5 More Things...

I wrote a post not too long ago about 5 little things the kids do that are so small that it's hard to even recognize let alone mention outloud. Of course, as soon as I posted it, I quickly thought of 5 more things so I figured I would do a sequel to the previous post. (I might even start doing this monthly.)

1. The twinks renamed the cat "Gilbert" (who's real name is Gracie). Brent hates it! He even tried correcting them for awhile. It was such a lost cause that all four of us call her Gilbert now.

2. The kids know not to hit each other. I don't tolerate it. So, when one of them is feeling the urge to hit the other one, they instead pretend to grab a chunk of the aggravator's body and eat it.

3. When you tell Wyatt to go look for something - even if the missing object is only a few inches away - his hand hits his forehead like this while he looks from side to side:

4. Because we live so close to the water, there are bridges everywhere. The kids are always looking for boats and dolphins when we cross over one, but over the last couple of months they have started a new bridge-crossing-trend. When we start going over a bridge they say, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh..." the entire way until they feel the tires cross back onto the land and yell, "YEAH BABY!" Wyatt created it a couple months ago and it has become a Harbin family bridge crossing tradition! (He got embarrassed and quiet when I tried to catch it on camera.)

5. When you tell Callie to stand up straight, she reaches up high. This was a picture I took right after I asked the kids to sit up straight and one of Callie after I asked her to stand up straight.

Pizza & Lumpy

Halloween Sneak Peek

A couple of weeks ago, I pulled out the kids' Halloween costumes to show them what they were going to be for the first time. Callie loved her butterfly costume and didn't want to take it off. Wyatt, on the other hand, was terrified of his bat costume. When I put it on him, he freaked out and flailed around until we took it off of him. You should have seen the trantrum it sent him into despite me trying to convince him that he looked cute and that bats were nice.

So, I put it back hoping that he would warm up to the idea of being a bat in a couple of days. I had been trying to bring it up in conversation with him and everytime I got shot down with the verdict, "No! Bats too scary!" Even Callie wouldn't go near the costume.

This morning, I was determined to get this kid into his bat getup. I pulled up videos on youtube of cute looking fruit bats eating grapes and things so that he would see that bats actually are (kinda) cute. He responded by hiding under the kitchen table.

I had spent a good 15 minutes trying to reason with the runt and to convince him to come out from under the table and put the outfit on. When he showed no signs of budging, I started reasoning with Callie and got her trust me enough to let me put the non-scary bat outfit on her. (I also bribed her with a box of raisins.)

This is where the video picks up. You have to listen closely to hear her trying to convince Wyatt to come out and try on the bat costume.



I love how girlfriend has waaaaaay more pull with Wyatt than we do.

Here is the happy duo after all was said and done. Please believe that both of them are refusing to take the costumes off at all! So, right now I've got an overgrown butterfly and bat sippin on milk and eating raisins in my living room. I'm digging it too.

Catching up: Day 4

I'm finally getting around to it and Day 4 was the bizzle!!!! We woke up in the Bahamas knowing we were going to spend an entire day at Atlantis! I was so excited because I had never been there before and had always wanted to know if there was truth to the hype.

And there totally was!

For one, Atlantis is by far and away the best waterpark I have ever been to. I mean, you don’t even have to get out of your tube to go on some of the rides because a conveyor belt transports you to the top of the slides while you are relaxing in your tube! I mean, I can’t even explain to you how perfect that is for someone who loves the water, enjoys a thrill, and who might quite literally suffer from some kind of chronic laziness. An effortless waterpark = Vacation heaven.

Aside from the perfect waterpark, the hotel itself is gorgeous and looked like it had been transplanted directly from the strip in Las Vegas. It was awesome and I am twitching to get back there!



Because our boat was docked in the Bahamas for the entire day, we still had time to go to the straw market after we got back. It was (of course) completely sketchy and something that Lauren had never experienced before. It was funny to see how nervous and hyperventilatish she got around these pushy locals, but even I had stranger danger at that straw market.

When we got back to the boat, we went straight to the formal dining room rocking our crusty waterpark attire. We were too tired to care. There was escargot on the menu which I like, but was completely shocked when Lauren jumped in and tried it for the first time. I think I could have teared up with proudness! Other than Brent, there’s not too many people I know who are up for almost anything.

Us and Vadge in the Bahamas!
That night, we took it easy since we were already tired and had a blast just being stupid together. I think we literally went to every photographer on the boat that night. They also had a midnight buffet out on the Lido deck which is where we parked our butts until we couldn’t hang anymore. It was sad knowing that we only had one more day before we were back home.

We also acquired a new friend that night. A pooch we named Billy.

Lawton Stables

We've had such a fun and busy week! We (all four of us) even ate out at normal restaurants three times this week which is seriously more than we have eaten out in total with the runts in the last 6 months. We used to have to shovel the food in our faces so quickly because we were terrified of getting thrown out for rowdy toddler behavior. Now, they are starting to have some semblance of manners and we are over indulging in the new freedom of it! So huge!!!!

Supta full buhllies!

"Yook, Mommy! Hode da ma hands!"

I still have a bunch of posts on backlog, but I wanted to post a few cute pictures from today. We took the kids to Sea Pines because they have a petting zoo that we just found out about. The goats tried to eat the kids' shirts and there was a baby deer named Callie. It was precious.

Buddy's Burfday!

Eet is heem,
And he is mohn,
And I lueeve him,
Cause he is moh buddy.
Uh yuh!

Happy Burfday Sen!

