Wordless Wednesday - Chillin' with some tunes

Oh, that's right, the Edaville post

I just realized I never wrote our Edaville USA post.


This year I wanted to try and make it to Edaville with the kids. For those of you not familiar with this place, during the holidays they set up a Holiday lights display. There are plenty of kiddie rides and Santa is also there for you to visit. We happened to get tickets at Meghan's Family Fun night so we picked a day to go.

I think we may have picked one of the coldest nights ever. It was absolutely freezing out. And very damp. Meghan managed to fall into a puddle after only the second ride. So she spent the rest of the time without any gloves. I don't think it bothered her much. She had a blast. Sean even went on a few rides.

Sean did not want to sit still on the train.

This family loves photo, can't you tell?

Ohh, pretty lights.

Sean got to ride all by himself.

Daddy gets to ride the spinny ones, Mommy does not do spinny rides.

I have no idea.

Christmas 2008

Popping in to let everyone know we were not buried by presents (yet). Hope everyone got what they wanted in their stockings.

Christmas here went pretty much as I expected it would. Meghan came out not at all excited about the presents that appeared under the tree and instead wanted to sit on her chair to wake up a bit. It took Sean forever to open his gifts because he had to stop and play with each one. Meghan is more interested in Sean's gifts than her own. And somehow I only managed to take a handful of pictures.

But Santa did bring us a Wii and Wii Fit. And I got an iPhone. So all is well.


Christmas 2008


XMas 2008 - 1 from Dorene on Vimeo.


XMas 2008 - 2 from Dorene on Vimeo.


XMas 2008 - 3 from Dorene on Vimeo.


We will have Christmas - Part Deux when my parents arrive on Friday.

Wordless Wednesday - Mesmerizing Display

Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange '08

Welcome to my stop on the Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange '08.




Welcome everyone! And Happy Holidays!

This was the card we chose this year. I am always amazed when the photographer actually captures the kids smiling. It was only for like a split second.

If you would like to join in the fun, click the button below for all the details.

How many days left do I have to wrap, and bake cookies, and finish shopping, and....

What happened to December? I was doing so well back in November. Only had a few things left to do. Or so I thought. I think I slacked off for awhile. And now, here it is, December 17th and I have a list of things still to do.

Not tonight though. We took the kids to Edaville USA and I am still defrosting. More on that later.

I will leave you with a preview. Tomorrow I will be participating in the Great Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange of '08. You can come back here to see the card we sent out this year (if you have not already). Want to join in? Click the button below to get all the info.

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Updated to add "Uh oh":

Meghan's Gallery: Gingerbread Man

"Gingerbread Man" by Meghan

Now Reading

After taking the better part of a year to finish my last book, I decided I wanted to read something I could breeze through next. So I chose Plum Lovin' (A Between-the-Numbers Novel) by Janet Evanovich.

The Stephanie Plum series is one of my go-to books when I need something new to ready. I usually end up laughing out loud.

Finished a Book: "Shutter Island"

Way back in April I started reading a book. There were a few false starts. And then summer happened. I carried the book on vacation with me and then again back home. Never picking it up.

About a month ago I finally got back to it. Fearing that I'd forgotten all of the characters, I started from the beginning. Again. This time I finished.

Even though it took many, many months to get myself going, I did like the book. My reason for choosing this one was because I wanted to read it before seeing the movie. I enjoyed the movie interpretations of Dennis Lehane's other books but had never actually read one of the novels.

My intent of these posts is not to turn in a book report or even a book review. So I will not go into many details about the story itself. You can read that on Amazon. I will say that once I got far enough into the book to become invested in the characters it was a pretty quick read. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story which kept me guessing until the end.

Shutter Island

How much fun can we jam in before nap time?

We have lived in this town for years now but never attended the town's holiday celebration. Most years we were traveling somewhere or had other plans, others we just never made it. This year I wanted to take the kids to at least some of the activities.

It was a very cold day here on Sunday. Plus there were flurries. But I bundled the kids up and we headed out. I was not sure how it would go. Everything started at noon which was dangerously close to Sean's nap time. My plan was to visit Santa first and then see how things progressed from there.

We arrived at Santa's location not long after noon. It was not crowded at all. The line moved pretty quickly. Although Meghan was excite4d to see Santa she seemed a bit unsure when we got there. But, she did say that she asked Santa for a dolly-doll. When I asked her what Sean wanted she looked at me like I was nuts. "Sean can't talk, remember?"


Outside the building Frosty and some sort of Christmas bear were greeting the kids. Once again, Meghan was not so sure about them.

This is as close as she would get.

After Santa's visit we headed to a local farm offering horse drawn carriage rides. Sean was super excited to see the horses. He kept "neighing" the entire ride.


At this point we had been out for over and hour and my feet were freezing. I wanted to go back to the town common so the kids could see the ice sculptures and we could visit Meghan's preschool. Sean passed out on the way there. Okay, not awful, I could put him in the stroller and maybe we could walk around a but. But then, Meghan fell asleep as we were looking for a parking spot. I decided to call it a day and we went home.

Sean napped pretty late so we never made it back for the tree lighting at 4:30. I do think the kids had a good time and hopefully we will make it back out next year.

Wordless Wednesday - "In" the Kitchen

A Night of Preschool Fun

Last night Meghan's school had a Family Fun Night. It was our first one so we really were not sure what to expect. They had a silent auction to benefit the school, some food and entertainment for the kids.
We spent most of the time chasing Sean. He wanted to run (of course) and seemed fascinated by the cheese puffs scattered about the floor. I would have been more comfortable to let him roam a bit if he did not have the milk allergy. Basically we spent an hour and a half either chasing or holding Sean.

Ryan did a good job keeping up with our silent auction bids. We won 3 of them. Tickets to Edaville USA, Davis' Farmland and Southwick's Zoo. All things we plan to do anyway.

Meghan had a blast. She has never been much of a joiner. She usually wanders away and does her own thing. Or, she stares at the performance completely spaced out but not participating completely. But, apparently there is one performer that will hold her attention and get her up and moving.



She watched the whole show. Laughing and singing along.


Sean even stopped every once in awhile to watch.

Sean carrying his "safe" snack.

But what really surprised me was when it was time to get up and dance, Meghan got up and danced. You can just see she was having the time of her life.

Pure Joy from Dorene on Vimeo.

Of course if you ask her about it today all she remembers is the giant cookie she was eating and then lost as we were leaving.

Meghan's Gallery: Progress you can see

Meghan brought home a new project from school yesterday.

"Heart" by Meghan

Which is very much an improvement over her previous attempts to write her name. Progress. Woo hoo!


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More Meghan's Gallery posts.

Wordless Wednesday - Reindeer Games

So much to do, not sure where to start.

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what still needs to get done. Not only for Christmas but also just to get back to normal after traveling this past weekend.

Bags still need to get unpacked. Laundry is piling up. The house is a disaster because I think the kids pulled out every toy they own yesterday. I need to order our holiday cards today as well.

Also, it's Cyber Monday so I want to see if there are any sales on the things I planned on buying. I'd like to get my shopping done early this year. My goal is to have all the major stuff done by next weekend.

So I need to get back to my to do list so I can start to cross things off. But, I keep getting distracted with email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter. I may need to shut down the laptop for awhile.

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Before I shut down.....

I'm thinking about participating in the Simple Mom book club starting January 1st.

I've added the first book to my Christmas list. I looks like a great idea and an interesting list of books.