Animal Kingdom

Kids at the start of the day


When you get up close to the tree, you can see animals carved all over it. It is quite incredible!


Daddy helping Charlotte get a better view


Where Naomi enjoyed the safari ride


Chilling with Mickey. Charlotte LOVES seeing him!


Showing off the binoculars that Anson let her borrow


Naomi was mostly interested in getting his ear


The girls trying to see the river


Obligatory showing off pose. Just look at those chunky legs!


Dusty & Arin & Co. riding the dinosaurs



Sporting Daddy's shades


Going for a ride in DinosaurLand


Charlotte wiped out mid-day


That's a lot of bull


Can you find the hidden Mickey? (You'll probably need to enlarge the photo)


The best we could get of all the kids with the glasses on for the "Bug's Life" show. I didn't heed the advice of a friend that this show isn't appropriate for little ones. Charlotte was crawling into Jared's lap and hiding her face in his shoulder :/


Charlotte & Ella hugging goodbye

The Goings-On

I can't believe I haven't blogged for a month. Sheesh! Here's a quick update:

I got a new vacuum!
All of this is just from our living room! And I had vacuumed with our old vacuum right before this just to see how much more the new one would get. Gross, isn't it?!

Naomi has been adorable. She's cruising along holding onto furniture and has even taken a step or two here and there by herself. Her first step was two weeks ago at 10.5 months old.

We spent a day at Animal Kingdom! I'll try to post more pictures from this day soon. We had a blast!

The girls are so cute together! They have the occasional squabble, but for the most part Naomi thinks Charlotte is the greatest thing since sliced bread and Charlotte loves her baby sister to pieces. Melts my heart!



We went camping and fishing! I use the term "camping" loosely since we were in a cabin with a kitchen, bathroom and shower, but it only had one bedroom so we were roughing it :) Hopefully this will get its own post so I can show you all the cute pictures from this trip as well.

Jared had surgery on his eye. See that white tissue stuff (called a pterygium) encroaching on the cornea? He had that removed. It was only on the surface of the eye and was a quick, routine procedure, but there were two stitches and a graft involved. The surgery went very well and his eye is healing as it should. As the stitches are dissolving, he said it doesn't feel like there's something in his eye as much anymore, so hopefully it's just a matter of time as the redness from the surgery fades away, though this will likely take a couple months.

Charlotte has showed her natural inclination for style. Snow White head band, Minnie Mouse shirt, purple and green tutu, and mommy's boots. She cracks me up.

The girls went Trick-or-Treating! I made their costumes and, if I do say so myself, these girls are the cutest little punkins I've ever seen. Naomi's bow was made by a friend of mine who has an etsy shop. She makes some of the cutest bows! Naomi was just along for the ride, but Charlotte has been excited about trick-or-treating for a while and she had a blast. After a couple houses she said that we could go home because her bag was full. We went to a few more and she picked up on the pattern of getting candy from each house we went to. Then when I asked her if she was ready to go home she replied, "I think we need to go to twelve more." Random number, but she wanted more candy!
I can't get over how much Charlotte looks like I did growing up. Compare the picture above with the one below. Mini Me!