I suppose that’s what we get for electing Donald Trump and his pro-fossil fuel agenda, huh? 😉 Sara found these neat holiday door decorations at Target about a month ago and we proceeded to promptly lose them until just the other day when we finally said, “Hey, Christmas is almost here – maybe we should put…
December 17, 2016: Christmas Vacation 2016, In Retrospect
The worst part about going on vacation is that eventually you have to come home again. And check your credit card balance. Mostly the second one, really… Visiting Disney World during Christmastime has long been a staple excursion of ours, and after a few years ago making a proper trip out of mid-December, I’m not…
December 16, 2016: Jingle Bell, Jingle Bleh…
I really miss the Osborne Lights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. And I’m sure I’m not the only one, so we might as well get this out of the way first – the interim holiday show at the Studios … Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM … jingle sucks. It’s nowhere near the spectacle that the Osborne lights ever were, the story…
December 15, 2016: Snacking Around the Christmas Tree
I like to think that every kid remembers when their parents let them eat ice cream for breakfast when they were on vacation or got to splurge on one of those giant cookies that’s nearly the size of their head … and that’s basically what today was like! …and not just because I woke up to…
December 14, 2016: Christopher’s Day at the Magic Kingdom
Between enduring a really long (and yummy) dinner and an equally long (and awesome) fireworks show, we recognized that yesterday didn’t really have much for Christopher and he ended up spending a lot of the day strapped into his stroller, so today we wanted to make sure we had some things that he could enjoy…
December 13, 2016: Let There Be Peace on Earth
Today was a very non-traditional theme park day, in that we spent the afternoon and evening at Epcot and literally did not go on a single attraction! Instead, we had dinner, and we watched the Candlelight Processional, and then we snacked some more 😉 , and finally closed out the night with IllumiNations … which ended up…
December 12, 2016: Exhausted Christmas Vacation Arrival (AND SANTA!!!)
We made it! And everything fit in the car! And the day was filled with several meltdowns from each and every one of our kids! But we made it to Christmas vacation!!! 😀 The battle was long and arduous, beginning with maybe four hours of sleep since last night before resuming our vacation prep with reckless abandon….
December 11, 2016: The Last-Minute, Pre-Vacation Scramble…
I should be going to bed instead of writing this, but when it’s already 5am and you have to get up in a few hours, do an extra 15 minutes even matter that much anymore??? We had BIG plans for today – multiple loads of laundry, finishing putting up Christmas decorations, generally cleaning up the…
December 8, 2016: Scott’s Christmas Mix Tape, volume 5
For those of you new to my Holiday Advent Blog, one of the traditions that I’ve always made a habit of posting (almost) every year is a mix tape of sorts that features some of my favorite Christmas songs across a variety of themes. Over the years we’ve had: 2011 – Volume 1 – Holiday Memories 2012 – Volume…
December 7, 2016: Gingerbread Dreams
Do I even need to say that Sprinkles has the most awesomest cupcakes in the entire universe??? …or dare I say this time of year in the entire Winter Wonderland?! I mean, at least as much as Central Florida experiences “winter,” anyways… 😉 Tonight I topped off a stellar meal at Morimoto Asia over at Disney Springs…
December 6, 2016: Dancing Under the Snow!
Lately we’ve been trying to break Christopher of his fear of loud noises and bright lights, namely because we’re over at Disney a lot and we tend to stay for fireworks and a visit just isn’t complete until after fireworks … plus we’re going to be over there for our Christmas vacation pretty soon and it’s fair to…
December 5, 2016: Puttin’ Up the Lights
Well, I started, anyways, though after only an hour of putting lights up on the garage I’ve clearly still got a long ways to go! And yes, that makes me a bit of a hypocrite … thanks. 😛 So far my neighbors are really showing me up because a surprising number of them did follow my humor column-based decree and…
December 4, 2016: A Promise to Share the Wealth…
One of the important tenets that I’ve found myself trying to follow during this time of year – particularly as I’ve been getting older and have the means – is to make an effort to help those less fortunate than myself. ‘Tis the season to be sharing, Fred! 😉 Over the years we’ve been building a…
December 3, 2016: Yes, we need a little Christmas right this very minute!
I haven’t put our Christmas lights up yet, despite numerous sparkling decorations sprouting up around the neighborhood. And despite having an awesome Christmas vacation over at Disney World coming up in a little over a week, there’s an ever-growing to-do list looming between me and vacation that’s making it really hard to look forward to…
December 2, 2016: If They Gave a Prize for Being Mean…
“…the winner would be him!” I love me some Muppet Christmas Carol, and honestly I haven’t had a chance to watch it the last couple of years just because of Busy Life Syndrome, however back before TNT started the tradition of airing the Lord of the Rings trilogy for Thanksgiving, one of my fond memories of childhood around this time…
December 1, 2016: Why I *LOATHE* Elf on a Shelf…
Today’s humor piece over at Just Laugh was a bit of a rant about everyone’s beloved Christmastime tradition, the Elf on a Shelf. And how much I hate him. 😀 The thing is, thinking about it made me realize that it’s not even the goofy act of putting him in different scenarios each night for the kids to find that…
November 30, 2016: Introducing Scott’s Holiday Advent Blog!
This is a fun, little holiday project that I’ve been doing more or less for the past five years, so now that I’ve dedicated this site as my attempt at DAILY BLOGGING, I suppose it makes only sense that an advent blog of sorts would fit best over here rather than on my regular blog. The idea is simple – every…
November 26, 2016: Something New?
I spent some time while I was supposed to be putting up Christmas lights this evening instead thinking about what I want to do next year from a writing perspective. And I suppose I’m a bit torn because as it usually happens, very much at random I came up with an idea for a new…
November 25, 2016: Sneaky, Sneaky
I suppose it’s a pretty good thing that my oldest* son is a very heavy sleeper. * It’s so weird now having to actually specify that! Anywho, my wife went out shopping last night for Black Friday, but on Thursday Night … why doesn’t this have a proper name yet??? … and came home with a bunch of toys for the kids. After…
November 24, 2016: Thankful for Closure
I’m writing a couple of other posts about thankfulness and whatnot that I’ll be posting later over on my blog and my editorial site, but for today’s Thing-a-Day I thought I’d share this wonderful picture that I took this evening of the twins sleeping peacefully together – at home – and elaborate just a bit on what a tremendous relief it’s been…
November 23, 2016: Taste-Testing That Oreo Candy Bar Thing…
We saw it on Facebook a few weeks ago, and tonight I was surprised to find it on the shelves in the candy aisle of our local Walmart, so a family consensus was quickly reached that we all knew we were going to have to try it! …Christopher included, who took it upon himself to guard that…
November 22, 2016: Synchronicity
We’ve had both of the twins home together for barely 24 hours at this point, but if there’s one thing that I’ve learned already, it’s that we’re going to have to find a way to sync these swings so that they move together or it’s going to drive my OCD absolutely bonkers! 😛 It doesn’t help…
November 21, 2016: Happy Homecoming
I can’t believe we got the whole family to fit!!! It probably wasn’t the best approach to not bother trying to fit all three car seats into our SUV until we were literally ready to go pick Matthew up from the hospital, but you can see here that despite the snug packing job with Christopher now…
November 20, 2016: My Favorite Time
I think my favorite time bonding with David right now is after he’s had the last drink from his bottle and he starts falling back asleep on my shoulder after burping. And I don’t just say that because it’s easy, but let’s be honest here – he’s nine weeks old right now, so it’s not like we’re singing along…