Happy Birthday Ethan and Elena!!

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I know every parent says it, but it REALLY does go by fast.  We can't believe Ethan is 4 and Elena is 8 this week!!!  The video above shows how much they've grown this past year.  What a blessing they both are!

Zip-a-dee-doo-daa Day!

Kids have been singing Zip-a-dee-do-daa since we arrived in Disney and continue to do so now! 

On our trip down we were counting up how many times each of us has been.

This was Everett's first trip, Emily's 2nd, Ethan's 3rd, Elena's 4th, My 14th, my Mom's 16th, and my Dad's 20th trip to Disney...We are one Mickey crazy family!!!

Enjoy some of our fun memories made possible thanks to my parents. Thanks Mom and Dad for putting together a great trip for the kids and I. 

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Rain Rain has gone away

With all the rainy days, we enjoyed lazy days indoors.

We took Nana out for her birthday (again...still raining).

FINALLY, the rain rain has gone away so we went out to play! Elena worked on some school projects, while Ethan and Emily tossed rocks into the pond.

Everett's first time on the slide.

Swings make everyone smile.

Our ever smiling red haired Emily...life is always a boiling over with happiness for this one.

Ethan is our kid that is full of laughs.  He is ALWAYS willing to find the humor in things.

Ethan also LOVES to help with Everett.

And me...well I'm the lucky woman who gets to care for, teach, squeeze, love, and kiss these little miracles. 
Blessed?  I'd say so!  

Its only January 5th? We've done so much already!

The new year has brought us LOTS of time with friends!

New Year's Eve was spent in the cozy home of our friends the Rempes amongst long time friends! Great way to celebrate another year!

Emily and her infectious dimples were a big hit at the gathering. That girl makes an impression everywhere she goes.Elena made sure every little one had their sparkling cider to ring in the new year at our pretend countdown to midnight.

Thank you Justin and Amanda for yummy food, awesome company, and more wonderful memories made for our children AND us! :)

Also, we enjoyed time with our good friends Elizabeth, Andrew, Emma, and Anna. We also enjoy our time with them. They are fabulous friends, their parents rock, and our kids really dig them. Can it get any better?

After dinner game time fun

Elizabeth

Emma

Anna

Andrew

Ethan was so excited to call out the colors to twister. However, since he can't read yet, he didn't know to say right or left in regards to which body part to put where. It made for some good laughs. Thanks for coming and visiting us during your short time home from college!

Thank you Pinterest (and Kelly Powers) for this idea that made breakfast so fun! I asked the kids, "Who wants Cinnamon Toast for breakfast?" I got a group moan followed by, "Ugh, no" Then I said, "Who wants to paint their toast with butter paint and sprinkle sugar on it." All three kids came running into the kitchen screaming, "Yes!! Me do!!! I do!!! Yes!"
The finished product. Yummy AND pretty!
We enjoyed a party at a friends house (Thanks Lisa and Tom for being our brave...VERY brave hosts) as we enjoyed some out of town friends (loved seeing you and your adorable kids Kevin and Jennifer!) ...all of us are old friends from the UGA Catholic Center. Great memories then and more made with a HOUSE full of kids.

The quietest moment was when Tom thought to put on Toy Story 3! The adults were all so excited to have some time to talk, but then we all got lectured on how we were being so loud that they couldn't hear the movie. We told them to turn up the volume. To which Elena replied, "We tried that , but you all just got louder. " WHOOPS! We were all so happy to be together. :)
When I told Ethan who all was going to be there he said, "Mommy, their house is going to EXPLODE". He was right, all the happy noise of the many children did almost bring an explosion, but only of ear drums.

Thank you to my Uncle Gary and Aunt Beth for the awesome gift to our family...TYE DYE! We had the best time making them.

Here is the dye process

The rinse process

The BIG "Reveal"

and the finished products! What joy (and mess) it brought!

