The Monkey Vine: 2011

Oh my, is it really December already!?! Where has 2011 gone???? Well, we started the month out by visiting Downtown Celebration to see it "Snow"... Florida Style! What? You don't know what Florida snow is? Well, according to Celebration, it's throwing soap suds all over you!!! Blogger had some technical problems and won't let me upload the pictures. Hopefully, tomorrow, they will be uploaded.

Next, we went to Bass Outdoors to see Santa!! Doodle Bug cut pictures out of magazines to show Santa what he wanted for Christmas. Among the many things, he narrowed it down to two: a train and an iPad. Read on to see if Doodles gets what he asked for...

This year, our family was visited by an Elf! He arrived right after Thanksgiving. We had to name him in order for him to get his magic. Doodles chose the name Flippy. Flippy sat in various places at our house and "spied" on Doodle Bug and Jitter Bug. Every night, when we fell asleep, Flippy flew to the North Pole to give Santa a Report of DB and JB's behavior.

Then Flippy would fly back. He always landed in a different place. Sometimes, he would get into the pantry, or he would rearrange things in our house. Below are some pictures of some of the mischief that Flippy caused...

One night, Flippy snuck into Doodle Bug's room and painted his nose red like Rudolph!

Doodle Bug was not happy about this and quickly rubbed off the paint. Hopefully, Flippy doesn't do this next year!!

Sometimes, he just played with our toys!

... and sometimes he got into the pantry!!

On December 22, we went to Tavares to ride the Polar Express!! Doodle Bug was beyond ecstatic to ride a REAL train as you can see by his big, cheesy smile!!!

...waiting for the train to pull away!!

We started Christmas Eve off by creating a Gingerbread Train!!

A few years ago, when I was born, my mother started a Christmas Eve tradition. She would serve Italian food (like lasagna) and after we ate dinner, we would get a quick visit from Santa Claus. Santa would bring us a few gifts and then tell us that he would come back later that night to leave a few presents under the tree.

Well, this year, I carried on the tradition. Hubby and I had a HUGE Italian feast!! Lasagna (not my mother's recipe ;) chicken parm, sausage and peppers, anti pasta platters...

For dessert, I made a homemade Tiramasu Cupcake. It turned out so pretty that I just had to take a picture :-)

After we ate dessert, guess who arrived???

Santa is here!!! Doodle Bug loved Santa!! He was not shy at all. Jitter Bug, on the other hand, isn't too sure of him.

Santa handed out a few (too many) presents to the kids and then he was off!!

Doodles and Jitters opened their gifts...

Someone was excited to get clothes!!

And someone was super excited to get more hot wheels!!! (I'm sure the 237,549,982 hot wheels that he already owns are NOT enough)

That night Doodles noticed that he didn't get the 2 things that he really wanted: a train and an iPad.

The next morning, he raced downstairs and to his amazement he found what he was looking for. He kept shouting, "I must have been on the Nice List!!"

I'm going to need to have a word with Santa because when Doodle Bug asked for a train, I was thinking of something small, like the size of a hot wheels car. Next year, we will be a little more specific on our list!!!!!!

Jitter Bug received her first purse! Complete with a mirror, lipstick, and a bracelet. It's probably the cheapest purse she'll ask for :-) If she's like her Mama!!!

Woohoo!!! My very own iPad!!!

Oh yeah!! Another one of my Mom's traditions! Every year she buys us matching pajamas. This year "the guys" were in on the tradition too!!!

Here we are visiting Great Grandma and Great Grandpa!!!

Usually we have thanksgiving at our house, but for the first time in 11 years, we decided to travel down to south Florida and have it at my parents house.

Below is my cousin, N, holding Jitter Bug...

It seems the kid's table is growing!!! I love this picture below because my sister is making a funny face. She hasn't even started drinking yet!!!

Doodle Bug didn't waste time, he dug right in and started eating!

Mommy and Jitter Bug.

They say Turkey makes you sleepy, not tonight!! After we ate dinner, we all went into the family room and broke out Dancy Party 3!! Talk about entertaining!!!!

Doodle Bug turned "Pumpkin Mickey" upside down and played drums while we danced!! He actually kept a good beat for us!!

Grandma was making some interesting faces while she danced!!!

Big Red and Jitter Bug

Just Chillin'

Our Cutie-Pa-Tutie turned 7 months old in November!!!

Don't be fooled by the cute grin, she has a devilish side too! Just kidding, I forgot to fix her red eyes!!

Oh, I'm almost forgot, at the beginning of November, we all went on the Disney Cruise. This was Doodle and Jitter Bug's first cruise. These two have been as far north as Niagara Falls (September, 2011) and as far south as the Bahamas (November, 2011) in 2 months. They sure are getting some use out of those Passports!!

Doodles LOVED seeing all of the characters on the boat!! One night was the "Pirate" themed night. Everyone is encouraged to dress as a pirate for dinner. Since Doodles was a pirate for Halloween, this was perfect for him. As you can see below, he ADORES "pirate Mickey"...

...Captain Hook, not so much!!! I had to bribe him to get his picture taken with C.H.!!!

The cruise had an AWESOME play area set up for kids. One of the rooms was designed to look like Andy's room from the Toy Story. Doodles was hared at work building Mr. Potato head.