christmas at disney day 3

day 2 was shorter and more laid back because we knew day 3 would start bright and early and would be a long day.

day 3: tuesday, epcot

this was our first time to go to epcot. we started the day with the princess breakfast at akershus royal banquet hall in norway.

this year, after spending too much money on halloween costumes, i decided to make their princess dresses. also, my ridiculous desire for costumes to be true to the movie is never met when buying from the store. so, this year, carter chose rapunzel and spencer chose snow white (surprised? i didn't think so.) there is something i must say about our princess breakfast experiences-my idea of what they should look like and their idea is much different. and, because it is really all about them, i let them make the choices. carter did not want all her hair braided even though that is how rapunzel's is in the movie, so between her chosen hair style, recent self-inflicted bang trim and the florida humidity, her hair was a little on the wild side.

 at the breakfast, we saw belle,

 sleeping beauty, 

jasmine,

and alice in wonderland. uhhh . . . am i the only one who doesn't think alice is a princess?? we didn't much care after miller showed extreme interest in her. in fact, he was enamored. he was willing to have his picture taken, asked her to sign his book and held her hand when they paraded around the room. he later refused to acknowledge any of this ever occurred, but we remember.

after breakfast, we decided to start at future world west because that is where all the kid-friendly stuff is. our first stop was the seas with nemo and friends followed by turtle talk with crush. as it turns out, crush was quite amusing even for those of us over the age of ten.

next we went to journey into imagination with figment. while everyone enjoyed the ride and the activities afterward, the early morning was taking its tole on our entire family and we weren't sure we were going to make it much longer. by the way, it wasn't even eleven o'clock, yet. after a short break, a snack, and a trip on the ferry, we headed to our featured destination. you might have thought the princess breakfast was our most important event of the day, but it wasn't . . .

we were headed to see snow white! the snow white character spot at the wishing well in germany was the one event spencer had looked forward to all along. in fact, it was such an event, it has it's own post.

immediately after meeting her favorite princess, spencer said she needed to go to the potty. um, okay. (maybe snow white should just move in with us and we could knock this whole potty training thing out in no time.) the bathroom was by the american adventure. while everyone waited on us, they were able to watch the spirit of america fife and drum corp and, then we decided to go inside to see the voices of liberty sing christmas carols. the kids were invited to play dreidel, dreidel. the storyteller teaching the game was impressed that carter knew how to play (thank you public school education) and thought spencer was too funny. spencer kept hoarding all the gold coins and, of course, the storyteller didn't want to take them away from her.

after the american adventure show, we were starting to get hungry so we headed to mexico to find some lunch. of course, another character spot was enroute so we had to have a picture taken with mexican donald duck.

afterward, we grabbed a quick lunch at la catina. i have to say that every food venue at epcot was upsetting to me because of a variety of extremely comfortable birds that wanted to make sure they didn't miss a single dropped crumb. it was way worse than the crazy squirrels at the other parks.

after lunch, we headed to the gran fiesta tour starring the three caballeros. then, we spent some time wandering around the indoor market where carter found a cute leather purse she bought with her own money.

it was here that we discovered stamp collecting with duffy. i had read about this disney created attempt to entertain children at epcot, but i didn't really understand it all. after coloring duffy and collecting their first stamp, carter and miller were on a mission which meant the adults were on a mission to find the secluded locations in each country where disney hid the employee with the country's stamp. it was kind of like a one day version of the amazing race.

luckily, the character spot with mary poppins was nestled in the united kingdom between two countries whose stamp they wanted, so we waited in line while they ran around collecting stamps.

oh my goodness! could she be more beautiful?!? mary poppins was one of everyone's favorite characters of this trip.

and, of course, we ran into another character spot on our way to the bathroom. this one was marie of aristocats. carter had to have her picture taken with her because she was in france.

we decided since we had filled duffy's stick with various stamps and had been at the park way longer than we thought would happen that morning that our day was done. as we exited the park, we decided to ride spaceship earth. it was interesting especially when we discussed each group's results. while it isn't the typical park experience, epcot was definitely worth spending the day.

