2 and 2

On Dec. 16 we all (and I mean everyone we could squeeze in the van) headed to Enterprise for an exciting doctor's appointment. It was the day of the ultrasound that would reveal girl or boy. We had to wait a long time and the tech doing the scan was less than chatty, but we found out that we are all equaled up with 2 girls and 2 boys. This new one, formerly known as Butterbean, has been renamed Jameson Bridgeforth and will be called J.B. (after my grandfather).

Squeezing Christmas in Before the New Year

After the big trip and the recovery from said trip, I was tired before we ever hit the holiday extravaganza. We did a Supper with Santa (no pictures unless I scan in our print), a couple of Christmas parties at various MDO programs, a play at church, Christmas caroling, and then we got sick. The week leading up to the big day held snotty noses for most of us, a recurrence of pink eye (or something that looks an awful lot like it), and a stomach bug. Thankfully, we were mostly recovered by Christmas Eve night.


opening an early gift


you're a mean one Mr. Grin-ch


our pj tradition


hot cocoa and candy canes


chloe's santa haul---which she did not want

Funny story--Chloe had mentioned a vanity table/ princess dress up table several times so I thought this would be a good thing for her to ask the guy in red to bring her. Well, between writing it in a letter and the actual day, she decided she would rather have the vet set that was in 60 billion commercials. So we had TeeTee get her a last minute big present and until she opened it Christmas morning she was very unhappy with her loot. Now ask me if she has played with said vet set she so desired? Not nearly as much as the dollhouse that was under the tree.

THE vet set


hutch's haul



the wii was a family gift ( and Monday when our replacement tv part comes in we might actually get to play it)---Finn got the zoo and the basket of puppies


magical reindeer foot prints left on the driveway


this hard to find doll was also on her list (at least it was rare when I stumbled upon it at a certain local retailer and about cried because I didn't have to resort to ebay)---I think she actually liked this gift


getting a close look at the dinosaur


the girl loves dogs

Flurries Oh My!

I know many of my faithful readers had an actual white Christmas but here in south AL we take what we can get. And we got flurries. They were short-lived but still fun to see.




Finley was at school but did get to go outside because she told me "that when I was swinging it was so cold I had to put my hands in my pockets."

The Rest of The Story

So I have waited way too long to finish this in the small snippets I had planned, so you get a monster post. I will not bore you too bad I hope but oh well, it's my blog.

Tuesday Morning-- We spent a couple of hours at Animal Kingdom before we headed back to the hotel for a nap prior to the Christmas Party that night. Everybody but Hutch and I rode the safari ride first thing. Finn especially loved the baby giraffe that came so close to the truck she could have touched it. Then we went to Rafiki's Planet Watch which was a huge hit with all three kids. Chloe got a little too friendly with a certain cricket though. After lunch we hit the hotel and rested. Then it was Christmas party time. Jeremy and Hutch had a man night and did not go, instead they scoped the ladies at the pool.

At the party, we did it all. We managed to luck up and have a front row seat to the first parade, rode rides, saw fairies and princesses, and ate free cookies and apple slices. We also saw a guy who held up the princess line for a long time determined to see Belle and the Beast. It was a little weird how adamant he was that he would see them. I never saw any kids with him either. We managed to make it all the way to the midnight hour and had a lot of fun.

Wednesday morning we slept in and headed to Epcot for a breakfast with the princesses. There were a few instances of grumpiness but we managed to get past it. Epcot was a lot more fun than I thought it would be even though it was getting cold. We really enjoyed the storytellers and the Kim Possible mission we did. Other enjoyable moments of the day were the Figment ride, the boat ride that Finn thought was so cool, the Little Mermaid show, and Turtle Talk with Crush. A bad part--finding a bug in my dinner. It was small but when I spotted it, it was still moving and I had been eating for a while. Yuck!

