Ben's birthday

Here are some pictures I finally uploaded from Ben's 34th birthday. A good friend of his gave him the Montana jersey. He was pretty excited about it. 

The girls set up a scavenger hunt for him to be led to his party in the basement. Kara was very proud of the clues she made up. I didn't help them, so I was surprised to read some of them. This one was intended to lead to Evie's room because she always says the guy on the Izod poster at Kohl's is her boyfriend. 

The surprise at the end of the scavenger hunt was a nintendo party. They were very clever with their "Ninbendo" sign. They kept bringing it up and reminding us of it the rest of the night. We played smash brothers.

I made some of Ben's favorite treats for the party. The girls ate most of it, because Ben and I had been eating so healthy all month in preparation for our cruise, and our stomachs couldn't handle too much. 

They put his gifts by the Chiefs tree in the basement. He has a lot more ornaments for it now, so next year it will be much more impressive. 

Since we would be gone for Christmas, I made a ham dinner for Ben's birthday. 

He got just what he was in most need of: more Chiefs stuff. 

I got him the new cheerleader calendar. The girls were anxious to look through it and see which cheerleader was on their birthday months. 

I also got him this jacket, which he has loved so far. It has some neat features. 

Kara spent 3 days working on this amiibo stand for him. She even asked me to use her allowance to buy the green pipe cleaners. She was super excited about it, and he tried to act like he liked it. It can hold 2 or 3 amiibos, and I think he should use it. 

He got the video game he was wanting. I had the girls wrap it in a really big box to trick him, but they didn't stuff the box with anything to make it heavier, so I think he may have guessed what it was. 

I think he had a pretty fun birthday! I wanted the girls to do kids night out, so I could take him somewhere fun, but they really wanted to plan this party for him, and it turned out to be a great evening. 

Disney Cruiseline photos

So here are some of the photos that we had taken by the DCL photography staff. This was the first cruise we've been on where they didn't swipe our room key for photos. They used facial recognition software, and that made us pretty nervous. We kept going up to the photo room to check if our pictures were showing up yet. In the end, I guess they knew what they were doing. We did have one picture of a random family in there, but I got that one removed. They didn't look like us, but had 3 daughters, and similar clothing colors. 
They didn't all load up in order, but I just posted them as I came across them.  Here are the girls waiting to board with Captain Mickey. We were pretty early for our boarding time, so had lots of chances for photos. 

We have a few pictures with Kiersten trying to hold up her shorts. They were a little big on her. Once we were on board I found a safety pin to fix them. 

Next September all of the girls will be in different outfits, as they are all ready to be handed down. They've gotten plenty of use out of them. 

I've never seen so few people dressed up for pirate night. I guess some people had extra Christmas items to pack along instead. 

The photographer shouted, "hold on to your hats!". I was holding down the back of my skirt. 

I barely took any pictures of them with Santa, so I'm so glad these ones turned out cute. The girls were a little awkward at first because the lady in line behind us was throwing a fit because she felt we cut in line. A staff member had put us there in line, and tried to explain to her that it was his doing, but she couldn't get over it. I was trying to offer her to go ahead of us, but she was pretty off the rails, so I backed off. They had a nice list for the kids to sign, and Evie wrote "mommy" on the naughty side. (The first name on the naughty list for 2016! woo) Anyway, when that lady saw, she said, "I'll say..." 

Ben got back to us just in time to be in a shot with the family.

Fancy night is one of my favorites. The girls hate getting their hair done, but love the end result. 

Between these 2 family shots, which one would you print off for the wall? I'm leaning toward the top one, but not sure. Evie didn't look straight in either one. But these were definitely the 2 best. 

I felt pretty ridiculous being posed like this, and then laughed out loud when I saw it. Maybe I'll make it my phone wallpaper, haha. We did end up with a better one of the two of us though. Couple pictures aren't a thing we typically do. 

First thing we did when we got on the ship was get tickets for the princess meet and greet. They run out sometimes. Kiersten is always happy to see her favorite princess. Ariel said she's going to get a dress with Evie's face on it. They thought that was so funny. 

Belle is my favorite. 

We haven't ever gotten to meet Mulan on the ship before, so that was exciting. We watched her movie in the pool the night before, so that made Evie even more excited. I don't think we've ever seen her at the parks either. 

The tickets for Anna and Elsa are separate, but we were able to get some of those as well. It's nice to have an appointed time to show up and get it done instead of waiting in line forever. Though, I always feel bad when people show up that didn't know about the tickets. Seems pretty harsh to just send those excited little girls away, especially on a short trip, that they only have one meet and greet. You'd think they would build a little extra time on the end for the late comers, or hand out more tickets. 

Here are some formal night pictures at dinner. We sat with a nice family that had a daughter Kara's age. They were pretty fun to talk to, and had us laughing a lot. 

I originally told Kiersten no to those dangly penguin earrings. But she won me over and looked perfectly cute. 

Kara wanted her glasses on for every picture. She is such a sweetie. 

Here are our boarding pictures. We tried to be somewhat festive for Christmas Eve. 

We all had our bathing suits on under our clothes, but never went swimming that day. As soon as our rooms were ready, we just got changed back into regular underthings. 

Mickey Mania winners!!!

I'm glad we did the photo package, I was a lot less worried about getting pictures of everything, and just enjoyed the moments more easily. 

Ahoy!

Just a few pictures of pirate night. Evie's pirate fairy costume is really short. This is probably her last time wearing it. Anyone need one? lol.

The show was pretty much the same as always, though they added more rock music. I was glad to hear some Bon Jovi if even for a few brief seconds.

We had a pretty great place to stand.

It was REALLY windy. about half of deck 10 got a free show when my dress kept blowing up. My purse helped weigh it down, and Ben also helped me hold it down. It was pretty funny. The girls really had to hold onto their hats.

Here comes Mickey to save the day!

The fireworks were longer and better than I remember them being in the past.

Kara and Kiersten danced down by the stage, but came back up before the fireworks. I couldn't see them down there, so I felt more relaxed once they came back up.

Evie and Kiersten made the most of the pool on our last day at sea. Kara was in the Oceaneer Club for almost 5 hours.

After we picked up Kara, we got a message that Kiersten and Evie would be participating in the kids' show.

I didn't get very good shots of Evie. She kept getting behind that boy.

They always like watching the slideshow of themselves.

We were going really fast on the way back, so the water was pretty choppy. Kiersten got a little seasick even with a motion sickness pill. Kara didn't have a problem though.

Ben got me this cute dress in Mexico.

It felt like such a whirlwind trip, but I think we did a great job of getting the most out of every moment! Merry Christmas!