Closing 2014

2014 has been a great year for us!  Some highlights:

Abbie turned 7, Ellie turned 5, and Olivia turned 2.  I can't believe how quickly my girls are growing up!  I wish I could freeze time sometimes.  I was looking back at pictures from when Abbie was a toddler, and when Ellie was a toddler... things were so easy back then!  Of course, I'm sure I didn't feel like they were so easy at the time, but I sometimes I wish for the simplicity of those days.  Things get harder when kids get older.

Garrett took his boards in June and became an entirely different person afterwards.  Ha!  I'm only sort of kidding, though.  From around February-June he pretty much didn't do anything except sleep, work, eat, and STUDY.  I'm not kidding at all.  I don't think he took a single day off from studying.  The second half of our year has definitely been much better, he's almost like a new person!  Although, he is still very busy now that he is in his 5th (and final!) year of his residency. He's also a chief resident, in charge of 44 other residents in his program.  I'm so proud of his achievements and all the hard work he puts into his career.

We went on many day trips to Disney, which I'm so happy about.  To be totally honest, I think that buying passes to Disney has been one of our best purchases ever.  We have had some great family time there and have made memories to last a lifetime.  I will be so sad when our passes expire in February!

I have done a ton more quilting this past year and it has been a blast.  I have over 2.5k followers on Instagram, and I have a few things coming up in January that will be giving me some pretty big exposure.  I don't ever want to get too busy doing it, but I sure enjoy it as a hobby and it's been fun to make money from it.

At church -- Garrett is still a ward missionary and I have recently started teaching the Gospel Doctrine class, which I LOVE!  I'm technically a youth Sunday School teacher, but I have been subbing in Gospel Doctrine for the last 6 weeks and I'm hoping they will keep me there permanently next year.  It's definitely a challenging calling.  I spend at least 4 hours a week preparing my lessons, but I am learning SO much and really enjoying it.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2015!  We are moving to Madison, WI in June, which is starting to give me a little bit of anxiety.  I have NO idea where we should live, I need to research schools, etc.  I don't want Garrett to have a long commute, either.  Hopefully we will get some leads soon.  I need to get in contact with someone up there and start looking around more online.  Sometimes I think it's a little harder to move somewhere just for a year... we don't need anything SUPER nice, but I don't want to live in a bad place either, even though it's temporary.  We also need to sell our house here in Florida, but that's not too much of a concern for us because I'm pretty sure we already found a buyer.  We are selling by owner, which should be an interesting experience, but the person who is (probably) buying it knows what they are doing so I expect that it will go smoothly.

Here's to a great (and busy!) 2015!

Goings on

We got our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving:

I could not for the life of me get my iPhone to take a non-blurry picture of our tree!  I think there was something about the lights that made it impossible to focus.  But we decorated our tree the next night, which was fun:

We decorated gingerbread houses.  I bought a kit at Target that had 5 little houses in it, which worked out great.  Everyone had their own to decorate.  Garrett's looks the best, since he didn't let any of the kids help him. ;)

 Every year, our church does a big display of Nativity scenes from all over the world.  There was a room for kids' activities, and the girls loved dressing up for a picture.  (I'll admit I wasn't thrilled with the idea of them putting things on their heads [ever since the lice debacle two years ago] but thankfully it was fine).

Cutest thing ever:

I made an "Elsa" quilt for my Etsy shop, and the girls insisted on doing a little photo shoot with Olivia's Elsa doll on it.

And, the "Anna" quilt:

Me at 2 years old, Olivia at 2 years old.  I put my picture up on the tv, and Olivia is sitting and "posing" as she looks at the picture on the screen.  She was all about it... so funny.

Girls' Trip

The week after Thanksgiving, we took a "girls' trip" to Disney!  The girls and I met up with my sister Emma, her daughter Marian, and my mom for 3 days of fun!

We rented a nice condo just a few minutes from Disney.  It had 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a full kitchen, 2 living room areas, 5 TV's, a dining area that seated 6, and a laundry room.  It was SO nice to have so much space at the end of the long days!  We also rented a minivan so that we could all drive together.

The first day, we went to Magic Kingdom.  I made plans for all our days ahead of time, so we had fast passes and a schedule ready to go!  It made the days go really well, and we were able to do EVERYTHING that we wanted to do.

                                          

After the Buzz Lightyear ride:

 Waiting in line for the Dumbo ride:

Riding on the train:

"I'M LEARNING HOW TO DRIVE!!!" she said:

The teacups:

The castle was all lit up at night, which was SO gorgeous!! It was completely covered with white lights.  So magical!

We did so many other things that day that I don't have pictures of yet.  Space Mountain, the Monster's Inc show, Barnstormer (a little roller coaster), Winnie the Pooh ride, Mickey's Philharmagic Show.

The second day, we went to Hollywood Studios.

Emma in the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground:

I don't have any pictures of this, but we also went to the Frozen Sing-a-long, which was one of the main reasons we decided to go to Hollywood Studios.  It was SO much fun.  I did it with the girls at the end of the summer and we loved it, and I knew that Marian would love it too.  It's so cool!

For some reason, Ellie decided to ride on the Tower of Terror again.  She HATED it just as much as the first time.  She started crying as soon as we buckled our seatbelts.  Man I love that ride, though.  It's so thrilling.

Olivia was so worn out by the end of each day.  This is the only nap she took all week:

 The Toy Story ride:

We also got to see the amazing Christmas lights at Hollywood Studios.  Every couple of minutes, the lights would "dance" to a song, it was really cool.  There was also (fake) snow falling!  Magical!

Other things I didn't get pictures of: The Little Mermaid show, the Beauty and the Beast show, Rock'n Roller Coaster (the only one that goes upside down!), Star Tours, the Disney Junior show.

On the last day, we went back to Magic Kingdom (it really takes two days to see everything in that park).  Here we are on the "It's a Small World" boat ride.

Emma doing tricks on the Carousel:

Tomorrowland Speedway (again):

Teacups (again):

We watched the parade on this day, too.  Olivia waved to all the princesses as they went by:

After the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride:

Street party!

Dancing with Chip (or Dale?):

Marian waving to Minnie:

Emma & Olivia on the Peoplemover:

Other things we did that I don't have pictures of: Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise, the Bear Jamboree, and a bunch of repeats that the girls wanted to do again from Wednesday.

Emma, Marian, and my mom left early on Saturday morning.  Garrett had driven down on Friday night to meet up with us, so on Saturday we went to Animal Kingdom as a family.  We have only gone there once before, and I felt like we needed to go at least one more time before our passes run out.  It's basically a giant zoo, which really doesn't appeal to us (me) much, but they do have some fun rides and activities for the kids.

Ellie climbing up the ropes:

Safari:

Ellie waving to the people on Mount Everest.  Abbie loves this ride, too.

We finished up the day by driving over to Hollywood Studios again so that Garrett could see the awesome Christmas lights.  I also wanted Abbie to go on Rock'n Rollercoaster with Garrett (she didn't do it earlier in the week with us, so this was her first time).  Whew!  Two parks in one day... after 3 full days of parks.  It was a long, tiring, awesome week!  I will probably be posting more pictures soon because we also have access to all the pictures from inside the park (the professional ones).  I'm excited to see how they turned out!