Monday, November 28, 2011

Yeah!! Real Tree This Year :)

 So we got a tree tonight...

And we made sugar cookies & your choice of apple cider, peppermint tea or hot chocolate!
 

Thanksgiving in NC

We drove a pleasant 6 and a half hours to North Carolina, Thanksgiving morning.  No traffic, everyone was already to their destination, I suppose?  The kids were splendid.

We got to Stephen's Mom's in time to eat the lovely dinner she cooked for us!  Then we just kind of leisurely hung out, played and talked.

The next morning, she made the "official" Thanksgiving dinner.  Stephen's Dad, twin sister, Charity, her boyfriend and her 4 kids came.  The kids had a wonderful time with their cousins.  We really need to get out there to see them more!



Here's Nana with half her grandkids...

And Papa w/ half of his....

Stephen & kids with his Dad...

The next day we went to the annual family reunion of all the descendants of Stephen's great-grandfather.  I only took a few pics...don't know how that happened!...

Iris likes her Papa...ALOT!....and Uncle Ray's pretty cool too ;)

Here's Stephen's Dad's twin brother, Bruce and their brother, Ray.

After that, we went and hung out with Stephen's wonderful cousin Joey and his wonderful wife, Tammy and their kids.  It was so much fun, but once again....no pictures???  What's wrong with me?

Anyway, it was lovely and we miss them all, already!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Stitch Sleeps

Here's Stitch sleeping...


 He picked out his little boy to sleep with tonight.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Disney the Iris Way

Iris did not remember Disney very well at all from two years ago.  So, to her, this was like a totally new experience.  She was ALL about meeting the characters!!  She just loved the whole "Disney Experience" ... the happy atmosphere, everyone talking to her and calling her "princess", having us take lots of pictures of her hammy self....and the totally fun rides.  She just ABSORBED it all.  The rides, the shows, the CHARACTERS, the meals.....she soaked each one in, and then skipped to the next one.

Here she is in happy anticipation on the ferry ride over to the Magic Kingdom...

She loved the Peter Pan ride...

She was just ALWAYS excited to meet a character, and she loves Ariel anyway...

The MOST important thing the first day, was to meet Pooh, since she was in her honey bee costume!

She was SO playful with the characters!!!

Hugging Pinnochio...

She got so tired, even her antennas began to droop :)

Day 2, when we went to Downtown Disney she was STUNNED....

when she saw this sculpture made of legos in the water!!!

She had just seen Sleeping Beauty for the first time, before we left home.  So, she was so excited about meeting Aurora that she hugged her statue!

Day 3 at the Animal Kingdom, she was wanting to meet the characters again....here she is with King Louis from the Jungle Book (I am, by far, not including all of this child's character pics!)...

And for comparison sake, here she is with King Louis two years ago!

She LOVES Minnie.

She was very excited about Kali River, but you can also see the concern in her face before the ride began...

But it ended up being wonderful, of course!

There was one ride which she ended up being too short to ride, so she and I went off and waited in line...

for a different ride...

On day 4 when we went to Epcot, she HAD to wear this special outfit (which she spent most of her money on).  She bought it ESPECIALLY to wear to have her picture made with Minnie.. again!

Here she is jumping around the bouncing water, while the adults decide where to go next.

FINALLY got to meet Aurora!!  We were the 2nd people in line.  This is in the garden in France...

Here are Sherry and Iris waiting to get into Monsters Inc, they're listening to Roz on the TV, right before we got to go inside....and right before Iris got to be "Boo" for the 2nd time!  She was very excited about being "Boo", but also "a little shy".  She told Papa she would kinda like to be a nurse or a rock star, but she's probably to shy to be a rock star :)

The big surprise of the trip, was that after she saw Lucy be brave enough to ride Thunder Mountain and come out alive, she decided to do it too.  Here's how it turned out!!

Thunder Mountain turned out to be her very favorite ride.  "This is all I want to ride, the rest of the day!"

But....we eventually whisked her away to Tomorrowland, where she was the only one of my kids to want to ride the Astro Orbiter, which flies in circles WAY above the rest of the park...

It was our last ride...and a perfect ending!