A Busy January

We started off January with a relaxing New Years Day spent at home.  We just enjoyed some family time and took it easy most of the day.  It was nice to have some down-time after a busy holiday season before returning to work the following day.

Since all of the schools in Genesee County closed a couple of days early prior to Christmas break, Carson had his preschool Christmas party on Wednesday, January 2nd and his Christmas program on Friday, January 4th.  I went in for his party at school.  I thought it might be really strange, to be celebrating Christmas so late... but it really didn't feel that strange at all.  The kids sang some songs for the parents and did a small enactment of the Christmas Story, exchanged some gifts with their teachers, and ate some tasty treats.  It was a lot of fun and so cute, as always.

We all went to Carson's Christmas program on Friday night, too.  We were so excited that much of our families could be there to support Carson and make him feel extra special, too!  Thanks, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Danny, Aunt Julie, Uncle Jason, Anna, Joel, Jonah, Nana, Papa, Great Poppy, Uncle Mike and Aunt Jeri!!  Carson sang very well this year - you could definitely pick his voice out of the group, LOL!  The program was very nice and it was a good time.

We took a trip down to Sterling Heights to visit our friend, Ben, and his son, Anthony.  This was our first time seeing Ben's new condo - which was really nice!  It was great to see them and catch up.

Kevin found out he had a kidney stone on the 8th.  Thankfully his pain levels were not as bad as others have experienced with kidney stones, but it was still quite a discomfort for him and lasted most of the month. 

We got to see Auntie Jaime and Grant while they were home one weekend.  Auntie Jaime is expecting baby #2 in May and this was probably the last time we'll see them until they have the baby.  As always, our time together felt way too short, but we take what we can get.  :) 

We had our neighbors over for dinner one night, which was a lot of fun.  We had a nice time visiting and Carson and Jace had a blast together.  They played with all of Carson's toys, built Legos, played the Wii, and just ran around having fun. 

We took Carson to the Shrine Circus.  We left Bristol home with Nana and we met our neighbors there.  It was Carson's first trip to the circus and he had a lot of fun!  He got to ride an elephant for the first time, too!

Bristol came down with her first cold.  Luckily there was only one rough day and it didn't end up being that bad of a cold.


My parents bought us a new kitchen floor for Christmas.  So we spent a weekend installing it.  It's still not completely done, but its mostly done and looks great!  Such a big improvement over the last floor!!

I hosted a Thirty One party with some friends and family on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was fun!  Its always good to have a girls' night!

I also started taking some Zumba classes twice a week with my neighbor, Kerri.  We've been having a lot of fun, all while getting a decent workout, too.  :)

In addition to all of this, we played in the snow, made art projects, went on some winter nature walks, went to story time at the library, had a play date, and did lots of baking and cooking with the kids.  Carson still enjoys helping to bake and cook and Bristol is starting to get very interested in it already, too.  Mostly, I think she just wants to do everything her brother does, but she does enjoy it.  :)

Bristol is continuing to be a good eater.  This was her first time trying green beans and it was so funny! She now eats them with no complaint, but it took quite a few times trying them.

December 2012

December seems like such a blur right now.  We returned from Disney on November 30th and it was pretty much a whirlwind until Christmas.  Lots of shopping and prepping for Christmas.  We also went to our niece, Anna's, orchestra concert (she plays the violin).  We also went to Anna's school play in which she played the lead role.

In early December, there were lots of protests in downtown Lansing for some bills that were being pushed through during the legislative lame duck session.  I work across the street/just behind the Capitol and got to see it all.  The police presence downtown for a couple of weeks there was quite impressive.  On December 11th, the biggest protest took place with thousands of people.  I brought my camera to work that day and walked over on a break to check things out.  The protests were mostly peaceful, though the whole ambience was reminiscent of being in East Lansing during the riots during my MSU days.

