Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Kitchen Before and After

BEFORE-oval shaped table seating for 4

AFTER-Rectangular table with seating for 6


Beachy Table Setting

We kept the original white chairs (from Target) and purchased two new seagrass chairs from Pier 1. The new kitchen table is from Haverty's and seats 6 with the added leaf. Our family of 5 needed a bigger table to seat everyone and we had to find a table that would fit in the tight space. I am really happy with how it all turned out! Soon Alexis will be sitting at the table in a booster chair and the high chair will be gone for good!

Friday, May 25, 2012

Allie's Preschool Graduation!

Congrats to the future class of 2025! Wow! I feel old now!! Allie graduated from preschool last night. She had a lot of fun at preschool making new friends, learning new things and creating many memories. Her favorite class was music and she also enjoyed art class. Each week the children attended chapel, art and music. And every month they had a special visitor. Mr. Beatman (local children's entertainer) would come, the traveling petting zoo,  Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, a karate instructor, the fire department, etc. She was always super excited to go to school and looked forward each day to going to see her teachers, Ms. Sue & Ms. Lisa.

Yesterday was her very last day of preschool. They had a picnic lunch and invited the parents to attend. The children had a pinata too! Following the picnic each child was given a sand bucket with their names filled with goodies that their teachers had made for them. Then the teachers handed out personalized photo books for each child filled with pictures taken from the whole school year. This was such a nice gift and Allie was so happy to have pictures to remember her friends and teachers.

Allie & her bff Campbell

Allie & her teachers-Ms. Sue & Ms. Lisa

Allie & her classmates at the graduation


Congrats Allie!!

Allie & Gigi & Poppy



Sunday, May 20, 2012

Alexis' 1st Birthday!!

Happy 1st Birthday Alexis Grace!
cupcakes made by Mommy





time for presents!



cupcake time!



Disney World Day 3, 4 & 5

Our week at Disney World flew by! We had SO much fun that we are already discussing going back in a few years when Hunter turns 5. We enjoyed the hotel pool on Wednesday and relaxed. The kids took a much needed nap and we had a nice relaxing dinner at Downtown Disney.



We also had dessert at the Ghiradheli ice cream shop. Allie had strawberry ice cream with sprinkles and I had a Ghiradheli chocolate milkshake. Yum! Downtown Disney has a lot of neat shops including the largest Disney Store in the USA. We spent almost 45 minutes in there! There is also a Lego store with a lifesize Buzz Lightyear made completely out of Lego's.


Thursday we headed back to Magic Kingdom for an 'agenda free' day. Meaning we had absolutely no reservations at any restaurants, no set plans, etc. We were able to ride a lot of rides including "Astro Orbiter", "Winnie the Pooh", "Buzz Lightyear Space Spin", "It's A Small World", "Peter Pan's Flight", "Regal Carousel", "Magic Carpet's of Aladdin", "Swiss Family Robinson Tree House", "Jungle Cruise", "People Mover" and the kids really enjoyed exploring "Tom Sawyer's Island". Alexis took a nice 2 hour nap in the stroller and while she napped the kids rode "Pirate's of the Caribbean" with Clint. We also did the "Carousel of Progress" which was one of my favorite's when I was a kid. Allie enjoyed it and it was also nice to cool off inside. The kids met Mickey & Minnie Mouse at the Town Square theatre. They were so excited and because we went around dinner time the lines were not bad at all. Hunter gave Mickey a big hug and that was the highlight of my day!


Day 5 at Disney World was fun but super hot! We arrived at the park by 9 am and stayed until almost 9 pm! The day flew by and because we knew it was our last day of vacation we tried to squeeze in all of the kids favorite rides one last time. Allie loved the Magic Carpets of Aladdin so we made sure to ride that again (3rd time). Clint loved Pirates of the Caribbean so we rode that again, this Alexis & I went too. After waiting 20 minutes we were finally able to ride Dumbo! After purchasing some 'must have' souvenier's such as a coffee mug, tee shirt for Clint, 2 Minnie Mouse's for Allie, Buzz Lightyear for Hunter, Christmas ornaments, and onesie for Alexis we headed to the Polynesian Resort via the monorail for the Spirit of Aloha dinner show.


The Spirit of Aloha dinner show was by far the best money we spent all week. The food was amazing, authentic and the entertainment was a lot of fun. The kids loved watching the hula dancers and the fire dancers were great. Allie went up on stage to do the hula which was really cute. The food consisted of an authentic Hawaiian dinner, salad, fresh pineapple, sweet bread and marinated ribs, chicken and rice. Dessert consisted of chocolate mousse' volcano's with raspberry syrup. Yum!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Disney World Day 2-Magic Kingdom

Breakfast at 8 am at Chef Mickeys

Most expensive breakfast we've ever had!

but the experience was priceless :-)

Alexis meeting Goofy!



birthday cupcake for the birthday girl

Allie meeting Belle


Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella


princess makeover at the Bibbity Bobbity Botique






of course we had to meet Tinkerbell-Allie's favorite!
birthday dinner at 1900 Park Fare-at the Grand Floridian

Prince Charming

Cinderella's evil stepmother

evil step sister

birthday cupcake for the birthday princess!