Christmas Abroad

These next pictures start my Christmas pictures from when we were in New York.  We arrived in Albany, NY late Christmas night.  I have lots of pictures so they will not all be in this post but this will be a start.
(This is my third attempt as I have been having different technical difficulties every time I go to do this blog post over the past few days.  Hopefully, it will work this time.)

Sunday morning after Christmas.

Look at that mischievous grin!  Kay thinks she is SO funny.  She is doing this thing now where she thinks it's funny to strike a "grumpy pose" - as in, look like Grumpy the Dwarf.  Which means it is very difficult to get a picture of her without her wanting to cross her arms and say, "humph" and try to make a grumpy face.  Just wait till she discovers giving bunny ears in pictures. *sigh*

We went to Saratoga Tuesday afternoon.  There was quite a bit of snow on the ground there and Kaelyn instantly decided to go play in it as soon as she got out of the car.  That really wasn't on the agenda so we had to go dig out boots, gloves, snow pants, etc. from the suitcase in the car (we were headed up to my parents from there.)

Cold ducks on a very cold pond.

Making snow angels.

Oh the joys of childhood - or the joys of snow if you're still a big kid at heart like myself.  :-)

Downtown street/shops of Saratoga.

A REALLY cool toy store in Saratoga that always has beautiful Christmas scenes decorating their windows.

A train table set up in the toy store.

Saratoga, of course, is famous for its horse races.

We've never been to one (a horse race) but we've got pictures with a race horse statue now.  :-)

Next post: sledding with my family in Massena.  TON OF FUN let me tell ya'.

Christmas At Home

Where to start?  I just finally sat down and loaded, organized, and edited a bunch of pictures.  As I looked through  them, I realized I just have so many good ones that I would like to post.  :-)  I'm not sure where to start so I guess I'll start with pictures of our Christmas here at home.  MAYBE I'll be able to keep my comments to a minimum and just post a ton of pictures.  Here goes:

Christmas eve. morning before we started opening gifts.  Since we were driving to Orlando and then flying out Chrismas day, we did our Christmas the day before.

Snoop enjoying Buster's gift.  We unfortunately didn't think to get Snoop one too.

Kay loved the Chip and Dale stuffed animals she got.

We (I mean Kaelyn)  ;-) are having so much fun with this gift.  It is a Toy Story bathtub basketball set.  Almost every night since we've been back from NY, she and I have played with it before she gets a bath. :-)

This was the ONE thing that Kaelyn had seen in a store a couple weeks before Christmas and desperately wanted.  She didn't know we had actually already seen it earlier and bought it and put it back for her.  We told her maybe she should ask for it for Christmas.  A few days before Christmas when I asked Kaelyn what she wanted for Christmas she said, "Ummm, a Jessie and some presents."  She (the Jessie doll) says several different phrases and Kaelyn just loves it!

And Wyatt has desperately wanted a basketball ever since he has seen the ones lying around in their neighbor's yard.  Well, me loving basketball and all, I couldn't let him NOT have his own basketball.  :-)

Kaelyn reads EVERYTHING now.  She has to stop and read every sign when we're walking somewhere and she wants to know what everything says.  She had to look at every nametag on each present and read them before she could open the present.

This was Kevin's main gift (he didn't get many since he got this).  :)

Yep, a wii.  Now he can battle evil adversaries and save the world, all while never leaving the comfort of our living room.

 :-) 

 (He's going to be so appreciative of my teasing when he reads this)  :-D

He's really good about sharing his new toys too.  ;-)

Showing Kay how to bowl on the wii.  I actually think these pictures of the two of them are very cute!

When I was wrapping presents one day, Kaelyn asked if she could put some under her little tree.  We kind of forgot about them so later Christmas eve. evening, we went in and she opened them.

This was Kay's main gift.  A Cinderella, Disney World castle with some working lights, sounds, two levels and the different Disney princes and princesses.

I kinda' like this present too.  :-)  Notice the lights shining through the "windows".

Wyatt and I in our Mickey Christmas shirts.

John playing baseball on the wii.  Once Kevin came back out, they both played baseball.  One of them "pitched" and one of them "batted".

This was the MOST entertaining thing to watch - Kevin and John boxing on the wii.  If you stood where you couldn't see the characters on the screen, it was even funnier to watch them ducking and punching into the air.  :-D

I think Kevin just knocked John out!  Priceless picture!  :-D

And so concludes the first part of my "return to blogging".

Lucky

Kaelyn had off of school Thursday and Friday.  Her teacher had told me earlier in the week that she and her family were going up to Disney World this weekend.  Earlier on this year, Disney did a promotion called "Give a day, get a day".  There were lists of places that families could volunteer in each state.  If a family volunteered somewhere for the day, each person that volunteered got a free ticket to DW to be used within the next year.  Kay's teacher's family had done it and so they were just now "cashing in" on their free day since they had a couple days off.  When I picked Kaelyn up from school Wednesday, I was mentioning to her that her teacher was going to Disney World.  She said, "What?"  I said, "Did Ms. Diane tell you that she is going to Disney World?"  Then I said, "She's lucky isn't she?"  Kaelyn said, "What's lucky when it means?"  (which is the way she phrases the question when she wants to know what a word means).  Well, Noah Webster I aint!  Sometimes I have difficulty explaining definitions or phrases to her because I have to relate them to something else she already understands.  Because I couldn't come up with anything better, I said, "Lucky means when you get to do something fun."  She thought for a minute and then said, "Can I be lucky?"  :-D  I laughed and said, "Why do you want to be lucky?"  She said, "Because I want to do something fun too."  She's such a literal thinker so to explain the concept that you are lucky as a result of somethingthat happens is nearly impossible right now.  So in her mind now, if she can just be lucky, however you attain that, then she can do something fun too!  :-)

Another "tons of pictures" post.  :-)

Kaelyn showing the "real" Mickey her little Mickey.  :-)

She LOVED showing her Mickey and Minnie to the characters.

Donald gives Mickey a hug.

We have never gotten to meet Piglet before so we were excited to see him with Eeyore.

Movie stars.  :-)

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this one!!!

The different costumes on the various characters are their Hollywood/movie star costumes since this was at Hollywood Studios.

Kaelyn in the Buzz Lightyear box.  All along the queue to see Buzz and Woody, there are various picture spots themed from the Toy Story movies.

Kaelyn strapped on to the rocket (like the one Buzz and Woody were strapped to at the end of the first Toy Story).

In The Prospector's box (from the second TS movie).

A big hug from Woody - I like this one a lot!!!

I love the way the floor and the background wall are painted to look like you're standing on Andy's bed.

Showing Sorcerer Mickey her Mickey.

We were actually just trying to have her pose for a picture and she turned and gave Mickey a kiss on the nose.  :-)

I thought this was SO cute.  We were sitting waiting for the Broadway Belle show to start and Kaelyn worked and worked to get Mickey to balance and sit beside her like this.

Belle

Belle and Gaston

Belle and the Beast

The Beast and Gaston fighting.

Belle and The Prince (after he turned back from being The Beast)

Since we were some of the first people waiting outside to get in before the show started, they asked us if Kaelyn wanted to be the girl to go up at the end of the show and get a rose from Belle and The Prince at the end of the show.  She was so excited!  They took her up during the grand finale and The Prince presented the rose to her.

Kay and her monkey by the Barrel of Monkeys back in Pixar Land at Hollywood Studios.