We have been having so much fun preparing for Christmas. This is the time of year where the weather is just right, so we have been spending a lot of time outdoors.
Olivia at the movie night at St. Luke's. It was freeeezing
Seeing Mr. Richard at the Grove
Magic Kingdom
The tree at the Grand Floridian is always beautiful
The smells from the gingerbread house are divine
And there is no question that the castle takes your breath away
Excited for Christmas
Doing some solo Christmas shopping at Epcot while the kids are at school
Playing with Austin on a mild day
At Kaylee and Addyson Visser's "Happy Birthday Jesus" party
Headed to Hollywood Studios to meet the Daffrons
A fun night with friends
3D Glasses represent!
About to ride Star Tours for the first time
This was Will's first sleepover. Then we babysat the Moriarty kids the next day. We had a full house!
This was the first Christmas Party in our new home. I have been very stressed about how everyone is going to fit, how the flow will be, etc. But it all worked out great. There was plenty of room for everyone. Having 2 dining tables inside, plus the library, plus outdoor seating was great.
This year, we decided to give ourselves a break. We have always made a turkey and a ham and Steve is always carving away in the kitchen while the party is going. This year, we ordered the meats from 4 Rivers. Brilliant. Everyone was happy. We spent just a little more money than we normally we would, but this way, there was less mess and Steve was free to enjoy the party.
I think everyone had a really good time. No awkward gifts were given.
Although, there were awkwardly wrapped gifts. Oh, Jon...
We always love hosting this party. Been over 10 years now.
This is Nicole's expression to knowing she received a stuffed CFA cow as her gift. Sigh, will people never learn?
I am always so grateful to Terry for MC'ing the game portion of the evening. It became too stressful to me a few years ago and I was ready to discontinue it. He stepped up and always does a terrific job.
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.
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.
