Camp Hunt is the summer church camp that I have gone to my entire life. Now that I am obviously too old to be a camper, I go back and teach Bible class for a week with my sister. We come with baggage, otherwise known as our combined four children. We were very fortunate this year that the entire kitchen staff was camping out in campers down by Grindley Auditorium, so Diehl Lodge was pretty empty. We were able to let the girls have their own room, Jamison his own room and Lily bunked in with Katie and I in our room. We could not have asked for better sleeping arrangements.

This year was VERY different than last year. When I took the girls up last year ( http://simplysullivan.blogspot.com/2008/08/camping-we-will-go.html ) they were barely crawling. This year they could run around all over the place. We set up Kiddie Central right in front of Diehl Lodge, which is where we sleep.


You can see the trail of disaster that they left in their path every day. Their play area had such a great location because we could see them if we went into the Lodge, if we went to the Mess Hall or if we went to the new Dorthy Page Health Center.

So what did they do all day? Alot of swinging.


And a lot of climbing.

But not nearly as much as they wandered aimlessly around camp grounds.

Ruthie's big thing was to push whatever she could find as far away as she could.

Here she is pushing her stroller with her sister in the Jean Wiebe Memorial Garden. They LOVED playing over there and smelling the flowers. I know Jean would have gotton a kick out of them.

She took Jaime's truck for a walk also.

When I say that she wondered far away, I feel as if you need perspective. For example, Ruthie is actually in the picture below. She is to the left of the tree on the other side of the drive.

Thanks to the power of my zoom lens I could keep an eye on her.

We also hung out quite a bit at the new Dorthy Page Health Care Center.

Oh! And apparently it looks as if Ruthie has wandered her way over to the porch. I wasnt joking about the roaming aimlessly. Both of the girls enjoyed walking over there and hanging out with every one on the porch. Ruthie just made herself at home.

For a little change in activities Katie brought up a slip and slide for the kids to play on. They were more interesting in the pool at the end of the slip and slide than in the slip and slide itself.

Any one that knew me when I went to camp knows that I always seemed to befriend the guys there, and usually dated some one new every year. So, why was I not surprised when I saw this.

Looks like the apple doesnt fall too far from the tree. This was completely unstaged, which makes it even cuter! They walked all the way from the Mess Hall to the Lodge holding hands. So sweet!

The worst part about the whole week was the fact that Maddie had some horrible diarrhea and an even worse diaper rash. She cried constantly from being in pain. We tried everything on that rash and couldnt get her any relief except for when we let her walk around in buff. So, part of our week looked like this.

Nothing says camping like a naked bottom!

Overall we had a great week, despite the diaper rash and pure exhaustion. I am so glad that my girls are beginning their camp memories now! Cant wait to make some more next year!