Something To Be Said For A Quiet Playtime!

Last night, I attended a training seminar for some volunteer work I will be doing at our local Crisis Pregnancy Center. I was able to take Lilly with me. However, after eating dinner with Grammy and Poppa, Daddy and Billie spent the evening at home together. Daddy got a little busy with several long phone calls to two of his good friends. So Billie was left to amuse herself for quite some time. Daddy discovered Billie contentedly playing on the bed, not so neatly arranging and rearranging his wallet. Daddy reported that this quiet playtime lasted no less than 45 minutes! He was very proud of her...hence...the pictures!

It's clear to see, Lilly already is very aware of the presence of her older sister. Lilly even grinned at Billie today while I was shooting some of these pictures. I missed the shot, but it was a moment worth mentioning any way!

Dress Up

Billie absolutely loves Loves LOVES Mommy's shoes! The higher the heel...all the better! I heard her clomping around the other day so I grabbed my camera for a few shots. Believe it or not she can keep these 4" heels on very well!

Lilly Smiles

Meeting Tiger

Billie used to get so scared of the characters when we'd visit this restaurant. As you can see, it's not longer Billie who gets scared! And I think poor Tiger felt bad for scaring the baby because he then felt obligated to play peek-a-boo, which I must say didn't really help matters any! :-)

And Then There Was Dinner

We ate dinner at the Crystal Palace. It features a Character Dining experience. The character's come around while you're dining and you have the chance to take some pictures with them.

The Crystal Palace is our favorite restaurants at Magic Kingdom!

Magic Kingdom

Cliff and I have been joking lately. We're going to have to have a 3rd or 4th baby before we're "allowed" to hold any of our children. No seriously, as any parent knows, it's Wonderful to have grandparents around to lend a helping hand and give Mommy's and Daddy's a little break!
On the train...

...The Carousal...again...and again....and again...

...Riding Dumbo

On Monday, Cliff's parents had plans to drive the camper back up to Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground and spend the week at Disney. So on Monday afternoon we drove over to the campground to see them. The plan was to spend the late afternoon and evening at Magic Kingdom. Here we are again on the boat on our way to the place where "Dreams are made!" :-)

Billie and Poppa were enjoying the sights together!

Poppa and Grammy were laughing at Billie's antics!

You Know You're Crazy For Disney When....

We have never been to the Palm Beach Zoo, so Cliff and I started thinking we would take the girls to the zoo since we had planned to take Billie to her other favorite Disney Park, Animal Kingdom, on Monday. But....we decided, why not just go for the gold and drive back to Disney and take them to Animal Kingdom.

So that's what we did! Early on Monday morning, we packed the sleepy eyed babies up and drove back to Orlando!

We had a great day and Billie got to see some of the Animals up very close on the African Safari Ride. She especially

enjoyed the petting zoo too! Unfortunately we failed to take any snapshots of the petting zoo! But Billie spent about an hour running from animal to animal petting and brushing them with the provided accessories. It was way past Billie's lunch time but she was so excited we couldn't interest her in any lunch. So when we left the petting zoo we bought her a hot dog at one of the stands. She wolfed the hot dog down, like a hungry little bear! We've never seen her eat so fast or be so concentrated on getting food down! It was an extra long hot dog and she ate all but two bites!

Home Again, Home Again

Saturday evening when we returned to our campsite, we discovered that whatever circuit the heat & lights was connected to would switch off whenever it was turned on. (Cliff knows all the technical jargon, I do not.) Translation? We had no heat and no lights in the camper. Not exactly what we had in mind with a 23 month old and a 6 week old baby.

Cliff bravely worked for at least 2-2 1/2 hours before we realized that night was very quickly approaching, the temperature was dropping and the battery now only had enough juice to dimly light the camper and the lights were swiftly becoming even dimmer. So despite our disappointment over what was turning out to be a VERY short weekend, we made a decision.
It was time to go home! By the time we got home it was after 1AM! We were all pretty tired, Especially Cliff, because the girls and I slept the whole way home!

Sunday morning we all slept in, and as seen here, the girls played on our bed for a time, while Mommy and Daddy discussed what we would do to get over our disappointingly short weekend. Cliff had Monday off work because of the Holiday so we wanted to do "something" special on Monday.

Family Pictures

Overall we had a great day! We rode "Haunted Mansion, It's A Small World, The Carousal (at least 4 times!), and the People Mover" before deciding we were tired and cold enough, so we headed back to the camper for dinner and some rest and relaxation.....little did we know!

On Our Way

a few pictures on the boat to Magic Kingdom

Back To Disney World!

Yes, we know, we probably love Disney too much, but it's just such a magical place for us, we can't stay away! We were at Disney (specifically) Fort Wilderness Campground the day before Lilly was born! So of course when the first opportunity presented itself we felt it very necessary to take Lilly back as soon as possible.

Last Thursday morning, Cliff had a brilliant idea, we should take the girls to Disney for the weekend. Amazingly we were able to get a reservation at the campground for the entire weekend, Friday evening through Monday. When we got to Orlando, we discovered things were quite cool there! Pictured here: Cliff, Lilly and Billie lounging in the camper bedroom after setting the camper up on Friday night. Also pictured: Saturday morning after our delicious breakfast at Trails End Buffet (also a tradition on Saturdays) we prepared to journey to Magic Kingdom by way of the direct boat transportation.

"Uncle Joe" Visits

Billie always LOVES company! And this weekend was no exception! We were so happy to have a visit from Cliff's cousin, and our good friend Joe Smith, Jr. and or otherwise known to Billie & Lilly as "Uncle Joe!"

As you can see here, Billie loved spending time with Uncle Joe!

Although Mommy really missed not getting to see Calista and Magnus!!!

Chick-Fil-A Friday Night!!!

For those of you who do not have the opportunity or choose not to routinely visit a Chick-Fil-A....You are missing out!!! :-) And for those of you who don't know....Chick-Fil-A (simply put) has the best "fast food" chicken you could possible ever eat!!! In my opinion, you couldn't find better fried chicken anywhere, fast food or otherwise...but now that I'm done with my free advertisement.... :-)

We frequently take advantage of Chick-Fil-A's "Family Night" and other activities. In fact Cliff will be one of the performers on their "Magic Night" coming up the evening of January 27th, from 5-8pm! Anyway...this past Friday night after the "Daddy Date" Lilly and I met Cliff and Billie at Chick-Fil-A. Billie Loves the indoor playground and for the VERY FIRST TIME, she came down a slide all by herself! We were very proud of her bravery! Here she is beaming away at her accomplishment!

And...we all enjoyed our family night out!