We had a wonderful and blessed Christmas season in 2023. We did so many things and made so many great memories.
We kicked off our Christmas season at Disney!! First we went to Epcot for the day.
Then we did a Christmas tree stroll in Disney Springs. Here we are with our matching Lion King shirts in front of the Lion King tree. Kayla was super into finding all of the trees on the tree stroll.
Our first visit with Santa.
Kayla loved this Nightmare before Christmas tree.
The next day we went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party!! Talk about a great way to start off our holiday season!
Kayla's reaction to riding the seven dwarfs mine ride!
Kayla loved the parade!! She held up a heart to all of the characters and were so excited when they responded back to her.
The Christmas castle show was really good.
I got my mickey popcorn bucket! I'd love to get to be a photographer at the Magic Kingdom some day!
We went on a deluxe resort Christmas decoration tour.
I loved getting to see the different resorts. I have never been to any of them before.
The Grand Floridian was definitely my favorite! The giant gingerbread house made the whole hotel smell so good.
And their giant Christmas tree was super impressive. I also just really liked the vibe there.
Dave and Erin were great hosts for us. They ate at the California Grill for dinner so we were able to go on top of the Contemporary and watch the firework display which was really neat.
Pictures outside of the Contemporary.
When we got home from Disney we went to Castle Noel with my mom. Castle Noel was an Ohio bucket list item that I've recently added.
Their toy room was incredible! My mom even went back in to take a video of it.
We also really liked their window displays.
3 girls!
After seeing Santa.
We went to Cabella's with my dad and Brenda to see Santa.
It was a fun and free place to see Santa which was cool.
Kayla was so darn cute running around and playing in there.
Outside picture display.
After Cabella's we went out for Christmas light displays in the area. I was able to search for houses through North East Ohio Family Fun so we found a few.
We also went to the really nice house in North Royalton.
It was fun to walk through it.
Kayla liked running around all the paths.
The next weekend we went to the Stay a While Cat Shelter Christmas party. This is a tradition that I try to keep up with for Kayla. It's nice to show her to give back during the Christmas season. I hope that as she gets older that we can find more opportunities for things like this.
She picked a kitties name off of the tree to buy presents for.
We bought a case of the food that kitty liked and we bought another case to help with their food drive.
Kayla having everything all packaged and ready to go.
On Sunday, we went to Mapleside Farms. We had planned to go with Hannah, Kyle, Maia, and Sam too but Maia got sick and they weren't able to make it.
We made the best of it and had fun anyway. Their food there is always really good.
The three of us.
Sam did drop off Kayla's Christmas presents.
On the "hayride" to the main room.
Kayla decorating her cookie.
They had giant sprinkle scoops!
Kayla's entire cookie was covered in sprinkles.
Delivering her letter to Santa.
Getting to meet with Santa. She told him that she wanted a Gabby's Dollhouse and Boat.
Family picture with Santa.
We tried to decorate Disney cookies, but the decorating supplies weren't very good and they didn't turn out that well.
Kayla trying to decorate.
Here is the one somewhat decent cookie we did.
We ran out of black pretty quickly.
Kitties under the tree
Next day was a grinch day! This Grinch book is really fun and has lots of flaps that Kayla really liked.
We also did a Grinch craft.
Silly girl putting the stars on herself.
Finished product!
Wednesdays were fun bath days! Our first fun bath was a fizz elf themed bath bomb.
She got an elf friend in the bath bomb that she was very excited about.
Now here's my type of gingerbread house! A cardboard Gabby's Dollhouse one.
This one was actually fun and easy to put together. I have no regrets on not doing a traditional gingerbread house.
She decorated us almost more than the house.
Decorated Kayla.
Decorated mama and Kayla.
Decorated mama!
Final product!
The next weekend we did our traditional Strongsville Christmas light tour, and this time we also got Mitchell's ice cream too. The girls love running through this tunnel in Strongsville City square. Kayla was so cute this year... she goes... I've been here before! We've done this before. And I was like yep baby we have!