Bristol, Kevin, and I played the part of the Holy Family in our church's annual Journey to Bethlehem, which is a live walk-through nativity.  We went through it as a family on Friday night (the 14th) and then we played our part on Saturday night.

We were planning for Carson's preschool Christmas program and class Christmas party on December 20th and 21st, but they ended up being postponed until January when all of the schools in Genesee County were closed two days early before Christmas break.  

On Saturday, the 22nd, we went over to Kevin's sister's house for a surprise party for our brother-in-law who was turning 40.  Uncle Justin, Aunt Mary, Rebecca, and Abram made the trip for it, too, and we were fortunate enough to be able to spend some time with them at our house before the party.  It was great to have some time with them to catch up a little and let the kids play.  Then we all headed over to Aunt Julie's for Uncle Jason's surprise party.  He had no idea and was totally surprised!

We started up our Christmas activities on Sunday, the 23rd at Nana and Papa's house with Nana, Papa, Aunt Lindsay and Dave, Great Grandma Jackie, and the four of us.  We all went to lunch at Panera after church and then headed over to Nana and Papa's house to open gifts and visit.  We all got some very nice gifts.  Carson's big gift from Nana and Papa was an iPod Touch, which he was so excited about, as well as some Legos, toys and clothes.  Bristol got lots of fun toys and cute outfits.  Kevin and I got a new kitchen floor (its currently on order) and some money.

On Christmas Eve, we went over to Aunt Sharon's house for Christmas with the Burge family.  We enjoyed a great meal, laughter, visiting, and exchanged some more great gifts.  The adults always do a $20 man/woman gift exchange and the kids all receive gifts from the aunts/uncles.  I think all of the kids were happy with their generous gifts.  :)

On Christmas, we celebrated at home as a family in the morning.  Santa brought Carson some Legos and Bristol a vanity mirror toy.  They also received some gifts from Kevin and I.  We did not buy them much this year, though, since we all went to Disney.  That was our gift for ourselves this year.

We headed over to Grandpa and Grandma's house in the afternoon for Christmas with the Hollebooms.  As usual, everyone was very generous and the tree was overflowing with gifts.  The kids all loved all of their gifts.  Carson's big gift was a Walt Disney World Monorail set and Contemporary Resort!  He was SO excited and just screamed when he unwrapped it!  After gifts, we had a nice meal and spent lots of time visiting and just having a good time.  It was a great day.

On Saturday, the 29th, we made the trip west to Hudsonville to celebrate Christmas with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van.  We had another nice meal, exchanged gifts, and spent lots of time visiting.  It was great to see them looking so healthy and well!

Kevin had the time between Christmas and New Years off from work.  I had to work a couple of days, but it wasn't too bad.  We actually had a white Christmas this year and received more snow in the days after Christmas, so we spent some time playing out in the snow.  Bristol went sledding for the first time and Carson got to try out his new skis. 

So that was our December.  We were very blessed to have spent time with those that we love as we celebrated the birth of our savior.  We cherish our time spent together and the memories that we have made as we look forward to the new year.  We hope that you all had a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! 

Our Disney Vacation!

Our big vacation of 2012 was a week long trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.  For years, we had been talking about taking Carson to Disney when he was 5 years old.  Then we had Bristol and decided if we waited till Carson was 5 (and Bristol was 1... a.k.a. mobile), it would probably be a difficult trip for Bristol's age.  So we decided to go when Carson was 4 years, 9 months... close enough to 5... and Bristol was 5 months old (a.k.a. not mobile).  Honestly, we couldn't have picked a better age for a first trip to Disney for Carson.  I had heard from many other moms that the 4-5 year age range is the best for the first Disney experience.  And I wholeheartedly agree!  However, I do believe that a trip to Disney will be wonderful at any age, really, but I don't think that any other age is quite as magical as the 4-5 year range.  You won't ever get that fantasy/make-believe/imaginative stage back.  Yes, I'm sure Carson will still be into make-believe and have a great imagination next year and the year after... but it will be different at that point.  So I am SO GLAD we went when we did.  And we cannot wait to go back again.  Even Kevin looks forward to our next trip.  And even though we ourselves thought we may be a little crazy to take an infant to Disney, it really wasn't bad at all.  The first day was a little rough, but otherwise Bristol did great (with the exception of the bus rides) and enjoyed the trip a lot.  She was able to go on the majority of the rides, which was really fun!  She really did enjoy most everything!

