Santa Picture

We finally made it to get a picture with Santa, and it was completely unplanned! We met Patrick's parents and brother for lunch today at Grimaldi's (thanks Michelle for the recommendation, we love this place!) in Watters Creek. I thought there was a Santa there, but I wasn't sure so we walked around after lunch to try and find him. We found him, and there was 1 family waiting in front of us, so we waited all of 5 minutes for our turn. Anna and McKenna love Santa and were talking to him without any problems, Ava isn't so sure about the big man, so she stuck close to mom. The photographer did a great job cropping me out, so we have a picture of just the girls and Santa. Ava doens't look so happy, but we got the picture! Have a wonderful Christmas everyone, and I will post with lots of holiday photos when I can!

Thanksgiving

We had everyone to our house for Thanksgiving this year. My family came over early to make the Franz Family Traditional Sausage Dressing, and Patrick's mom was a life saver and made the turkey. While I don't need it most of the year, every holiday season really makes me wish for a double oven! With Linda bringing the turkey, I was able to get all of the side dishes prepared and the timing worked out much better than normal. It was a great day with family and friends!

McKenna's 5th Birthday

McKenna had her 5th birthday at Strikz Bowling Alley. The kids all bowled for an hour, took a break for pizza and cake, then the kids were set loose in the arcade. McKenna had a great time and was happy to win at her lane of bowling!

Disney World

Amazing! That is the one word to describe our Disney World trip. We had a wonderful time, the weather was perfect, the parks weren't too crowded, and the girls LOVED it. Patrick and I were pretty excited by the fact that we got to fly 1st class, and the girls got accustomed to it pretty quickly. As a matter of fact, on the way home, Anna asked if we could always fly 1st class!

Our trip started off with an 8 am flight. The girls woke up at 4:15 am - on their own! Patrick and I were waiting until 4:30, but we heard them and went ahead and let them come downstairs. We picked my sister, Jenny, and her boyfriend, Mitch, up on our way to the airport and we were off. The flight was uneventful and there was just a little wait getting from the airport to the hotel. We arrived at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, looked out our window, and this is what greeted us...

There were various animals on the Savannah and the girls loved going out on the balcony every day to use their field guides to spot all the wild life. We also had a bunkbed in the room. The girls were very good about swapping who got to sleep on the top bunk.

After a few minutes in the hotel, we turned around and headed out to the Animal Kingdom. We saw lots of animals and rode several rides. McKenna loves any thrill ride and being scared, and while Anna doesn't like things that are dark or if anything jumps out at her, she is a great sport and will go on all the rides because she knows McKenna wants to ride.

This was the first ride we went on, and it was pretty much the Dumbo ride with dinosaurs. That worked out well for us because the lines for Dumbo were so long, we never rode it...

At the end of the Finding Nemo show, there was an aquarium with Manatees and this shark. Umm, lunch.

That night, we had tickets to Mickey's Christmas Parade. This was a special event where the Magic Kingdom was open from 7 - midnight. There was free hot chocolate and cookies, Santa and all of the rides were open. We managed to ride everything that the girls wanted to ride, a couple of things twice and there were No Lines - it was money well spent!

During Christmas, they have Cinderella's Castle decorated beautifully with icicle lights and multiple colors. The girls had to stop and stare every time they saw it. Imagine their delight when they realized they got to each lunch at the castle the next day!

Main Street

Stopping for a chat with Peter Pan and Wendy.

The whole group in front of Cinderella's Castle

On Friday, November 20, Patrick and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary! My sister and Mitch watched the girls for us and we headed out for dinner. We didn't rent a car while we were at Disney, so we rode the buses. That meant leaving about an hour before our reservation and transferring between a couple of buses - very romantic ;) The dinner was fabulous and it was fun to walk through the hotels by Epcot and see all of the Christmas decorations.

We had lunch at Cinderella's Royal table where the girls got to get pictures taken with all of the princess. We have one with Cinderella, but I haven't managed to scan the photo in yet.

Belle

Jasmine

Sleeping Beauty

Snow White

Lunch at the Castle

Happy Prisoners

Anna loved riding Expedition Everest. McKenna was just shy of the height requirement which caused some tears, but she got over it when Aunt Jenny took her to another ride. This was Anna right after she rode Everest, and she was so proud of herself. The ride was really tall, dark and you went backwards. She was laughing the whole time.

We spent 6 days going from park to park, Mitch had no idea what he was getting himself into when coming with Jenny and me to Disney! The girls slept in most mornings, but didn't want to stop in the evenings. Some of the favorite rides - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story Mania. McKenna also loved the Tower of Terror, Anna not so much. Thursday through Sunday the parks were not crowded and we had very few lines, but on Monday and Tuesday the rest of the world joined us. We were only able to ride 2 rides on Tuesday before we had to leave and the girls were definitely getting restless with the hour long lines. That is good information for us when planning our next trip!

