The Dudley Four: 2014

Olaf at Church!

During the At the Movies series at church, every Sunday a few characters would be around before and after service to meet the kids. Pretty much all of Little Bud's dreams came true when he saw Olaf before service one Sunday!! The look on his face was absolutely priceless. He was so excited!

Little Bud ran over to Olaf and jumped into his arms!

Little Bud had to tell Olaf good bye before we left

After church, we went by to see Papa and Grammie,

and the kids had a blast jumping in their leaf pile

Big Sister and Little Bud with our snowman

Disney on Ice

At the end of October we went to Disney on Ice with some of Big Sister's favorite friends.

You simply must dress like Elsa if you're going anywhere you might see a princess!

Although the show had a different headline title than when we went a few years ago,

It was strangely similar. Big Sister didn't realize though, and thought it was great!

Benton Thanksgiving

This year the kids and I spent all of Thanksgiving week in Benton; John drove up after work on Wednesday to join us. Grams, Papa and Jamie all had the week off, so it was great to spend time with them, since we don't see them as often as we'd like. Big Sister and I drove into Chattanooga one afternoon so she could spend a few hours playing at her cousins' house. Before lunch on Thanksgiving, Jamie took some family pictures for us (this is turning into a bit of a tradition, this is the 3rd year she's taken our family pictures on Thanksgiving at the cabin). She was able to capture some incredible shots this year! These are my favorite family photos of the 4 of us!! Thanks Jamie :)

Disney

Way back in October, we took a trip to the most magical place on earth. My parents and sister joined us for a few days, and Big Sister had a blast taking them on all her favorite rides. Since they came down a few days into our trip, we decided to let Little Bud ride down with Papa and Grams, giving us a few days to spend time with Big Sister. It was fun to be able to ride rides together with her (last go around we had to take turns riding with her, while one of us waited with Little Bud). Big Sister loved having us all to herself, and Little Bud had the best time spending the night with Grammie and then heading to Florida with Grams and Papa (he even visited with family in Apopka before they met us at Disney).

Neither of the kids knew that Jamie was flying down for the weekend, so when she showed up they were so happy! My Aunt and Uncle met us at Epcot one day, and it was nice to spend a bit of time with them too.

Overall it was a good trip. This year was a bit more challenging than last (Little Bud fully understood that he was getting left behind when he wasn't big enough for a ride and he isn't a big fan of riding in the stroller or waiting in lines), but both kids have talked about the trip almost non stop for the last few months, so I guess that means they are treasuring the memories we made. Little Bud has told me countless times that Jamie and/or Papa and Grams are going to take him back to Disney World, and every time we drive past the Shelby County Courthouse, he tells us that it's Donald Duck's castle!!

We've found that sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the trees when it comes to vacationing with little kids. It's hard work, much more challenging than "normal" life, but once you get home and think back, we find that there's always good memories to treasure.

John says that our next trip to Disney will be when both of the kids are tall enough to ride every ride, which will be at least 5 years from now. I'm hoping that we'll take a motorhome trip to California in a few years, and we'll make a stop at DisneyLand while we're there :)