Our trip was made even more wonderful because Grandma and Grandpa decided to join us!  We are so happy they did and are so thankful to have such awesome memories with them!  We've taken several trips with different parts of Sara's family, so it was a special treat to get to vacation with some of our Holleboom family.  We hope that we can do more trips in the future, too.

We arrived on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 24th.  We had a direct flight from Flint to Orlando.  Bristol and Carson both did awesome on the flight.  Bristol slept for most of it and was so good - a perfect first flight!  Then we boarded the Magical Express and headed to our resort.  Grandpa and Grandma had spent the day at the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, but they were at the resort when we arrived that evening.  We stayed at a value-priced resort called Pop Century.  We checked into our room and went to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma at the resort dining hall.  We had thought we may make a trip to Downtown Disney after dinner, but we were all pretty tired and decided to call it a night and return to our rooms so that we could get settled and relax a little.

On Sunday, we got up and headed out to the Magic Kingdom for the day.  It was so awesome to see Carson's eyes just light up and a huge smile on his face when we walked onto Main Street U.S.A. and saw Cinderella's Castle.  We arrived just as one of the parades was starting, so we got to see most of Carson's must-see characters right away - Sebastian from the Little Mermaid, Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, and of course, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy.  There were many other characters, too, but those covered most of Carson's must-sees (other than Gaston).  We rode lots of different rides - the Tea Cups, Peter Pan, Small World, Ariel's Grotto, the Speedway cars, the carousel, and a couple of others, too.  We got to see all of the New Fantasyland that is opening this year (more to come next year and in 2014), as well, which was pretty fun since it wasn't supposed to be open until the following week.  We stayed in the park until they lit up the castle with (as Carson will tell you) 200,000 lights.  :)  It is SO beautiful!!  The pictures just do not do it justice at all.  Seeing Disney World at Christmas is so amazing - I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

On Monday, we got up early so that we could get to the Animal Kingdom before 8:00am for their Extra Magic Hours.  We rode the Safari, did some shopping, looked at lots of different animals, Kevin and Bruce rode Expedition Everest (their "rock on" picture below is one of my favorites from the trip), and we saw the Lion King live show, which is always a great show.  We had a great safari - the trick is to go first thing in the morning when the animals are most active.  We got to see all of the animals, I think.  We even had to wait for a couple of giraffes to move out of the way for a few minutes during the safari.

We left the Animal Kingdom and headed back to the resort to have lunch and relax a little and let the kids take some naps.  Then we headed out to Downtown Disney for the evening.  We met up with Sara's cousin, Kristin, and her husband Joe and two boys, Brody and Brock, for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's.  It was so good to see them!  We haven't seen Joe and Kristin since Kristin was pregnant with Brody... and he'll be three in January!  Thankfully we have the phone, email, text, and facebook, though.  So it doesn't feel like we are so disconnected, at least.  :)

After dinner, we walked around Downtown Disney together and did some browsing in some of the shops and toy stores.  Carson and Brody had so much fun together!  Carson also got to go into the Lego Store with Grandpa, Grandma, and Daddy, which he was SO pumped about!

On Tuesday, we headed to Epcot for a couple of hours.  Grandpa and Kevin wanted to ride Soarin' - but all of the FastPasses were done for the day, so we mostly just walked through the World Showcase and did some shopping.  Then we returned to the hotel to relax and swim in the pool.  This was Bristol's first time swimming.  The water was nice and warm and she really enjoyed it a lot!