Labor Day Weekend

I know I'm in the middle of finishing up blogging about my trip, but I'm temporarily bored with it and still wanted to post some cute pictures from Labor Day. We hope you all had a great one too!

Day 3: Key West

When we got up on Day 3, it was like Christmas morning because we were already in Key West. We ate breakfast and then got off the boat to explore the town. The port was beautiful and Duval Street was really cute too. We took a trolley tour around the island so we could see everything. The coolest thing we saw was Jimmy Buffet's recording studio which was just a dumpy little white shack near the water. He is pretty much Key West's biggest claim to fame aside from their key lime pie.

We hopped off of the trolley at the southern most point (of the USA) to get some pictures and to see if it was a clear enough day to see Cuba (which it wasn’t). After that, we tooled around Duval Street and did some souvenir shopping before heading back to the ship. We were only docked in Key West for half a day. Still, it was great to finally see what it was like since I had been wanting to go there forever. I would love to drive down and go over the 71 bridges it takes to get there. I think it would be a fun roadtrip!

We were really tired that afternoon so we hung out at our normal spot on the back of the boat for the rest of the afternoon and saw the sun set up there. It was gorgeous!

We stayed in that night and just decided to order room service for dinner. Luckily, when the stewards came to turn down our beds, we were in our room. I begged this dude to make us another walrus animal like we had on the first night because we missed her so much. He laughed and told us it was a seal. AND, as he walked into our room and saw the bunny, and let us know that he uses the same towels to make different animals every night. That meant that Vadge HAD been reincarnated into a bunny! Ohhhh, we were sooooo relieved! Vadge had been with us all along, though in a different form!

Marcelino, our little steward guy, resurrected Vadge right before our very eyes! It was Vadge's Easter and we were pumped! AND, to make it even better, he left us a new animal – an elephant we named in honor of the man who brought Vadge back to life. He knew from then on, NOT to mess with any of our beloved towel animals!

Day 2: Day at Sea

The most exciting thing about Day 2 was formal night. The boat didn’t stop anywhere that day. We woke up to much bluer water as we cruised along the coast of Miami on our way to Key West. Lauren and I claimed our spot on the back deck, beverage in hand, and watched the turquoise water churn up as the propellers cut through it.

We only moved away from our chairs to eat, but we did find time to make it to the steam room and sauna just before dinner. After that, we spiffed up and took some formal pictures with Vadge just before we trotted off to the dining room and indulged in lobster.

We were on cloud nine until we stopped back by the room to quickly refill our mugs with smuggled alcohol when we noticed that VADGE HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED!

The profanities that spewed forth from Lauren’s mouth were so obscene that she had me rolling on the floor, laughing so hard that I couldn’t even catch my breath! She was PISSED! Our Vadge was kidnapped and she wanted someone to PAY! Granted, we were both two-sheets-to-the-wind, but we were not a fan of the towel animal we found in her place. We wanted our Vadge BACK! NOW!

This is Roid - the intruder that was found in Vadge's place and whom I endearingly named after, uhhhh… anal issues. (Let's just leave it at that.) Yes, Roid is cute. But he sure as hell was no Vadge. I tried comforting Lauren by telling her that Roid might be Vadge reincarnated, but she was reluctant to full-heartedly believe it and both of us agreed that we would never know. She was probably already in a washing machine somewhere. Poor Vadge! We headed back out of our room again, sad and nostalgic. We would try and befriend the bunny in the morning.

Thankfully, we drank-er-down, and were good to go again by the time we reached the elevators. We were looking to boogie and we meant business! We ended the very late night at the club on the boat only after visiting every single cheesy photographer with their 80s backgrounds that insisted on posing us in the lamest positions ever.

L-A-M-E!

In da club - 'Diamonds are Forever'.

Meet Vadge

After we came back from our third dinner on the first night (Yes, three!) we walked into a clean room that had been turned down with chocolates on our pillows and a towel animal on the foot of the bed.

It was blissfulness, peeps! I dream of the magical fairy to perform those duties nightly at home!

Anyway, this towel animal looked odd. We had no idea what the hell it was supposed to be and felt gyped that we didn’t get something cuter like a frog or a bunny… We set it in the corner on a shelf and dwelled over it as we got ready for bed. Maybe it was a walrus? Maybe something else? Neither of us could shake the striking resemblance it had to the female anatomy though.

Thus, we named her Vadge.

Vadge quickly became our pet… the mascot of the freedom that we had on this vacation. We loved her and saluted her each time we entered or exited our room. Vadge was our new homegirl.

Vadge 4 eva!

Day 1: Jacksonville

..."I'm the king of the world on a boat like Leo!" -T. Pain

My friend and I just got back from a cruise yesterday and got slapped across the face by reality as soon as our feet stepped back on land. We fell off the grid for a few days into the true definition of the word 'vacation'. The only thing we had to worry about on the boat was what time we wanted to eat. We had such a good time that I'm already searching for the next one!

Lauren's plane got hit by lightening in Atlanta on the way to Jacksonville. (I know! Crazy! Right?!) But she was good and got in only a couple hours behind. We stayed with my aunt and uncle that night who was nice enough to take us to the port the next morning.

When we got on the boat, we didn't know what the hell we were supposed to do since neither of us had been on a cruise before. So, we followed the heard into the dining room and ate lunch there. The food the entire trip was mediocre to say the least. However, it was always available and the best part was that I didn't have to cook it! (Can I get an Amen!?!?)

After that, we staked out our room and investigated the boat. Then, we plopped our happy asses in some lounge chairs on the back of the boat, ordered frozen drinks, and sailed away! Peace out, responsibility!