Thursday morning it was back to Magic Kingdom bright and early for Finley and Chloe's transformations into real life princesses. Since I have already shared those pics with those lucky enough to be my friend on F@cebook, I will put up others. Favorites from this day was Tomorrowland Speedway, the teacups, and getting to meet Rapunzel (we waited 1 1/2 hours to do this). Chloe, who was dressed in a Rapunzel dress, even got to dance with her. She was so cute, Chloe, not Rapunzel. There was another Christmas party that night so we had to get out early. We headed to Downtown Disney for dinner and a little bit of shopping.







Friday morning, Jeremy and I took Finn and Hutch to Animal Kingdom again and Chloe went with TeeTee and Granna to Magic Kingdom. They did not have as much fun as we did because the Christmas parade was being taped and there was a lot of extra stuff in the park--stages and crowds, mostly. At Animal Kingdom, we filled Finley's book with stamps and went back to Rafiki's where she got a button for answering a question right during a demonstration. Then we ate a late lunch and raced back to Epcot for the Candlelight Processional. It was wonderful, but since I had run all the way around to get there, I missed the beginnings of it trying to catch my breath. After that it was back to the hotel for our last night in the happiest place on Earth.

Hutch's Birthday Party

After our day in MK, we headed to Chef Mickey's for Hutch's birthday celebration complete with Pluto cake. In the interest of time, I am letting the pictures speak for themselves. :)

Magic Kingdom Day 1

Day 1 started early but not as early as we planned. The excitement of the night before had wiped us all out but we did arrive in time to see rope drop. We all wore our Happy Birthday Hutch shirts which garnered a lot of attention in the park.

Nothing better than the castle to start your week off right

Our first ride of the day--Chloe is not pictured because she HAD to have a pink one and when it started, she wouldn't come down out of the sky.

One of the girls' favorites

The ugly stepsisters and Lady Tremaine were simply awesome. FYI, Lady Tremaine doesn't hug or touch children but Chloe did both to her and she acted like Chloe had the plague. There was also a hilarious exchange between Finn and the stepsisters about cats and fireplaces, but you really had to be there.

Hutch was not thrilled with his button and kept trying to pull it off. Once we got home, he found it in the suitcase and tried to stick it back on. Funny little guy.

Gotta love the ears!

Disney Trip Post 1 of 1523

So I might not have 1523 separate posts but I do have a lot of stuff to write down. And, a little over 1600 pictures to sort through. Don't worry, I will not make you look at them all. Sunday morning the van hit the road at 4:20. The plan was to get down to Orlando in time to hit a park late in the afternoon for a little bit of fun. We stopped for breakfast and managed to arrive at the hotel by 2:30 after we had a couple more bathroom stops. When we got to the hotel, there was some confusion as to when to tip the bellhop--do you tip the guy who loads the stuff on the cart, the one who brings it to the room, or both if they are not the same person? So, our stuff was left sitting in front of the bell desk for a little while and this made everyone antsy since my camera and laptop were on the cart. Jeremy went down and retrieved our stuff which angered the Disney staff because they thought a cart had gone missing. Jeremy straightened it all out but since we were all hungry and grumpy, he was not the nicest hotel guest. He said that for a minute he thought he would be thrown into Disney jail and we spent many minutes over the next few days coming up with different scenarios on how Disney jail would run. Some of them were quite hilarious.



We went to Hollywood Studios for dinner and ate at Pizza Planet. We wanted a chance to ride the super cool Toy Story Mania ride but it didn't happen because of the wait time. We did see the Osborne Lights though and they were really cool.

pure excitement over the fake snow that got dumped on us

After that we headed back to the hotel for some sleep, finally, but before we could get in bed we had the escalator incident. My mom, Chloe and Hutch took a tumble a few feet down (or up in Chloe's case) but no one was really injured. It could have been 100 times worse but there is nothing like calling paramedics your first night of vacation.

the last picture of Hutch before he turned one

***Stay tuned for the rest of the trip-- It's a doozie!!!!*****