Friday, November 30, 2012

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween, Sort of

 For our very last day at Disney, we had been to Animal Kingdom and then came back to the hotel to have a good nap.  After nap, we VERY leisurely packed up and decided to head to Magic Kingdom one last time.  Little did we know, but they closed at 7 pm that night!  That meant we a little under 2 hours to enjoy our last night.  I was basically in pajama-lounge wear and flip flops and the boys were still in random t-shirts and sandals...in other words, we had NO plans to be gone to Magic Kingdom very long.  After we got there we learned that the reason they were closing the park so early was because of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  So, we decided to just stay for the Halloween Party and ride rides late into the night, and that's what we did!


Even Noah got to ride!


I rode with John Michael.



After the driving course we had to get our Halloween tickets to stay in the park then we had to get some food for dinner.  About that time it started raining.  That was no fun because we were very ill-prepared to stay longer at the park, but we had our ponchos and just walked along in the rain.  It was a really fun family memory riding the magic carpet ride all together and getting totally soaking wet while we were flying around in the air!  We also ran to go on Pirates of the Caribbean and got soaked by the rain and mud puddles.  You should have seen my crazy frizzy Florida hair in the rain!  It was wild.  After Pirates ride the rain was starting to subside, so we loaded the strollers up and headed over to Small World and Peter Pan.  The wonderful thing about staying late into the night was that we nearly walked onto every single ride the boys wanted to ride.  They rode small world multiple times and Peter Pan at least twice.  There was hardly any wait time, and even though it was getting late, it was fun to to really have any wait time in line.


There was a Halloween parade and all that, but we didn't really participate in any of that because we weren't there for Halloween!  We just stayed for fun for our last night at Disney!

After we saw some beautiful fireworks standing behind the castle, we headed over to Dumbo.  They have a fun, new way to ride Dumbo.  You play in a fun indoor  "circus" until your number is called.  The boys loved being in there and had a really fun time because we were the only ones in there!  I'm telling you, there was not much wait time for anything during this extra late night Halloween party.


We all rode Dumbo together and the boys were so excited.  You should have seen how excited Noah was to run up to get on a ride!  He loved it!


After Dumbo the boys got to ride the driving track game 2 more times.  We just walked on!  It was great!


The boys rode Small World one last time and then we waved goodbye to the Magic Kingdom and headed to the monorail.


Matthew passed out in the stroller the whole way back to the hotel,


and then Noah passed out as well.  Bless their hearts, this was the latest we had ever kept them out but they did SO great and rode everything and were just so happy to be there!  All in all, we were glad we stayed for the Halloween party even though we hadn't exactly planned on it.


Sleepy boys!


The next morning, Jordan and I felt like we had been hit by a bus.  Exhaustion doesn't even describe it.  We had been out WAY too late and we were paying the price.  Gaga and Bop took the boys down to the breakfast buffet with my grandparents and we slept just a little bit longer and then frantically started packing our bags to check out and head to the airport.  Right before we were about to walk out of our hotel room, Matthew threw up and I just about started crying.  We had so much luggage and so many small things left to pack and I was so afraid that I had a child coming down with the stomach bug!  I had to bathe him and get more clothes out and call the front desk and tell them we couldn't check out right then.  We also had to tell them we had throw up in our room (nice, huh?!).

He looks just fine here!  We think he ate too much at breakfast!


We hung around the lobby for a little bit then said our sad goodbyes to our family.  They were heading to the airport to fly back to Alabama and we were heading to the airport to fly back to Arkansas.  It was a sad time, BUT we had a wonderful, happy, and fun-filled time while we were there.


Here is Matthew still sleeping while we turned in our rental car.  They were SO sleepy!


We had a nice flight home, except for Noah crying for just a bit.


He eventually went to sleep so I was happy!


Home sweet home!  We had so much fun, but we were dead-dog exhausted from this trip!  I think it took us a week to recover and then I got sick after we got home.  Until next time, Disney!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Animal Kingdom Fun

I had to include some of our pictures from Animal Kingdom.  I really enjoyed the jungle Safari!  It was really neat and I liked seeing all the animals up close.  I think the boys enjoyed seeing them up close as well.

It looks like even Papaw enjoyed seeing the safari animals up close!



It looks like we could almost touch that giraffe!



You can't see it, but that was a giant rhino right by us!  We were waving to him!


We saw the live Nemo show (my favorite!) and Noah screamed and fussed the whole time.  I eventually had to leave with him and go sit in the back and feed him to make him happy!  Jordan's mom wasn't feeling well so they left early.  We ate lunch then we packed up and headed back to the hotel as well.  It was hot and it was our last day and we were just so tired!