After swimming and a quick nap, we grabbed a quick dinner and packed up to go to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.  This is a special Christmas event that requires an additional ticket to attend.  It runs from 7pm to midnight.  And it was worth every penny.  They have a special parade that we actually got to see twice.  The first time, we were right on Main Street U.S.A.  The second time, we were blocked by the parade in Adventureland.  The second time is when Carson really got special attention from all of the cast members.  He was thrilled that so many of the princesses waved right at him and blew him kisses.  :)

There is also a special Holiday Wishes show for the Christmas party, which is their light and fireworks show.  It was so cool.  Both kids were just mesmerized and totally loved it!  I have a video of the finale on my phone, but the file is too large to email.  I will plug my phone in and upload it directly soon, though.



It was so nice to just walk right on so many rides, too.  Although we really never experienced terrible wait times for anything during our entire trip.  But it was really perfect during the Christmas party.  We stumbled upon a rare find around 11pm... Woody, Jessie, and Bulleye from Toy Story were partying in one of the taverns with a DJ and lots of kids.  It was so fun!  Woody had some really sweet moves and was a pro at the gangnam style dance!

After our late night on Tuesday, we all slept in on Wednesday.  Then we headed to Hollywood Studios for the day.  Carson decided he wanted to meet Mickey Mouse.  He'd only wanted to see his favorite characters (from a distance) up until this point.  So once we got to Hollywood Studios, we found Mickey and got in line to meet him.  Carson got shy just as we were walking up to meet him and wouldn't stand by him, hug him, give him a high five, or anything.  But we did manage to trick him into some pictures.  :)  Bristol got a kiss from Mickey, though.  :) 

We also saw a Disney Junior show with all of Carson's favorite shows - Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. etc.  We had lunch, then Grandma and Grandpa headed back to the resort to rest.  Kevin, the kids, and I saw a couple of other shows, and then went to see the live musical, Beauty and the Beast, which was so good.  We all loved it!  Then it was time to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa again for the Osborne Family Spectacular of Lights, which is the special Christmas light show at Hollywood Studios.  Again, the kids were just mesmerized.  They were really quite impressive and so beautiful!

On Thursday, we headed to Epcot again.  Everyone but Bristol and I rode Soarin' when we first got there.  We saw some other attractions and shows and mostly walked through the World Showcase.  Epcot is really neat.  It was my first time there.  I loved the World Showcase, with all of the different cultures and countries represented.  I could have spent lots more time there watching the shows and browsing the shops.  The food at Epcot is much better, too.  

We rode the monorail a couple of times while we were there, too.  This was one of Carson's favorite things to do.  He loved the monorail!  So we took one last trip on it when we left Epcot on Thursday.  We decided to run over to Magic Kingdom via monorail so that Carson could ride It's a Small World one last time, which was his favorite ride of all.  

We didn't stay out too late on Thursday since we had to get back to the resort to pack up our things since we were leaving on Friday morning.  We were all sad to leave.  Kevin and I were both excited for the trip ahead of time, but at the same time we were sort of dreading it, too... the chaos of it.  But we had such a wonderful time.  It is both of ours favorite family vacation so far.  It was just so magical, as cliche as that sounds, but its true.  We were not ready to come home at all.  And we could seriously go back again tomorrow.  We'll definitely be making another trip to Disney... and hopefully another and another and another.  We are seriously considering joining the Disney Vacation Club in a year or so, too.  Because honestly, that seems to be the best and most affordable way to do Disney (plus, you can go anywhere in the world if you don't want to go to Disney one year).  But we'll cross that bridge when the time is right.  :)  

I forgot to mention another of Carson's favorite things were the surprise towel animals we'd find when we returned to our room each night... they were pretty cute!   

And those were the highlights of our trip.  Bottom line... we had a fantastic time and are so grateful for the memories that we have made!  We cannot wait to go back!!!  :)