Well, I am back from Florida and back to the same ol’, same ol’. I went back to work today. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be (even though I did have ESS today on the first day back). The kids were surprisingly well behaved. I was expecting them to be super hyper, but they weren’t. Maybe they wore themselves out over the break. Here’s hoping the calmness sticks around for awhile.

The trip to Florida was a ton of fun. We left on the 21st of December and got to Florida on the 22nd. We stayed on Disney property at the Pop Century Resort. It’s super cool staying at a Disney resort because you never have to worry about diving to the parks. They have busses you can ride around on for free! No parking worries! Plus, resort guests sometimes get to go to the parks earlier than the public or stay later. It’s neat. Colin and I stayed at a Disney resort on our Honeymoon. It is definitely the way to go if you’re going to Disney World.

Everyone (me, Colin, my parents and sister and Colin’s parents) all went to Animal Kingdom on Christmas Eve, and we all went to the Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day. Colin, his parents, and I also went to MGM and Epcot. Katee went to Epcot with us too. I got her a ticket as a Christmas present. Animal Kingdom was super busy on Christmas Eve. It was so fun though. I went on Expedition Everest 4 times! We all also got to go on the Kilimanjaro Safari too. Colin and I didn’t get to do that on our honeymoon. The safari was pretty neat. Some of the animals were pretty close to where we drove! Christmas Day was sort of chaotic at times. All four parks were actually shut down at 1:00 in the afternoon on Christmas Day. By shut down, I mean they wouldn’t let anyone else into the parking lot for a few hours. We got excellent seats for the Christmas parade though, which was the main reason this trip came about. I also got a great seat for SpectroMagic and got lots of neat pictures.

A big highlight of the trip for me was the fact that I got to meet Alice in person! So, as you may or may not know, I am a huge Alice in Wonderland fan! I got to meet Alice at Epcot. I got her autograph and had my picture taken with her. It was pretty cool. I also got an awesome Alice tea set for my Christmas/birthday and some other really neat Alice things too.

I got so many great Christmas and birthday presents this year including: DVD’s, Nintendo DS games, Alice stuff, and… Santa brought Colin and I a Nintendo Wii! We have My Sims, Cooking Mama, WiiSports, and Tamagotchi Party for the Wii. Unfortunately, we haven’t had much time yet to watch our DVDs or play our Wii very much. Funny how I made several snide comments about Wii’s when Katee got hers. *blush* I love bowling on the Wii! Colin loves beating people up (boxing).

It was weird not being at home with all the family on Christmas though. It almost didn’t even really seem like Christmas. It was like 80 degrees while we were in Florida. These past two days we have had snow flurries and it is colder than it has been in forever (16 degrees this morning, felt like 4!). We did have a Christmas get-together on the 30th. On New Year’s Eve my family and Colin’s got together to eat and play games. Colin and I won Pictionary (as usual).

So now it’s a new year. Colin and I are also possibly looking for a house. I have some “goals” (or resolutions) for this year. More about all of that later. Right now, I’m just really happy that while we were gone to Florida, Pouncy survived (even though she apparently climbed up the Christmas tree and took a nap on the branches…)!

I’m leaving for Florida tomorrow!!

My mom, dad, sister, husband and my husband’s mom and dad are all going to Disney World for Christmas. We’re staying at the Pop Century Resort which should be pretty neat. I’ve always thought it would be so much fun to go to Disney World ON Christmas and see it all decorated and stuff. The only bad part about going to Florida is having to leave Pouncy behind. My uncle is going to feed her every day, but I’ll be worried about her just the same.

Here are some updates on my holiday crafting. I bought some unpainted wooden trays from Hobby Lobby. I had planned on painting them and then putting all the goodies I’m making for people on the trays. I didn’t really know how I was going to paint them though. I started off painting them all a wintery blue color, and then it hit me: I’d paint snow on the trays! I painted a layer of snow around the bottom edges, and then added some snowflakes. On the inside of the tray, I painted some snow and a snowman with more snowflakes. They turned out really cute!

Another thing I’ve been busy doing is making picture frames. You know those really plain, wooden picture frames you can get from Michael’s for $1.00? I found the cutest thing to do with them. All you need is some paint and some scrapbook paper. I added some 3D stickers as embellishments. They turned out so cute! Some of the paper didn’t match up exactly, but I think it turned out very well. Needless to say, I’ll be making I made more of these and added them to my tray of goodies for family members! (Actually, the trays were full so they got to go in their own bag. The whole frame ended up costing me around $2.00 since I already had the paint. Can’t beat $2.00 for such a nice gift! (strike>My Michaels is out of the 3X5 frames. Lots of the craft stores are wiped out of stuff. Michael’s got more frames in! I bought 10 to stock up. See more pics here on Flickr!

I did manage to get all of my things mailed the other day, so Jessica, Miranda, Bubs, Heidi, Diane, and Melissa - expect something to arrive from me (hopefully soon!). I had hoped to get all of my Christmas Ornament Trades up on my Quilt, but didn’t have time to do that after all. If you have emailed me a trade request, I do accept! You may go ahead and add my ornament if you’d like, and I’ll add yours as soon as I get back from Florida, if not before!

P.S. I have got to fix my smilies!