Amelia and the Train

Darryl, who somehow turned into a Christmas elf this year, bought a train that goes around the Christmas tree. In the first video, Amelia is dying to open the train. She was on the floor, just staring at it, for about 20 minutes before the first video was taken.

Enjoy!

Train Anticipation

The Train's First Run

37

And continuing my retrospective of the past month (see Halloween post below!)...I turned 37 on November 3rd without much fanfare, but I enjoyed a nice dinner with Darryl and Amelia.

And just before Thanksgiving...Allow Me to Present Halloween!

I know, I know. Halloween was, like, several weeks ago.

Ahem.

Anyway...

Last year, we didn't get to do many Halloween festivities because Amelia was sick. We made up for it this year!

Halloween weekend kicked off with Amelia's daycare party. Here's the class, all dressed up:


As several of us were leaving the party, a couple of kids decided to sit in the "cubbies." Pretty soon, we ended up with this:

Saturday, we went to Amelia's friend Sophia's birthday party. Because it was princess-themed and costumes were encouraged, Amelia was able to don her Tinkerbell outfit once again.


That afternoon, we did the Trick or Treat thing at the mall. It wasn't very good...it was crowded, and many of the stores didn't participate.


Sunday morning, the preschool department did a "heroes and princess" theme to close out their month's series of lessons. Darryl works in the K-5 area, and they had a hoedown theme going on, and he was expected to dress accordingly. Allow me to present my cowboy and Tinkerbell:

See my fancy carving work on that jack-o-lantern?

And FINALLY, that night, we went to Sophia's house to Trick or Treat. The two girls were so cute together, running from house to house, saying, "More candy! More candy!" They had so much fun, and it was probably my favorite part of the weekend.

Disney World--in Pictures

Almost three weeks ago (I know--I'm a horrible blogger), we met my parents at Disney World for the weekend. We drove down on Friday after a half-day at school and returned on Monday. We spent Saturday and Sunday having all kinds of Disney fun. I started out writing a post that probably would have been of no interest to anyone but us, so I thought a photo approach might be best. Granted, I have about 200 photos of the weekend, but here are some of my faves.

On Dumbo, our first ride


With Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from The Princess and the Frog--she was so in awe of all the characters she met that she didn't give much of a smile, but she is still talking about it several weeks later.

I'm not going to post a photo of Amelia with every character we met, but since she is currently obsessed with Tinkerbell, I just had to post this one.


This is at a character breakfast we went to (the food was SO good), where we got to meet Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. You can't tell it in this photo, but Amelia was so excited when each character came to our table!


I love this photo, mainly because you can see the fall decorations, "Main Street USA," and Cinderella's castle in the background.


This photo makes me LAUGH. Darryl took it (he was sitting in front of me and Amelia) on Mickey's Barnstormer kiddie roller coaster. Amelia laughed the whole time, and my mother (in the back) was trying to hold on to her glasses. This is actually only one photo in a series of about 10, but this is one of the few where I don't have a massive double chin. :-)


I know the color is wonky in this photo, but I like it anyway. We went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, and Amelia was dressed as Tinkerbell. Her personality completely changed when she put on this dress. Suddenly she was Miss Priss, twirling, singing, and acting prissy. It was quite comical.


Also quite comical was the fact I decided to don some Minnie Mouse ears for the party. Amelia got a kick out of it (anything for my kid, right?). Here we are, enjoying some Sugar Babies (remember them?) before the parade.

We really did have a wonderful time. I do have more photos I will probably show, but it takes a while for them to load. I might do a Part 2 soon...

I also have some super-cute Halloween pics to post, and I am really going to do my best to put them up in the next few days.