Meanwhile, we started back to homeschooling after the holidays. In preparation of our Disney Trip at the end of the month (Thanks Mom and Dad), we are doing several Disney units on the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Sound like fun? It is! We have already done several units and the entire family is enjoying it! Last night we celebrated a fiesta as we finished up our unit on Mexico. We made yummy chalupas (warning...our house still smells like fried bean/meat/tortilla mixture.) The kids are still working on their Mickey Mouse pinata. We have learned about the literature behind the movies of Walt Disney...it is really interesting! All of this thanks to some books in a series called Education Vacation. I have been to Disney A LOT over the years (Thanks AGAIN Mom and Dad!)and I'm excited about seeing the Parks in a whole new way with the education aspect. Oh, and we end the day reading a chapter from a book about Walt Disney. My kids REALLY liked that he got in trouble for painting cartoons in black tar on the side of his parents white house when he was a kid. Thanks for the great idea Mr. Disney!

Christmas is the time of year....

for spending countless hours with your family! Thanks Jimmy Fallon for these awesome words! :)

It was a wonderful Christmas Day spent with Nana, PaPa, Grama, Grampa, and Grama Great. The kids were so excited to have so many of their favorite people under their own roof at one time!

There was food a plenty and noise Noise NOISE! It was just how Christmas should be spent; surrounded by family and happy/ loud children.

Christmas Day Snacks before our big meal!


Everett snacks on his yummy toes.



Grama Great entertains with some piano tunes on her piano that she gifted to Elena! We are so thankful to have it!

The dinner...yum! What a FULL table.


Singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blowing out His candles...Mommy didn't realize she put the magic candles on that don't blow out. The kids thought it was a Christmas Miracle!



Emily led the procession to the manger to place Baby Jesus there.

Everett enjoyed unwrapping his present.



The tree surrounded by just a FEW presents...right!


Carolling to ourselves after returning home from Christmas Eve Mass.

Christmas Toast to family!


All dressed up for Christmas Eve Mass.


My mini-chefs that helped me bake all the desserts!

We ate, laughed, played , then ate some more. Loved time with the family. It was exactly as I hoped. The house was full of noise, the smell of turkey and cornbread dressing, children's laughter, Christmas carols played on guitar and piano, and family talking together....LOVE LOVE LOVE our special Christmas Day.

Thank you to my wonderful family for joining us on the special day.

BFG Pretend Christmas

This is a little delayed due to some complications from the flu taking over our home, but better late than never! :)
My parents hosted a Christmas celebration at their home last weekend. My sister and our nephew are unable to be with us on Christmas day, so we started the tradition of getting together for a pretend Christmas several years ago. It has been so much fun that the tradition continues!


My sister Jenn and I laughed that usually we don't do the same thing twice and we don't really have any traditions. For example the first year we did the Lanier Magical Nights of Lights. After sitting in hours of traffic before even entering the park, we decided this was a NOT so magical night and promised that this would never be part of our tradition. Then we enjoyed watching Elf and said we would do that every year! After the second year of watching it, Will was quoting the entire movie the ENTIRE time...so we decided it was time for another "tradition". This year Will bought a rocket and we shot it at the square in Nana and PaPa's neighborhood. We were having so much fun! THIS was going to be a tradition...then the rocket landed on a neighbors truck passing by.

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So Jenn and I have come to realize that our tradition is to have no tradition...and we are OK with that! :)

Besides traditions, it was so nice to be at my parents house and look around at all the Christmas decor. I was feeling so nostalgic now that my kids are old enough to remember these celebrations. As I walked around I noticed the ceramic Santa sleigh that holds chocolates. Then I stuck my hand in the glass candy holder with green holly leaves on it to get out my favorite Andes mints..the same thing goes in this holder now as it did 25 years ago. Then I found my plastic Santa that plugs in and lights up. He is only a foot tall, but he is my absolute FAV! I told the kids about him, plugged him in, and they shrugged their shoulders and said, "cool" in a nonchalant tone. Oh well, I still get a twinkly in my eye when I plug him in!

On Saturday morning, we woke up and had our pretend Christmas! The kids ripped into their packages after we had a yummy breakfast. It was such fun to watch the smiles around the room. Everyone was so happy to be together. We DO have a tradition and it involves us getting together every year and celebrating our family.



I'm looking forward to celebrating Christmas with both sides of our family this year. Christmas is about coming together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I have a feeling that if the flu is gone from our home...we are going to have one happy household full of smiling faces celebrating, eating, hugging, and sharing happy memories. I can't wait!