Santa!

The kids have seen Santa several times this year... at least three times. It is a little much, but it seems like Santa is able to attend every event that we go to over the holidays! The kids went to Breakfast with Santa at their school, had a second breakfast with Santa at the country club with friends, Clare saw Santa again at a friend's holiday party then we went to the mall yesterday to get our "official" Santa pictures. We need to do pictures first next year because at this point William was over it and told me he ALREADY has told Santa what he wants for Christmas... Oh boy. William and Grace love Santa though. Clare. Not so much. She couldn't be distracted for one pretty picture. Here are all our Santa encounters below!

MSEE's Breakfast with Santa - Grandma and Grandpa Orosz brought them.

Interlachen's Breakfast with Santa with the Hurts

Dinner with Santa at the McDowell's house

THE Santa at the mall!

We love this Santa!

Except Clare!

Maybe next year Clare will warm up to Santa - or at least we will figure out a better way to distract her! Thank goodness I only waited 15 minutes in line to see Santa... I waited until the week of Christmas to fit this in... not very smart, but I was able to sneak into line instead of taking a number for the 6 HOUR wait! The line lady must have taken note of their nice outfits and knew I'd buy the CD! Ha!

William's First Field Trip

William had his first school field trip today and I had the pleasure of chaperoning. I took two of his classmates with us in our car and we headed to the Happy Elf show at the Orlando Rep Theater. The car ride was interesting to say the least. They enjoyed the show though. William said it was "an awesome show!" I think traveling with friends somewhere other than school was probably the most exciting part. They did great and were attentive the entire time. The first of many fun field trips!

Warner, William and Benji

Ready for the show!

William's class after the show

Christmas is here!

The Orosz home is full of Christmas spirit! The day after Thanksgiving we pulled out all our Christmas decorations and bought our Christmas tree.

Home Depot to buy a tree

Clare picking out her first tree

Actually she would rather run up and down the aisle

"Look! I'm a peacock!"

We found the perfect tree stunner and brought it home. We got a new tree stand this year and it was the easiest installation we have ever had! Kicking off the holiday season right - no crooked, falling over trees at our house! We saved the decorating for Saturday though. We fueled up on more Thanksgiving leftovers and hit the hay.

Ready to decorate!

We woke up Saturday and decorated the tree and the rest of the house. Full of holiday cheer and music!

Yes, Grace wore her outfit from Friday to bed.

Incoming ornament!

Grace's turn

Saturday night we went to Disney Springs to check out a holiday drone show that is new. It was INCREDIBLE! We walked down to the water to feast by the food trucks and wait for the show. The weather was perfect and the sunset beautiful. The kids started to get antsy for the show and we walked around a little before heading back to watch 300+ drones. Our new seats weren't as great as the original waiting spot, but the show was still incredible. I absolutely want to go back and see it again. William and Matt parted ways with us following the show for Hollywood Studios. Grace, Clare and I walked around Disney Springs some more and saw some of the holiday sights... large Nutcrackers and Christmas trees. We grabbed a Mickey pretzel for the road then went home. A fun evening!

Clare is ready for drones.

Holiday spirit!

Grace is excited for Disney!

Love the holiday decorations

Our spot for dinner by the water

I mean, look at that!

A drone dove! Amazing!

Grace, Clare and I checking out the scene

Very large holiday characters and small Grace up front

Mickey pretzel

Great way to kick off the holidays! I'll have to share a picture of our house lit up as well. Matt installed all the lights and did a great job. Nothing has fallen over yet :) A ton of fun holiday activities to come... this is only the beginning! Merry Christmas!

More Christmas Spirit

The amount of posts I have in draft mode... is overwhelming... This post goes back to Christmas and I want to make sure I include what I can because I don't want to forget any of this goodness! I believe I already posted about Christmas (several times!), but here are some more fun times we had over the holiday season. 

Ornaments for the year! Buddy the Elf dropped them off this year. William got a Batman ornament and Grace got a bunny ballerina. William loves superheroes and Grace started her first activity this year - ballet, so both seemed like a perfect fit for the year. William was pumped for his Batman ornament and Grace was probably as excited about William's ornament as well. The ballet bunny wasn't nearly as thrilling as Batman! Ha! 

Ornaments for 2015

We did some Christmas cookie decorating. We made the dough, cut out the shapes and decorated the next evening. William as usual pays close attention to the decorating and really looks forward to eating the finished product. Grace as usual sucked down the tube of icing and wasn't interested in decorating. It was more fun to decorate her face. 

