The Happiest Place on Earth!

We decided to take our happy girls to the Happiest place on Earth...Disney World!
Afterall, it would be such a shame to live so close and never have visited our dear ol neighbour Mickey.

So, we strapped the kids in the car and made our way to Disney World (YAY!)




....And Jackie-O...I mean Ava-O


What they don't tell you about Disney is once you've arrived, you really haven't...there is another 2 hours before we were actually in the park.


One trolley,
one monorail,
one train, and
lots of walking later,
we finally arrived at our destination: ToonTown.


First we went to see the house of the Big Mouse...and of course Minnie's cottage. They were both out somewhere (and I don't blame them because their places were packed), so we didn't get a chance to meet them. (although I think we could've waited in the multi-hour line to go meet Mickey).



Bryn enjoyed her first roller coaster with her Daddy. Although I don't know if I would use the word enjoy while she was on it (more like terrified).
I asked her if she enjoyed the ride and she replied "Yes!" So I added, "Would you like to ride again?" Bryn replied immediately with an enthusiatic "No, not today!"
I am hoping we haven't scarred her too much from roller caoster rides.


Meanwhile, Ava displayed some of her ever-creative mad modeling skillz (or she was pretending to surf...I am not sure which- but this is her new pose for everything).


We spent a lot of time, just waiting.

Happy line waiting...


Getting carried line waiting...


Double fisted line waiting...


Lots of waiting (hours to be exact).
But I have to give props to the girls. They handled the waits very well. Or maybe it was just because there were a billion other kiddos all running around, so it kept mine busy. Either way, the lines were tolerable with the odd lollipop or goldfish.

We even managed to enjoy some of the rides.

The infamous Flying Dumbo- Ava's favorite!



It's a Small World World


We walked all over the park...Tomorrowland being my next favorite.



I just loved this camel fountain!!


We attempted to catch Cinderella at home, but she was out at some ball.
So we tried to get a picture of the girls in front of the famous castle with about 5000 other visitors (easier said than done).





After it was dark, we noticed that Cinderella decorated for the holidays too!



There were Christmas lights everywhere! But by the end of the day, it started to all look a little like this:


...and Disney became the UN-happpiest place on Earth as both Bryn and Ava had enough excitement for one day.
This was the last picture before there was a breakdown from both the girls.


Ava is D-O-N-E


So we made our 2 hour trek back to the car.
Not ten minutes from buckling the girls into the car, we turned around to find this:


What a fun and exhausting day! I just couldn't keep up with the picture taking...there was so much to see and do. We will surely be visiting Disney again.(although it will NOT be on a holiday Sunday- yikes)

...and they lived happily ever after.

Our Merry Little Christmas

It all started on Christmas Eve when we were all high from sugar cookie sugar.
Bryn made some "reindeer food" at school (which I think was birdfood) and we sprinkled it on the front lawn for Santa's reindeer.
As you can see, this job was taken very serisouly as I was made to wait on the walkway while Bryn and Ava thoughtfully sprinkled the reindeer food in only the very best reindeer-food places in our front yard. This little event took quite awhile.





We enjoyed a quiet Christmas morning
(as quiet as can be expected at our house anyway) with the girls and Tom's parents.
Fun was had by all.
And I am pretty sure a few trees were sacrificed to support all the wrapping we destroyed within minutes.

Christmas carnage.


Then we enjoyed the rest of the day playing with our new toys.
Tom seemed to enjoy testing out everyone's toys...and cuddled with that baby lion cub a little longer than I care to admit on the internet.


Ava and her cheerleader outfit (I don't think it has come off her yet and she actually napped in it a couple times!)
She was either cheering or having a seizure.


Cookies.
All I remember is lots of cookies. I think I have blocked out some of the day due to a sugar coma.
I am not even sure if we actually ate dinner...there were just so many cookies. . I suppose that explains why my scale has jumped up quite a few pounds, huh?



But fear not, we also managed to burn off some of those calories. Santa brought the Bennetts a new Wii and I love the game so much, that I may actually have to marry it.
It has been the source of super late nights and some very serious competition.
I have mad bowling skillz and am not afraid to use them.
But my new Wii addiction is another story...

Merry Christmas!

It's just past midnight Dec 26th, and I haven't gone to sleep yet. T and I have discovered the joy of Wii, so we are having some serious bowling matches. Knucklehead refuses to acknowledge my superior Wii bowling skillz, so it looks like we could be bowling for awhile here.

It all started this morning.
Very early.
Santa came.
Bryn shrieks.
Wrapping everywhere.
Jill Food.
Open presents.
More food.
Play games.
Yet more food.

A good day that I am sure I will pay for dearly via my scale in the morning. (I love me some holiday baking).
I will update with some pictures very soon.
I hope everyone enjoyed a nice holiday!! (did I mention that it's been 80 degrees hte past few days??)

Easy like a Sunday morning...

A day of play today.
One sunny morning + 2 goofballs = a fun-filled morning!
So we did some walking around the neighbourhood.
Which included going through the trails by the house and praying we didn't run into any snakes (and if we did, they were of the non-poisonous variety).
But we were lucky to see just a few bugs.

My Trailblazers.
(Makes me a little sad that sometimes I can not tell who is who from the back).


Then they decided to pose for a few pictures. These poses are courtesy of the genious stylings of Bryn.
(note the Jackie-O look that Ava has perfected)




Then I tried "say Cheese girlies!"...
But I got cheesy instead.




But I managed to catch a few of their spirit.
Bryn the Beautiful.



I even managed to catch a glimpse of Ava's illusive smile! (that is a task in itself!)

Bake-A-Palooza 2008

Baking.
It's a whole new ballgame when baking with anyone under 3 feet tall. It becomes a team tackle sport at our house. One referee is not enough to follow a recipe in my kitchen. Fortunately, we made through the afternoon with little injuries in the kitchen.

We tried to do some holiday baking and thought it would be fun to have the girls and Ava's "bess fen, Ash-ell-lynd" ("best friend Ashlyn", for those not fluent in Ava-speak), to come and help decorate some sugar cookies.

We let the girls decorate the sugar cookies, by violating them with more frosting and sugar sprinkles than imaginable. I knew it was going to be messy, I did not know just how much cookie carnage there would be.






My help (oh, there was double, even triple dipping going on).


We continued the holiday baking the next day and the girls helped me with some of these sweet treats.







After the baking frenzy, we passed out from sugar comas.
I suppose now we will get ready for the arrival of Santa (which ironically means baking a few more special cookies here).
Maybe this year, we will just leave some Christmas carrots out for Santa as I have had enough of cookies for once and Bryn reminded me that Santa should make a good choice for his snack (although I don't think carrots are going to bring me the same goodies as cookies would).