Liam is 3!

I can't even believe it has been three years since our family was blessed with Liam. He is such a joy and a delight. Mommy woke up not feeling well today and actually had a fever! Still, we tried to do a few things to make Liam's day special. We took him to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and let him play on the playground for a while. We got a small cake from Publix and sang "Happy Birthday." Liam had a cupcake. We have a party planned for this weekend so we'll give him his present then.

Merry Christmas!

We had yet another wonderful Christmas this year. It is all so magical when you have little kids in the house. We are also fortunate enough to have lots of family close by so we do a nice celebration with everyone.


On Christmas eve, we had a great time with the McDowell side. We had yummy dinner and dessert and opened gifts together.

Then, the kids helped make cookies for Santa:

While we were waiting for the cookies to bake, we checked the naughty/nice list and the Santa tracker. The kids were all on the nice list!

Finally, the girls poured a glass of milk for Santa and then it was off to bed!

Of course, Santa came and he delivered a LOT of presents:

In the morning, we were so impressed with the kids--even though Emily was up early (as usual--4:45 is not unheard of with her on Christmas or Easter), she lay quietly on the couch and waited for Mommy and Daddy to get up. Bailey slept until 7:15 and Liam slept until 7:30! We had a blast opening tons of gifts and seeing everyone's reactions.

Will had a crazy idea to go down to Disney for a while, so we hopped in the car and headed for EPCOT. When we got there, Magic Kingdom was closed because it was at capacity, and the EPCOT parking lot was the fullest I have ever seen it. We brought along the Hidden Mickeys book that Aunt Theresa and Uncle Matthew gave us, and we did a little hunting--but it was so crowded that we really couldn't get into it. We left after a short time, but I got a cute picture of the kids while we were there.

Later that evening, we headed over to Mimi and Grandpa's house to have Christmas with the Bloms. It was really fun. I can't believe how many gifts the kids got this year!!

Holiday Fun!!

We wanted to do some special things with the kids since Will had a nice, long holiday from work, so I'm going to group them together in this post and share some pictures.

n December 21, we took the kids to the park to play and then walked around downtown Sanford. It was all decorated for Christmas and we took some cute pictures in front of the tree.

On Dec. 22, we made indoor s'mores and watched the Chipmunk Christmas special on tv.

On the 23rd, we had Christmas with our friends the Kuhns and we did a Christmas tree craft together.

The girls had a blast covering the ice cream cones with frosting and adding candy decorations. Liam ate his whole cone before he even got any frosting or toppings! LOL. I think he still had fun, though.

Family Day

We took the kids to Magic Kingdom and had a super day. It was the very first time Liam was actually interested in and cooperative with the characters. We met Woody and Jessie and he ran right up to them, gave hugs and high fives, and posed for a picture! We capped off the day with lunch at Pizzeria Uno, where the girls had a blast making their own pizzas.

Meeting Santa!

This afternoon we took the kids down to UCF for the annual Light Up UCF festival. We heard that Santa was going to be at the Barnes and Noble down there so we wanted to try to meet him. I was a little concerned because Liam was very upset last year, but this year, he did a great job! Santa was so nice and really spent a lot of time talking to the kids. We were the only family in line so that was really awesome!

Emily's 8th birthday

Yesterday was Emily's 8th birthday. We can hardly believe it! She wanted to celebrate by spending the day at Animal Kingdom. We got there early, did some rides and shows, and had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. It was a cool, wet day but we still had fun.