favorites:
carter: princess breakfast
miller: spaceship earth
spencer: "snow white gave me a kiss"

christmas at disney day 2

we woke up ready to go on day 2 because we planned an early park day due to our schedule for day 3. so, we packed up and headed out.

day 2: monday, magic kingdom

when we arrived, we headed straight to fantasyland knowing that is where the kids would want to spend most of the day. because snow white is spencer's favorite, she somehow coerced her siblings to go on snow white's scary adventure. miller may have screamed loudly when the queen suddenly turns into the witch. then, as a change of pace, we headed to a small world and then prince charming regal carousel. 

 of course, miller wanted to stop and try to pull the sword out of the stone and . . . he did! you can see carter clapping to the side. she is such a proud big sister.

 of course, we had to ride dumbo the flying elephant and, then, we took our first ride this trip on peter pan's flight.

 we knew rapunzel's character spot was nearby, so we thought we might try to see her. the line was long and most of it was in the hot blazing sun. while meme made friends with one of the handlers who suggested we try to visit rapunzel during the very merry christmas party, the rest of us stopped for a snack. after snack time, we decided to go scout out a spot for the celebrate a dream come true parade.

 meme and papaw held a spot for us while we headed to see daisy and pluto. we weren't able to see daisy last time and carter wanted to make sure we didn't miss her again.

 while josh waited with the girls, miller and i hung in line for pluto. then, when the girls were done we traded out. it was a super smart decision as we didn't wait twice as long. experience was really on our side.

 we enjoyed some ice cream during the parade in an attempt to beat the heat, but instead, it brought more attention from the characters than anyone else. the wicked step mother made sure to tell me she never ate ice cream this early in the day, while the fairy godmother gave us a stomach rub and a wink from her perch atop a float.

when the parade was over we decided to head to adventureland so miller could ride the pirates of the caribbean. afterward, we squeezed in the magic carpets of aladdin before heading out for the day.

 i know my mom is going to kill me, but i think this picture is hysterical!!

 spencer loved the magic carpets and dumbo. she giggled and screamed "whee!" through each ride.

a quick ferry boat back to the parking lot and our day was complete.

favorites for the day:
carter: celebrate a dream come true parade
miller: pirates of the caribbean and peter pan's flight
spencer: dumbo the flying elephant

christmas at disney day 1

another reason i am so behind in posting is that we spent 10 days at the beginning of december in disney world. yes, disney world and christmas combined . . . could there be anything more magical??

like i have said before, we are those obnoxious people who love the holidays and truly believe "the best way to spread christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." so, when my dad mentioned he would like to go back to disney world during the christmas season to experience christmas disney style, we jumped at the opportunity. then the planning began because there is a lot to do there at christmas. i definitely did more research than i did last time.

this time, we had experience on our side and we decided to take two days to drive down. (yes, we drive because there are too many people in this family to fly and we stay off site currently and by the time we paid for all that, we would have to stay home.) one friday, after school, we packed up and headed out . . . but not before the battery died in the beast (our expedition) and we had to replace it before backing out of the driveway. seriously. because we took two days to drive down, we were ready to hit the parks running on day one.

day one: sunday, hollywood studios

we started at muppets vision 3d. after watching the new muppets movie recently, the kids were really excited to go there. on our way out, we ran into these guys:

 not literally as every character opportunity is meticulously scheduled by the master minds of disney who sell you an autograph book for $15 and a pen for $7 and then strategically place favorite characters all over the park causing you to wait in line for longer than you would for toy story mania so your smitten children can get their signature and a picture. genius, disney. genius.

 miller made the girls have their picture taken separately as he did not want them in his picture with christmas phineas and ferb, or vineas and verb as he calls them.

