Disney Day 3 - Magic Kingdom

Saturday morning, we woke up for our second day at Magic Kingdom. There was rain in the forecast, but apparently that doesn't stop anything at DisneyWorld, you just buy their $7 ponchos and keep going. Thankfully we arrived early and the rain didn't start until late in the afternoon, so we got to do alot and then head back to the hotel.The girls loved touring Mickey and Minnie's houses. Then Daddy took them on Goofy's roller coaster, while I let Gracyn nap.

While I am on the subject of roller-coasters, Addison loved them!!! She was a crazy girl....riding with hands in the air, screaming happily and big smiles. She rode Big Thunder Mountain twice and Space Mountain twice. We were so surprised with her bravery, she is only 1/2 inch over the height requirement for Space Mountain, but she loved it. I almost threw-up riding it with her, but she loved it. Apparently I have developed some serious motion-sickness in my "old-age".

Here they are playing on a very expensive playground!!!

Daddy and his girls on the carousel.

The girls went to visit Peter Pan. Hopefully he wasn't offended that they ran right up to him and asked him where Tinkerbell was. They were thrilled when he told them to give her a message from him! I hope they pay that guy well to stand around in those green tights all day!

Chip and Dale with a few of my favorite people!

When the rain started we ran for the hotel. I took Reagan and Gracyn to the room for naps, while Tommy and Addison went to check out the hotels craft-time and arcade. As we napped, I got a text from Tommy that said, "let usin". I couldn't figure out what that meant, so I went back to sleep. Turns out he left without a key and meant to say "let us in". As a result of our miscommunication and his not wanting to wake up sleeping babies, Tommy and Addison spent some time sitting in the hall outside our room. Turned out not so bad, because before long, they spotted Pappy and Miss Debra coming down the hall. The hotel had upgraded them to the room next to us. Pappy couldn't wait to see the girls, so he quickly woke the napping babies! We showed them around the hotel and took them on the boat ride to see Cindrella's Castle. Gracyn really took to my dad this trip. She loved hanging out with him.

That evening we went to dinner. Deb let the waitress know that my Dad recently celebrated his 50th birthday. She then disappeared to take a phone call, while the entire restaurant sang to my Dad. He begged them not to, but they showed him no mercy!

Finally, for posterity, Tommy took this picture, to document what my dinners are like. This was a late dinner, and by the end, my girls were DONE! Addison is fixing my hair, Reagan is crying in my lap and Gracyn is somewhere across the table crying for me.

Disney Day 2 - Magic Kingdom

We woke up Friday morning to a beautiful day! The weather was perfect, and Magic Kingdom was actually not too crowded. We never waited in line more than 5 or 10 minutes for any ride. The girls loved the parades, shows and characters around every corner. We actually spent about 7 hours there, which was way beyond my expectation.

Here are Gracyn and I waiting for the boat to Magic Kingdom. This girl was a trooper throughout the entire trip. She just hung-out, while we drug her from place to place. She especially seemed to like Magic Kingdom. There as much to see from her view in the Bjorn. I will go ahead and say that I am "Super-Woman" for caring her around like this! The child is 20 pounds and we haven't used this carrier in months, but is just worked here! If you see me and I am looking a little bulky in the shoulders, you will know why!

We are on our way and ready for the fun to begin!!!

Cinderella's Castle

The parade was in route as we came in. Somewhere in that picture, Reagan, Gracyn and I are in a conga-line with some of her favorite characters.

Reagan loves Toy Story 2, especially Jesse the Cowgirl. I had shopped all over the place at Christmas, looking for a Jesse doll, but there were none to be found. As we were strolling the park, I spotted a booth with a stuffed Jesse doll and we ran right over to buy it for her. Just a few minutes later, we saw Woody and Jesse out greeting kids. Reagan was thrilled to meet them, and Jesse autographed Reagan's doll.

Daddy took one for the team and rode the tea-cups with the big girls. Mommy and Gracyn watched from more stable ground.

Here we are on Snow White's ride. This was one of Reagan's favs. Again, the Bjorn was great. Gracyn stayed strapped right to me as we jumped on and off rides.

