Day 2: Meeting up with JuJu

about to ride Dumbo
the magnificent castle!!

in a tunnel in Pooh's Corner

in a tunnel in Pooh's Corner...wearing cool Buzz Lightyear shades

on a honeypot in Pooh's Corner

snoozin' while the kids play

the awesome, comfy stroller
(but, it was heavy to push with 80+lbs. in it!)

dancing on the street in front of the castle

YAY!! Juju's here!!

some of the parade performers

Mickey and Donald on their float

Woody and Jessie from Toy Story 2 (Bradley's favorite!)

Me and Trent waiting on everyone to finish their magic carpet ride

some silly animals being transported to the zoo

the cousins in Mickey's house

Meeting Mickey and Minnie

Juj meeting Mickey and Minnie

After our awesome breakfast, we anxiously waited for the Lanes to arrive at DW so we could all be together. While we waited, we went ahead and did a few rides by ourselves. First was Snow White's Scary Adventure, which was so cute, but basically a boat ride through the story of Snow White. It was dark, so it was a little scary, but the kids liked it. Then, Nick took Rachel and Bradley to ride Dumbo. I decided that Trent had been patient and sweet for long enough and decided he deserved a comfy diaper change and nursing. I found the Baby Care Station at Magic Kingdom and was so impressed!!! The station had an attendant who told you where you could change, nurse or feed your baby. (And, I'm sure to make sure there weren't any perverts or weirdos hanging around...) There was one large room with 10-12 baby changing tables, and then a huge kitchen complete with several microwaves and probably about 10 high chairs where you could feed your baby. And, there was a shared nursing room with dim lights and rocking chairs where you could nurse your baby. I thought the whole thing was so cool!! It was comfortable and very accommodating. And, even though we didn't use the baby care station every time, since it was at one end of the park, it was nice to use if we needed to. Anyway, Trent and I met Nick and the kids and went to Pooh's Corner where they had a cool playground for the kids to play on. And, Tigger and Pooh were also available to sign autographs and have your pictures made if you felt like waiting in line to see them. After that, we headed to the kiddie section of Magic Kingdom and saw a cute roller coaster in Goofy's Wise acre Farm called the Barn Stormer. Trent had fallen asleep, so Nick stayed with him in the stroller and I took Rach and Brad to ride the roller coaster. As we waited, it seemed a little bit scary and really fast. I wasn't sure if Bradley would get scared while he was on it. Turns out, he LOVED it and wasn't scared one bit! After we rode it once, the kids wanted to ride it one more time with Nick. (We also rode it another time with JuJu later!) Finally, it was time to meet up with Matt, Wendy and Juj! We were so excited to finally get to see them! We met on Main Street and right after we all met up, there was a parade that went down Main Street, so we got to watch that. The parade was cute, had lots of great music and dancing and some of our favorite characters on floats. Once the Lanes were with us, we headed to one area of the park and worked our way all the way around to the other end. We rode as many things as we could and explored as much as was possible. We walked to the top of Swiss Family Robinson's tree house, rode Aladdin's magic carpet ride, went on a fake safari, went through the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride, did the Haunted House, Merry Go Round, It's a Small World, Goofy's Barn Burner (again) and the teacups. Needless to say, after our early start that morning, we were POOPED!!! Shortly after going to the last section of the park, Fantasyland, we parted ways with the Lanes. Nick and Brad shot some evil Zurg characters in the Buzz Lightyear ride, and I hung out with Rach and Trent till they got out. We walked to the front of the park and caught a little bit of the end of day, very impressive and beautiful parade that DW puts on with lights, music, floats, dancing, etc... We caught our boat, our bus and walked to our cabin and went to sleep. It was a GREAT day at Disney!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 2: Breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table

Waiting on the ferry
so excited!!!

my fearless knight

my beautiful princess and her magic wand

a view of the elegant dining room

Trenty enjoying his breakfast

Sleeping Beauty and little miss Sleeping Beauty

Jasmine

Snow White

peek-a-boo with Belle

Belle

For our first morning at Disney, we made reservations to eat with all the princesses at Cinderella's Royal Table. We were running behind that morning trying to make sure we had everything...strollers, extra clothes, sunglasses, snacks, etc... AND I forgot sunscreen and sandwiches. Oh well, hard to remember it all! Anyway, we got on our bus that took us to the ferry boat that took us to the Magic Kingdom. It was so exciting! We went through the entrance (with thousands of others), had our bags searched and then put our plastic card/ticket in the slot and went into the park. Our breakfast was literally inside the castle. We got to have the kid's pictures made with Cinderella. She looked so like her character! Then, we went upstairs to have breakfast. There were tons of little girls in their princess gowns and Rachel loved wearing hers!! The princesses were all given a magic wand and the knights were all given a sword. All the kids were given magic stars to "wish upon". The breakfast food was delicious (and by FAR the BEST during our entire trip!!). The kids were all given french toast sticks, bacon, eggs and OJ. Nick and I could choose between a stuffed french toast or omelette with fresh OJ, fruit and pastries. We really enjoyed our food!! At various times during breakfast, the kids were all instructed to hold up their wishing stars and tap them with their swords or wands and say: "Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo!" And then the lights would twinkle all over the dining room. It was so cute! The princesses rotated around the dining room and spoke with each princess and knight and then would sign autographs (which we didn't do) and/or take pictures. All the princesses were so sweet to Bradley and Trent as much as they were to Rachel, which I thought was great. Bradley liked them all...especially Snow White. When she was leaving our table to see the next little princess, he stood in front of her, roared very seriously and said, "I'm a t-rex dinosaur!" (While his little body shook intensely.) Snow White thought it was funny and said, "Oh my! A t-rex!" Rachel said, "Oh my gosh, you do NOT do that to a princess!!!!" Nick and I got a kick out of it!! The breakfast was a GREAT way to start our Disney vacation!

