Disney Princesses on Ice!

For Christmas this year, Aunt Domi and I got Caroline and Abbey tickets to go see Disney Princesses on Ice...after a long wait, the day finally arrived! Abbey was so excited - she told me she couldn't wait to go ice skating with princesses...hmmm...I had to break it to her that we would not, in fact, be skating with the princesses but rather watching them skate as they sang and danced. Luckily, she still seemed excited! We got to the arena early and went down to take pictures by the ice! Here are the two princesses of the day (as a side note, my other princess and Ben went with Daddy to the Museum of Science and Industry for the day, so don't worry, they had their fun too)!

Abbey, Caroline and Aunt Domi...

Me and the girls...

My oldest princess and I...

We bought the tickets months ago, so we had fantastic seats! We were 5 rows back from the ice, on the end, and could see everything extremely well. I didn't even need my telephoto lens to get great shots!

The show went through 3 of the princess stories: The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. The Rapunzel story was my favorite - she flew through the air with her hair!

She even used her hair to fly with Flynn Rider...

Again, just showing how close to the action we were...

It was very cool to see Maximus ice skating! Caroline asked me if he was the same horse she saw in the circus a few months ago, but I said it probably wasn't....

Then it was time for the grand finale and guess who came out...ARIEL AND PRINCE ERIC!!! The look on Abbey's face when Ariel skated out was priceless. Her whole face lit up with sheer joy and excitement and it actually brought tears to my eyes. All the other Disney princesses came out too, but seeing Ariel really topped the cake of this amazing day for her!

She then started dancing in the aisle, which was very cute, and here she is waving to Ariel (and all the other princesses too).

Caroline was waving too - and also very excited!

It was a great show and very fun for the girls to experience it together. They both came home with Rapunzel souvenir cups (that at one time had an icee in it) and wonderful memories. So fun!

Sledding!!!

We got 6-8 inches of snow on Friday (on top of the few inches we still had left from the previous storm), so it seemed like a great time for some sledding! We met up with our friends, Aiden, Connor, and Gavin and had a great time. Just to warn you though, we took over 600 pictures with our fancy new telephoto lens and they all turned out great, so it was hard to limit them...but enjoy some of my favorites!

I don't think Ben enjoyed it at all, as you can tell by his face expression...

Ben and Connor...

It took Abbey a little bit to get warmed up. At first she only wanted to go with either me or Paul, but she did enjoy it.

Then she started going down with Connor.

Juju only went with me or Paul, but she loved it and as soon as we would get to the bottom she would ask to go again!

Ben and Aiden had a good time!

Abbey and Connor...

Happy Boy!

Having fun!

It was really cute to watch Abbey and Connor work together as a team to bring the sled back up the hill!

Everyone had a great time!

I guess the snow is worth it sometimes :)

Happy Birthday Uncle Brandon!!

Uncle Brandon turned the big 40 this weekend and we went over to help celebrate! But while the guys all went out to dinner, we got to hang out at the house and have some good cousin time. Ben and Hunter played wii...

Juju hung out with Daddy after he came home from dinner...

Then it was time for cake! Uncle Brandon let the kids help him with the candles!

YAY!!!

Then Juju found Cousin Andrew, her best buddy, and a dry erase board that she could color on and erase.

And she was a very happy little girl!

Happy Birthday Uncle Brandon!!!

Snow!

We have had an incredibly warm winter thus far, which has been fabulous for this Florida girl! We had several days in the 50's in January, which we took advantage of with trips to the park, playing in our backyard, and even having a picnic outside! But winter finally did hit with some snow and the kids could not have been more excited! Luckily Daddy was on hand after work one day to help them play in it (remember, this Florida girl does not like the snow!). Ben had read in a book somewhere about building an igloo with recycling bins, so that was first on the snow playing agenda! Luckily, Daddy was able to help them fill it with snow and build the blocks!

Once the block was put down, it helped to jump on it to get the snow block to come out...

Looking good!

This little one didn't last too long in the snow - she wanted to come in and snuggle to get warm and I was happy to help her out with that!

Don't worry though, Abbey was happy to get her stuff on and get out there for as long as possible!

They even scooped out an entry way that the kids could crawl through!

Ben going inside of the igloo to be with Abbey!

We did get it even higher than this, but could not get the roof on. It snowed some more and it looked a little less structured, but still great. I think the kids enjoyed it. Thanks Paul for building it with them!

Museum of Science and Industry

Well we decided to make use of our membership again and take a trip downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry! That museum is so huge that we spent all day (well, for us all day is about 4-5 hours) and only saw one corner on one floor of the museum! We plan to go a lot and try to see the entire museum throughout our year-long membership! But today, we learned about cows...

And farming - wow those tractors are big!

Then we went to a presentation about poop...that's right, poop! That is what it was called, but it was about digestion. It was a good presentation though.

And look who got to help out!

Then the kids got to "drive" a combine! It was pretty cool because they had a huge screen in front with some fake corn stalks and it showed them plowing the fields on the screen based on their driving. It was a fun exhibit.

There was also a really neat pin ball machine - the biggest in the world! The kids were very fascinated with that and luckily we were able to find a table right next to it to have lunch so the kids could keep watching.

They learned how to work gears...

And there was even rock climbing!

Go Ben!

We learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and realized just how much more there is to see in this museum!