My sweet little family in front of the castle. That black stroller was the best purchase of the trip. Due to space limitations on the cruise, we only took our singe McClaren stroller with us. A friend told me about a stroller rental company where you could rent these double joggers. The company delivers them to your hotel room before you arrive and picks them up after you leave. Addison and Reagan rode in it all day long, which was great.....it made me a little crazy when they were up walking in the crowds.....I was always worried they would get lost, so I was happy to push them around in there. Regan and Gracyn each had several naps while riding.

After a long day at the park, we took the girls back for a quiet dinner at the hotel and an early bedtime.

Disney Day 1

I want to blog about each day of our trip, for our own memories, so bear with me....it might get a little long. I already feel like the first part of the trip was forever ago....I better start getting it all down, before I forget.

The first day was a LONG day of travel. Orlando is a 3 1/2 hour flight for us, and the girls did great, but that is just a long time to sit still. Gracyn had her first lollipop (actually 2) in order to help keep her quiet. Thankfully I had anticipated this and gotten sugar-free, organic suckers for her. Grand total of travel, from our front door, to our hotel room was about 7 hours.

When we finally arrived at the hotel they were thrilled to see everything and run around for a bit. We stayed at Disney's Wilderness Lodge and loved it. It is designed after Yosemite National Park. It is really wooded with beautiful pools and landscaping. It has a geyser that erupts every hour and boat dock with transportation to Magic Kingdom.

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we had a first floor room with a patio to the pool. It was great to have that outdoor space. We were thrilled to be soaking up the sunshine and Tommy and the girls often played out there while I was getting us ready for the day.


We took the girls out to see the pool and they were so excited to find it warm enough to actually swim. We had dinner reservations coming up quickly, but I told them they could put there fit in. The next time I looked down, Reagan was dropping her clothes! The lifegaurd was laughing....apparently she was going skinny-dipping.

The girls favorite part of the hotel was there bunkbeds!!! They loved it, more than I could have imagined. They took turns each night on the top and bottom. It was so sweet in the morning, when they would peek over the side and look for each other.

Finally, after we settled in, we headed over to another hotel on property for our dinner reservations. We went to the "Spirit of Aloha" luau. We didn't think the food was that great, but the entertainment made up for it. They had hula dancers with all sorts of beautiful costumes. The girls even got to go on the stage and hula! The grand finale was a fire dancer. This man was amazing! He had two sticks with fire on each end. He did all sorts of dancing and twirling. It was amazing! As we were leaving the luau we saw the fireworks from Magic Kingdom. It was a great way to kick-off vacation!

Back to Life....Back to Reality...

We are just getting back from 8 glorious days at Disney! We had a blast, now for the hard part. My children have to get used to not being addressed as "princess", I have to make my own bed, and there won't be enormous food buffets every few hours!

I can't wait to write all about it, but first I must wade through piles and piles of laundry and get some food in the house to feed my family!!!

It's All About the Pink

My sweet husband lives in a land of pink....he does so happily and never complains. But he is seriously outnumbered around here, and a little guy space never hurt anybody. He had this space until a few days ago.

Down in the basement, which is 3/4 playroom, Daddy had his own little corner, he has some guitar stuff down there and his workout equipment.

Recently, his space has been taken over. The girls discovered a few days ago, that the bars on his weight bench are just the right size to hold the hangers for their doll clothes. Now, they delight in hanging up the clothes and each girl's doll has a side for their "closet".

He's a good Daddy and doesn't seem to mind! Somehow, over the last four years, he has come to the point, where he doesn't even notice a few doll clothes draped over a workout bench!

2010 Stick Horse Grand Prix

I was feeling bold today, so we skipped naps and I took all three girls back to the Stockshow, so they could watch Miss Debra judge. They were so excited to go back and had a great time watching the horse show. We watched, until Gracyn couldn't sit still anymore and then headed out to explore the grounds. The girls were delighted to find the rodeo clowns. Reagan especially had fun with them!
Then, we wondered upon the Stick Horse Grand Prix and decided to enter. The girls were precious racing their horses around the obstacle course. Addison was on a mission with her horse, "Mia". She ran the course in 32 seconds and claimed her blue-ribbon prize. Reagan was hilarious!!! She skipped around the course and paused at each jump to do a little hop over. She too was proud of her ribbon.

