Notes from our New Year's

We flew down to FL on New Year's Eve and got there just in time to enjoy Memaw and Papa John's New Year's Eve party and fireworks. Noah also enjoyed his third wave of Christmas presents.


This is what Noah did for much of our time at Memaw and Papa's place. If not riding the Kubota and visiting with the cows and spotting alligators, he was playing with cousins Holly and Hannah. This new Bingo game from Memaw was a real hit and the girls taught him well. Holly did a fantastic job of keeping up with Anna every time she came over. Noah was a little taken aback by the girls' interest in Anna over him, but he was usually successful in getting Hannah to play hide-n-seek, or go see the kittens, or like I said, play Bingo with him.


When Noah wasn't playing with Holly and Hannah's kittens (or Memaw's cat, Kitty), he was asking about getting to see them. Amazingly, his cat allergies never flared up. Weird. I got in some good kitten cuddling time too while I watched bowl game after bowl game.


Papa sacrificed his office for Anna to have her own sleeping space after our first night of sharing a room with her backfired severely. I think she could smell my fear of waking her up. Noah, Josh, and I took in a trip to the flea market with Papa as well. We ate at Sonny's on the way home as Josh's Sonny-meter was dangerously low. On this particular visit, I drank too much Diet Coke and forgot to use the bathroom before we left for the 1 hour trip home. Suffice to say, I was literally in tears for fear of wetting my pants by the time we got home. Papa may or may not have been speeding for my sake, and I may or may not have seriously considered peeing on the side of the road. I was in that much pain.


Noah followed Hannah around like a puppy. In this shot they are both consumed with Nintendo DS. And once Noah got that game in his hot little hands he went into a zone from whence he could not be extracted. Memo to me, put off getting one of those for a long, long time.


Anna spent a lot of time in Holly's arms.


Memaw and I stayed home with Anna one night while the boys went to a chili cook-off. Anna got real fussy and then real silly and stayed up late with the girls...if late means 7:30. Then I watched some more football. :)


Noah got in lots of playtime with Memaw. There was lots of puzzle solving and Bingo playing.


Memaw kept Anna for us again for our overnight trip back to Disney. Anna may not have gotten in any theme park time yet, but she has met and exceeded her quota for love, snuggles, and spoiling! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Memaw! Papa, too!


Joyriding on the water taxi at Downtown Disney just hours after we arrived. If you can't tell, I am freezing my tookus off! We all were. The crosswinds on the water were just an added perk.


We ate at T-Rex and it was pretty cool. It's essentially a dinosaur version of the Rainforest Cafe. Noah loved it, but was pretty anxious at the same time. It was hard for him to eat with his fingers shoved in his ears every time the dinosaurs started moving or roaring.


So at the end of the night, he got McD's for his real dinner on the way back to the hotel.


The next morning we headed out to Magic Kingdom. This is my favorite shot. I don't have a picture of Tigger throwing his body into me and into Pooh and into Josh, too. But he did. He was a bouncy fellow indeed.


Right in front of Cinderella's castle with MY little prince.


This picture is funny to me because it catches Noah's strange but funny habit throughout this day. He would grab our faces, plant his mouth on our cheeks, and make that noise resembling big, ugly toots. A real prince. In this shot it was just before we finally got to redeem our Fast Pass ticket on the Peter Pan ride for which Noah felt like he had waited all day.


It was a nice surprise for us to see all the Christmas decorations still up at Disney.


Noah and Josh waving at Mickey and Minnie on the first float of the parade. We had a great view of everything from the second floor of the train station deck.


Goofy rounded out the parade, but Woody was the best surprise to see during the show.


Tuckered out on the shuttle back to the hotel.