Delainey's 2nd Christmas!

Christmas Eve morning started off with Dash (the elf) saying farewell to Delainey for the year. He brought her powdered donuts from the north pole and left her a nice note saying she has been very good and Santa will be bringing gifts tomorrow. Bye Dash...until next December! She was loving her donuts!

Then we made a birthday cake for Jesus to celebrate the true reason we celebrate Christmas. Delainey and I are going to make a cake every Christmas eve. This will be our little tradition. After baking we took a nap and got ready for church. I just loved her red corduroy smocked dress this year!

Off we went to church. Delainey did pretty good considering she had to sit through an hour of big church with singing and a sermon. She kept asking "Who's that?" as people came up on stage. We had to duck out of church early to make it to our dinner reservation at Julington Creek Fish Camp. The food was delicious! I am so glad we have a great restaurant around the corner. After dinner we came home, had Jesus' birthday cake and got our christmas eve pajamas. 

The next morning everyone came over to watch Delainey wake up and open her presents. I think she was a little overwhelmed by 10 people sitting in the living room watching her after just waking up. She dove right into opening some gifts, but about half way through the presents she said "read book" and tried to go to her room. She didn't love all the attention on her. Eventually she warmed up and finished opening all of her gifts! She got some awesome stuff! Some things she received are: trampoline, bike, powerwheels jeep, tee ball stuff, shopping cart, minnie mouse dress up clothes, puzzles, books, and the list goes on and on.

After playing with all her toys and taking a nap, we headed over to Dave's parents house for a nice prime rib dinner. It was a fantastic Christmas and so much more fun watching Delainey's excitement through it all. I hope everyone else had a great Christmas spent with family and friends. 

I'm back in business!

I'm back in business and in a big way! Dave gave me the gift of his Christmas bonus from work and with it I bought a new Macbook pro laptop!! So I will be back to the blogging world ASAP! I'll be back soon with a Christmas update!

All things Christmas update!

My lack of blog posts has been due to 2 reasons, 1 we have been so busy doing all types of Christmas activities and 2 my keyboard on the laptop is still broken:( so here is a recap of everything we have been doing over the past few weeks.

Delainey is obsessed with Christmas lights. Every night when we are driving in the car she looks around and says ooh pretty lights! We have taken her to a few special places to see some awesome light shows. Grammy & pops also took her to St. Augustine to see the Festival of Lights.

We also have been doing the Elf on the shelf. His name is Dash, short for Dasher and he flies to a new spot each night and brings Delainey a treat (piece of chocolate) from the North Pole. She wakes up every morning and says Where's Dash? And runs around the house looking for him. I'm not very creative, but she still loves finding him and getting chocolate first thing in the morning;)

We went to Dave's work party at Roy's restaurant. Talk about delicious food. It was a tacky Christmas sweater and we were definitely the tackiest couple there! I also won the 2 gifts for us at the white elephant exchange so that was a great night!

 We did our annual visit to the live nativity with Delainey where she got to feed a camel and pet bunnies, sheeps, goats and tons of other animals. She also enjoyed the huge bonfire and hot chocolate & cookies after. After the nativity we went out to dinner with friends, Maria & Scott and their son Parker who joined us for the nativity.

The next night we went to Luminaria in riverside and saw another small live nativity, sat on santa's lap and saw tons of houses and cars lit up driving down the road throwing candy! Delainey did great with Santa despite me betting that she would cry.

Then on Wednesday, our mom to mom group had a play date and ornament exchange with all the kids. Delainey had a blast on the playing outside on the playground and digging in the dirt.

Then Thursday, we had our girls supper club at Amanda's house and the theme was Christmas around the world. Everyone's dish coordinated with their heritage. We had tabouleh, stuffed grape leaves, collard greens, caprese salad, and German chocolate cake. After dinner we split into teams and had a gingerbread house contest and of course my team won!

Friday was another party with some girls where we did "our favorite things" white elephant exchange and then Saturday was a party at the bishops house. Busy to say the least. We also got to enjoy some beach time on Saturday.

In the midst of all the parties, Tony and Brandi came in town and we celebrated Christmas early yesterday with them. Delainey got some sweet presents! She got some new boots, Nike tennis shoes, a tea ball set, and a trampoline which she's obsessed with.

Today she made some gingerbread cookies with Gammoe and read the story of the gingerbread man and tomorrow we will do our usual Christmas Eve traditions with a new one added in. We usually do church then dinner, and then go back to the house to play a game and get new pajamas to sleep in. I am adding to the tradition that during the day each year we will bake a birthday cake and decorate it to celebrate Jesus' birthday the next day.

I know this Christmas is going to be fantastic because Delainey actually understands what it's about and loves to open presents! I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and remembers the reason for the season!!

Jessica's Bachelorette Recap

Last weekend we headed to Orlando, for Jessica's bachelorette party. The weekend started with a trip to Magic Kingdom.

After Disney, we all started getting ready to hit the town. It is quite the treat having 11 girls get ready in 2 hotel rooms. There was a lot of hairspray and make up that went into making us beautiful. 

