Disney World

We decided this year to take a trip for Christmas. My friend Jaime and I, had been throwing the idea around for a couple of years of going to DisneyWorld, together with our families, and talked about it, but hadn't ever really had the chance to plan it until this year. We both decided we were serious about it happening and this summer we decided Christmas was the perfect time to take our trip. We knew our kids would have a blast since they are great friends.
We left Sunday night, around 10 pm and drove to Orlando. The kids did pretty good sleeping in the car and we arrived at DisneyWorld at 4:30 am. A little bit earlier than we had expected.
Luckily, our hotel let us check in early and we got to take a nap for a couple hours before we headed out to the Magic Kingdom.
We had a blast. The kids were loving every minute of it. That first night we ate dinner with Cinderella and her family.


The stepsisters and the stepmother were just awful, meaning they were in character and acting just the way their characters would. It was kind of funny and I messed with them a little bit.
Prince Charming chose Ryanne to get up and dance with him. She was smiling from ear to ear.

We met tons of characters, which was really exciting for all the kids (well, except Jonah sometimes. He didn't want to act too excited about meeting so many princesses)
We took a spin in the tea cups. Jaime and Danny opted out on this one- they didn't want to get sick. The people who wanted to spin a lot, loaded up with Matt.
Madelyn and I took it quite slow and had fun too.


Jonah's face in this one just really made me laugh. He wouldn't even pretend that he was glad to get his picture taken with Sleeping Beauty.
The next day we ate lunch with Pooh Bear and his friends. Ryanne told Pooh that she was fat like him. Not sure where she got that idea from, but it made us giggle. She was laughing too.
Savannah just wanted to pet all these guys.



If only you could see the crazy antics that happened while we were waiting in line. I took a series of pictures while we were all waiting and it is quite hilarious to see how the kids dealt with it. Here Madelyn and Jonah were talking seriously about something.

On Matt's birthday we went to the Animal Kingdom and the safari was really neat. We got to see some animals up close and they made the ride really exciting and fun too.
Jonah's favorite ride was Expedition Everest, which was in this park. I went on it too. It was a great rollar coaster, but slightly nauseating.


The morning of my birthday we ate with Lilo and Stitch, Mickey and Pluto. I got to join in the parade because it was my birthday.
Pluto was really fun with the kids. He was hugging them and on all fours making everybody laugh.

We went to Hollywood studios and were able to meet more characters and also watch some great shows, like a shorter version of the Broadway show, Beauty and the Beast. They also had amazing Christmas lights, which for some reason I completely forgot to take a picture of.
On Christmas we read the Christmas story in our conjoining rooms in the morning before we went to Epcot. It was a beautiful day. Very warm and humid.
By friday night, Savannah was really worn out. Well, we all were! She was just wanting to lay around while we waited for Matt and some of the others to come back from a ride.

The last night we met a couple more characters and got a family pic with Mickey.
Ryanne stuck her head under a hand sanitizer dispenser and somehow had her entire head covered in hand sanitizer right before we took the last batch of character pictures. It was pretty slimey and gross.
I am still not sure how she managed to do that.

We had a great time and made lots of memories.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas!

We got a couple of presents in the mail from my parents this week and it caused quite the commotion. The girls asked me every 5 seconds if they could open their presents yet. I told them they had to wait until Christmas and showed Ry how many days that would be. Crying ensued. Who knew that 1 present each could cause such a problem? So much whining and crying. The girls insisted on carrying their presents everywhere with them.
Then I came up with the brilliant plan to send Savannah back to my parents. She tried as hard as she could to fit in the box.
She almost fit.




Ryanne wanted to try too- she had a little worse luck.
So, we are going to Disneyworld in 2 days! So excited. I hope the kids have a blast and that we are able to make some great memories.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I almost forgot....

12 Days until we go to DISNEYWORLD!!!!

Savannah's Birthday, Thanksgiving and other stuff too

I added a couple more pictures to this post, simply because I haven't posted it yet and wanted to share the cake I made for Jaime's daughters 8th birthday party.
It was a cute party. Girls only and they all dressed up fancy.
I was originally going to decorate the cake with candy but saw some little ornaments at Target and thought they would look beautiful on the cake.
Luckily it all worked out! Fun, fun, fun!

My younger sister, Laura Dawn came to visit for Thanksgiving. She took a week off of work and it was so fun to have her here. I was really bad about taking pictures of our activities though.
Sometimes I am good about remembering the camera and this time was not one of those times, unfortunately. :( We don't have very many pics of her visit.

She helped me prepare and serve dinner for a local homeless shelter, the night before Thanksgiving. We took Jonah with us and he was able to help serve. It was a great experience.
If you are in the area and are interested in volunteering in some way, please check out their website at Bigger Vision of Athens.
We were able to participate in 3 Thanksgiving Dinners-they were spread over 3 days, so we had enough time to recover between each meal, before we ate a ton again.

The Friday after Thanksgiving was Savannah's 3rd Birthday. She opened a few presents and posed for the camera. It looks like she is disappointed with her gift, which is so funny because she wasn't, but I kept on trying to get her to smile and it was impossible.
Then we went out to lunch for her birthday and did a little shopping.




Savannah shares her birthday with her great grandpa, so at one of our Thanksgiving dinners I made a cake to celebrate both of their birthdays. Lar helped me come up with the decorating idea for the cake.
Overall, it was a great holiday break and week with Lar. I was sad when she had to leave and she was a little sad about having to go back to work after being able to sleep in for a week.
I am just so glad she came.
Thanks for visiting us Laurie!!