Busy Month...

Yeah, I know it's been a long time...Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

This month we attended Blythe's graduation from USC. My dad is so happy that he doesn't have to pay anymore tuition! I swear if he hadn't been sick he would have done cartwheels in the parking lot! We are 3 very grateful children because our parents put us through college and we all graduated: 1 BYU, 2 USC. We know who got the best degree!!!

We took some family pictures together, thanks to Shane the photographer. He's not really a photographer, of course, but he took some decent pictures of us and he took us to a cute place to take them. I thought they turned out pretty good.


We also went to NC to see the NC Freemans (Matt's brother and family). We always have the best time with them. We attended their ward Christmas party and got to see Santa there. Zack freaked out and cried, but then when he saw him he calmed down and took a picture with him. We had a good time just being with them and can't wait to see them again soon.

Christmas was great. We spent it with my family. The best part was that it was 70+ outside and we didn't have to deal with any snow. I'm so thankful not to have that anymore! My mom bought us a little tree so that we'd have one in our cozy apartment. (Did I mention that we finally moved out and into an apartment while we are building our house?) Zack enjoyed his gifts from Santa (all Lightning McQueen as requested!), and Matt and I had exchanged gifts too. Matt has been purchasing guns and ammo, so that was part of his gifts, but he also got a couple of cd's. Matt spoiled me with a Cricut and nice scrapbook photo/paper trimmers and a punch I'd been really wanting.




Most importantly, Zack learned more about the true meaning of Christmas. When we would ask him "what does Christmas mean?", he would answer "Jesus" or "Baby Jesus". He would also say that it was Jesus' birthday, and he started singing "Happy Birthday to Jesus" in the bathtub a few nights ago!

Wish me luck...tomorrow I'm putting Zack in real underwear!!! He's finally made it! I'll have to give a final "potty training" report later!

Disney World...now that it's been almost 2 months!

After the big cruise, we decided to stay in FL a few more days and go to Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. We were trying to see if Zack would have a change of heart about the "scariest" place on earth. We spent the first day at Hollywood Studios, and I think Zack found his "Happy Place".



There was just one little area that had Lightning McQueen and Mater in Radiator Springs. Zack was in heaven! It was so cute. We totally surprised him with that and his smile and excitement was worth it.


Halfway through the day we met up with Matt's sister's family and had fun with them in the park. These are just some pics with Zack and his cousins.



Matt rode the Aerosmith roller coaster 9 times. I liked the Little Mermaid show, the Great Movie ride, the Muppet show, and the Tower of Terror. We really liked the closing show with the lights and fireworks. That night our nephew Jeff stayed with us b/c the next day he was flying back to Utah and we wanted to spend some time with him. The Magic Kingdom was so much fun. This time Zack had a blast! We went to Pirates of the Caribbean first to break him in, and by the end of the ride he was fine. He rode it 5 more times with no fuss. We also made him do the Haunted Mansion twice, and he loved it both times. Zack's favorite rides were It's a Small World, Pirates, and Peter Pan's Flight. I couldn't believe how crowded it was for October, so we'll have to try another month next time. Zack couldn't ride the Star Tours ride, so we put him on this to make him think that he was riding in Star Wars.

This time we got to see a lot more characters than when we were at Disney Land. Zack would walk up, give them a hug, turn and pose for a picture, then walk away like he was a pro at it.



A few things I learned that I'll pass along for anyone who goes to Disney World/Land with kids:
A big stroller is great for carrying your junk and for naps.
A backpack is great for taking a camera, food/drinks, sunglasses, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, diapers, jackets, etc. and easy to grab when you park the stroller and go ride the attractions.
Don't buy the crap in the park, go to the local Wal-mart for souveniers (except for Mouse ears).
Food in Disney is terrible, so take lots of snacks and drinks-they really don't check that hard, and they pretty much let you take whatever if they see you with kids.
Take your own pictures-Disney Photo Pass sucks but you can hand your camera to those people and they'll take your picture for you.

Family Cruise...Finally!

As y'all know we went on the Freeman Family Cruise 2008 last month, and I'm just now getting around to writing about it all (potty training takes up a ton of time!).

This was Zack doing the mandatory check so that we'd know how to abandon ship properly. I was a little nervous being on the boat...too much Titanic...ironically it was on tv while we were on the boat and I had to turn the channel immediately! Matt had to remind me that we weren't near any iceburgs, but then I told him that there are Pirates in the Caribbean and he just laughed.

Zack had a blast being with his cousins for the entire week. Zack established his own schedule for the week: breakfast, play hard, lunch, play hard, get cranky and go with Mommy to the room for a nap, dinner, little more play time, bed time. He slept really hard too! For instance, he fell asleep standing up here! I had to capture the moment!


This was Zack enjoying a game of golf. It was really windy and he got frustrated. I thought it was beautiful playing up there and being able to look out across the ocean.

We were on the Carnival Glory. It was pretty nice, and I thought that the staff were really friendly. The food was really good, even for a picky eater like me. Matt would eat 3 dinners sometimes. I'm proud to say I didn't gain any weight. Zack ate fruit at every meal, sometimes an entire bunch of grapes b/c our waiters knew that he liked them. I didn't enjoy the clean up of that (if you know what I mean!). We were scheduled for 3 stops: Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. However, if any of y'all watched the weather a month ago, you would know that Hurrican Omar popped up in the Atlantic and we had to cancel the stop in St. Maarten. I wasn't that bummed b/c they scheduled a stop in Grand Turk, and that ended up being my favorite stop on the cruise.


One of the highlights of our trip was the last night when they choose regular guests on the cruise and get them to perform at the large theater in a show called "Carnival Legends". Matt is a singer for those of you who didn't know, and he volunteered/was selected to sing the finale song as Frank Sinatra, the song "My Way". We have the video of it and when I figure out how to post it I will. It was great. The funniest part of it though was Matt didn't know the lyrics to the song, so he put the words in his hat and read them, but he hit every note and had everyone wowed at the end of it. He loved singing with the live band too.

Another highlight for Matt was winning the Ping-Pong tournament. They gave him a cheesy trophy for it. All I have to say is don't try to play ping-pong against someone who served their mission in Korea!
Somewhere in this I was going to mention this little story about Zack. On the second night (Sunday) I had a headache and was feeling really seasick and so I was laying down in our room. Matt wanted to roam the boat, so I asked my niece to watch Zack in her room for a little while. An hour later I got a knock at the door and Zack was crying in my niece's arms. He had fallen off of the bottom step of the ladder and had knocked his head. My niece said "Where is this blood from on my hands?" I checked Zack's head and sure enough it was gushing out pretty good. I grabbed my room key and ran out the door towards the stairway to the infirmary with Zack in my arms. Just as I ran toward the stairs I saw my sisters-in-law and they were able to help find the cut, clean the blood from Zack's hair, and tell me that he didn't require stitches. The cut was only 2 cm, if that! Evidently head injuries bleed a lot worse than they really are. What can I say, I'm a paranoid mama!
Below are a few more random pics from our trip.




I also need to mention that by the last day Zack thought he was one of the big kids and walked right down the beach and straight into the water, no worries at all. I feel as if he grew up a lot on this trip.