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Disney World

Our family was given an amazing gift in the month of April this year.  Jason's parents took ALL us Stampers to Disney World!  This is a trip they had planned for years.  Along with our planning and talking and anticipating, excitement was growing and we were in no way disappointed.  Our kids are perfect ages for a Disney experience we won't forget!   

 My kids love to mark off the days till an event. 

 FINALLY!

 Here is the cold and white Minneapolis Stamper enterage arriving in sunny FL!

 Aunt Elizabeth had these shirts made for us.  We wore them on day one and one other time as well.  It WAS really nice to be able to identify the people in our 13-person group.

 The days were LONG and FULL!  We enjoyed an amazing 8 days at the parks and stayed at the All-Star Resort at Disney.

 Everyone needs a lollypop the size of your head!  Why not live the dream?  The kids carefully saved money for a year and then chose how to spend it at Disney World.  Some choices were very frivilous, but some were planned and careful, taking a lot of thought to what would last long after vactation was over. 

 Epcot:

 grandpa Stamper and 3 little Stampers:

 Cinderella's castle was magical for the girls!

 Having daddy to ourselves 24/7 for 9 days was the BEST!

 dreaming of being princesses:

Disney was sweet treats, sugary drinks, and delicasies of all kinds!

 silly duo:

more magic: catching sunlight

 strong boys pulling the sword from the stone

My beautiful SIL, Elizabeth:

 More fun eats:

 Sweet dreams at night were fulfilled during the day and days filled with delight were fuel for sweet dreams at night.

 You couldn't find a happier crew!

 Kate and Aunt Elizabeth at Animal Kingdom:

 Isaac loving the rides.  His perfect world would be constant motion!

 Jonas and Aunt Amy.  The adult to child ratio on this trip was perfect!

 Memories of pure bliss and dreams of returning some day are all we have left, but those are powerful!  Thank you so much, grandma and grandpa.  Pictures and words can't express the vacation or the gratitude we have, but while they are inadequate we can still use them.



a favorite book



[click on the picture for a link]

We got a like new copy of this book recently at a thrift store and it is beautiful.  It's an ABC book with each page dedicated to a letter of the alphabet and filled with pictures that begin with that letter.  It's a little remenicint of the famous Dr. Seuss ABC book in it's clever tongue twisted wording, but the illustrations leave you pouring over each page for a long time.  Isaac (2 1/2) really loves the animals and Kate (5) enjoys finding all of the items on a page that begin with the given letter.  Jonas (9) and Ella (7) have enjoyed the illustrations.  The book is creative and builds the imagination.  It stimulates conversation and builds stories.  I thought it was worth posting. 

I do not even remember how to do this, but I'm going to try.

I think this has been my longest respite from blogging, but I blog in my head all of the time.  Does that count?  No, I guess it doesn't.  There are so many other things in my life that take valuable time and energy and journaling those things just never takes presidence.  I'll try to play catch up with pictures and then see how far I get.

In the month of March we had a lot of snow.

Kate turned 5 and she also started writing and spelling photically on her own.  That's always fun.  Here she was telling me "I don't know" about a certain spelling and asking for help. 

She also began reading more and although she has always loved books she especially loves her little pink Bible and tries to pick out words that she knows how to read or can sound out. She fell asleep like this one night and the picture is blurry because I took it with my phone in the dark. 

Isaac loved this little book and wanted to read it constantly.

He also wanted to follow the big kids outside every time they went.  That always involved putting on and taking off lots of layers.  After 10 years of living in Minnesota I don't think I will every get used to the process. 

Poor Ella fell on the ice at school during recess and had to get stiches.  That was not a fun process, but she was tough!  She does have a nice scar across her eye brow now.



 Did I mention we had a lot of snow?  That involved many hours outside being very creative.  Jonas especially loves the snow and never seems to get too cold or tired in it.  I DO NOT understand this, but I guess he's a true Minnesotan.

 And this little cutie has always loved to wake up with the sun and I'm thankful he will snuggle in bed with me when I'm not so eager to jump up as early as he is.

Let's pretend it's March 26 instead of May 26

and let's pretend that I uploaded pictures and posted about my precious daughter on the day of her birth and not actually 2 months later.  I've always had a very active imagination...

Ella turned 7 on March 26.  We had fun planning her birthday party together.  She was very involved and had some specific ideas and opinions.  Some of those ideas I went with and others I steered into different concepts. :) 

Since her actual birthday was a school day we had our birthday morning [pan] cakes topped with whip cream, sprinkles, and a candle.  Ella wore her number 7 shirt to school and took cupcakes to her class that she and a friend decorated together.  Ella's birthday dinner request consisted of her 2 favorites:  1. Famous Dave's cornbread muffins and  2. coffee.  That was easy.  She was very surprised when I said yes to the coffee.  We ordered a pan of muffins from the restraunt 5 minutes away and made frappaccinos in our blender! 

The next part of this birthday post will be a lot of pictures from Ella's "sweet treats" shop.  Ella had a friend sleepover on a Friday night and she and the rest of the kids decorated about 3 dozen cupcakes together.  They had a blast!  This was a very fun birthday party.  I still cannot believe how much sugar exploded in my kitchen that night.  There were sprinkles and colored sugar crystals and blobs of frosting everywhere!  The cupcakes were masterpieces though and they were very proud of their creations. 

Ella's craft idea for the party:

And here's the workshop:

The "favors" for Ella and her friend were mixing bowls and spatulas and measuring cups and spoons from the dollar store.  We also purchased 2 corrdinating kitchen towels from the dollar store and made them into aprons.

Did I mention there was sugar everywhere? :

On their way to make cupcake deliveries to various neighbors: