Home Sweet Home

We said good-bye to Steve's family and Mickey and his friends and loaded back on the plane for the flights back home.  The short flight from Florida to Texas was easy and by the time we got on the plane in Houston for our 16 hour trek back to Doha the boys were already getting tired.  They both slept most of the flight home. 

When we got home they had a surprise waiting for them - Santa had put up the Christmas tree and had delivered more presents. 

The boys thought it was great to come home and open up presents as a family (all except for Athena that is).  Jaydon was a champ about the jet lag, within about 3 days he was sleeping through the night with no problem. 

Tylor on the other hand was a different story.  After 2 weeks he was still waking up all night long.  We finally went into full sleep training mode which got him going to bed at a decent time and only waking up twice at night to eat. 

That Tylor is a stubborn one... like I tell him every day - it's a good thing he's so cute ;)

Merry Christmas

Christmas morning I attempted to make green and red french toast with eggs. 

The red ended up more pink but for Jaydon that was all the better since it's his favorite color. 

After breakfast we opened up more presents. 

Jaydon got lots of neat stuff like Thomas Train legos and a new tractor book. 

Tylor refined is present opening technique. 

He takes his job very seriously and stayed entertained for hours among all the wrapping paper. 

He even helped with the clean-up by trying to eat as much of the paper as he could sneak into his mouth when no one was watching. 

After presents and breakfast we spent the morning packing up to get ready to leave the next day. 

Steve made us another wonderful meal - he ended up being the cook for most of the big family meals during the trip so one of his presents was a much needed Mickey Apron. 

After naps we headed back out to Magic Kingdom to spend the day with Mickey and his friends.  Interestingly I don't have anymore pictures of the day nor does anyone else. 

(except for this one shot of Tylor and I dressed for the occasion) Either all of our batteries went dead at the same time or perhaps we had reached the end of the trip and were fully Disney World saturated...   

Christmas Eve - Epcot

Christmas Eve was the last day for Melissa, Dwayne, Karlee and Trevor so we woke up that morning and opened up Christmas gifts. 

The kids had a great time, the babies (Tylor and James) figured out how to unwrap gifts

and then everyone decorated the $8 Christmas Tree i got a Target (love target!). 

We let the kids have an easy day, enjoy their news toys and take an early nap because we decided to try out Disney World a different way - at night. 

We loaded into the car around 3pm after everyone with flights was delivered to the airport and arrived to Epcot (the only park we had left to do) just as people were piling into their cars with cranky and already asleep kids.

We had dinner reservations at Little Mexico but first took the tour. 

On the way out we found Donald which was one of the few characters we hadn't said hi to yet. 

Tylor loved him and the professional photographer got a great shot of him thrilled to be hanging out with the life size stuffed animal. 

After dinner we went to the Nemo ride which everyone loved because it ended up having a mini aquarium even with Dolphins swimming around. 

The plan was to stay long enough to finally see one of the nightly firework shows, Epcot is the earliest which started at 9:30.  Tanner found and sleighed a troll, then we headed off to find a spot for the show. 

Tylor fell asleep just before the show started, slept the full 20 minutes while the firecrackers went off then at the end, when everyone around us was cheering he woke up and looked at me like - what's all the commotion about?  It's ok - he was super cute in his antlers (when he actually kept them on). 

And not to be forgotten, Tylor is 8 months old...

Disneyworld - Magic Kingdom

Finally, we decided it was the day for Magic Kingdom.  By this time we had figured out how to get everyone out of the house efficiently and even with our house being a short drive from the entrance of Disneyworld it took over 2 hours to actually get in the park.  Fortunately, Jaydon thought the tram ride from the car to the ferry and the ferry ride to entrance were just as much fun as an actual ride.  But by the time we got inside Jaydon was already complaining about being tired. 

We got stuck in the middle of the street party with everyone dancing – usually Jaydon would love to participate but he had no interest. 

We found a carousel ride which he enjoyed then sent him over to the Dumbo ride. 

I was sure the sign said a 5 minute wait, well 50 minutes later – well past lunch time, Steve and Jaydon get back from Dumbo.  We headed over to an Italian restaurant  to get Jaydon’s favorite food, pasta and as we were sitting down to eat Jaydon had a complete fit ending with a total balling meltdown (looking back at these pictures I can see how swollen his poor tired eyes were).  Steve and I took one look at the situation and each other and decided that we had had it for the day.  We made sure all the various family members had a way home then trekked back out to the car for a long nap at home in our own beds.  Jaydon slept for almost 4 hours that afternoon – he was exhausted from all the late nights with his cousins, early mornings because when the sun is up so is he and the long days with on the go naps.  We had to wake him up so that we could go meet the rest of the family at Outback for our 1 dinner out together.  

Well almost together – the gluten free, no pork, lactose free part of the family was banished to a different table. 

Tylor had been a drooling machine but we rediscovered what was likely the first ever kind of teething toys for babies – bones! 

And not just any kind of bone – a baby back rib pork bone.  He loved it and was completely content for the rest of the dinner. 

We could hear people behind us snickering at seeing Tylor gnaw away like we were in a Flintstones or something.  And it worked!  The next morning we had our first little tooth sighting - Tylor's first Christmas gift :)

DisneyWorld - Animal Kingdom

Finally, we decided it was the right day to head over and start our adventures in Disneyworld.  We started with Animal Kingdom which was a good choice because we got to see all kinds of characters without waiting in too long of lines (like we did in the other parks). 

Jaydon had no idea what to expect but could not contain his excitement about meeting Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger.  Tylor thought life sized stuff animals that moved was the coolest thing he had ever seen. 

He also fed off Jaydon’s excitement and could hardly be contained.  Tylor grabbed and hugged and laughed at the characters – he became as much of the show as the characters were. 

He even tried to take Tigger’s ear home with him, it’s time like these that you realize the professionalism the people in the costumes have to put up with the over adrenalined, wide-eyed, crazy kids that they get stampeded with.

Jaydon got to learn about dinosaur bones and was very good at putting together the life size dino bone puzzle. 

He also got to touch one of his favorite animals - a real life snake. 

But even a real snake couldn’t hold water to the petting zoo with more of Jaydon’s new favorite animal … goats. 

He followed them around, gave them hugs, petted them and talked to them. 

We spent the most time with the goats then any other attraction at the park.  It’s at about this time that you realize why Disneyworld doesn’t even bother charging an entrance fee for anyone younger than 3. 

We finally got the whole family together to go on the safari ride to see some real animals like hippos (those are the grey humps in the water). 

Giraffes - and this one actually ran alongside our truck for a few yards to the delight of everyone on board, and rhinos. 

After the animal safari Jaydon fell asleep which was too bad because we found ourselves located right along the parade route with a parade coming down the street. 

Tylor was awake though and couldn’t keep his eyes off the neat characters and shiny costumes going by – until Tanner came by with his whirly hat. 

Tylor loved that hat; it was instant distraction for him and became a useful tool when he became overtired and cranky.  Tanner also enjoyed having a way to interact with his baby cousin so would strategically place himself just in reach of Tylor. 

After the parade it was time to finish off the visits to the Disney characters. 

Tylor and Jaydon loved seeing the rabbit and she gave them lots of hugs and was very sweet. 

We got a couple of great pictures with Goofy, all dressed up for Christmas (and if we were to do Christmas cards this would be the one - but we don't so never mind). 

And don’t forget Mickey.  On our way out of the park the sun was just going down and one of the park photographers was hanging around with nothing to do so we actually managed to get all of us in a picture, looking at the camera, with our eyes open, with the big beautiful tree. 

This picture is testament as to why there are professional photographers!