whobody has a junk drawer?

Taking a short break from the Disney pictures.

 (I haven't gone through the next day of pictures yet.)

BUT...what I have done is taken a quick picture of our 

'toy junk' drawer.  

This is where I put the random little toys that I find laying around the house.....

this (obviously) includes nerfs, playing cards, silly bands, and other 'little' toys.  

Isn't this RIDICULOUS?

Seriously....it is this kind of thing that overwhelms me sometimes.

 (okay, most of the time.) 

NOW...this drawer isn't normally so full...but I am in the process of moving all of our 'office stuff' into our new office...and I have found lots and lots of game pieces etc. in the process.  CRAZY.  This will have to be a Saturday sorting project with the kids. :) 

This isn't even the HOME for all of the little treasures in our house. 

I keep telling myself the following words:

Someday, I will miss these things.

whobody loved Christmasapalooza?

So....I just came across this post I wrote a few weeks ago....the last installment of our Christmas celebrations! (Not sure how I never got this posted....ooops!)

Okay....One more Christmas post! This party actually happened the weekend before Christmas...what a busy time of year!!! 

Every Christmas, we have a little party for a group of our friends.  These are actually mostly Jason's high school buddies...who (luckily for me) married well....and have very cool wives and kids!  I wrote about last year's party here.  So...we get pizzas and everyone brings a snack or dessert and we get together.  We also all draw names for each of the kids and they have a gift exchange. Santa has made an appearance at our last couple of gatherings as well!

Now, this is always a sick time of year...but we have lucked out and had everyone be healthy for this party....UNTIL NOW.  Sadly...a few minutes before things got started, Nikole called and said her kids had fevers :( and they were not coming.  This really bummed us all out...and made for a much smaller group for the picture.  We still had lots of fun....especially the kids.  Also, as the kids expected, Santa DID make his appearance...

Between the 6 guys (Jason, Jeff, Gabe, Eric, Andy, Steve and Jason) there are 17 kids! That would have surprised all of us if you would have told any of us that 10 years ago.... Like I said...the Hoeger family was sick and Andy's baby stayed home to stay away from all of the sick)...but this was not an easy group picture to get.  We actually never got a FULL group picture. :( But here are the attempts.

The kids played very well together (but were very wild!) 

They LOVED it when Santa came down the stairs....well, MOST of them loved it.

Now for a little reminiscing....I had to go back and look for the pictures from our past parties....

I didn't find one from every year...but here is what I have!

This is from 2006! Just Lily, Keaton and a 2 week old Lola.

This was Christmas 2008. (I didn't find any pictures from 2007.)

Here we have Parker, Keaton, Lola, Lily, Colton, Vaughn, Avery and Alaina!

This was Christmas 2009. (Actually in age order!)

Keaton, Lily, Lola, Vaughn, Avery, Parker, Colton, Alaina, Nash, Hayden & Tyce

This was Christmas 2010....2 pictures here...because this was also the first year that SANTA came!

 Keaton, Lily, Lola, Vaughn, Avery, Parker, Colton, Alaina, Nash, Tyce and Tate.

...and in 2010, all of the kids with Santa!

and last year....Christmas 2011....

(and if you want the names...check out the blog post about this last year!)

well...that is it for the Christmas stuff! (Phew) Amazing to see how the kids have 

changed and grown (and multiplied) over the years!

whobody went to animal kingdom? {dw six}

hello....I am finally back on here. I have been having a few technical issues with adding pictures on Internet Explorer...so here I am in a new browser (?!) just trying to catch up!

Okay...so day 3 in Disney World....ANIMAL KINGDOM (or lovingly referred to by Lola and Keaton as "the big zoo"

Warning: lots of pictures again...(and more from this day on the next post!)

I just can't help myself. I want to share all of the 

"good"

ones....with you all AND with myself...since I plan on making this blog our family 'yearbook' (someday)

We had lots of fun at Animal Kingdom. 

Lola was back to her normal self (phew)... it was a bit chilly that day...but still great!  

Here is a picture of my mom and the older 2 walking...

