Fishin' for a birthday

After we finished opening Christmas presents at Mom & Dad's, we were all sitting around, eating too many snacks, when Jeff jokingly said that he had his fishing gear in the car. It was a nice day, and still about an hour before dinner, so I said, "Let's go!" He thought I was kidding, but I wasn't. I figured it would be fun for the kids and get us all out of the house, so off we went. In an effort to save time, we didn't bring a fishing pole. Luckily, Uncle Jeff is good on the spot, because it all worked out beautifully. Even the annoying geese mostly cooperated!

Todd's favorite cake is yellow cake with chocolate frosting - how boring is that?!  But I make it every year.  Apparently, this year, I made it a little too quickly.  Todd helped me get one of the cakes out of the cake pan, and it crumbled on one side.  So, I decided to frost the whole thing before we left... when it was still warm... and then we put it in the car... and drove for 20 minutes.  Yep, this is what it looked like upon arrival :(  I was annoyed, to say the least.

Cute picture of Erin and Kate... never mind that I cropped out myself on the side, flipping off my husband behind the camera who was taking pictures of said cake.

After the cake fiasco and opening presents, we headed down to the lake.  It's not really a lake, but I've called it a lake for the last 19.5 years, so it's a lake.  Ok?  Ok.

Jeff got the bait on the hook on the line and threw it in the water as far as he could... it was entertaining.

Within a couple minutes, the boys caught the first fish!

Brett was so excited!!

Getting ready to throw that one back in... now could he do it again?!

Oh yes!  Although, by this point, the geese were on to us.  Erin and Meredith took some bread to the other side of the lake (pond) to distract the geese away from the fish.

Kate (in her sparkle shoes, tights, dress, and big bow) with Uncle Jeff and their fish... whew, time to go home!

But not until Kate pets the fish first!

And she had to feed the geese too... those annoying, pooping, loud, obnoxious geese!

After dinner, time to celebrate Todd's birthday a few days early. 

He always has helpers to blow out the candles!

Brett is the resident candle-licker... no icing left behind!

And there he is, enjoying his sugar-high, dancing to the music in his head!

Crovitz Christmas

Our last Christmas celebration was on December 29... yes, it took us that long to "finish" Christmas! Erin and Jeff had gone to Swansboro to celebrate Christmas with Jeff's family, plus I had to work a LOT around Christmas, so we had to get a little creative with our Christmas planning! Because Todd's birthday was that weekend too, we celebrated it all together, but more on Todd's birthday later!

There was a lot of laughter...

...and I do mean a LOT!  Mom kept nudging me and laughing to herself.  What was so funny?

You see Jeff, and the Belk box addressed to "Erin and Jeff" - in our family that only means one thing.  It's really an "Erin" present and not so much a "Jeff" present.  So what was it?!

More Christmas dishes!  Hooray!!  Jeff hangs his head...

We gave them a new BIG clock for their BIG wall!  We were nice though and gave Jeff a gift card to the bike shop.

The only thing I asked Erin for was for her to make me a jewelry holder like hers... and she did!  I love it!  It's hanging, and filled.  I'll post a picture later :)

Brett was doing a touchdown dance - no idea why!

Grandma & Grandpa got a nice wine rack from my parents... yay for wine :)

More Christmas!

Once we got through Christmas day, the fun still continued!  We had a short visit with my Aunt Ann from Atlanta.  She came into town for a few days for Christmas and made her way around town to visit with all of her great nieces and nephews.  We know that she loves to see us too, but it's more about the munchkins :)  She always gives ornaments to the kids.  This year she gave Kate one of her very own dolls - so sweet!  Kate asks to see the doll often, but she knows that she is NOT allowed to play with it.  She also gave Brett a Kreo Optimus Prime set.  Brett loves loves loves it!  He also loves to build it as a car, then take it apart and re-build it as a robot.  That whole process takes about 4 hours!!!

Aunt Ann and Kate with the doll

Aunt Ann and Brett - Brett noticed that they had similar sweaters on that day :)

After Aunt Ann left, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house to celebrate Christmas with them.