Pre-icing gone wild

Matt's very creative moose haha!

William the baker

William had a Christmas party at school and every classmate brought in a stocking stuffer. William's stuffing stocker was this awesome build-a-snowman kit. It was adorable! We made one at home after the party. It's foamy and can be rebuilt over and over again. Great find!

Can you build a snowman??

Baldwin's holiday parade gets better and better every year. We arrived a little early to setup with our wagon and chairs. One of the side streets had all kinds of games and rides. I was pretty exhausted at this point of the pregnancy, so I wasn't too keen on walking to each setup. Next year we will make sure to get there even earlier to play all the games. Santa made his appearance at the very end and the kids had a wonderful time.

Our corner at the Baldwin holiday parade

Probably my favorite and the kids favorite activity this Christmas season (after Santa photos, of course) was the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer musical at the Orlando Rep. It was very cute. It was their first live "show" and both kids did great. They were very entertained by the reindeer prancing around and the abominable snowman. 

First show for both of them

Ready for Rudolph

One holiday fail was the Alfond Inn storybook event. I thought for sure when you mention "storybook" that it would be small child appropriate. They meant ADULT storybook time... a man read Charles Dickens and was dressed era appropriate. It was pretty funny and as expected the kids were totally confused. We hightailed it out and went to Shake Shack instead. They made the best of it, grabbing cookies and twirling in circles much to the dismay of other people actually interested in the adult storybook time. The event had stuck in William's mind because only a month ago (March) when we drove past the Alfond, William asked me if I remembered that man with the hat reading the Christmas story... it does sink in!

Ring around the rosey

Gingerbread cookies were a win though!

I think that wraps up all of Christmas 2015!

Merry Christmas from the Orosz Family!

Merry Christmas from the Orosz Family!

Our Christmas card from this year. We took the photos in Old Town Alexandria back in October. 

Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas! 

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Day and so far it has been a relaxing and beautiful day. No Clare in sight at this point, but it was very nice to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning all together (instead of a hospital visit). I got a little worried the night before Christmas Eve that I would miss all the Christmas action when I was feeling sort of funny, but Clare has held on and we are home relaxing now. 

Christmas Eve we sprinkled our reindeer food out front in the morning. Buddy the Elf made his last appearance for the year and left the kids a nice note. William and Grace really love the Elf. He's a very fun addition to the holiday season. Then we had a delicious dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Orosz at their home that evening. And when we got home we watched a Mickey Christmas movie and prepped for Santa's arrival. We put out chocolate milk, gingerbread men and carrots. Half of each cookie was missing because Grace insisted on biting the head off of every single cookie. William stirred up the chocolate milk. Both of them hit the hay with ease that night knowing that Santa doesn't deliver presents until everyone is SLEEPING!

Buddy's last day

Sprinkling reindeer food

Dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's

Setting up Santa and reindeer's tray of food

Christmas morning I was up at 4:30 a.m. Oh boy. I prepped for breakfast, had a cup of coffee, watched the Homeland finale... I thought for sure William would pop out of bed early, but he stayed in bed until 8:30 a.m. Grace slept in too. It was a foggy and dark morning - very much a sleep in day. Matt and I had breakfast bread pudding together before the kids even got up. So it was actually a very peaceful and relaxing early morning for the adults. 

Breakfast for two!

Present time! William and Grace got a lot of wonderful goodies. The big Santa gifts were a tricycle for Grace and a bike WITH pedals for William. We bought William a balance bike several months ago and he hasn't been able to get over the fact that there are no pedals... the reviews are spectacular... I thought it would work. SO bike with training wheels it is. I'd say their favorite gifts were random though. Grace loves the Made in China Elsa and Anna plastic toys in her stocking and then William is loving the Batmobile Plane that shoots Batman out the front. 

Grace loves her Elsa and Anna

Batmobile plane for William

Spin on the bike

Tricycle with streamers!

I went back to bed at 10 a.m. (4:30 a.m. wake up call had me wiped). Took a Kat Nap for an hour then we all headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Orosz's house to open presents with the aunts, uncles, and cousins. I wish I had the energy to take photos over there, but you know I'm totally exhausted when I can't summon the energy to wrangle the kids for more pictures. They all had a lot of fun and came home with even more wonderful goodies. 

Christmas morning the four of us

An amazing Christmas and the excitement continues... when will Clare join us? 

Teddy bear and baby Jack Rogers for Clare