A Very Busy Christmas!

Matt, Rachel, and I went to Christmas Eve service with my parents at their church. So, we decided not to go to our church on Christmas morning. We got up at our normal time of 7:45 and Rachel had no idea that she was going to get to open presents. We ate breakfast like normal, she watched some Dora and I got a shower. It was great not to be rushed by a child begging to open gifts. Next year might be different though. Since I already spent a great deal of money on her swingset, she wasn't getting anything else fantastic from us. I got her things she needed like more durable panties and bubble bath. I also got her a $2 VeggieTales movie. I am not a big gift person, but Matt just seems to love to buy me a present, so he got us tickets to The Band Perry's concert at the Strawberry Festival in March. Thankfully, it is on a Wednesday night, so I won't be teaching. I really like this group and we should have a lot of fun that evening. Around 11:00, we headed to my parent's house for lunch and more presents/chaos with the Lantz family too. As always, lunch was delicious and present opening was chaotic. The girls had a lot of fun and all of the adults were exhausted afterwards. We came home and got Rachel a nap before heading over to Matt's parent's house for celebrating Nana's birthday (yes, it is actually on Christmas). Rachel received more presents from the Rhine side of the family and lots of attention. We have been spending a lot of time with family the past week and I have been kind of lazy around the house. Today, I opened and put away all of the gifts we got and have started picking up the house. Thankfully, it is raining so I am not tempted to do anything outside. I have two more weeks of freedom from work before starting up another semester. We are also looking at another potential rental property and Matt is starting some classes with work soon. The new year is sounding busy already, but I think there are great things in store for our family!



Chilling out on Christmas morning with her new Minnie Mouse pillow pal and blanket
her new tea set from Great Grandma


Kate


Reagan is excited about her new toys!


Her new princess slippers from Nana.


Leftovers of the M&M's in her stocking

Rachel got a Belle doll and dress up costume from the Lantz's. She had been proudly wearing the whole day.

Early Christmas Present!

Rachel's swingset got installed today and as I mentioned in the previous post, Matt did not want her to see it until Christmas morning. Well, she got a good look out one of our bedroom windows and she figured it out real quick. There was no stopping her after that and I just let her out on the back porch to watch them put it together. It was great since it was entertainment for her for about 1.5 hours! She has been playing on it nonstop, minus a good nap, and we invited her cousins over for dinner so they could play too.

Christmas Lane

We went to Christmas Lane last night and Matt worked late so he did not go. I really don't think he likes going anyway, so it just happened to work out that they offered him some overtime. Rachel had a good time and liked looking at the different decorations and lights. She was excited to see and hug Santa and stood in the line pretty well for her. She wanted to ride the train and they stuck her in the back, which was a bad move since that left her free to stand up every so often and try to escape. However, as opposed to last year, she didn't cry. Since she is a dancing queen, we found some fake snow and music to let her dance in. When I wanted her to back up, she threw a fit and I decided it was time to leave. We still had fun and I didn't have to stay too horribly long. Rachel's swingset is currently being put together as I type this. Matt wants to put a tarp over it and make her wait until Christmas. I cannot wait to see her excitement!



Practicing saying "cheese" for our picture with Santa. She looks ready to take off.





Rachel is smiling a little too much, but it was better than the usual.

A Very Merry & Cold Christmas Party!

We headed to Orlando on Wednesday for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas. Katie and I and the two little girls went over early to hit one of the outlet malls (namely Vera Bradley and Carter's). The guys were held up a bit because they left their groups tickets at home and had to turn around and get them. While we were waiting, Katie and I walked around the parking lot many many times. The weather was chilly and I think we all wished we had dressed a little better. We walked on just about every ride and the kids got to do a lot. We didn't see too many characters around the park, but the parade and fireworks was really fun and all of the kids enjoyed it or were too tired to put up a fuss. Rachel was scared of the noise of the fireworks and in one of the pictures, you will see her pull her stroller canopy down in an attempt to shield herself from the fireworks. We were there from about 7:30 to midnight. Even though you pay a lot for a ticket and aren't there really long, I still thought it was great because there were no lines for rides.





They have spotted the castle

While Matt and I waited with the three youngest who couldn't go on Space Mountain, Hannah and Rachel played with the camera and took turns taking pictures.


They served very yummy and unlimited amounts of hot chocolate, cookies, apple juice and apple slices. One of the places had a dance party going with Goofy and Pluto out there dancing too. Rachel loved it so much and only ran back to the table to quickly throw back some juice. She was too cute!

She's been creamed!

I know that I have really been blog slacking, but there hasn't been a whole lot to post about, especially when I don't have any pictures. I had a wonderful trip to visit Michael and Amy and we were able to go to Amy's baby shower. That was a lot of fun and so nice to be kid free for a few days! Matt took Rachel to a few parks in my absence as you can see in the pictures below. We had the Rhine side of the family over for Thanksgiving and it was great. Rachel enjoyed all of the attention her family gives her and Matt's brothers broke out some old Nintendo games on the Wii. I understand since I spent more than a few hours at Michael and Amy's playing Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo! We had family pictures taken with a lady from our church. We went to a garden in Lakeland and Rachel was a bit of a pain. She wouldn't look at the camera and smile at the same time. I know she got some good pictures somewhere in that hour. Hopefully we will get them soon and I can start sending them out to family. The two videos at the end are really funny and completely Matt's idea. We all felt bad afterwards, but we laughed really hard.