Ava spent the week with Grandma and Grandpa Clerkin, and while she was showing that the terrible 2s are starting a little early, she had a blast while we were gone. So much so, that she hardly even notices when we came to pick her up. I guess we haven't scarred her permanently by not taking her with us this time!

It can't be a trip to Disney World without some waiting, and here we are waiting for our bus to return us to the hotel for our trip back to the airport.

Patrick's brother Mike and Nicole eloped in Hawaii the day before Thanksgiving, and I am hoping to get some picture of that posted soon. We also had every to our house for Thanksgiving, so look for a post on that as well as S'mores!

Ear Piercing!

Today after the girls last soccer games we headed out to Merle Norman to get their ears pierced. Anna was very sweet in allowing McKenna to go first (I am sure that had nothing to do with the fact that she wanted to see if it hurt!). The girls got to pick their earrings out and Anna picked the 24 karat earrings right off the bat. I managed to get her to reconsider to a less expensive option! Next they marked the earlobes with a pen to make sure everything was aligned and then it was go time...

McKenna did go first and there were no tears - she just couldn't wait to see herself in the mirror.

Anna was not quite so lucky. She did NOT like getting her 1st ear done and I wasn't convinced she was going to get the second one done. She had a sip of water and tried to contain the ears and she was ready for ear number 2. Luckily, she didn't squirm too much and the second was completed without issue, but there were a few more tears.

After Anna got to see herself in the mirror, she was all smiles. They got some fairy dust to complete the experience. We were given instructions to twist the earrings and clean the earlobe 2 times a day. I might take Ava back pretty soon. The woman who did it said it is better to do it when they are younger, so we may just get it done. This week we have trophy celebrations for soccer and final preparations for Disneyworld! Have a great week.

Trick-or-Treat!

My super heros!!! We had a wonderful Halloween and the girls had a blast as Supergirl, Batgirl and Aggie Cheerleader (you can see Ava got into the candy a little early!) We started out with pumpkin carving on Friday evening. Grandma Franz, Aunt Jenny, Mitch and all of us had 5 pumpkins to carve. I decided that next year, I will poke out the patterns before everyone arrives as it seems to take us a very long time to do the entire process 5 times over. The girls got to pick their designs - Anna had Cinderella's carriage, McKenna had the witch from Snow White and Ava was supposed to get Snow White, but we ran out of time so she just got a face! Aunt Jenny carved the castle and Mitch made a face with 'hair' using the pumpkin guts and toothpicks to create the effect.

On Halloween night, we were reunited with our trick-or-treating friends from last year (this will definitely be an annual event!) and headed out to acquire POUNDS of candy. The girls ran from house to house (Ava got the princess treatment with her own Radio Flyer wagon/carriage) and listened pretty well to all the parents! There were lots of kids out in the neighborhood and it was a gorgeous night to be out. Great friends = Great times!

The kids

The moms

The dads

McKenna had her preschool Halloween party where she decorated cookies - can you tell I looked away for a minute while she was piling the orange frosting on? :) This is a fun party that Grandma Clerkin and Sitto and Jiddo got to come to and watch McKenna with all of her friends!

And what is Halloween at the office without a little Ghostbusters? Each year my office has a competition bewteen the departments and this years' theme was 80's videos. We had proton packs, ghost catchers, slime, ghostbusters, and of course, the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. We came in second place, but I think we were robbed!

The weekend also consisted of a birthday party for our good friends' son, Brooks. He turned 3 and we partied at Pump It Up. Ava got into it a little bit more this time around, even though she doesn't look thrilled on our trip down the big slide.

This Saturday marks our last soccer games of the season. It looks like it is going to be a great weekend. We will have McKenna's end of the season party on Sunday, and Anna's will be next Thursday. We also have to fit in Grandma Clerkin's birthday cake celebration. Her birthday was the weekend Patrick was sick, so we decided it was best to not bring everyone to our house and get them sick.

We are also in the last days of our countdown before DISNEYWORLD!!! Patrick and I are so excited to be taking Anna and McKenna to Disney in a couple of weeks. Ava is going to be spending the week with Grandma and Grandpa Clerkin. The big girls were sad to be leaving their sister until I explained it just meant that we got to go back in a few years when Ava can enjoy it - now they are okay with the decision :) Aunt Jenny and Mitch will be joining us as well, so not only will we be able to enjoy the trip with them, but Patrick and I will be able to go out alone for our 10 year anniversary which will come while we are there. Wow, 10 years! That doesn't even count the 5 we were together before we got married, boy are we getting old!