The best part of Animal Kingdom for me (and the 2nd best part for the kids) is the Safari.  We ride in a big jeep through an animal exhibit where the animals are in their natural habitat. According to my mom, we barely saw any animals... 

BUT we all still enjoyed it anyway!

Me and my 'twins' (born 7 years apart)

This is a baby carrier I borrowed (thanks Shannon!) and it was AWESOME. Not only did it make my 30 lb baby easy to carry....it ALSO gave me a chance to snuggle Cruz and have him fall asleep on me.  As I have mentioned before, he isn't a snuggler...so even when it is bedtime....I sometimes sit in the rocking chair in his room and try to get him to just cuddle into me and rock....nope. Doesn't happen... 

BUT in this carrier, he would just lay his head down on my chest and sleep. (Sigh).  

LOVED THAT.

(I really think that was one of my favorite parts of our trip)

I have considered borrowing it again...just to get him to snuggle with me.

p.s. if you ever go to Disney World with a little person in a stroller (who isn't a walker) a carrier like this is a MUST because, although the parks are very stroller friendly....you can't take them into very many places.  

If we had not taken the carrier, we would have had to hold Cruz every time we walked through a line or into a restaurant or exhibit

 (and weighing in at thirty pounds that would have been nearly impossible).  

The carrier SAVED us. And it really wasn't even something I had even thought I would need before the trip...I just brought it for 'just in case'.... Phew! 

Keaton LOVED the safari.  He really likes animals and plans to be a zookeeper someday. He wanted to take notes, but I wouldn't let him  He hated to turn away from the animals for even a second for me to snap pictures. He didn't want to miss anything.

 Nash had fun sitting on Daddy's lap....

COOL! This picture worked out great! Lola LOVES this one.

 Me and my boys....(Lola was sitting with my parents in the row in front of us).

...and, the whole family!

At Animal Kingdom there is so much to see 'along the way' and the kids LOVED taking their time.

Nice smile.

Okay...

So... I have a lot more pictures from Animal Kingdom....but I think that I will put that on the next Disney post....Time to wrap it UP for today!

whobody kissed tigger and friends? {dw five}

Okay...back to the Disney World posts.... (oh no...I wasn't done...we are only on day TWO!)

 

We have had an extremely busy week with lots of fun....so now that the kids are back in school...and the little boys are napping....I am going to keep this blog thing going

with Disney World pictures....

 

So...as I mentioned on my last post about our trip...Day 2....Lola got sick WHILE we were waiting for our table at our supper with Winnie the Pooh and friends. (poor thing)  So, they reset our table for 3 adults and 3 children and we sat down.  

I was so sad that Lola couldn't join us for this meal,

because it was really a lot of fun. 

 The characters were much more friendly this time...

and actually even gave Cruz quite a bit of attention.

 

Cruz really enjoyed his new friends from "the hundred acre woods" and actually gave them all KISSES! (which most of them didn't mind a bit) 

 

He would get so excited when they would come over

and then so sad when they would walk away. 

 

 

 

They even did a couple of PARADES around the restaurant, which Keaton quickly joined. (He was pretty excited that he was the first one behind Tigger! )

Nash even joined in on the next parade.

 

 

This is Cruz crying when Pooh walked away....

 

 

When we walked outside there was actually a dance party going on in the streets...so, of course, we joined in and danced by Woody from Toy Story (you can see him in the picture below).  The older 2 boys thought that was pretty cool!

 

 

We ended the night with a couple of rides...and then headed back to the hotel. Our original plan was to watch a parade that night, but it just didn't feel right with Lola being sick.  We headed back to the room, Lola was just resting...the kids all took baths and watched cartoons (simultaneously) and then we watched the fireworks from our balcony!  (it felt like the night was redeemed with the fireworks).

 

Luckily, Lola only got sick that one time (which was how Nash was when he got sick right before we left)..... so she slept great all night and woke up feeling fine.

THIS bug seemed to be one that you felt sick until you GOT SICK...and then you were better. At least it was a quick one!

We had a wonderful 2nd day in Disney World!