Next, we headed to the Children's Ranchland. There we saw chickens, rabbits, cows and sheep. We learned about farming and played on the Rainbow Playsets. There was a carousel with real ponies, a train ride, and lots of photo opportunities.

Finally, we headed back to the arena to watch the show a little longer. Miss Debra came up on a break to say good-bye to the girls. We have had such fun out at the show this week. I think we may try to squeeze one more trip in before it ends. On a final note, I promise Gracyn was with us, she was just strapped to me in the Bjorn, and didn't make it into the pictures!

Bliss

See that girl, she is blissfully happy! While I cleaned the kitchen tonight, she extracted this pan and spoon from the dishwasher. For the next 30 minutes she happily sat in the pan and played with and talked to the spoon. Funny that the littlest things can bring them so much joy! Again, where are all the Christmas presents?

Western Weekend

Saturday morning, we headed to the airport to pick Miss Debra up for a visit. She is here to judge the Paint Horse portion of the National Western Stockshow, but came a few days early to see us. She mentioned when accepting the offer to judge the show, that she had family here and they generously provided us with a parking pass and grounds admission for the next two weeks, food vouchers and great seats at the rodeo yesterday.

We headed right to the rodeo and had a blast. There were fireworks, dancing horses, clowns, a glow-in-the-dark grand entry, and all the typical rodeo fun. By the end, Gracyn and Reagan were both asleep, but Addison watched the whole thing. They also got to see some of the most enormous cows and bulls I have ever seen. Reagan even got to pet one.

I didn't take my camera, because my hands were full, but I did actually remember to take a picture after church on Sunday. Pappy and Miss Debra gave them these precious horse outfits for Christmas. Reagan was on her way to a nap and wasn't really up for all the picture taking! Later that night, the girls had their own rodeo at our house. They got out the stick-horse and "barrel raced" around cups in our living room. I timed them with the handy stop-watch feature on the ITouch. Each girl "won" a belt buckle for their prize barrel-racing. They were having so much fun....the whole time I was thinking, "We just got hundreds of Christmas presents and here are my children, thrilled as can be, racing around cups on a broken down stick-horse we have had forever!". Love those precious times!

ITouch for Preschool

Daddy is recovering from a stomach bug that he and I both had, but he is never to sick to snuggle. Addison curled up next to him and played a few word-building games on Mama's new Itouch. Why do I think we are going to need 2 of these?

A First

Gracyn wins the award for first Guess baby to be able to climb out of the safety ring in the bathtub! Since Reagan was champion climber of the world, I am sure she could have, but she never did. Gracyn twists right around in that thing and stands up!!! How is she big enough to do this??? By the way, the water is brown, because there is Aveno Oatmeal Bath in there!

Also, I have a few first words to document for my girl. I think she might be an early talker like Reagan. I have evidence from others to support each of my claims....according to many witnesses Gracyn can say, no-no, go, mama, down and dada. I left her with a neighbor for a few minutes on Friday, while I picked our older girls up from school. When I arrived back at the neighbor's house, Gracyn saw me walk in and said, "Mama!" clear as could be. She did the same thing when I picked her up from the nursery today. She says "Go" with me all the time, when the big girls are racing, and I think she learned "Down" from the Leapfrog table. Love all the babbling, and I love it more now that I can start to tell what she is saying!!!

Keep Praying, Please

This picture was taken just before Trey got his trach put in last week. I am giving you an update, based on their facebook notes. Since the surgery, they have had to keep him sedated and in a paralytic state because he struggles so much when he is awake. Each time he has been awake, he has fought his ventilator and pulled the trach tube out of his throat. He gets upset, can't breathe and his numbers drop to deadly levels. Cliff and Elfin expected that they might be headed home a week after surgery, but they just haven't had a good week. Please keep them in your prayers.