Day 4: Epcot & The Magic Kingdom

On the fourth day of our trip we went to Epcot.  Now, I am not a huge fan of Epcot, and neither is Brian.  I think that if we didn't have kids we might be more inclined to enjoy the different countries (maybe taking advantage of the different foods and beers and wines?), but not so much with the kids.  It probably also has something to do with an ambulance ride that a certain little girl took out of Epcot last year.  In any case, our plan was to spend a couple of hours at Epcot to ride Nemo and Test Track, and then go on a search for Mulan and Aladdin and Jasmine and leave (and we were also hoping for well behaved children)!

Wyatt wanted to pose with the Finding Nemo characters.

While we were walking through the park a "grandma" offered Reese this balloon flower, and she loved it.  She thinks all women over "a certain age" are called grandma.  She cracks me up!

Wyatt in front of Pluto's dog house!

We found out when we got to the "France" section that Belle and Beast are both there for character greetings.  Wyatt was definitely excited to see the Beast! Reese was a little apprehensive (notice that she isn't standing very close to Belle)!

Me and my little guy in Germany!  We were kind of bummed out because we saw Snow White, but didn't go see her because we figured she would be at the Magic Kingdom.  No such luck - we walked right by her, and she's the only princess Reese didn't get to visit.

Before we left Epcot for the day Wyatt (and Brian) insisted on getting his a picture with the Monorail.

We left Epcot and decided to take the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom.  We didn't have a ton of time, but we figured that since the kids were in great moods we had a little time to make up!

We visited with Belle, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, and then stopped to see Micky and Minnie.  Reese wasn't very happy because she really wanted to visit with Minnie and she was with Wyatt.  Who gets sad about seeing Mickey Mouse?!?!  My Reesie!

We were also able to see a parade - this float was a highlight!  Woody and Jessie are two of our absolute favorites - in case you couldn't tell by Reese's Halloween costume!

The kids went to sleep absolutely exhausted, which was a good thing.  It's not too easy to get them to sleep in a hotel!

Days 2 & 3: Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios

On Day 2 of our trip we went to Animal Kingdom.  Our first stop was the safari!

The kids had so much fun looking at all the different animals.  Giraffes, lions, rhinos, and elephants were all really close to us.  It's so funny because there's a whole premise about poachers and baby elephants, and Wyatt is obsessed with it.  He literally asks (still) about the poachers.  Like, he asks how they keep getting back in the park at night!

We decided to head over to visit Rafiki - he's a favorite around here.  Reese does a really great impression of him saying, "Correction.  I know your father."

We continued on our princess journey to find Pocahontas.  Reese was very excited to see her!

We were able to fit in a showing of The Festival of the Lion King and do a bit of shopping before an afternoon rainstorm hit.  We visited with Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore, but the rain lasted longer than we expected. We set the kids up with popcorn and Netflix on Brian's phone, but they couldn't be entertained for too long!  We ended up leaving early and then headed to Downtown Disney that night.

On Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios.  We got our fast passes for Toy Story Mania (seriously, it's the only way to get on the ride without waiting forever, and you have to go get your pass first thing in the morning.  They seriously run out of times.  We got one at 9 and our return time was 3pm!), and then went to Star Tours.  Wyatt was even the person chosen in our little pod to be the rebel spy - he thought it was cool!

We visited with a few more characters.  The kids were very excited to get to visit with the Green Army Man from Toy Story!

And Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates was there!  Reese was holding out hope for Izzy, but she isn't there!

And this would be where we had one of our moments.  Brian and I both just reached our breaking point.  We were asking them over and over and over again to listen, be good, stop fighting, stop interrupting, be kind - and none of those things were happening.  We decided to take a little time out and get some popcorn and rest.  When I took the popcorn away because only kernels were left, Wyatt got major attitude.  And we walked out!  That was probably the lowest point of the trip.  I know that it didn't help that they were going to sleep a little later and waking up earlier (my best sleeper, Hudson, became my absolute worst on our trip - waking up at 4:30 in a hotel wide awake - I thought I was going to die), but they knew better! It was so hard to discipline them there because our solution to bad behavior at home when we're out is to leave, and we didn't want to ruin our vacation with punishment.  Brian and I also knew we were probably being a little tough because we had unfair high expectations because we were at Disney World.  But it was something we had to do, even though we paid all that money.  And it was the worst!  We went back to the hotel and had a talk and things got better from there.

I can't even lie - these are just the pictures that I took - Brian has a lot more on his phone, and we got the Disney photo pass, so there are even more.  So sadly enough, you will probably be subjected to even more pictures!

Day 1: Half of a Day at the Magic Kingdom!

We left for Florida on Saturday, stopped about 45 minutes from Orlando, and then continued our trip the next morning.  We didn't tell the kids where we were going until Sunday morning!  They actually didn't really ask a lot of questions about where we were going on Saturday, and I was definitely expecting it.  Part of our reason for stopping was that we didn't want all of the billboards on the way down to "give away" where we were going!  The trip wasn't too bad. We just loaded the car up with a bin of toys and books for each of them, the portable DVD players that were an emergency purchase on last year's trip (we had borrowed a set from a friend, but they gave us their broken pair by mistake- and the kids were already expecting a movie), and their collection of kid's CD's.  They actually stayed pretty well entertained the entire time!