Noah had a full day at Animal Kingdom.  He passed out sitting upright next to Joyce!  He slept the whole way to the hotel.


Here's Matthew saying cheeeeese! next to the giant Mickey at the resort.  After we got back John Michael was the one who ended up taking a very long nap.  He napped and napped and then we decided to quickly pack up and head over to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the evening.


Papaw got a cuddle in with Mickey and the boys too!


When we got back to our room, housekeeping had fixed our Mickeys up on our bed. Can you tell we had grandparents with us on this trip...3 new Mickeys!


Monday, November 26, 2012

Disney World 2012

We had been trying to plan a Disney trip with my grandparents for quite some time.  We had decided finally to go in late fall/winter 2012.  Well, it ended up we found a great special that would save us a TON of money on hotel AND tickets but the only catch was that we had to go during the month of September to take advantage of it.  We couldn't say no to savings like this, so we went ahead and planned to meet my grandparents and Jordan's family in Orlando at the end of September.

We stayed at the beautiful Shades of Green resort (an all military resort for active and retired members of the military).  It was our second stay there and it's beautiful and so nice.  It's also very, very inexpensive, especially when you consider it is on Disney property.

We traveled with our Graco on the airplane and then rented this awesome double stroller from orlando stroller rentals.  It was there waiting on us when we got there and we just left it with the bell hop before we checked out!  I loved it so much that I have asked Santa to bring me one in his sleigh for Christmas!

The funny part about our first night there was that we put the boys down to bed because we knew everyone was tired and Jordan's mom watched them for us and we drove to Walmart to get what we needed for the week to feed all of us.  Basically, our map did not work well and Jordan ended up taking us to Epcot instead of Walmart.  It was the longest night ever and we were SO exhausted when we finally made it home around midnight, but we needed our food for our family, so we had to do it!


I feel very fortunate that my grandparents were able to come with us and make some really wonderful memories.  I know it was a hard trip on my grandfather, but I think he had fun and I know he had fun watching the boys take in everything about Disney.


I still get butterflies in my stomach when we walk into Magic Kingdom and see the castle!  I'm a kid at heart I guess!  We had been when JM was 1, but this was the first time for Matthew and Noah!


I'm so happy my grandparents got to go!


We were very surprised that ALL the boys rode everything!  Here we are waiting in the Pirates line!  The lines were not that bad.  We make sure we use FastPass at our advantage!


At the end of a very long but fun day!


Every single morning as we left to go walk to the monorail the boys wanted their picture made with the American flag Mickey!  They posed every morning!


We headed to Epcot the next day and didn't do too much.  When you have 3 small children, you just have to be prepared to not do much at a fast pace (at least, this is true for us).  I have a nursing baby, and diapers to change, and potty breaks to take, so you just can't do it all, and we surely did not try.  We headed straight for our FastPass for Soarin' and then straight to Nemo!  I could stay there forever!


The next morning we walked to the Polynesian and had a character breakfast with Lilo and Stich.  We usually always do this breakfast.  It's so yummy and I love getting to see the characters up close.  The wait this time was not very long.


Noah was NOT happy to see the characters.  Bless his heart.


We left totally stuffed and full and happy to have seen a lot of characters!



After breakfast we took a bus to Hollywood Studos.  There wasn't a ton for our little guys to do but they headed to the car show while I took a little nap/feeding break with Noah.  Matthew LOVED it but it was just a bit much for John Michael, so he left and didn't stay to finish the show.  It IS pretty loud.



Right across from the car show was the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground.  It was pretty hard for me to keep up with all 3 of them, so luckily I had Jordan and his mom there to help!  They had a great time.  JM surpirsed me because he went in a huge net/mesh maze.  He did it over and over.  They also loved this wall of water.  I think they would have stayed 2 hours if we had let them.  We were all getting pretty hot and it was time for lunch so we finished up at the playground, ate lunch, the 2 littel guys napped in the stroller and JM went on the Hollywood movie ride with Jordan and his mom.  We headed back to our hotel after the movie ride and had an early dinner at the resort.


The next day we were dragging, to say the least.  We were so tired by this point.  All the walking, pushing strollers, working on laundry, swimming, playing at the resort, had really gotten to us.  We only spent a half a day at Animal Kingdom and then came on home for a good nap.  I'll follow up this post with more from Animal Kingdom and then what crazy decision we made later that night!


More to come!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Happy 3rd Birthday, Matthew!


It doesn't seem like 3 years ago I reluctantly checked into the hospital for a doctor-suggested induction and delivered this 10 pound 14 oz (yes, you read that right!) 23 inch long bundle of JOY!

