Family Time!

We've had the pleasure of visiting with some of my cousins this past week. Last Saturday, my Aunt Lily, Uncle Guih, cousins Liza and Brian and Brian's wife Amy and son Tylor (age 16 months old) came into town to catch a cruise to celebrate Lily's 60th birthday. Since they we're getting on a cruise, they were only in town for a day but we traveled to their hotel in Ft. Lauderdale to say hello before they set sail. It was great to see all of them and Allison had a great time playing with her little cousin Tylor.

They even played ring around the Rosy:

Then it was time to say good-bye so Tylor blew Allison a kiss (what a cutie pie!!):

This weekend, my cousin Evan and his wife Jin came into town from NYC . My aunt and uncle had us over for a yummy lunch - crab cakes and all (my favorite!). I promised my aunt that she would be on the blog, so here are a few pics of our visit:

Evan and Jin came bearing gifts. Allison is now more stylish than me with her new Couture jacket:

Daniel also had fun opening gifts...he got a sesame street ball and Oscar the Grouch:

My aunt also bought Daniel a gift - a snowman- that Daniel took apart and put back together in his own special way:

Then Daniel dined on chopped liver, that's right chopped liver. Not sure where he got the taste buds for that from - neither Jeff nor I are a fan of it (must be from grandma!):

That chopped liver sure will make you thirsty!

Evan and Jin

Picture Time!

Grandma and Daniel
And lastly, the kids had fun playing dress-up with some of my Aunt's hats:

We hope to see more family next year (and friends too of course). Feel free to visit. The weather is beautiful this time of year - 75 and sunny!

Allison's First Play

I finally got around to converting Allison's kindergarten play from a non-digital to a digital format so that I could upload it for all to see. Mind you, it's a bit long - the whole thing is about 16 minutes but that includes two songs before the show - "Gingerbread Kids are Fun to Bake" and "Gingerbread Kids" (to the tune of Jingle Bells). So if you have a few minutes to spare and would care to watch the show...here it is in its entirety. Enjoy!

Horsey Rides

We took the kids to a birthday party on Sunday and they had a neat surprise - miniature horses! This was the first time either one of them had been on a horse or any type of animal for that matter and they really seemed to enjoy it. Just wanted to share a few pictures that my wonderful friends Pam and Jenny took (since I forgot my camera):

Oh, and one more. I just thought this was a great shot of Jeff and Daniel . After all, who needs a horse when you can ride on daddy's shoulders.

Tiny Talk...Err,..Not Really

Well I did have a Tiny Talk all set for today...and then my computer crashed...and crashed hard. I think it had to do with a dry erase board that fell on it in the middle of the night (don't ask). After talking to Dell, and spending $50 I was at least able to determine it wasn't a hardware problem. Since it was a software problem they wanted to charge me another $129 to continue talking to them so i hung up. I was at least at the point where I could reinstall windows (before talking to dell I couldn't even get to that point). I knew the Windows reinstall was easy, but I wasn't sure how to do a data back-up. I was pretty sure the data would still be there after the re-install but halfway through I realized it might be a challenge trying to access it. Long story short, the reinstall went well but I ended up having to purchase a data recovery software to extract my data. It was cheaper than what Dell was charging me, but not by much. But then again, what price would you pay to have all your data restored? Luckily I have most of my pictures stored on DVD's, although it had been a year since I had created a back-up which means the only copy of my pictures from the last year were on my hard drive. I also had some important files from my Moms Club since I am the treasurer (which of course I didn't have a back-up of) and all of my financial data from the past, oh...7 or 8 years. Luckily, for the low low price of $70 I was able to retrieve all of this wonderful data. It might sound pricey but it's much cheaper than it would have been if I had taken my computer somewhere to have someone else do it - that was running at least $200. So luckily I have a little computer knowledge and am able to do this myself, with the help of the handy dandy software of course. It's not an easy process but I'm just happy to have my data back. Of course there is a lesson here - back up your data!! So long story short...I had written down my Tiny Talk but it was lost in the madness. If I can locate it by next week I will be sure to post it.