We went to dinner at a sushi restaurant called Shari and then hit the downtown bars. There was a lot of dancing, just like the good ole' college days.

The bride &  myself

Saturday we did a little lingerie shower and got fancy for another night on the town. We went to a delicious restaurant called Ceviches. It was all tapas and it was phenomenal. We tried some different downtown bars but of course ended up at the same dance club for round 2 of dancing. 

It was a fantastic drama free weekend which is not always  easy with 11 alpha females! My keyboard on my  laptop is no longer working so who knows  when I will  be back with another post! Maybe Santa will get me a new  computer for Xmas!

19 Month Update

Height: about 35 inches
Weight: about 25 pounds
Head Circumference: about 19 inches
Movement: You are learning to rock climb at my gym, and  you can completely do stairs on your own both up & down. Still working on jumping off of 2 feet though.
Eating Habits/New Foods: No new foods this month. You did get to enjoy some delicious Thanksgiving food. You are not doing so great in the vegetable department. You get most of your veggies through the fruit & veggies pouches. You are obsessed with sweets! Ice cream, chocolate, soda, lollipops to name a few. You also are loving your vitamins. You eat a multi-vitamin, vitamin c, and tums everyday.
Sleeping Patterns: You are still sleeping through the night and average about 12 hours. You take one nap a day in between 12 and 2 and you sleep for 1-2 hours. You are the easiest ever to put down. You say night night, go find your paci, and lay in bed.
Sounds/Words: We call you our little parrot because you literally can repeat any word someone says. It is hard to keep up with all your new words. We are currently working on our manners of please, thank you, you're welcome, sorry, yes & no ma'am, and yes & no sir. We have learned a bunch more songs and still love reading books and identifying objects. You were introduced to "Dash" your elf on the shelf and every morning you say "Where's Dash?" and run around to find him and say "I see him. Hi Dash. He flew to the North Pole."
New discoveries/accomplishments:
-You have 4 new incisors that broke through
-You celebrated Thanksgiving with both sides of the family and it was great!
-You went to Seaworld again with Grammy
-You went to Disney World for the 1st time and met Mickey mouse. You loved the parade and all of the characters. You even enjoyed the rides!
-You went to Erica's gender reveal party and found out your new friend is going to be a boy!
-You went out to Maria's property and played with Parker and saw turkeys and deer.
-You went to Daltyn's birthday party
New Friends I've made: You played with lots of new kids at Daltyn's birthday party and you played for an entire day with Parker. We toured some preschools and decided to start you at Fruit Cove Baptist starting next fall so you will make lots of new friends!
Places you went/Adventures: You went to Disney World! We celebrated Thanksgiving, threw Jessica her bridal shower, & had people over for the FSU vs. UF football game, went to Seaworld, & Erica's gender reveal party
Clothes: You are in 2T sleepers. These are your current sizes: Gymboree-18-24, Target- 24 months, Carter-24 , Old Navy/Gap- 18-24 (For pants we are up to 24 month)
You moved up to a size 5 diaper. They are a little big.

Delainey's 1st trip to Disney!

Yesterday, David & I took Delainey to Disney World for her 1st time. I have been wanting to take her for months, but I wasn't allowed to go without David. So I conveniently picked a date 2 months ago and yesterday it finally happened! We chose to go to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. The usual hours are 7 pm - Midnight, but they let you in 4 pm. Of course we were there ready to go by 4:15 with Delainey dressed in her Mickey santa shirt. She was so excited when we walked in and she saw all the cool lights and buildings. We all had to wear wristbands for the party, even D.

We started the day off by meeting Mickey mouse. The line was about 45 minutes, which Delainey was not a fan of, but it is so worth the wait. Mickey mouse talked and interacted with her unlike the other characters around the park.  She was hesitant and a little scared at first, but soon she was grabbing Mickey's ears and having a good time with him.

Waiting in line...haha

Next we headed to look at the castle and take some pics in front of it

Then we headed to our first ride, It's a small world. Delainey loved the boat, looking at all the characters moving around, and the music. Today she was looking at pictures saying "boat." The lines were great once 7 pm hit and all the normal patrons left. We never waited more than 20 minutes for any ride. 

Notice the monkey on her back...that's a leash and it was a godsend since it was dark and we have a wild woman on our hands. 

We continued with the rides and did The little mermaid, Peter pan, Winnie the pooh, (I did space mountain), Buzz Lightyear, Dumbo, and Storytime with Belle. We also stopped along the way to look at some of the characters, and eat some free cookies and hot chocolate.

After we hit up all the rides, we headed over to Frontier land to eat a turkey leg and stake out a spot for the parade. Delainey was a star of the parade! Almost every character came by and said hi to D. Cinderella even blew Delainey a kiss and she blew one back. I think the parade was her favorite part of the entire night.

It was 11 pm once the parade was over, and Delainey and I were ready to hit up a few more rides, but David insisted we head home since he had to work today. We changed D into her PJs and then headed home. It was 11:45 when Delainey finally fell asleep...what a champ!!

 We had a blast and I can't wait to go back soon with Miss D! It was definitely worth the wait!!