Sick, sick and sicker...

Yep, it is 4:00 a.m. EST and I cannot sleep. I have been up since 2:30 and don't think I fell asleep until midnight. I have an upper resp. infection and it has been a long time coming. Dale came down with something (we will leave it undiagnosed since he refused to go to the Dr) that resembled bronchitis on Christmas Day and so ensued the battle our family has been waging ever since. After a week, Ava ended up getting sick. She has been an extremely healthy child up until this point, we have been so lucky... little did I know that I was in for two weeks of hell for my little pumpkin. She woke up New Years Day not feeling well and by the following Monday I had her in the Dr. to find out she had a nasty sinus infection. After a week of antibiotics, she seemed much better. Took her in for her 1 week follow-up and that very night she started showing signs of being sick AGAIN! Two days later we are back in the doctor and she now has CROUP, requiring her to take steroids to reduce the inflammation. I was familiar with the CROUP because my friend Keirsten's daughter Olivia has had it quite often and it is miserable. Named for the awful bark-like cough I am guessing. It is awful and you feel so bad because you just want to help them breathe and stop the cough that literally chokes them. Well, now almost a week after that... Mom has finally succumbed to the BUG! UGH! At least I went to the Dr. and got a Z-Pack, hopefully I will be better soon! Gotta love winter and all the crud it brings!

Dale's 36th B-day

We went to dinner at Charley's with our friends Mark and Kim. I forgot my camera but Kim snapped this one of us and I thought it turned out pretty good, thanks Kim!

Santa Trip...

The picture does not project the fear that ensued about 2 seconds after they snapped the picture... for a little girl that loves "ho ho" so much, it's hard to believe she wanted to run screaming from him.

ICE!!!

On day two of our Orlando trip, we decided to go see ICE, which is a chilling spectacle that one would normally not see in the middle of Florida. For those of you who don't know what this attraction is, they turn part of the Gaylord Palms Convention Center into a frigid 9 degree ice wonderland. They take tons of ICE and make gorgeous sculptures and cool slides with it. They give you these big blue parkas to put on the stay warm (we brought our own winter coats too after hearing how cold it was from others). Ava was pretty tired from the night before but we got the tickets with our hotel room so we went. It was very pretty, amazing what they can do with a block of ice. Ava and I both went down the slide. I should have went first, it was really bumpy and fast... I might have thought twice about sending her down on her own (they won't let parents go with them). She was NOT happy when she reached the bottom... oh well, we are such bad parents, I am sure she will be scarred for life!Checking out the fishy's on the way to ICE!

Ava imitating the fishy's face-

Yes, EVERYTHING is carved out of ice.

Giant life sized ice ornaments.

Daddy was trying hard to get Ava's blue coat on over her t-shirt, sweater and other winter coat... I don't think she was cold. It was a good thing she wore it down the slide though, it covered her butt at least.

And here comes Ava down the slide...

Come to find out Ava does not like to go by any Santa, even one's carved out of ice. It's hard to tell by the picture but this is a big Santa that you can sit in his lap. We had to quickly turn Ava around so she could not see Santa or she would have been screaming.

One of my favorites.

Just as a reminder you are still in FL and it will be 80 degrees out when you step outside so be ready peel off the layers!

Of course, my non-car sleeper did her VERY BEST to not fall asleep on the way back from Orlando... but she finally gave in right about the time we hit the Howard Frankland Bridge... sweet, only 10 minutes from home.

First Trip to Disney for Ava

Getting ready to go to see Mickey!
Taking a tour of Gaylord Palms when we arrived.

Trying to "rest" before our big night at Disney.


Having a little dinner before we went...

Yahoo, after a long day of anticipation... we finally arrived at Disney around 5:45. We had an awesome time and would definitely recommend doing the Very Merry Christmas Party as a first trip to Disney. Even though Ava was only 2, she had a blast and we only stayed until 10:30ish but got to go on the rides and see what she wanted to see because it was not super crowded. Also, I think her favorite part was the awesome parade... she was able to see all the characters and wave to them but not get too close. Our wait to see Mickey was about 3o minutes and she was so excited... and then we got up to him and she freaked. Just like Santa.


As Ava says "the pitty lights"

I have never seen the castle lit up for X-mas before, it was gorgeous.

Minnie's fridge... so much cheese!
Trying to get a pic at Minnie's gazebo.


Dale decided to snap a pic of Mickey since we had waited for so long and Ava would not go near him.

So mesmerized by the parade... oh, and the tinkerbell light up toy. That was our 2nd one, the first dropped two seconds after we got out of the store. Dale went back in and told them it didn't work... strange, I wonder why. Needless to say, #2's shelf life was not much longer. It still lights up but barely goes around... come on, what do you expect a $15 toy to work longer than a day?

A few December Hi-lights...

Ava hanging out with the snow people... they were her buddies, she called them Big Snowman and baby snowman and cried when they had to be put away (along with all the pitty lights, the inflatable Ho Ho and Mickey at the neighbors house).

Since I took over 200 pics in December, I will spare you and just hi-light a few of the best (in my opinion).

A special visit from Miss Brenda, Ava's first care-giver. We had not seen her since she moved out of state this summer. Hadyn came over for a visit too!

Oops, I did it again...

Another month has past and I have not posted to my blog. I guess I should not have told everyone in my X-mas card to read my blog when there is nothing new to read! I have to admit, I have gotten a little carried away with Facebook and honestly, have not had time for both. We had a busy December... I will post pictures soon!