December Daily 2009

For the last two years I have been doing a December Daily Album, a scrapbook of each day in December with a photo and some journaling. Here are a few shots from our December so far.

December 1

Pulling out our holiday book basket and discovering our old favorites (again). Lennox screamed "I remember this book" over and over again. 

December 4

Gingerbread Extravaganza at the Jacksonville Historical Society on a field trip. Amazing. Next year we have decided our school needs to enter one too.

Later that night

Listening to Polar Express on CD and reading along in the book before bed. Love this book. Never loses it's charm.

December 5

Christmas in Avondale with friends. A talk with Santa to tell him what we want for Christmas (a Transformer and a Trio Castle). 

Getting giddy in the middle of Avondale after a long night. 

December 6

Baby Jesus in the Batmobile. Lennox has a play nativity set. Apparently this how Baby Jesus likes to ride :-)

Decorating the Christmas tree the same day. Lennox had to wear the entire Christmas ensemble to decorate.

His section ended up being very crowded.

December 7

Lennox's favorite ornament keeps getting swiped from the tree for playtime.

Look at those dirty little sleeves after a day at school.

December 10

Visiting Santa Claus officially. Same Santa we have seen for the last five years.

He LOVED his shirt and tie.

Then a trip to Kuhn Flowers for the Christmas display.

December 11

Very Merry Christmas Party at Magic Kingdom. Cold and rainy, but we had free hot chocolate all night. Lennox loved the parade and fireworks and took a trip down Splash Mountain for the first time. 

December 12

Ice! at Gaylord Palms. It was 9 degrees in here. So amazing. Lennox has been talking about this for days. He told us he told his teacher and his friends all about it at school.

Then a late night at Magic Kingdom, Buzz ride and more Splash Mountain.

December 13

Jaguars vs Dolphins with the family.

And very tired during the walk back to the car.

More to come. December is always such a busy month. I love capturing the little and big moments as we get ready for the big day!

Holiday Photos 2009

This year we decided to forego the traditional portrait studio pictures for our Christmas cards and do a shoot with a professional photographer on location, Wendy Updegraff. It was a great idea. We went down to Flagler College in St. Augustine. I love that these are photos are not so posed and that they capture my silly Lennox. We will definitely continue to use photographers on location. I love the way Wendy edited our photos too. 

Disney Doings (November 20-22)

We are getting back into our Disney groove again. Mama spent a week at a conference in Orlando and on Friday when it was over my boys met me down there for some fun. Saturday morning we got up early and went to Hollywood Studios to make it into the Toy Story Mania ride. The line is always insanely long. We still had to wait in line, but it was worth it and now we are all wishing for the Toy Story Mania game for our Wii. 

Then we went over to the Star Wars section. Lennox loves that he is now big enough for all the good rides.

We met our friends at Epcot for lunch in Germany. The kids piled into the stage area to dance to the music and watch them play bells. Lennox turned into a dancing fool as usual with his friend Bella. 

In Mexico they got to cuddle up to the Mexican Donald Duck! 

We spent the whole weekend with the Polkeys at Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Being with an older buddy made Lennox a little adventurous. He ended up going on Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain for the first time. Thunder Mountain was awesome. Lennox told us to put our hands up in the air. The first time we went through I had a death grip on him, but by the second or third we were all pros. Space Mountain was another story. Mama was a nervous wreck before and during the ride. It would have been fine if we could have be seated together. But, we were all in different seats. I ended up leaning forward in the seat and holding on to him the entire ride. At first he loved it. He was screaming and yelling about it. But, then he got super quiet and we knew he was scared. We all made it through. I told Mark and Lennox I would not be able to let Lennox ride that again until he was a LOT older because I thought my heart would jump out of my chest. I was so worried. Turned out that it was a bit too much for Lennox anyway and he says he doesn't want to do it again either. Thank goodness!

Wild Things...

Where the Wild Things Are has been a favorite in our house for a long long time. Daddy passed on his love of this classic book to Lennox. We were so excited when we found out about the movie coming out and of course Lennox was dying to see it. On Saturday we finally made it to the movie theater. Lennox thoroughly enjoyed the movie and he was sure to tell me that night how the book compared to the movie (mama had a proud teacher moment). As soon as the movie was over all Lennox could talk about was getting a Max costume. We had been looking at some online for Christmas and mama had shown some of them to Lennox. When we woke up Sunday Lennox begged and pleaded to go find a costume. We went to Toys'R'Us and looked while Lennox made out his Christmas wish list. Of course there was no costume to be found. But Lennox persisted. So mama relented and got the Max jammies she had hidden and gave Lennox an early Christmas gift. Lennox was so happy. From that point on we were not allowed to call him Lennox anymore, he was officially Max. He was a little perturbed that the jammies did not have whiskers, a tail, or buttons. But, he was super excited to be Max and called for lots of royal rumpuses that night. Lennox went to bed with the jammies on, but after two hours was still wide awake. He was so hot in his outfit. Luckily we convinced him to take it off finally by promising he could take it to school to wear after school when Den Den picked him up to play.

On Monday Lennox went over to Gran's house to play with Den after school. Mama asked her to stop at the costume store to see if she could find a tail for the Max jammies. The costume shop was closed so Den got creative and made a tail out of socks and made whiskers with Gran's mascara. He spent all day ordering wild rumpuses. On the way home my wild thing completely knocked out :-)

But, as soon as Daddy got home there were more rumpuses. And Daddy added a "bonfire" for the boys to circle. 

And then Lennox tried to scare the other wild thing in the house.  

I have to say that even though the constant changing into costumes gets to be a little much sometimes, I love my little boy's imagination. So happy I have a little boy who imagines himself in all kinds of little adventures. 

Halloween Night 2009

After a day of football watching, Astronaut Lennox was ready for some Trick-or-Treating fun! 

This year we went back to Oma and Opa's neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating. First Lennox hit Oma and Opa's house. They were surprised to see a little astronaut at their door.

Then we started our neighborhood rounds. Lennox's cousin Emma joined us. 

We hit the doors for two hours straight and Lennox made out like a bandit again. So much candy! And he was too tired after all that Trick-or-Treating to eat anything. Towards the end we were pushing him around in the stroller, right up to the doors, and then he would hop out to ring the doorbell -:-) Lennox sang "This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas all around Charter Point. And on Sunday, when mama tried to sing it in the car, I was quickly told that it was no longer Halloween and could not sing it. Guess we will be moving on to some Christmas songs now. Or continue singing "Party in the U.S.A." Our Toys'r'Us catalog came this weekend and Lennox is already planning his Christmas list. We are definitely moving into our favorite time of year around here!