Late November - Thanksgiving and what not

Steve took off on a random Friday and we had some good one-on-one time with Olivia.  It is important that the kids get this time to be with Mom & Dad without brother/sister around.  The attention is all on them.

And...Olivia was pefect all day.  No issues.  No tantrums.  No disobedience.  Olivia does really well when she doesn't have to compete for attention.

We ate lunch at Tibby's, one of our favorites.  After, we went to City Park in Winter Park to play on their awesome playground.

Thanksgiving.  We spent Thanksgiving with Gramma and G-Daddy.  It is so, so nice to have family in town to spend holidays with.

  

 We are so blessed to have Larry and Neva in Orlando.  The kids absolutely relish every moment they get to spend at "Gramma's House"

We are in a state of transition at the Whittington house.  We start decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving day and then really get into it on Black Friday.

The weather in Orlando is just perfection this time of year.  We make sure to spend as much time as we can outside.  You know how up north, people kind of hunker down for the winter?  We do that in the summer.  It is too hot out.  But fall, winter and spring?  Wonderful.

Olivia is ever the ham.  She loves taking selfies and making silly faces.

Will is really working on his handwriting.  He gets better every day.

Thanksgiving Performances

Will had two Thanksgiving performances.  One was at church at the other was at school.  I made the mistake of having Larry and Neva come to the school performance instead of the church performance.  Last year, Will was less than enthused at church and did not participate...and it was a smaller affair.  I did not know what to expect from school, but figured it was going to be awesome.

The church performance was great this year!  We had an abundance of seats where we could see the kids.  Will sang along and smiled the whole time.

The school performance was promising.  Super cute costumes.  Will was excited about the songs they were going to sing.  We went to his class before to get him all set up.  We should have been lining up to get seats for the show.  It was in the cafeteria and by the time we got in there, we had zero visual of the show.  We could only see the iPads of other parents filming.

 Still, it was a cute show.  Even if we couldn't see anything and Will did not know where we were in the crowd.  Now we know.

This is Will posing in front of his art.  Didn't he do an excellent job drawing pilgrims?  So proud of our sweet little boy.  And Thankful.  Incredibly Thankful.

Reynelle's 3rd Birthday

Today, we celebrated Reynelle's 3rd birthday.  She is such a special girl and we consider her a part of our family.  It was a great day at the park: the weather was perfect, the kids played nicely.  It was a brunch party with breakfasty food.  We stayed at the park so long that we actually had pizza delivered to the park for dinner.  It was awesome.

When we got home, Austin and Ava came over.  We learned that there was a rocket launch happening that night.  So we set up lawn chairs in the driveway because we know rocket launches always go over the Rearden's driveway.  We had the NASA live stream going and we popped popcorn.  Was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Steve Turns 39

Today is my man's birthday.  39.  39!?!  How did that happen?  Time has been kind to Steve.  He is the most attractive, funniest, strongest, most devoted husband and father.  I love him more every day and am just super excited to see what the rest of our lives holds for us.  He wants to take responsibility for everything, which is good but I wish he didn't sometimes because that it is a lot for anyone.  Steve is everything I ever wanted in a husband and never did I think I would ever deserve someone so amazing.  Somehow, he puts up with my special brand of crazy and loves me all the more for it.  Our children thrive under his care and they adore their daddy.  Time flies by when you are having fun and the past 11 years have gone by in a blink.  I love you, Steve and will continue to love you more every day.

Today, we had a special lunch date at STK at Disney Springs.  It was delicious!  I made a special trip out to Clermont to get Donut King donuts for his special birthday dessert...a donut wall.  He requested shrimp and grits for dinner and we had his parents over to celebrate.  It was a low key celebration with our family.  Next year, watch out.  40 will be a big one and I don't think I can hold back.

Epcot with Olivia and more playground fun

Today, I ventured to another theme park with just Olivia...Epcot.  We walked around, ate popcorn and just enjoyed being together.

When we got home, we played on our playground, which continues to be a big hit and major blessing in our lives.  Life is good.

Santa!!

Tonight, we went to visit Santa at the mall.  I know it is early, but experience has taught us that going now is the time.  If you wait, you will WAIT...for hours.

We had zero wait.  In fact, Santa was just hanging out with the photographer when we walked up and they were able to spend about 20 minutes on us because no one was behind us.  Which was a good thing.  The kids did good.  Will had no problems whatsoever and told Santa he wanted a rocket.  Olivia is still a little leery of the big guy.  I still have to sit next to Santa and lean out of the picture.  They would throw her a ball and she would throw it back and laugh and when she would, Santa would lean in unbeknownst to Olivia.  Did I ruin the magic?  I hope not.  One day, she will get there.  Otherwise, I am not that upset that she doesn't want to sit on a strange man's lap and reveal her biggest desires.