 after our wait, josh convinced me that star tours had a super short wait and he and miller should make a mad dash to ride before the line was too long. while we would hardly wait for anything all week, i agreed they should go ahead as i knew they would talk about it all day until they could cross it off the list. afterwards, miller got to make his own blue lightsaber just like luke skywalker. way cooler than buying a prefab one at target.

while they were at star tours, we went to the voyage of the little mermaid, but spencer fell asleep while we were waiting for the next show. she was sprawled out on my lap and nearly rolled off when the cold rain came down in the middle of the performance!

 once the boys met back up with us, miller wanted to meet jake and since spencer was still sleeping, he was on his own.

 then, we headed to a family favorite, beauty and the beast:live on stage. granted she was still a little groggy from her nap, but spencer was in awe. she sat like this through the entire performance-mouth agape, eyes glued to the stage, and occasionally you could hear little audible gasps when the beast was a little too fierce for her comfort.

we decided to finish our day at the studio backlot tour before eating dinner at abc commissary. we chose it for dinner because we knew we wanted to be close to the streets of america for the osborne family spectacle of lights, but we had no idea that we would be able to see the lights from our table. when the lights began, we could see people standing and looking, but not really moving. we had no idea they were looking at this:

 5 million lights set to music. it was amazing!

 we were all in awe.

 we danced and sang and moved steadily through the crowds enjoying the lights. 

favorites for the day:

carter: beauty and the beast: live on stage

miller: star tours

spencer: beauty and the beast: live on stage

family favorite: the osborne family spectacle of lights

dressed up

november may have been busy, but we definitely don't have any pictures to prove it. apparently, only two things mandated documentation. first, the elementary school our children go to has a huge parade every year to celebrate veterans day. it is called i love america day. each class is assigned a state and four students from each class are selected to represent the class in the parade.

this year, both of our children were selected to walk in the parade.

miller's class represented the state of idaho and he was a potato sack.

carter's class represented the state of michigan and she was a cheerleader.

then, the next week was american education week. the first day was favorite book character day. of course, my children do not miss a chance to dress up. 

they had a difficult time choosing who to dress up as, but once i told them it had to be something we already owned, it limited their list quite a bit. carter chose to be one of the ballerinas in miss lina's ballerinas and miller chose to be mouse from if you give a mouse a cookie.

it makes me happy that they like to dress up. it makes me happy that they love books. and, it makes me happy that they don't worry about whether or not anyone else at school will be dressed up. i hope they always make choices based on what they love and not what they fear. i hope.

staycation

fall break is known as staycation at our house. we consider it super convenient that in the middle of josh's busy season we all get a week off of school. this year was no different. josh's schedule was so crazy that it felt like we needed this break more than ever. it didn't help that miller would prefer if school wasn't five consecutive days in a row. so, as fall break approached, we began counting down the days and planning what we would do to enjoy them. 

we began by visiting the scarecrow exhibit at lichterman nature center.

while we were there, we decided to wander around some of the trails, too.

we were graciously treated to this event by meme and papaw who happened to have a membership to the center, so it was nice for everyone to be able to go at their own pace.

we also visited the corn maze with friends one night, but because most of the little ones were non-cooperative, this is the only picture. these two love to run through the maze and try to figure out the clues, but spencer had a tough time navigating it this year due to the uneven terrain after it rained.

and, a fall break favorite, the pumpkin patch . . .

 this year, we let each child pick two pumpkins, one to carve and one to paint.

 as usual, it took a lot of searching to find just the right one. spencer wasn't sure she wanted any of them.

 we had to make the rule that you had to be able to carry it yourself.

 miller found lots of pumpkins that he thought might be the one.

 rolling is not the same as carrying. we're just sayin'.

 oh, wait, i can take home this little pumpkin. it's so cute.

 spencer picked one. so we chose a second one for her because she would have been more sad if she didn't get to paint or have one carved.

 tiny pumpkins were popular at our house this year. that worked for me though . . . less to clean out.

 the biggest pumpkin we took home.

the first ever annual pumpkin patch picture where everyone is looking and no one is crying!

now, that is more like it!