How exciting can life get when Santa brings you the princess pajamas, pink camera and pink Crocs you asked for? Well… For Jordan it also meant a chance to go to Disney World for two days! The thrill of Santa was alive and well in my parents’ house on Christmas morning. To make the day more beautiful, it was sunny and gorgeous out. So after the kids played with their new toys and took in all of the excitement in the house, we piled into our bathing suits and ran off to the beach. Seriously, how often can you say you played on the beach on Christmas Day? So very cool.

This was one of the few weekends where we didn’t have to GO GO GO! We spent most of the weekend playing outside. The highlight is still the dog wedding… But the rest of our time has been running up and down our backyard hill and getting very sandy in the sandbox.

Miss Boo got to walk with us from church to the nearby coffee shop… She did a pretty good job crossing the street while holding my hand… She walked along the sidewalk without us needing to guide her very much. She’s growing up so dang fast! While we were at the coffee shop we started talking with a mom and her two and a half year old son. They’re from the UK and are moving back in 6 months. Her son was adorable and we had an interesting conversation… It’s a conversation that most parents wouldn’t normally talk about. But she kindly asked us about Jordan’s arm without any discomfort… But then she mentioned a young man who works at the nearby pet store. I saw him earlier this week. His face is badly disfigured. He must have had a massive tumor or a terrible accident where he lost most of his nose and his face is kind of caved in a bit. When I talked to him I made sure I looked him straight in the eye and didn’t stare. But this mom admitted that when her son made a comment to this man’s face, she tried to change the subject and ignore her son’s reaction. I tried to politely suggest that her son’s comments give her permission to ask him what happened so her son understands what happened. I hope with my experience with Jordan, I’ll be more sensitive when she or my son asks questions or act not-quite-so polite.

…You can say you went to a dog wedding. Yup. A dog wedding.

Last night we took the kids to a dog wedding. Lucky and River got hitched. They had bridesmaids and groomsmen, there was a three month old puppy that was the flower girl. The bride and groom were all dressed up. They got to say their “bow wows” instead of vows. It was SOOO funny.

Instead of throwing flowers, they threw dog biscuits. There was even a two tiered liver wedding cake for all of the dogs to enjoy. There was an acapella group that sang “How much is that doggie in the window?” after the bride and groom exchanged decorative “rings” they wore around their necks. It was flat out silly. We brought our pug, Bubba, to the occasion. Bubba made sure he ate every treat that was on the ground. That poor fat dog got MUCH fatter yesterday.

But it was fun. And it was even for a good cause. Instead of gifts for the dogs, the owners of the bride, Lucky, asked for donations for a group called The PET Project. It’s a wonderful organization that builds Personal Energy Transportation for disabled people who live in third-world countries. So as we enjoyed fun with our pets, the PET project benefited. Very cool stuff.

Another strange thing we did… Today I spent quite a while in the backyard digging up sand. Yeah. Sand that heavy rain washed out of our homemade sandbox and washed down our backyard lawn. We lost so much sand that you could see the “stream” in the lawn. So I sifted through the grass and filled a bunch of sand buckets for the sand box. The things I do for my kids. It’s pretty funny.

Not much to say… But I watched Jordan help make this little holiday hat at school yesterday. It helped her look even more festive in her outfit.

Highlight of the day: Plopping my festively dressed girl in the sandbox… shoes and all. Then I watched her take a head dive into the sand and come up with the BIGGEST smile. If only she was happy when I had to get the sand out of her hair in the bath tub!