Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone, we hope you all enjoyed a relaxing day. I took 157 photos today....but I will only post just a quick few as I have to get to bed, I'm meeting at friend at her house at 7am tomorrow for day after Christmas shopping!! I'm posting a before and after shot of the living room.......Santa was good to us this year! I did not feel like I bought that much and then all of the sudden when it was all set up, there was quite a bit......and now we have to figure out where to put all the new stuff. Jack is in hog heaven with all of his new toys. His big gift was the real cast iron Lionel Polar Express Train set and the hardback book to match. This will be something we set up each year under the tree and then someday when he is grown and has his own home, we will pass it on to him for his family.

We opened gifts for a while this morning, then Jack decided to take a break to play with some things, then we ate a nice brunch that Jon had put together, then we had to finish the second half of the gifts, I think it was nearly noon before the whole thing was done! Jon got an Ipad2 (really it was a family gift, but I have not had it for one second yet) so he is very happy too!! SB is feeling better today (thank goodness) and made up for lost time and slept quite a bit in between gift opening! We finished the day off with a holiday buffet dinner at our local Disney resort and restaurant. It was a total hit with Jackson as Christmas Donald showed up as we were waiting for our table, sweater and scarf and all! Jack asked him "why he had all that stuff on when it was hot outside", HAHAHA...poor Donald must have been laughing inside as it was unseasonably warm today, nearly 85. The visitors are lucky this week!!

Christmas Eve

We are experiencing our first Florida Christmas and so far it has been pretty nice. Poor SB is sick with a horrible cold (everyone else took a turn before her so it was only fitting that she came down with it on 12.23), boo. I kept her home yesterday and let her get lots of rest but she woke up worse today. She is running a low grade fever, and is very congested in her nose, has a runny nose and a bit of a cough, but nothing croupy or scary sounding. I've had the vicks vapo stuff going in her room and also the cool mist humidifier since Friday morning and I've just done my best to keep her comfortable with lots of warm baths to clear the congestion and lots of nursing and rocking. Makes for a tired mommy and baby though! The nights have been a bit rough. We had planned to go to Christmas Eve mass today but SB was in no shape to go out today (and I thought it was the Christian thing to do to keep her home and NOT share our germs with all of the other families). Jon was going to take Jack alone but he was a total crank this afternoon from a busy amped up week at school so we just bagged it all this year, he still has quite a runny nose too so we just hung around the house today and tried to rest. I'm sure our fellow parishioners apprecite us NOT sharing our germs. Jack decorated sugar cookies for Santa today so we are all set in that regard!! Jon prepared some nice snacks for us to have tonight and then he took Jack on a golf cart ride and while he was gone, I got all of the gifts that have been shipped from Ohio out and when they got back, we had a Christmas Eve party with the snacks Jon prepared and also the kids opened all of their gifts and then got into them all to play. It was a really nice night and definitely will be a tradition we will continue for any future Christmases we spend home. They really got some nice things and were very spoiled! Thank you everyone for your generosity and for taking the time to ship them special gifts, they really appreciated it:)

Thankfully SB is resting comfortably now in her swing and Jack is fast asleep, probably dreaming about hearing Reindeer on the roof. We cleaned up the living room from "round 1" tonight (we filled an entire giant landscaper's trash bag with boxes from the toys and the wrapping paper) and we also had to clean up our little Christmas Eve snacks and now Jon is making my mom's cheese stratta recipe for Christmas morning breakfast tommorrow. Time for me to go play "Santa"...we are so excited to have our first Christmas at home and get to do this, Jack is nearly 4 and we've never been able to do this for him yet since we normally travel. More pictures tomorrow, Merry Christmas everyone, we love and miss you!!

weekend pics

Here are some random Sunday morning pictures of the kids at play in Jack's room, and a few pictures of Hope and Sarabeth at the ladies cookie exchange party I hosted at our house Sunday afternoon. I also took some pictures of the house decorated! I meant to put these in the last post but it got too big with the other photos.

Christmas time at Disney and recent events!

I am behind again with the blog.....I'm still setting up my practice, I'm still doing boot camp and we've been busy with lots of fun Christmas activities too!! The weekend of December 10th we got away for three days to Disney World. A little known secret is that the weekend of the 10th is the LOWEST traveled weekend at Disney and one of the lowest rate weekends for hotels as a result during the entire holiday season. So, we partook and it was great! No lines for anything, no crowds in the parks, and GREAT hotel rates. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom lodge for less than 200 a night which is amazing for that hotel this time of year! We've always wanted to stay there and it DID NOT dissapoint. Jackson LOVED seeing the animals right outside the room and outside the common grounds of the hotel. We saw giraffes, zebras, birds, and all sorts of other animals day and night. One of the coolest things was seeing the animals at night. Jackson instintively knew to whipser (really not in his nature normnally) and it was just very peaceful. The giraffes lay and sit down when they are sleeping (who has seen a giraffe do that, really)!! We spent one day at Magic Kingdom, one day at Animal Kingdom and one half day at Sea World to see the Polar Express exhibit. We also saw the lights at night one night at Magic Kingdom and the special holiday parade and we had the new Tusker House safari character breakfast with Donald, Daisy, Mickey and Goofy at Animal Kingdom...I highly recommend this, it was reasonably priced compared to some character dining experiences and also really nicely done!! Sarabeth even enjoyed the whole thing! As usual some of my favorite times of the trip were just hanging out in the hotel room! I got some cute pictures of SB and Jack in their "footie" pjs one morning...you know we all had these as kids, they are so cute in them!!

This past weekend we were home but we were busy. Friday night the school had a "parents night out" and kept the kids until 9:30 pm. I did not take mine that day until noon as I thought it was just too long of a day but Jack loved the Christmas party they threw for the kids that night, complete with a visit from Santa to each class room. Jon and I used the extra time to complete our Christmas shopping and grab a quick bite to eat. Saturday brought a birthday party for a class mate of Jackson's at one of his favorite places in town, Crazy Frogs (where he had his 3rd birthday party) and also a Christmas party for Jon and I that night. We dropped some furniture off at my new office space and then headed to the party. Sunday afternoon I hosted a cookie exchange party at my house for 12 friends and their babies. We had 5 babies 7 months and under and 12 moms and really had a great time!

This week I am continuing to get work done in preparation for the coming holiday and also I am getting moved into my new office space. My furniture was delivered today and is in the office, this week I have to get my personal things in there and get set up to work out of this new space. It is a really good set up for me and is only about 10 minutes from my house. I am really excited and will post pictures soon!

I can hardly believe that Christmas is less than a week away. This is our first Florida Christmas so it kind of does not feel like Christmas. Also, I have been very distracted with establishing the business so I am trying to focus on it all this week and enjoy a bit of the holidays after all. We will attend the Christmas Eve Children's mass at our church here and then have Christmas day at our house. Jack will open gifts from extended family and friends Christmas Eve when we come home and then Sanata gifts Christmas day. The afternoon of Christmas day we have reservations for the fany Christmas buffet at Vero Disney.......since we are only cooking for two adults, we decided this was a better deal and this way, we get to feel spoiled, and no mess and no work, and I think we will spend less too rather than buying a ham, or turkey, or prifme rib and all of the fixings to make!!

Here are some pictures from Disney, and of our house in prepartion for the cookie exchange and of SB and her friend Hope at the cookie party we had yesterday!