Christmas highlights!

Wow, it all came and went in such a blur. Obviously our Disney trip played a major part in the craziness as well. It's not surprising though, since the following is a list of our family December celebrations:

• December 5 (AJ's mom's "Nai Nai's" birthday)


• December 16 (our wedding anniversary -- 13 years this year!)


• Hanukkah (December 21 for 8 days)


• December 23 (my birthday)


• December 25 (Lily's birthday)


• Christmas
  

We had a great Christmas. The girls got too many presents as usual, but thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately we didn't get to see my brothers and their families this season, but we did get to spend a lot of quality time with both sets of grandparents. I totally failed on taking pictures though, I think I was a little "pictured out" from Disney. Sorry, but here are a few. Annual "at the top of the stairs" Chirstmas picture!

She really did loooove this guitar (despite the long face), and it's all we have heard for the last several days!!! Thanks Memaw and Pepaw -- I think the guitar (ca-tar, per Lia) may be making a visit to your house soon!

My baby is 6 years old!

Waaah, I can't believe Lily is 6 now. It seems like just yesterday we were trying to teach her how to crawl in a hotel in China. She was 10 mos old when we got her. I just can't believe how grown up she is now. She even pointed out that she was now "2 hands old." I'm sure you're curious what that means (so we're we btw.) So, she showed us what she meant by holding up 2 hands (6 fingers now!) She said she can no longer show us how old she is on one hand since she's only got 5 fingers. Too cute!

We had a small family party for her on Christmas Eve. Lily's actually birthday is Christmas day, but we wanted to let her have her own special day the day before.

Happy Birthday to me!

Just wanted to share my awesome birthday gifts from AJ. I was totally surprised. I've always had AJ's old computers (he seems to upgrade fairly regularly.) And now, I have my very own computer!!! Plus, he got me a new wireless printer/scanner!


I also got another Yixing clay teapot for my collection from my in-laws and a Kohl's gift certificate from my parents. It was a great birthday!

Happy Hanukkah!

We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah with AJ's parents tonight with some pizza. Nai Nai and Ye Ye had some little gifts for the girls too. Lily was the one to light the first candle. I think it's the first born son that is supposed to do it, but since that's not an option with us, she is next in line. :)

Last day at Disney -- Breakfast with the Princesses!

Today was our last day at Disney and we definitely saved the best for last. We had a wonderful breakfast with the Disney princesses at the Akershus Storybook dining at Epcot before we headed home. The food was great (although, how can you really screw up scrambled eggs, LOL??) and the girls were in such awe of all of the princesses and their beauty and kindness.

Disney Diary Day 4 -- Animal Kingdom and pool fun

We took it pretty easy today and only went to Animal Kingdom for a few hours. We watched the live Lion King show, went on the safari ride, and ate lunch. Honestly, we are getting a little "Disney'd" out. We decided to come back to our hotel and let the girls swim the rest of the afternoon. They loved it. Mama and Dada sat in our lounge chairs and sipped strawberry daiquiris. It was wonderful. We will grab a quick bite to eat tonight and then come back to the room to pack. We have breakfast scheduled with the princesses tomorrow and will head back home tomorrow evening. We are not looking forward to the frigid temps. :( It has been 80 and sunny every day here. We could not have asked for better weather.

Disney Diary Day 3 -- Hollywood Studios and dinner with Pooh

Summary: Disney Hollywood Studios (Toy Story Mania was awesome!), back to Magic Kingdom to have dinner with Winnie the Pooh and friends, then early bedtime for all! Enjoy the pics! Sorry there are so many.

Disney Diary Day 2 -- Magic Kingdom

Sorry, pics only. Too tired to write, LOL!

Disney Diary Day 1

We made it to Disney World. We are pooped and it's only 8:00 pm. The girls are already zonked out. We had an incredibly easy trip here. The new Indy airport was awesome and very efficient. Our flight here was just as wonderful and our Disney transportation to our resort was quick and painless as well. Our resort, Pop Century is really cool. It's one of the value resorts so the rooms aren't extravagant at all, but the grounds, lobby and food court are very nice and clean. This seems to be the perfect place for our first trip to Disney.

As tired as the girls were all day (we got them up at 4:30 AM!!), they were still pretty good (a little whiny, but not bad). They kept busy snacking and coloring on the airplane. Once we got here and settled in to our room, we tried to get Lia to take a nap, but that was not happening, so we just decided to head to our first WDW park -- Epcot! We took things slow with a very non-threatening ride for our first one -- Nemo (we actually rode in clam shells, LOL!) and the girls seemed to really like it. We did a few more simple rides/shows just to get the girls acclimated to the Disney attractions. Then, I really thought we blew it. We did the Imagination ride with Figment (which I looooved as a child), well, it has changed and there was one VERY STARTLING part that scared the crap out of me and unfortunately, Lily. She was scared to death, and started crying hysterically as soon as we got off the ride. I was afraid we had lost her for the rest of the trip. But, after a little pep talk that a little scariness can be fun, we think we got her back and she may go on some more rides!

We enjoyed touring the China section at Epcot and got to see an amazing Chinese acrobatic show. We had dinner at the Nine Dragons restaurant there and it was so-so (great ambiance, but not so great food). After dinner we headed back to our resort for a quick swim in the kiddie pool. It was too cool for mama and dada, but the girls had a blast.

One of our resort pools

The girls catching water drops at Epcot

The girls and Mama at Epcot

The girls at the Temple of Heaven :)

Chinese acrobats -- WOW!

Dada, Buddha and girls

Evening dip in the pool