Gazebo pic!
Girl pic!
We met up with some of Hannah's neighbors while we were there so they were in some of our pictures too.
In the ornament!
Kayla, Maia, and I went running around taking pictures at all kinds of different things. Here they are "In" the igloo.
My favorite presents!
Peeking out of the snowflake.
Running in the tunnel.
Posing
Kayla got a little grouchy towards the end. She was jealous that Maia had other friends there.
Where are the girls!? Peek a boo!
Kyle started feeling sick so I took Hannah and Maia to Crowne Point to see the Hogg house.
It is decorated so pretty! We saw people that had rented a party bus and were all wearing their pajamas and had hot chocolate and were going around looking at Christmas lights. Now that's an idea!
People we so nice and passed out free hot chocolate and candy canes to people coming into the area.
Santa pic!
The next day we went to Frost at the Botantical Gardens with Sarah. I will say that Frost was pretty... especially on the inside but I wasn't overly impressed with their outdoor displays. They only had a small portion decorated with lights outside.
Entrance way.
They liked playing in the new play area upstairs.
Bzzzz bumblebee!
Pretty entrance way.
The girls really loved playing with these glow pegs. It actually inspired me to get Sarah a lite bright for Christmas.
Noise makers.
The decorations were pretty cool.
Back to making designs.
Inside the little cave area.
Running and having fun.
We were there a little bit early because it was supposed to rain later at night... you could see the lights in person, but they didn't come out well in the pictures.
Kayla and Sarah. They mostly had fun together, but Kayla did have a few tantrums while we were there and wasn't always playing nicely with Sarah the whole time.
Sarah and her dad.
This little decorated house was so cute! They loved playing in it.
Selling us food.
Pretty picture spot.
Fun having girls!
Best friends!
This lady gave demonstrations and talked about ginger. She gave the girls samples and talked about how it was made.
They had dozens of trees that were decorated. This was the elf tree and Kayla's favorite! She loved this tree.
She kept coming back to it.
They also had a gingerbread competition going on, and there were a lot of really creative/excellent ones. People are extremely talented and a lot better then me... I can't even make a basic gingerbread house... let alone something elaborate like these.
On Sunday we finally had a family cookie baking day! It's been so long since we've had one.
Here are the girls punching out their gingerbread and sugar cookies.
They all really liked doing it.
Cutting out gingerbread men.
Lucy LOVED cookie baking day. She loved cutting them out and was our queen decorater.
Charolette.
Kayla!
Aunt Becky and Abby.
Suzie!
I ended up putting dad and Brenda to work. I told them that everyone has to help decorate and that no one was allowed to leave until every cookie was decorated.
Some of our sugar cookies.
Decorating her cookie.
The Queen decorator! The other girls did a couple cookies and left, but Lucy was there for like an hour or two decorating a ton of cookies.
Suzie with her decorated cookies.
Putting him to work! Cookie baking day was a great success. I did LOTS of baking and lots of cleaning up. But I had a lot of cookies to take into work and it was fun getting to hang out with everyone. Shawn, Bobby, and Cody watched a lot of football and hung out together while the girl did cookies. The littles spent a lot of time playing together too.
The next day was Rudolph day! We read the book and did a craft.
Putting together her Rudolph glasses.
Brenda brought us a small tree for Kayla's room, and Kayla used all her Disney Princess barbies as her decorations on it. It was her idea and it actually looked great!
She also got some clay and made a snow man.
Final product
Wednesday was another fun bath. We put shaving cream in a tree container that I got from the dollar tree, and then we added green food coloring.
Adding the food coloring.
Putting some of her toys in.
Making a Christmas tree on our bath tub.
Decorating her tree. She as so proud of herself and had a lot of fun doing this.
Next day was her school Frosty the Snowman party, so when we got home we painted a snowman mask.
