Kinderfest 2009

Mia recited the poem 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' by Cecil Alexander

1st Disney Trip

Nate, Amy, Alexa, and Alainey came to visit on January 8th. We made our 1st trip to Disney with them on the 9th. It was a very nice day and it really could not have gone better. We figured out how to use our time and fast passes wisely and got to meet the Princesses and Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

****NOTE WORTHY... all 3 girls loved any and all rides they rode, but they especially loved the ROLLER COASTERS!!! Mia was even big enough to ride SPACE MOUNTAIN (and she loved it)! Dare devils, I tell ya!****

Amy brought umbrellas for the girls and the princesses autographed them!


Dax was quite the little gentleman when it was our turn to meet the princesses. He got a kiss from Cinderella and he gave Cinderella and Princess Aurora "loves". When he isn't being our 2 foot terror(as Aaron calls him), he is very cuddly and sweet!


Dax on the Dumbo ride with Daddy!

Alainey and Daxton cooperated and took naps during our day at the Magic Kingdom, so we decided to push our luck and went to Seaworld on Saturday. We hit 3 shows and rode a few rides, saw the Clydesdale horses and did some beer sampling! The beer sampling definitely gave Seaworld an edge over Disney (for Aaron anyway!!)

THIS IS THE GIRLS ON THE SHAMU EXPRESS. While they went on bigger roller coasters at Disney this was their favorite at Seaworld!

Crab ride...no mom necessary on this one...THANK GOODNESS! Just watching the up-down up-down motion of this one was enough to make me feel sick!





After surviving 2 parks we headed for PSL and did the beach with the Swerczeks on Sunday and even managed an adult only dinner on Sunday night. We enjoyed our visitors and the girls were sad when they came home from school on Wednesday and found that Alexa was on her way back to NE.

Christmas 2008

The girls got out of school on the 19th and we stayed in Florida through the 23rd. Santa visited us on the night of the 19th and the girls were surprised that there were presents under the tree a few days before Christmas. Santa left a note explaining the reason for coming early and it gave the girls some new toys to play with while I packed for our trip to NE. Aaron and I were thankful that Santa was thinking of our pocket books and we didn't have to worry about shipping gifts back to FL! ;o)




We flew back to NE on the 23rd and returned on the 31st. It was a busy, but nice trip and we enjoyed getting together with our families. We didn't get to see everyone that we hoped we would as the kids and I managed to pick up a stomach virus the last couple of days we were there. Sorry Piper and Blake, Jayden and Gavin, Sandi and Ev, and Great Grandma Leona we promise we will do better next time!

Crazy November

November was crazy for us, we had 3 sets of visitors down from NE in less than three weeks! The kids thought it was great, but our schedule was off and that always makes mom (me) a little NUTS! We made three trips to the beach and showed our visitors around the PBG area and the PSL area.

****NOTE WORTHY... Mia got to share two major milestones with our November visitors!

1) She learned how to ride her bike with no training wheels while Grandma Ann was here. Only took her about 10 minutes and she was riding around the cul-de-sac and up and down the street.

2) She lost her 1st tooth while Grandma Sally was here!! (Yes, the Tooth Fairy left her $5 for this tooth. It was her 1st tooth and it was special, so shhh!)


Ms. Brown was looking for a mystery reader the week Grandma Sally was here, so she got to read a book to Mia's class while she was here and she ate lunch with Mia that day too. Mia was on cloud 9!
We waited to have Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when Grandpa Rick and Grandma Cheryl arrived, so if you ask the girls what we ate on Thanksgiving Day they will tell you tacos and all the fixins' and that is correct.

We managed to see Santa before the December rush. Santa was outside, can't say that I have ever seen Santa outside the warmth of a mall before!

Puppy Love!

We drove to Rebecca, GA on Saturday, November 1st. We stayed over night in Tifton and then drove out to an acreage to pick out our Whippet. The kids had no idea what we were doing, we only told them we were going on a family trip and we would get a surprise when we got there. Their first guesses were that we were taking them to Disney.

Adelaide seeing pups for the 1st time!


Mia loving on "Boone" after we made the heart wrenching decision on which precious pup to bring home to love!

Dax loved them all and would have loved to get inside the fence with them! I was sure I had video of him giggling when the pups would lick his hands, but can't find it at the moment... it was too cute!

Adelaide holding 'Boone' up to the fence so he could give his litter mates one last smoocher. :o(


We had a good trip and you couldn't have smacked the smiles off their faces on the drive home! We named our puppy "Boone" and he has been a very good puppy so far. The girls and Dax enjoy playing with him, but get nervous from time to time when he nips at them. We have told them he is only playing and that they need to be strong when they tell him no, but it is hard for a 5 and 4 year old to be stern when they are giggling or starting to get scared!

Halloween in FL is much different than NE....no mittens this year!

While the days leading up to Halloween had me nervous about the costumes I/the girls had selected, the day/night couldn't have been better. Temps were in the high 70's to mid 80's and rain held off until the late hours of the night!


We trick-or-treated in our neighborhood for about 30 minutes and then head to a friends house for dinner. Dax loved trick-or-treating and did his best to keep up with the girls. He loved putting the treats in his bag and usually went back for seconds! He was funny to watch and made us and our neighbors laugh. He was a little confused about not going in the house when the door was open, he attempted to get in every door that was left open!

The kids made out like bandits, I think we have 20 pounds of candy (or more). We should have stopped after 15 minutes but we were having too much fun!

Fall Fun 2008

Happy Halloween to you all! Hope you are all having a Spooktacular October. We have been busy with day to day hum-drum, planting our garden(twice!), and getting ready for Halloween of course! We went to the "pumpkin patch" last night and picked out our pumpkins and brought them home to carve. While the pumpkin patch wasn't what we are used to, the kids still had fun walking around the pumpkins and selecting the one they wanted. Prepping the pumpkins for carving was the most eventful. I found out that 2 out of 3 of my children take after their father and seem to have inherited the 'messy hands phobia'. Watch the video and you will see what I mean! Dax was hilarious. LOL


Adelaide dressed up as SilverMist (Tinkerbell's fairy friend, for those of you out of touch with Disney's latest) for the Fall Festival at Lil' Friends Preschool. They brought in a trailer and had a hayrack ride for the kids, had fun with a pinata, and looked for small pumpkins in a pile of hay. They had a great time and were well 'sugared' when they were dismissed!



A preview of Peter Pan...he actually liked his costume and was showing off for the camera. He even liked the hat and brought it to me to put back on if it fell off. Go figure, since he will rarely leave a ball cap or sun hat on when I need him to!

That is all for now...we are hoping for some nice weather for Friday. I okayed the girls' request to be fairies thinking we wouldn't have to contend with possible snow and it would be in the 80's when we trick or treated. Apparently the weather is unpredictable in South Florida too. There is a cold front rolling through and it has been in the mid 40's at night with highs in the mid 60's during the day. They may be wearing sweats under their outfits after all(at least we can keep the hats and mittens in the closet!).