December happenings

Chippy is back!  He made his appearance as soon as the Christmas tree was decorated.  He baked us some cookies as a welcome back treat.  He's been flying around, playing with our toys and reporting to Santa.

These two can be so cute sometimes and the next minute they are screaming at eachother.  The joys of siblings!  Here was one of their nice moments as Scarlett is so nicely helping her eat Pixie Sticks.  

Scarlett is 8!

Hard to believe my big girl is 8!  We celebrated with family in Callaway.  On her actual birthday, I took Panera to school to eat lunch with her and then joined her class for cookies.  

When she got home from school, we opened presents.  She got her own Kindle paperwhite.  She was super thrilled that now she can read in the dark!

Her birthday dinner of choice this year was hamburgers, steak fries and salad with chocolate cake for dessert.

On Saturday we invited our friends Christian and Sophia over to make gingerbread houses.  The kids had a blast making a mess, err..beautiful masterpiece!

Thanksgiving in Atlanta

The girls and I spent the week of Thanksgiving hopping across the state of Georgia!  

We started at Nomie's house

Then we jumped to see Gigi and Donk's new house in Acworth.  

Elle made a new best friend in Kittykrandal.

We explored the playground, the beach, the lake and downtown (where we had an awesome New Orleans meal!)

Next we drove to Conyers and met up with Grammie where we took a ride down to her lake house.  Despite the chilly evening, the girls were dying to go on a boat ride!

We returned to Conyers the next day to see lots of family and friends.  

I was thankful to squeeze in a quick visit with Sarah and Courtney (we forgot to take pictures of us!)

The girls made their contribution to Thanksgiving dinner with chocolate pretzels.

Elle made ANOTHER new friend!  Unfortunately for Coco the cat, she's a bit too old and slow to escape!

We had a wonderful gathering of family and some great food at Colin and Morgan's new house in Atlanta.

Even Abbie got to join in on the fun!

After dinner, we drove down to Callaway Gardens.  We had beautiful weather, so we took a hike around the lake and through the woods to the chapel.  Then we visited the butterflies.  We then headed into the little old town section for lunch and a little shopping.  

That evening we met up with lots of family to celebrate Scarlett's 8th birthday.  We had dinner at the country store, a birthday tailgate, then saw the lights on the Jolly Trolley and enjoyed the Christmas village.  

Disney October 2015

We just returned from our 8th trip to Disney!  We spent the week in the parks and ended our trip with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party on Halloween night.  

We decided to fly this time, but to get good fares, we went a day early.  We stayed in Orlando and caught Pan at a theater across the street.  Scarlett enjoyed it and Elle enjoyed her hour long nap through the middle of the movie!

Sunday we made our way to our Disney resort, then to Epcot.  We rode all our favorite rides, then headed to the countries for lunch in Germany.

We left the park after lunch to check into our hotel in Caribbean Beach.  The girls loved the pirate ship beds!

Monday we spent the day in Magic Kingdom.  We met Ariel and rode plenty of rides.  The girls' favorites are still the roller coasters!  

They have added turrets to the sides of the castle and re-done the hub and it looks great!  

We had dinner at 1900 Park Faire in the Grand Floridian.  We met Cinderella, the prince, the stepsisters and the stepmother.

Tuesday we went to Animal Kingdom.  It rained off and on for the day, but luckily we didn't get too wet!  Everest is still the girl's favorite ride!  We enjoyed the Lion King show as well.  The girls got picked from the crowd to walk around the performance at the end!

We also met Russell and Doug from Up.

That night we went to the luau dinner show at the Polynesian.  The dancers were really impressive...especially the fire dance!  Elle was cracking us up asking if they were robots!  She really started to put together that the rides have animatronic robots and that the characters are people in suits (which she announced LOUDLY in line to see Donald).

Wednesday we went back to Epcot.  We rode more of our favorite rides, toured the countries and had 2 great meals!  We had lunch in the Coral Reef which has an entire wall of the restaurant backing up to the aquarium.  The food was probably the best meal I had our whole time.  

We met Mickey, Minnie and Goofy.

The girls got trading pins and lanyards this trip.  They had the best time walking up to cast members and asking to trade pins.  Scarlett was very methodical, planning what she was willing to trade and which pins she was looking for.  Elle on the other hand would trade anything to anyone just for the sake of trading!

We had dinner at Akershus with the princesses.  We saw Belle, Ariel, Cinderella, Snow White and Aurora.

Thursday we went to Hollywood Studios.  Elle and I rode Tower of Terror first while Scarlett and Cameron did Rockin Roller Coaster (Elle is just a hair too short still).  Tower of Terror is Elle's favorite ride!  They also LOVED the Frozen Sing Along show.  It "snows" at the end of the show.  When I asked the girls about it, Scarlett said "ugh, mom, it's JUST soap!"  She's more enthralled with the Star Wars attractions!

We met Sorcerer Mickey for the first time!

Friday was a very busy day!  We returned to Magic Kingdom in the morning and did a few rides including the favorites, Seven Dwarves Mine Train and Space Mountain.  We met Minnie, Daisy, Goofy and Donald in their circus tent.

We enjoyed lunch in Belle's castle, then we were off on our afternoon adventure!

We trekked down to Downtown Disney where the girls got the royal treatment at Bippity Boppity Boutique.

And then we were off again heading back to the Magic Kingdom for dinner at Cinderella's castle.

This one was a bit excited!

The highlight was getting to see Rapunzel!  She rarely appears at dinner, so the girls were super excited when she came out!

Saturday was Halloween and we had no park plans until the evening, so we went to the pool and had lunch at the resort.

We got all dressed up and headed to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.

We had to meet up with Elsa before the Halloween fun started!

The party was really fun!  We hit Haunted Mansion first where the cast members were dressed up with extra spooky makeup for the occasion.  There were plenty of rare characters, but the girls were most interested in trick or treating!  There were several stations set up around Magic Kingdom.  Each station gave out handfuls of candy!

After our bags were full we watched the parade which was really cool.  We then headed over for the Villians stage show and the fireworks.  It was the first time seeing the fireworks at Disney and they were amazing!

We headed home EARLY the next morning.  The girls are already talking about what we are going to do on our next trip!!