Animal Kingdom - Disney World 2011-2012

It's been a while since I've posted on our family blog, but I decided I need to get on the ball and start showing our pictures before ALL the kids are grown up!

We had a wonderful Christmas and we enjoyed every moment of the holidays. This year, right after Christmas, we went to Florida to go to Disney World. Abby has never been there and Timothy was only four when we were there last and doesn't remember very much about it. Thankfully, Sarah and Mandie were old enough to have very vivid memories. So, we decided that the time has come to take another family vacation to Disney!

We left Thursday after Christmas and drove two days to get there, but we finally made it! The day after we arrived we thought there was no reason to wait, so off to Disney we went. The first park we went to was The Animal Kingdom. We were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather the whole time we were there, except for one day that was in the low 30's. We took a much needed day of rest that day and stayed at the condo. We enjoyed that immensely since our feet were sore from all the walking. :)

Here are some random pictures from Animal Kingdom. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to move my pictures around on the blog to make them go in order since Blogger changed their format, which of course I couldn't figure out. But, here are a few pictures...

This is the restaurant we ate at.
This tour guide is holding an actual imprint of a tiger's paw. Huge!



We got to go on an African Safari ride. We got to see a baby elephant! A highlight of the ride!! So cute!!!

On the bus...

More pictures to come. Next stop - The Magic Kingdom!

Doing Laundry...

Look what I found today when doing laundry...

Yes, it's Abigail hiding. So cute!!

Christmas 2008

What a beautiful day we had today. We started our Christmas at 6:00am. It took us 2 hours to open up all the gifts. Of course, we only allow one gift at a time to be opened. That way we can all enjoy what everyone else got. It's such fun.

Sarah got a digital camera which she did not expect. Now she is ready to take tons of pictures of her friends to put on Facebook. I can't wait to see them! Unfortunately, the picture I took of her with her camera did not come out (blurry) so you can't see it. I'll try to take another photo. Also, she got tons of books, clothes, music and jewelry.

Mandie got a beautiful jewelry box (which is actually a piece of furniture) for her bedroom. She outgrew the jewelry box we gave her last year for Christmas. She loved all her gifts! She's been building her K-Nex all day. It looks like it's going to be huge!

What a great Dad to put the legs on her jewelry box! :)

I bought Mandie and Sarah quite a bit of handmade jewelry this year from my fellow Mom Packers and also from my favorite "handmade shops" - Etsy, Shophandmade.com, and Artfire. I actually bought several of our gifts this year from those sites. I even made a sale yesterday from Shophandmade. That was a nice surprise for me. Mandie's favorite jewelry was from my friend, Lisa, in Illinois. She does awesome work! (www.mycolorfultreasures.com). Check out her website!

Timothy got his very own junior golf clubs. He's looking forward to learning how to play golf with his Dad :) I'm not sure who is more excited about that - Phil or Timothy. He also got a remote control robot, detective kit and a bunch of other smaller things.

We all love "Guess Who." What a great game!

Abby got tons of clothes for Christmas this year. She's so girly and is definitely a "fashion bug." And of course, everything had "pink" in it. :) She also got a toy ironing board and iron. She's been ironing her new clothes all day :) She, of course, got tons of Polly Pockets and Barbies. I still think the iron was her favorite gift.

Last night was the first Christmas Eve that we didn't attend the IBC Christmas Program in 8 years. We decided to go to Valley Creek instead. It was wonderful. I love this church! The worship is awesome and the message was just what we all needed to hear to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas. It was beautiful!

We had another wonderful Christmas! It was very relaxing and fun. I'm so blessed. Thank you, Lord!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Mandie's Art Picture

Mandie's friend made this cool picture from a photo of her. He's a very talented artist! Don't you love it?

Timothy's Art Work - Fall 2008

October 28, 2008

Last year for Christmas we got Timothy a sketch pad. Since he loves to draw and has done so many of them, I thought I would post them on our blog so others can enjoy them.