The Last Batch of Pumpkin Bread

Mimi's 23rd Birthday

The cake Mimi wanted we could not get in time, so I told her I would bake her favorite homemade recipe. Cute ha?

I finally made it in a picture

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went to my sister's for just a little while as we had to head home to wait for Santa. We had to get his milk and cookies ready, food for the reindeer (yes the reindeer like beets too, every store around here was out of carrots). We also had to say goodbye to our elf, Elf, since we knew he would head back to the North Pole with Santa tonight. We hope we get a really nice elf next year too. He didn't really get into mischief, we just never knew where he would end up in the morning. Since he was always in high places Leah would always say, "Oh, he fly ober d'er now". 

Gingerbread Family

Right before we left for Disney we went to another holiday event at Gaylord where you can decorate a gingerbread house or a gingerbread family. We opted to do the family as we didn't think the house would travel well. Leah ate more candy than ended up on the family!

Leh got a kick out of Daddy giving each member of the family a very large nose!

Sure, this Santa is OK.

ICE! And Snow! In Florida?

We went to Gaylord Palms Resort for the day the Monday before Christmas. They had so many fun and festive things to do. The weather has been on the warm side all season long and I was ready for some "snow" to get us the the Christmas spirit. the resort is very nice even without the Holiday stuff and we had a ball!

This is in ICE!  This year they called it "Shrek the Halls" and it featured all the characters made of ice. It was beautiful and a chilly 8 degrees!

This is an amazing and huge dragon that filled an entire room. It too was made of ice.

An ice sculpture of an angel. See the candelabras? Also ice!

Entire ice Nativity. Stunning

Then next door, (for an additional fee, of course) there was SNOW!  Leah loved this one the best.

We got to make snow balls and through them at this troll thing they had. It was the only place you were allowed to through snowballs.

Perfect throw! Looks like we have another lefty pitcher in our family!

This is the creature they were aiming at

Going down the slide. ICE had a slide too made of ice, but she didn't like that one. It was in the beginning of the experience and she was still a afraid.

Playing in the snow!

Closest thing to a picture with Santa we are going to get this year.

Pictureless Update

Well, I got a computer at home again for my personal use. Unfortunately its not my VAIO. Boy do I miss that thing! The one I'm using is the dinosaur I had in my old office and it was just collecting dust so Ed brought it home and Danny installed a wireless gizmo so I could have internet without the cables running through from his room where the main connections are.

I will upload photos sometime next week as this computer is painfully slow and I just don't have the time right now.

But I will tell you that Leah did amazing in her school's Winter Recital, my daycare's Christmas Pageant was AMAZING AND and the studio's Christmas Program is Saturday. It has been a hectic yet really fun season (despite the scrooges that broke into my house) and we are all looking forward to the time off from work and school for the next 2 weeks.

Violated!!

Well, our home was broken into yesterday morning "ish". How dare they! I had gone to take Leah to yet another speech evaluation, more on that later, Ed was at work, Mimi had left to the gym around 11 am, and Danny was home fast asleep! Danny had arrived home from work at about 9 am after being up for 27 straight hours. He had locked himself in his room and passed out. Needless to say he did not hear a thing until about 11:55 am when Mimi returned form the gym and started screaming when she saw the mess in our house and her jewelry box missing. They took lots of things, including my laptop but we are all safe, thank God.

We called the police, filed the report and are now dealing with our insurance company. The thieves made such a mess in our house that it s going to take me all weekend to clean up and then the black powder the detectives use to retrieve fingerprints. I am guessing they were looking for Christmas gifts. Sorry to inform all you thieves out there, we don't keep them at the house, and we do have a safe deposit box at the bank. So basically, you took many things of great value to us, but you won't be making much money off any of the items you took. The pictures in my computer were the most valuable things to me. A history for Leah. Adopted children are missing a piece of their history and you just took another. Shame on you! I am sure you will get what is due.

To my bloggy friends, any ideas as to a good site to store pictures and videos. I am glad I have the blog but I have not updated like I would have liked so there are things that are not in it. For now, I will update from work and maybe Santa will replace my laptop for Christmas.

Leah's Preschool Holiday Show

 

Our little ham hamming it up! She does move around a bit half way through the program cause she had to make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to, (cause you know she's in charge!)but she is the second from the left. At the end she excitement is clear!

The Search for a Tree

 

This year, I decided I wanted a different type of tree. We had always had a Frazier Fur and for some reason I have never been really satisfied with the way the ornaments would look and how difficult to cover up any patches of thinning branches. I read somewhere that with Douglas Fur the ornaments hang better. So the search was on. We visited several lots before finding as close to the perfect tree. Here the tree is almost done with the princess on her way to her Christmas Recital at school.

Mini Photo Shoot on the Way School Holiday Show

 The tree was not done, we didn't even have the tree skirt, but I'm glad I took these pictures with the only camera I had left. Today was a busy day but I had hoped to get the tree done in the afternoon. Leah had an appointment for a speech evaluation this morning, and after that I intended to take her to school, come back and finish the tree and clean up a bit, and after I picked her up from school the plan was to make sure she took a nap before it was time to get her ready for the school's holiday show. Well, our burglars had other plans. On the way back from the evaluation, Mimi calls to inform me our house had been broken into. So instead of all those things we spent the rest of the afternoon with local law enforcement taking pictures and dusting for prints, etc.
 But we did manage some pictures.

Milk Shakes and Carrousel with a friend

The mall has a new carrousel and I promised Leah I would take her after school. Our friend Destinee came with us as we pick her up after school. Needless to say they had a great time.