Disney Bound: Day 1

Trent was ready to crawl and stretch his legs each day after riding in a car or stroller!
Rachel is in the bedroom watching tv

this is the disorganized mess where the kitchen/den and pull down bed were; all our luggage was in here too.

the kid's luggage...packed and ready to head to Disney!!!

We left early Thursday morning to head south to Disney World, or "Disney Woy-old" as my kids call it. The drive was LONG and RAINY and not too fun, but the kids did really well. The good ole DVD player is our BEST friend in the car and keeps R&B so happy while they ride. Trenty was awesome, but did get really tired of riding in his unmovable, rear-facing position. Any time we stopped, he wanted to stand up and stretch his little legs. The weather was so bad that

northern Florida was actually under a tornado watch for most of our drive. Thankfully, we didn't experience any, just really hard rain. At times that was nice because Nick and I couldn't hear the kids fussing over the pounding rain on our car! We made it to our resort/campground in 9 hours after stopping about 3 different times. We were all so glad to be out of the car...and the cabin we rented was adorable! It had a full kitchen, nice sized bathroom, den with table, sofa and pull down bed and a bedroom with bunkbeds and a full bed. We had plenty of room and the place was very cute. I thought we would be using the kitchen much more than we did, but the logistics of leaving a park and catching a boat and a bus and then walking to our cabin took about 45 minutes to an hour, so we didn't get to just "hop" home to eat. Oh well, lesson learned for next time! Everyone slept pretty well each night. We were all so pooped each evening that the kids had no trouble falling right to sleep. Trent did fine, but didn't want to sleep in the pack in play, so he and I shared the double bed and Nick slept by himself in the den. Rachel loved getting to sleep on the top bunk and both kids thought it was so cool to play up there. The cabin was a little single wide trailer with a porch. Most people in the cabin community had brought or rented golf carts. We were right next to the campground and only a short walk to our bus stop. We parked our car that first day and didn't crank it up but once while we were there. We loved using the Disney transportation and didn't wait more than 10 minutes for it the whole time. The kids thought the buses and boats were as cool as the rides at the amusement parks so they loved them. I loved that we could just ride and chill out and not have to figure out directions to anywhere. Nick had the worst deal because he had to fold and carry our 2 awesome strollers anytime we got on the boat. And, even though they were lightweight, 2 strollers are still heavy at one time! The strollers were a very worthwhile investment...I rented them from a stroller company in Orlando and they were at our resort the morning I requested them. They were really nice, very light and easy to push, comfy for the kids, had large canopies/covers over them to keep the kids out of the sun AND they prevented us from having to transport 2 strollers in our car, which we didn't have room for. Unfortunately, we were gone from our room so much, we didn't have much time to organize it, so things were pretty messy and disorganized the entire time we were there. Oh well! :)

Christmas 2009

We had such an awesome Christmas this year! The day was quick, fun and full of toys, but so wonderful! I think Trenty enjoyed his first Christmas too...he crawled right to his toys on Christmas morning and had fun playing! We stayed home on Christmas day and played, ate and rested. Both sets of grandparents came to visit and see what Santa brought. We feel so blessed to have a healthy, precious family to enjoy fun holidays like this.

Papa's 57th Birthday

January 9th was Papa's birthay and we had a small celebration with him. The kids made him a birthday cake, and some blue-icing covered cupcakes. They also picked out his themes of Batman and Spiderman with Gege, and they decorated Gege's dining room. We had a great time and ate yummy Olive Garden. We're so thankful for a wonderful, sweet, loving Papa/dad/father in law!!!!! Happy Birthday Papa!!

Rachel's first game

Today was Rachel's first game as a cheerleader for Upward. She was so excited and wanted to put on her uniform as soon as she woke up. The kindergarteners only cheer for 30 minutes, so they had a 30 minute practice beforehand. All the girls were adorable and did a great job mimicking their coaches as they led each cheer. Most importantly, Rachel had a blast!!! (and she looked adorable!) The game was hilarious to watch...5 year olds playing basketball is quite funny. They would either dribble as slow as a snail or travel with the ball...but they were adorable too and all just seemed to be having so much fun! We all enjoyed watching our sweet girl as she made her cheerleading debut!