Christmas Wish Fulfilled!

The children have been talking about going to Disney for years now!  We have been telling them that we wouldn't go until Amelia turned 5 years old...(she will be 5 in January)  So, when we surprised them with a trip to Disney World a couple weeks ago, they were very surprised and extremely excited!  We didn't tell them until the day before we left, which made it really fun for us and them.  Here are a few cute pictures of the children:

This was a hot day at Epcot (about 85 degrees + humidity!)

In front of the Magic Kingdom on the 2nd day of Disney touring...The weather was perfect...low 70's with occasional rain misting, which kept people away!

We all had a blast and enjoyed visiting our friends who live in Florida :)

Our Christmas Miracle

Early Friday morning (4 AM to be exact!) we awoke to the piercing sound of our Fire Alarm!  As I began to gather the children, Brian tried to find the source of the smoke or fire.  No luck!  We couldn't smell any smoke and we didn't find a fire...??  Brian thought perhaps our detectors were going haywire and began to disable the alarms.  We still were nervous that there was some problem and thought perhaps the source was in the computer room, which holds most our electrical stuff.  While investigating Brian noticed a drop of water coming out of the smoke detector in the office...all of the sudden it hit us!!  The upstairs bathroom is directly above the office and water must have leaked through the detector from the bathroom causing the wires to get wet and setting off the alarm!!!  AHHH!  Sure enough...upstairs toilet was plugged and the water was running!  Almost a half inch of water was all throughout the bathroom and the carpet in the hallway and partly in Megan's room.

Miracle you say?  YES!  We think one of the children had gone to the bathroom just a short time before the alarm went off, and plugged the toilet without realizing.  And the water only came through the floor (ceiling downstairs) about 1 foot in diameter, and it happened to be right where the fire alarm was, which caused the wires to get wet, which caused the alarm to go off, and alert us to the problem!  No one was due to wake for another 2 HOURS, so the toilet would have continued to run and caused a MUCH bigger, nastier problem than we currently have!  We feel very blessed!

Here's the damage:

It shouldn't cost too much to fix...we are drying out the carpet and plan on having it re-installed in a couple days (or maybe after Christmas...we aren't in any hurry), and we might have to replace the flooring in the bathroom...not sure yet.  We did have someone come to our home to access the damage to make sure we were doing it all correctly and not missing any water damage, and that did cost a bit.  Having the carpet re-installed will be an expense, but other than that we shouldn't have to do too much! :)

Cookbook Giveaway :)

Check out a fun giveaway on my Hobby Blog :)

Merry Christmas!!

Wonderful Family Pics!

My dear friend, Angie, is a wonderful photographer (check out her work)!!!  She took our pictures last week and I just wanted to share some highlights (BTW, it was raining...(ok, misting, not real rain) and getting dark, and they still turned out great!)

Family Group...Tulla included, who looks like she has just noticed a Squirrel! ;)

Here is our little angel Amelia...

Cute, darling Anna...

Calm and Cool Zachary (rare occasions only!)

Beautiful Megan!!

Their true personalities coming through...

Our beautiful girls...

...and the handsome boys...

The lucky couple...