When we got to the park it was entirely decorated for Christmas, and it was absolutely beautiful, as usual.    Wyatt's first request was a stop at the Buzz Lightyear ride - and he had a great time!  We also went for a ride on the People Mover - and this series of pictures summarizes Hudson's trip.  Anytime that we went on a ride that had any kind of dark section, he looked just like this....

We had a late lunch, visited with Buzz and Chip & Dale, started out on the grand adventure of meeting all of our favorite characters, and caught a parade.  We headed back to the hotel so that we could unpack and get situated, too.  It's really hard to stay organized in a room that has three kids, two dresser drawers and a pack and play taking up "free space"!

I am probably going to bore y'all to death with the recaps of this trip, but we had a lot of fun.  There were some moments (if you're a parent, you know about these moments), but overall we just had the best time!

What We've Been Up To....

I've been a little MIA over the last week for a great reason!

I'll be updating more, but wanted to "check in" tonight!  Never ending piles of laundry are currently calling my name!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Thanksgiving!

Could I be any later posting about Thanksgiving?  We've been a little busy this week!

We  The boys spent the morning watching Star Wars: A New Hope.  Brian really wants to get the The Empire Strikes Back so Wyatt can learn that Darth Vader=Luke's Father=Anakin Skywalker.  Not kidding.  He wants to make sure that he's there when Wyatt learns that for the first time! After that we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.  We wake up really early!

We decided to let the kids have quiet time before we went over to Brian's parents' house for the afternoon.  It was very weird to only have one meal to go to this year!  My dad was at the Fire Station and my Aunt pulled together a nice meal at my parents' house, but we missed it!

When we got to Mimi and Baba's the kids went straight outside to play in  the leaves...

And throw around the football.

"Seriously Reese, leaf me alone!"

Isn't her shirt adorable?!  I saw one like it on Pinterest months ago and really wanted to try and make one - but I gave up before I even tried!  I ordered it from this Etsy shop, and I love it!  I put it on her the day after Halloween, and I ordered her a 5T in hopes that she can wear it next year!

Brian practiced jumping over Hudson.

And Hudson fit in two of his new favorite hobbies - walking, and walking to get away from the dogs.  I've never seen a baby who moved as fast as he does when a dog is coming!

Doesn't his hair look so red!  I get stopped at least once a day by people who want to tell me that he is adorable and that he has the best hair.  But then they want to know where he gets the red (it's worse when Reese is with us).  The answer - I have no idea!

Once Wyatt put the football down it was Hudson's turn!

Reese ate next to nothing for dinner (she was more interested in playing), but she was very excited to have some pie!  When we asked the kids what they were thankful for on Thanksgiving, Wyatt's response was "my daddy," and Reese said "apple pie and pumpkin pie!"  She had a lot of fun hanging out with Sophie!

After dinner we came home with three very tired kids.  They went right to bed and I got to work on one of our Christmas trees while we watched Christmas Vacation and Brian looked through the Black Friday ads.  He did go out at midnight, but he went to Kohl's, picked up with toy he wanted, and then walked out.  Amazing!  He's such a good bargain shopper!

Meet Parker

Meet our new elf, Parker.  Parker was sent here by Santa to watch over the kids, and each night he goes off to the North Pole to give Santa a report.

Brian and I really debated getting an Elf on the Shelf.  We thought it might be a good, fun tradition.  But we were also worried because Wyatt isn't dumb.  We thought there was a slim chance that this guy would tip Wyatt off to something "funny."  We agreed that if anything started to go awry we would abandon Santa's little helper.

When we first introduced the elf and read his book, they were both very excited.  The process of naming him went a little like this:

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Me: "Guys, we have to come to a consensus about what our elf's name should be.  That means we all need to agree."
Wyatt: "I have an idea Reesie.  We could name him Caillou."
Reese: "No, Bringer."
Wyatt: "How about Spiderman?"
Reese: "No, Brownger."
Brian: "I have an idea.  Wyatt suggested Spiderman.  Why don't we name him Parker like Peter Parker?"
Wyatt and Reese: "Yes!"

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After this interaction, Wyatt started to ask questions.  How does Parker get to the North Pole?  How does he fly?  What does he tell Santa?

Brian explained that Parker is like Buzz and Woody in Toy Story, and that when we leave the room he comes to life, and that's when he visits Santa.  Then we told him that Parker would see everything he did that was good (like cleaning up his toys), and everything he did that was naughty (like basically everything else).

Wyatt jumped out of bed this morning to find Parker in the tree, and then he really bought into it!  Of course, he also ended up basically sharing confession with our little elf after he returned home from Mimi and Baba's today, so I guess we'll have to see how this all works out!