Magic Kingdom and Disney's Wilderness Lodge

Today marks one whole year of having annual passes to Disney! We celebrated with about 4 million other people at Magic Kingdom...

Photo credit: WDW Shutterbug

We stayed long enough for Ben to eat popcorn, ride the train and spin on the tea cups.

We decided at the last minute to ride the resort launch over to Disney's Wilderness Lodge. I am so glad we went. I've been drooling over this photo from WDW Shutterbug and couldn't wait to see it in person:

We loved exploring this resort. We're going to start saving for an overnight stay! After exploring and taking pictures, Ben decided he wanted to ride a Disney bus back to the Magic Kingdom. It was his first bus ride and he loved it!

We were all starving when we left the Magic Kingdom, so we stopped at Cracker Barrel for chicken and dumplings. We had such a great day! Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa!

My Cutie

I love this sweet face so much!

The Children's Museum

We used our Groupon deal to sign up for a family pass to the Children's Museum today. Ben loves playing at the museums! We had a nice little lunch date at Olive Garden using some gift cards we got for Christmas. Then we headed over to the Children's Museum in Sebring. Ben had a blast and so did his mama & daddy! 

Christmas Day

Ben woke up shortly after 7:00 this morning. He was just so excited to see if Santa had remembered his house! Santa did not disappoint. He left an awesome train set, firetruck, remote-controlled helicopter and a Jake and the Neverland Pirates play ship tent. Ben's elf, Jack, left a sweet letter and a cute little Elf on the Shelf Tervis tumbler. Ben loves his elf and is sad when he has to fly back to the North Pole.

After opening presents, Daddy made some delicious breakfast burritos for us. We let Ben play with his new goodies before heading over to Grandma & Grandpa Byrd's for more presents and lunch. Ben got some more great presents from Grandma & Grandpa. I think his favorite is the Disney train set. Jeremy and I got some great gifts, too! One of our favorites is the pizza stone. I got a beautiful canvas of our family picture that I can't wait to hang. We all got annual passes to Disney again! We are so excited for another year of Disney adventures!!!

After opening our presents, we had an awesome lunch with Grandma & Grandpa, Papa Stone and Uncle Chuck. We had peppermint cookies & peppermint sundaes for dessert.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

making coffee in our new Keurig!

trying out the pizza stone for the 1st time

Christmas Eve

We have a special tradition of going to Aunt Darla & Uncle Kurt's house on Christmas Eve. This year, Ben was very excited to share his joy of having pet hermit crabs with the family. He would grab someone's hand and say, "let me show you my hermit crabs." Then he would proceed to introduce them and teach the meaning of nocturnal (mama & daddy are teachers...he gets it honest). So much joy in our little man's heart...it was precious to watch.

We had a ton of amazing food! Jeremy and I brought sausage balls...we used this recipe which calls for cream cheese...it made a world of difference and all but 6 out of 84 were eaten. We used mild sausage for one batch and hot sausage for another. Uncle Kurt made venison burgers. Yum! We also had pigs in a blanket, pasta salad, spinach dip, cookies and plenty of wine.

Ben scored some awesome gifts. Train cars, dvds, books, and my favorite, Chick-Fil-A gift cards. My mama gave us a Keurig and tons of k-cup samples.

We are blessed for sure. Here are some pictures from our time at Aunt Darla's.

Shelly & George....Ben's pet hermit crabs

Ben introducing George & Shelly to Uncle Rick