A Quick Weekend Getaway

This past weekend we took a trip up to Orlando to get away for a few days and visit Disney's Hollywood Studios. Daniel is really into a lot of the Playhouse Disney characters like Tigger and Pooh, Little Einsteins and Handy Manny so I figured it would be fun to take him there. I also made reservations for a character lunch at the Hollywood and Vine restaurant where the kids got to meet Leo and June from Little Einsteins and JoJo and Goliath from JoJo's Circus. Daniel wasn't familiar with JoJo since the show isn't on anymore but he was quite enthralled by seeing Goliath the Lion. I think he loves lions almost as much as he loves monkeys!

We arrived Friday evening and after checking into the hotel, we headed on over to the Mall of Millenia to eat dinner at PF Changs. I had never been to this mall - it's really beautiful, especially with all the holiday decorations. Here's Jeff and the kids (with silly faces) with the enormous Christmas tree:

And the kids posing in front of some lights:

The next day it was off to the park! Soon after we got there, we ran into Daniel's favorite characters - Lightning McQueen and Mader:
Then we ran into Jeff's favorite character:
Soon after it was time for lunch. Allison enjoyed dancing with Leo and June:

Then Goliath came by and said hello. Daniel was so excited to see the big lion:

But only Allison would pose with JoJo. Can't say I blame Daniel - clowns are a bit scary!
Then i got up to get some more food from the buffet and came back to this:
I'm still not quite sure what happened - apparently Daniel went to drink his milk and accidentally drank from Allison's cup...which had Sprite in it. Apparently that caused a few tears. But they quickly got over it when June and Leo stopped by to say hello:
Next it was off to the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground" which was probably their favorite part of the park, especially the big net jungle area. I was really impressed with how well Daniel did climbing through it. Jeff had fun following them too.

The big fast green slide was fun too:
We somehow managed to drag the kids away from the playground to continue on with our day. Next we met Sully from Monsters Inc. As expected, Daniel was quite frightened by him, as you can see in this picture:
We figured we better take Daniel to see someone less scary so we went to see Buzz and Woody next:
By this point, the kids were quite exhausted. Before we knew it, they were both zonked out:
Jeff took advantage of this opportunity and went for a ride on the Rockin' roller coaster while they were napping. Afterwards, I donned my hat and said cheese:
While all of that was fun, I'd have to say the best part of the day was seeing the light display. It was simply amazing. These pictures don't do it justice. If you ever have the chance to go around the holidays, you must see this in person. Allison even said she was happy we went to Hollywood Studios instead of Magic Kingdom because she was so enthralled with the light display. Here are a couple pictures, but go see it for yourself:
But that's not all, they choreographed the lights to move with holiday music. I managed to get a short snipit on video:



Before the light display, we saw the Fantasmic Show in the outdoor amphitheater. It's basically a water, light, laser, and music show. After arriving early for good seats and waiting around for about 45 min, right when the show began Daniel had to go to the bathroom of course. Jeff tried to take him but for some reason he wouldn't go for Jeff. So I ended up having to take him. He was also a bit frightened by the two minutes of the show that he did see so I ended up leaving with him while Jeff and Allison enjoyed the show. From what I saw of it, it was pretty neat, but of course I don't have any pictures to show. It turned out to be a great day, even though they were calling for rain all day, we never got a drop!

Magnificient Miles with Mickey

I'm sorry I have not blogged much recently. It's hard for me to focus on putting blog posts together because all I can think about is my sister, her husband and their adorable baby Miles. Most of you are familiar with the situation and I don't want to go into all the details in this post, I just want to let everyone know that Miles is comfortable and Bonnie and Michael and enjoying every moment they have with him. She sent me this picture yesterday and hopefully she doesn't mind me sharing it with everyone. I was amazed at how alert he looks because when I visited a couple weeks ago he was asleep most of the time.He is just so adorable and I wanted you to be able to put a face with his name.That being said we're taking the kids to Disney for a couple days. I'm going to bring this picture with us. We love you Miles!