Brett got a very cool Cars 2 Lego set

Kate got lots of cool presents too, but she thought it was funny to dig in the bag looking for more.  We thought her little butt up in the air was pretty funny :)

Brett got a new Aaron Rodgers jersey!  Good thing because the Favre jersey had already been handed down to Kate :)

Grandma and Grandpa got a Lowe's gift card to build a new fire pit in their back yard here.

And they got this concrete bench to put with their fire pit

Christmas Day

Our Christmas day was actually fairly calm. Because we had just gotten back in town late on the 23rd and I worked all day on the 24th, we had everything done way ahead of time. Todd's parents and sister were in South Carolina celebrating Christmas. One of my sisters and her husband were with his family, and my other sister and parents opened presents at their house and came over later in the day. I have to say it was strangely quiet, but also sort of nice. We were done opening presents in about an hour, not counting all of the time that it took to actually open all of the toys and sort Legos. Yep, you read that right - we sorted Legos. For about 3.5 hours. Oh.my.goodness. It was insane! We bought these Lego storage things for the kids (well, maybe more for me) so we sat there, across the family room, sorting Legos. I really think I love it though :)

Kate with her Santa loot - her favorite was the "Barbie Fashion Doll with a Horse"  (the only thing she asked Santa for this year)

It was a Transformer Christmas for Brett... Santa shops at Target during the end-of-summer toy clearance :)

Kate's new baby cradle from Memere and Poppy - it looks great in her room :)

Kate had a very princess Christmas from the Crovitz family!  Memere won the princess basket at the Harvest Moon Festival back in the fall, so many of the things in it were gifted to Kate for Christmas, like this table and chairs that converts to...

Rapunzel's Tower!  How cool is that?!

My Dad, like Todd, enjoys some toys as part of Christmas.  We used to have bubble lights on "his" tree, but they all sort of died out.  When I saw these over the summer, I had to get them!

A little Christmas Day movie - this year's feature was "The Lion King" from Aunt Dithy!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Last Disney Day!

Our last day we started at Epcot so that we could get an early fastpass for Soarin', which is totally worth it, by the way!  We did Soarin' and Test Track (both with fastpass) and a few other things that we knew we could get into easily with minimal wait times.  We had a late lunch reservation in Mexico, then headed back over to the Magic Kingdom to cram in more princess fun and Big Thunder Mountain (Brett's new favorite ride).

Playing in the Figment attraction at Epcot

The goal is to jump on the one that is lit up to make music

Mexico, can you tell?! :)

Lunch spot in Mexico - delicious!

Obligatory family picture in front of the Epcot ball

Memere and Poppy with Brett and Kate

Ellen's Energy Adventure (or something like that) - it was pretty cool, but Kate was a little nervous that the dinosaurs were going to get too close!

One of the many Monorail rides for the day!  Speaking of the monorails - Brett LOVED them!  He loved them so much that he picked out a monorail toy as his souvenir!  Funny boy :)

Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it Parade at Magic Kingdom

Dancing in the street at the end of the parade - Todd and Brett are the ones not in black and white :)

Back on the carousel... both kids this time!

Kate thought the pink Cinderella castle was just awesome!

The people mover at night was kind of cool - and relaxing :)  At this point, 6 straight days in the parks was starting to catch up to everyone.

We stayed late that night to see the Electrical Parade.  My parents and I took Kate to get a spot more than an hour before the parade started while Todd and Brett rode Big Thunder Mountain one last time.  Kate fell asleep in the stroller while she was people watching.  Then Todd brought Brett back to us, woke up Kate, and took her to say bye to the princesses (we had a fastpass for both attractions, so they were both quick.)  While we were standing there waiting over an hour for the parade, they had fake snow coming down on Main Street.  Neither one of our kids saw the excitement in that, but the adults thought it was cool!  Shorts and t-shirts in the snow in Florida!  Nice!  Kate and Todd got back just in time for the start of the parade.  Brett fell asleep at the VERY end of the parade.  Just too much excitement for one day :)