Rhoads Family Christmas in Seagrove Beach, FL!

For Christmas this year we were able to get together with my parents, and my brother and his family. It was so much fun! We stayed in the house below, Nantucket, and it was perfect for all of us! It had 3 floors. The bottom floor was really a garage though. The main living floors were so nice. Huge kitchen and comfy seating. All couples had king beds to sleep in with private bathrooms also. Really nice when you have kids.



Here we are entering the house for the first time.


Here was our view from our balcony! Pretty awesome!

Here is our balcony. How perfect is that? Kind of looks like Cracker Barrel a bit though, doesn't it?

Here was Abby's little sleeping nook. This was at the end of the hallway upstairs, and she just thought it was the coolest place for her to sleep.

Already for bed and so excited to see Uncle Mark, Aunt Stacy, Sara and Katie in the morning!

Oh Christmas tree...

My favorite part of Christmas! I love going to pick out our tree, it was always a tradition that I did with my dad. I hope that we can pass that on to the girls.



Ashley thought she could help out her daddy a bit with the lights. She was so funny, she kept calling the tree "castle". I think she just had in her mind the lights that were all over Cinderella"s castle and how we had lights on the tree. She eventually did start calling it a tree, but for a few days we had a "castle" in our house.

Abby loves to put up ornaments! Then she likes to rearrange them every so often also. The bottom of my tree has a new look every few days.

Ahhhh! Don't you just love how they look when they're all decorated and lit up? Now we just hope it stays alive till Christmas!

A Peruvian Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was a diverse one. We spent it with my mom and dad, but also with my Aunt and her son who live currently in Uruguay and my cousin with her son who now live in Peru. In case you don't know, they do not celebrate Thanksgiving. So, they got a good taste of a true Thanksgiving meal! Yum!

Enjoying the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade! I even got to watch it! I did quite a bit ahead of time which allowed me to relax a bit and enjoy the morning.

The grand gathering! I loved my tablecloth this year, total last minute buy. Thank you Homegoods! You see Abby with her thanksgiving meal, Mateo's too?! Chicken nuggets and french fries. You don't see a ketchup bottle on a thanksgiving table too often. Was there one on yours?

I have the cutest picture of Abby when she was younger with our scarecrow girl and pumpkins. I had to get one of Ashley! Turned out cute.

Abby took this picture. Can you tell what her favorite part of Thanksgiving was?

Better late than never: Thanksgiving!

Well, we're back tracking a little but I kind of want to keep things in calendar order. Here we are at Abby's little Friendship Feast! Her Indian name was Leaping Dolphin, pretty cute hu? She has a thing for dolphins now after our summer vacation this past year. They sang some really cute and funny songs for us and then shared a friendly snack amongst pilgrim and Indians.

Singing one of the songs with hand motions. Wish I could remember which one.

Class picture. Her class is so cute.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!!

We have started a new tradition, I think, to go to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party the weekend before Thanksgiving. Believe it or not, it is not that crowded that weekend. Anyhow we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge Resort and they even upgraded us! Yeah, to a 1 bdrm. villa, nice!!! We had to go with Ashley this time, she loves all the characters! She knows all their names and she says them so cute. She wasn't even scared of them, at all! We actually had to hold her back when we stood in line to meet them. The weather was perfect this time. It was funny to look back at last years trip and we were all bundles up, big time! Abby was so much more fun on this trip, she really wanted to go on the rides. We went on rides that she had never done before!!


The girls are waiting to get going to the park. Can you see the huge tree in the background! The decorations are so pretty at this resort!




In the hotel room all ready to go. They look so cute with their hats on. Ashley would not take it off! Funny.

Made it to the park, finally. Little info. for you, the party starts at 7p.m., but you can get in the park at 4p.m..

Dance parties one Cinderella's step-sisters and step-mother and the other with Goofy and Pluto! Can you tell they had a great time. Abby was showing off some interesting moves. It was pretty funny.

Daddy and his little girl! She loved being up on his shoulders.

The main character that we had to see! Mickey Mouse, and Ashley was in love with "Mickey Mouse" she can say it plain as day!

We went to a Fireworks Dessert Party! So yummy! All the times that we've been to Disney and we've never really "watched" the fireworks. We did this time. It was so cute to see Tinkerbell fly down right over us. It was the perfect place to watch the show and enjoy coffee, hot chocolate, and a bunch of yummy desserts!

As we were leaving the park we ran into these guys! Ashley loves Pooh, as she calls him "Tigger Pooh". She calls Tigger the same thing. Fun night!

Trying to get caught up!

Pretty crazy to be updating my blog with a Christmas background and showing Halloween pictures! Sorry, about that. I'm going to try to get caught up a bit, but can't promise how far I'll get with it. Anyhow, here's our trip to the pumpkin patch with the girls! Ashley kept calling the pumpkins, "punkies". How cute is that, right? Abby had fun running around and actually ran into a friend from when she went to preschool. Abby dressed up as a High School Musical Cheerleader and Ashley was the mascot, a wildcat!

About to go trick or treating with our neighbors!

Cute little tail! She loved getting dressed up in her costume!



This is from Abby's school costume parade! The kindergartners parade around the school and all the classes come out and watch them! It was really cute. I have to say though, that i was surprised with some of the costumes these kids had. They asked for no scary costumes, but there were some that I jumped back at. Poor Abby was even a little leary on going down her hallway when she saw some of them right by her classroom door.

This is at our church fall festival! So much fun! Here they are showing off their costumes.

Our funny little girl and those crazy big blue eyes!

Kindergarten: Open House and 1st Day!

My baby girl has grown up, and she is a kindergartner now! Where did the time go? She is so excited about it all, although it may have worn off by now. She woke up this morning(Thurs., she started on Mon.), wanting to sleep more and asked,"I go to school today, too?" It's kind of a long day. She's there from 7:45-2:00, no 1/2 days here! Let the fun begin!


This is Open House/Meet Your Teacher night! She found her seat with a little treat from her teacher!


I am so excited that she got Mrs. Carbaugh for her teacher! God is so good and truly answered our prayers in more ways than one with this whole kindergarten experience.

All ready for the first day!

Can you tell this is the K hallway? Lots of mommy's and daddy's. It doesn't look like that anymore, we're not allowed to walk them to their door come next week. So sad, I wish we could.

You have to get a pic. on the 1st day of school with the K teacher!

She has just started this little "smile"! She's ready to start!

First day of school treat! She deserved it, it was a big day for all of us!