Disney World Vacation!

This is a very picture-heavy post.  It took us until mid-November but we finally went on vacation this year.  It was quite a vacation too!  We went to Disney World for a week and had a great time.

This seemed like a good time to take the kids because Samantha loves princesses.  We definitely got to meet a lot of them!

 

 

Of course she wasn't the only one to get some princess love - they adored Josh (particularly Cinderella and Rapunzel!).  On a side note, lipstick is hard to remove from an infant's forehead!

 

Don't forget the stars of Disney - Tinkerbell was a huge hit!

 

 

We spent 6 days in the parks (3 at Magic Kingdom and one at each of the rest (Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios)).  We had some ups and downs but overall we had a great trip.  Samantha particularly enjoyed some of the rides - especially Dumbo, Mad Tea Party, Barnstormer, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, It's a Small World, and the Tomorrowland PeopleMover.  Most rides aren't great for picture taking but here are a couple of the Tomorrowland Speedway.

 

 

One thing that surprised me about Disney was how much time it took for me to plan the trip - reservations for the resort, dining, FastPasses, etc. all have to be booked well ahead of time.  It takes just about forever to go through the dozens of Disney related websites and books to figure out the best way to do everything.  I think Chris and my parents are glad that I'm the one the did all the leg work so our trip went as smoothly as possible.

There are so many things I could write about our vacation but I'm just going to post some more pictures instead.

 

It may not have been a relaxing vacation but it was a fun one!  

Halloween and Soccer!

We had a great Halloween with the kids.  Samantha requested a "pink butterfly" costume so I was able to put this together.  She also said that Josh should be a caterpillar.  Not bad for having no pattern!

Samantha had a great time trick-or-treating and Josh was just happy to be in a nice comfy carrier during the chilly night.

Samantha has been playing soccer this fall.  This week was her final "game."  It was really just the kids having fun with the ball - going on adventures while learning some soccer skills.  She normally did a great job but she is still very shy around others.  This shyness resulted in what could be the slowest goal in the history of soccer on her last day (it was dress up day).

 Her coach is from England and had a great accent - she had a lot of fun with silly "Coach Sam!"

We've been doing a little more preschool type activities and I think she's doing very well.  She even sometimes "reads" to herself which I think is adorable.

Here is one of her worksheets that she did this week - she loved that it was princess themed.

I had shredded a lot of paper this week and before I had a chance to take it to the compost pile, Samantha discovered it while I was changing Josh.  Fortunately she helped me clean up afterwards.

Josh is still a very happy baby overall.  He looks so big - we sometimes feel like we're carrying around a toddler.  He's also working on three more teeth and he has a cold so he's been a little more fussy than normal.  Hopefully they'll come in quickly!

We were busy in the kitchen this weekend.  We have been collecting peanuts from our food baskets for a long time (we just didn't have anything else to do with them). 

I decided to make peanut butter and we won't have to but it for a long, long time!

Chris picked the rest of the peppers from the garden before the first hard frost and decided to make some pickled peppers.  I don't have a picture of that since he's making them as I type this but I'm sure they'll be great!

It's starting to get cooler here so many of our house related activities will be moving inside soon.  Fall is just never long enough!