This delivery we decided to NOT find out what we were having and I rank those experience as the highlights of my life.  Matthew came out and everyone in the room gasped and it scared me, then I realized they gasped because he was so BIG!





He was so sweet and precious and I could tell he had a calm disposition. We had nurses who stopped by our room to see the near-11 pound baby that was delivered.  He was a star and he still is, in our hearts!


So, here we are, 3 whole years later and our sweet Matthew is turning 3 today!


I feel like this transition from 2-3 has been the most eventuful year of Matthew's life.  He adjusted to being a big brother, became very shy, slowly transitioned out of it, and has emerged a fun, sweet, mess of a little boy!


Matthew spent most of the year refusing to get his picture taken, therefore, I have very few pictures of him actually looking at the camera.  It was a stage, I know, and he has slowly come out of it.  He still has days where he doesn't want his picture taken, but generally he will let us now!

I love this picture because I feel like captures a moment in time where he transitioned from a little toddler into our big boy!  I love his sweet brown eyes, brown skin, and brown hair.  What a precious gift he is!


During the spring and summer, Matthew showed a big interest ALL sports and we generally played them all the time in our backyard!  We could really tell that he probably has a God-given talent for some kind of sport.  We're not sure what, but we'll find out in a few years if that is what he wants. He can hit a ball like nobody's business!




We played outside so much this summer and Matthew was right there always wanting to go outside and get into water!  He really became my water baby this summer!



In July we made our annual trip back to Alabama for close to 3 weeks.  Matthew had a hard summer figuring things out!  It seems like we worked on discipline a LOT this summer.  We went through a period of wanting very specific socks, specific blankets, and certain PJs for nap and bedtime.  I think he just needed some time to transition from being a 2 year old to being 2 and a half!  It's hard to be little!


Matthew played so much baseball this summer!  Here he is toward the end of July looking SO big all of a sudden and hitting the ball great but refusing to run any bases!  Silly boy!


In August we were so happy to finally be able to take a great, long family vacation.  It seems like all I'd done the last 3 years is have babies, so we were finally ready this summer to head to Florida.  Almost overnight we saw him start to blossom and slowly come out of his shell as he discovered different surroundings and learned a little bit more about the world around him!  We hit up a Disney resort for 2 days then headed to the beach.  He loved the Nemo splash pad and I think he would have stayed ALL day if we had let him.


We were very afraid that he would hate the beach and the waves and the sand but he really did love it!  He loved the shells, the sand, and was generally curious about everything we encountered and all the new places we visited.  He grew up overnight on our beach trip!


Fresh off of our beach trip, Mother's Day Out started.  He had gone 2 days last year, but he would only be there 1 day this year.  He has done wonderfully in his room.  He loves to go, loves his teacher, and she says he just plays and has the best time every week.  I love his smile on school days when he runs right in and never looks back.

At the end of September, we packed up yet again, and flew to the Sunshine State to meet up with family for a week at Disney!  This flight and trip was great because the boys knew exactly what to do (it was the same flight) and they really seemed to enjoy traveling!

We were fearful, yet again, that he would recoil in terror at all the rides and we kept asking ourselves, "who will sit with Matthew while the rest of us go on rides?!"  It was not to be.  This child rode EVERYTHING.  He shocked us the whole trip!  He rode everything and he was so good!


Matthew went from never wanting his picture made, to asking us everyday before we left the hotel if we would take his picture with Mickey!  I could tell that my little guy had indeed grown up during the latter half of the summer.  No longer was he a little baby or a toddler, but he was slowly turning into a little boy who had an adventerous spirit.


We have enjoyed our fall and enjoyed seeing Matthew grow before our eyes!  It seems like every week I'm trying clothes on and throwing them into my "does not fit" pile and digging through big brother's clothes to put on something bigger!  He's my constant snacker and I know he has hit a growth spurt lately.  Last weekend we put a pair of brother's 4T jeans on him and they basically fit!  We skipped straight from 2T-4T it seems like!  Matthew also started church choir this fall and it has surprised me so much, but he has loved it!  He doesn't really sing but he knows every word and he just loves to go to choir and see his teachers!


If I could think of anything that seems like Matthew, it would be this picture!  I regularly catch him attempting to do things like this all the time.  I hope and pray he won't be my child to ride motorcycles and attempt dangerous things, but I just see that twinkle in his eye, and I know he's going to be my adventerous little boy!


I'm so thankful that I get to be his mom!  I'm so thankful that God gave him to us to raise, love, and learn from.  Happy 3rd Birthday, Matthew!  We love you so much!  We can't wait to see how you learn and grow over this next year as you transform from 3-4! Happy Birthday Buddy!