The Brown's go to Disney

 After Christmas the Brown's (and Gramma and Grampa H, Uncle S, Aunt D and G) all headed to Disney World!  Clearly Indy is at a perfect age (and thankfully height!) for Disney.  We arrived at our resort and in the lobby they had a HUGE gingerbread display.  Indy and Grampa needed to have their picture taken.

 

 On day 2 we headed to Animal Kingdom.  This was Indy's favourite park of the 3 we visited.  We took many trips around the park (on a jeep, on a train and on foot).

 Indy and Grampa together are the same size as an average Gorilla!  Coincidence?

Indy had a great time seeing all of the animals and was even brave enough to pet a tiger :)

 

Here are Indy and G waiting for the train, Indy loves her cousin :)

We took the next day off parks and headed to DownTown Disney.  Indy took a train ride, ALL BY HERSELF!

And then we took one of MANY, MANY marry-go-rounds of the week

 

On the 3rd day we headed to the Magic Kingdom.  By noon Indy had had the most exiting and overwhelming day of her life!  We started with her first haircut (yes, she is 3 and I had never cut her hair).

 Then we headed off to meet Cinderella and to have breakfast with some of Cinderella's friends in her castle.

We met Jasmine, Ariel.....and a few other new ones we didn't know.  It was so fun, and exciting.

 

We had a great week together and we hope to go again when Indy is a bit older.  LOVE!

Indy learns to skate

 Daddy has been "patiently" waiting for this day!  Indy got a pair of skates and a helmet for Christmas.

This was the big day where he got to take her to the rink for the first time.  They headed off to Victoria Park for a beautiful outdoor skate.

 Indy dutifully put on her skates.

And they grabbed one of the learn to skate racks and off they went.

At this point Indy is still more interested in watching other people skate than skating herself.  However, I do expect future posts to contain some "shoot the duck" moves and maybe a double axle or 2 :)

Christmas festivities.

 On Christmas Eve Indy put out a plate of milk and cookies for Santa.  She was shocked to find a half eaten cookie still on the plate when she woke up in the morning.  Santa must have been in a hurry!

She received all kinds of cool things in her stocking, Barbie underwear....

 Brand new slippers.....and a supercool water bottle that didn't make it through our Disney vacation (more on that later).

 A couple of her gifts....a hilarious sushi set....

 A great crafting kit....

 and well....so many other things.

Indy;s cousin G was very shocked to see all the gifts....LOL!

Cindy Loo Hoo....

 Miss Indy was in a Christmas concert again this year.

This year they chose to put on "The Grinch".  It was excellent! 

I tried to upload a video to the blog....but for some reason it won't allow me to add videos from my computer, only from YouTube.  Odd.

So, you will have to take my word for it, she was exceptional :)

Indy's first Gala.

We had the opportunity to attend the Children's Health Foundation gala before Christmas. We had an amazing time. We all got dressed up, had a fancy dinner and even did some dancing.

There were a ton of kid friendly activites to start the night, and Jeff even got to serve the table their turkey dinner.

We met some really nice people, and Indy had the pleasure of meeting Q.

A great night for a great cause.

Crazy braids.

Indy's hair is getting really long!  We have yet to convince her to cut it....but I hear there is a barber shop on the Main Street at Disney that has cheap cuts for kids, so that just might be where we go!

Indy has started allowing me to put her hair up though, but only if it is in what we call "crazy braids".  So, Mommy has been spending some time on Pintrest getting some inspiration for these things.

She is always so proud of them and the best part is her hair doesn't get quite as tangled :)

Thank you downtown London!

 This year downtown London planned a couple of great familiy Christmas nights!  This first one included FREE horse and carriage rides up and down Richmond Street.  Those of you who know Indy know that she is obsessed with horses, so this was a no brainer, big points event for us as parents :)

 We weere able to ride in the carriage while the driver told us all about his horses.  We also got to spend some time petting them when we got off and other families got on.  The horses were beautiful and gentle.  Indy had a GREAT TIME!

 From there we decided to round out our downtown experience with a trip to the infamous Prince Al's diner (you may have seen in on the Food Network's "You gotta eat here").

We let Indy have her very first hot dog :)  She ate the whole thing, and even stole a couple sips of Daddy's milkshake.