We took Melody to her first college football game back in 2019. We went to a non-SEC game, and while it was cold, she had a lot of fun. We decided to not go to any football games in 2020 due to COVID. But we continued with our season tickets this past 2021 season. We decided to take her to the Ole Miss/Vanderbilt game. This was basically the best game for us timing wise to take her due to Brad’s work travel and such.
I found these wraps in the Noom app way back when I was doing Noom. I did make some adjustments to their recipe to better fit what I had on hand and what I prefer (I am not a mushroom fan for instance).
We had such a good experience with gymnastics this summer, we wanted to give it a go full time. We waited about a week too late and were waitlisted for the fall, but by October they had found us a spot. Melody still wanted to try it out for the year, so we signed up. I have really enjoyed seeing her progress with a full semester worth of gymnastics and not just a few classes in the summer. She has definitely become braver and is more willing to try things. Here are a few pictures from our time this fall.
Back in October, we made a last minute decision to head to Disney World for Melody’s fall break. We had Hilton points, so that made the trip more appealing. We had enough to stay for free at DoubleTree at Disney Springs. It was the best deal out of all the Disney Springs Hilton hotels, and we did like the idea of having the separate bedroom and mini-kitchen.
On Christmas Eve, we spent the majority of the day at the ER with Melody. It was her first visit. You can see a little bit about it below.
I love making s’mores. I went through a phase of making s’mores at home in the microwave probably once a week for a while. I have wanted to make a s’mores dip for quite sometime, but it makes a lot, so I needed a group to make it for. So for Christmas with the Owens, I made it. It was quite delicious and actually easy to reheat.
Dance started out very similar to how it ended in the spring. We are still dropping off and picking up via a carline. This is our first year having to take a night class since Melody is in elementary school now. It is kind of sad and really hard on bed times, but we survive. Near the end of the year, they did start letting us come in for the last 5 minutes to see what they have learned. I hope that will continue into the spring as well. Here are a few pictures I was able to get this fall.
I told myself over the last few years we would never get one of those elves. It was too much work and I was not a fan. But I gave in very last minute this year. Literally I found an elf at Target that was a girl with blue eyes on December 1st. I actually ended up having a lot of fun with our elf. There were a few days she was forgotten by me, but thankfully Brad would remember. She was touched, but we recovered. Check out her shenanigans below.
Christmas is always so much fun. It can be so magical to see it all through Melody’s eyes. Now it can also be super stressful. This year I made sure to finish my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. Most was done before November. We also cut back on our traveling this year because we wanted some time at home because Brad’s work travel will pick by up in 2022. But we kept busy, and I decided to just throw all of the fun in one post!
I have been searching for some easy lunch recipes. I stumbled across this one, and I immediately wanted to try it. It was really good the day of. My lettuce did get a bit soggy the next day. But I did really like how easy it was to make in general.
As I mentioned earlier this week, December was a month of survival. It was also a really fun and memorable month too. We saw a lot of family, spent time with a lot of friends, experienced Melody’s first ER trip, and spent a lot of time with each other.
We had what was probably our most laid back New Year’s Eve that we have had in quite some time. Alabama was playing football, and we just made the most of spending the day at home relaxing. We did add a few bits of fun in the mix too!
So I have been a little MIA for the last few weeks as I focused on spending all of my time with our families and friends during the holiday season. During the holidays, we dealt with sickness (not COVID related thankfully), lots of traveling, spending time with everyone that we could, playing with Melody as much as possible, and surviving. The key word was definitely surviving. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the last few weeks for the most part. But now that the return of normalcy is upon us, I am exhausted!! I feel like I need a break, but technically we just had a two and a half week break. So I decided to start this year with more intention.
I did not mention this when writing about our time at Epcot, but we ended the night with a semi-upset child because she didn’t spend her gift card money from her Nannie. See Nannie gave all the girls a gift card since it is so rare they all go to Disney World (at the same time that is). Melody had been so torn on what to get, and she never found anything she loved. We didn’t really have time to go to the Creations Shop in Epcot at the end of our night. And Disney Springs sounded miserable that late too. So we told Melody we would go to Disney Springs when the opened. So that we did.
During Red Ribbon Week, Melody wanted to dress up as Pigeon as her favorite book character. I did some researching, and I opted to go the blue jacket route. It seemed the simplest. The hardest part for me was finding the right colored blue jacket locally. But thankfully I found one at Target that seemed to work. I had black and yellow felt on hand, and I bought some white felt.
We spent our last day at Disney at Epcot. We opted to dedicate the whole day to Epcot. We had briefly considered returning to another park, but realistically staying at Epcot all day allowed us to see both Emily’s group and Rebekah’s group.
We did the walking nights of Galaxy of Lights back in November. We went on a Sunday, and I actually found it less crowded than last year’s visit. They did change up the trails some this year, but it was still really pretty, and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. I didn’t take as many pictures as I have in the past, but here are some.
Tuesdays always seem to be a great day to visit Magic Kingdom, so we opted to do that. We ended the night at Epcot for the food! Epcot is our go to for great food, and we always have to fit in our must-dos. We snagged a decent timed reservation for Chefs de France on this evening, so we opted to do that.
Crockpot chicken fajitas are easy and yummy. Perfect for a Tuesday night fiesta. You literally just have to heat up the tortillas (if you want), and you are set for dinner! Buy some tortilla chips and premade salsa and call it a night.
We decided our first day would be spent at Hollywood Studios followed by the evening at Animal Kingdom. We opted for Hollywood first for a few reasons. One, we knew we wanted to also do Magic Kingdom and Epcot for sure. And those were fitting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Magic is never a good idea on Monday, and with the Food and Wine Festival going on, Epcot wasn't ideal for Monday either. We love doing Animal Kingdom at night, so that left Hollywood during the day. Melody LOVES Dinoland at Animal Kingdom, and we find it best in the evenings.
