A Very Happy Un-Birthday to you.

When I was a kid, I loved the Mad Hatter's Teacups at Disneyland.  My Disney memories are full of my mother spinning our teacup so fast, I thought I'd lose my lunch.  Happily, the tradition of making your child vomit in our family continues...  Good times.

The Happiest Place on Earth!

When the Kennedys do Disney, we do it BIG!  Invitations were extended to some of our closest friends to meet up with us at Disneyland and take advantage of some of the amazing perks of just being our friends (AKA Dave's company perks).  Truth be told, we weren't complete without a few families that bowed out for various reasons... like a little old trip to Hawaii.  Sheesh.  But we pushed on bravely.  It was an amazing week full of Disney magic, the California sunshine, cinnamon-y churros, and cupcake espionage.

We met the Hatch Family for dinner in Downtown Disney and caught up on all the latest - including meeting Carson, their newest addition.

We like to believe that we turned the Mays into Disney-lovers after having proclaimed that they would never set foot inside the park.  (I may be exaggerating that story a bit...)

We facilitated the introduction of the Fyans Family to Alice and the Mad Hatter, which fascinated baby Davis.

We let Amelia pull Minnie's ears even though mommy said, "no".

And, we let the Mosses get the very last photo with Cinderella before her big performance onstage at Disney's California Adventure.

We can try to take credit for all of the fun this trip brought, but really, it was all the magic of Disney.  This quickly turned into our annual trip with friends!  Mark your calendars now for February 2009!  See ya' real soon, Mickey!

California girl

Let's see.  Catching up a bit...

February found Amelia visiting Grandpa John and Grandma Lora, Uncle Bill and Aunt Jenn, and Great-Grandma Rheta, Uncle Kyle, Aunt Heather, and cousins Noelle and Jackson in California and loving every bit of the attention.

Amelia also made the rounds to many of daddy and mommy's Fresno friends.

She was a superstar on the airplane.  No crying for this tiny traveler!  (But saying goodbye to Grandma at the airport really was hard.  No really.  Try to ignore the grin.)

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve found Amelia in Bethlehem (Farmington, UT) wrapped in swaddling clothes (a denim dress and pink tights) lying in a manger (a car seat) under the watchful eye of Mary (cousin Elizabeth) and Joseph (cousin David) taking part in a very elaborate dramatization of the Christmas Story with her Kennedy cousins.  She loved it until the wisemen arrived and started dropping their gifts onto her (literally).

Certainly one of the highlights of the night was her very first encounter with Saint Nick.  Can't you tell?

Amelia had a very Merry Christmas indeed.  Proving yet again that the number of gifts is inversely proportionate to the recipient's ability to remember the actual gift.  That being said, Amelia is one very lucky girl.  (And this was just the morning haul!)

Oh baby, let's go to the hop!

Amelia's cousin Ella celebrated her birthday with a sock hop complete with poodle skirts and ice cream sundaes.  Amelia was lucky that her mommy still had the energy to sew her a skirt after making 17 others for the party guests.  Talk about marathon sewing...

Let it snow!

Here is how we awoke to our little gem of a street one morning.  There are few things as beautiful as the silence when the world is blanketed in white or the crunch of powdery snow under foot.  (And, likewise, few things more miserable in which to drive!)

Blog-O-Rama

Okay.  It's one thing to have your family from out of state complain that they aren't getting enough "grandparent time" with their darling granddaughter via the blog, but quite another when it's your friends that start to chime in with the complaints, and threatening to delete blog links no less!.  [Gasp!]  Apologies all around.  So, without further ado, I now give you what is sure to be just the first of many Blog-A-Thons/Blogopaloozas/Blog-O-Ramas in 2008.

Halloween 2007: Starring Amelia as a sugary little cupcake escorted by her parents, the bakers.

November 2007: Amelia dressed for The Game (Harvard vs Yale) but really wishing they were playing her kind of football (AKA "soccer").  David and Amelia watch quite a few matches together.  She really like the green of the field and waiting for daddy to jump up and down when Arsenal scores.

December 2007: Dressed and ready for church with a ridiculous bow in her hair.  But after a woman at the grocery store said of Amelia, "He has your eyes!" it was time to pull out the big guns.