Hollywood Studios

We had an awesome day at Hollywood studios. We spent the entire day there and had a blast. We got there early so the kids were able to see all of the characters again. The Rock and Roll roller coaster, Tower of Terror and the Toy Story ride were among our favorites. This is the first year that Kaleb has rode any of the roller coasters, so it was a lot of fun! They have a variety of musical shows that the kids loved as well. All of the guys went to a stunt show while the girls went to watch "The Little Mermaid". Oh and they have the best parade, I think it was called the "Block Party Bash", where for thirty minutes the Disney Pixar characters have a huge dance party in the street. It was a ton of fun an the kids loved it. Ayla even decided to get her face painted for the first time ever. She has always been scared to do it but after she saw her friends Ella and Makena do it, she wanted to join in on the fun. She picked out the "Tinkerbell" face and all day long she kept saying, "Mom am I still Tinkerbell", it was sooo cute!

























The "Block Party Bash"

For lunch we had reservations at the Prime Time Cafe. It is a great 50's style restaurant that has black and white TV's at most of the tables. The TV's played clips of the 1955 sitcom "Father Knows Best" and the original "Mickey Mouse Club". The waitresses were so funny, if you had your elbows on the table, they would kindly remind you to get your elbows off of the table. They are known for their delicious fried chicken, meatloaf and pot roast cooked the way "Mom" used to make it.









Brennan was hanging over his high chair playing his I Pod....don't ask, I have no clue!



After a long day, we decided to go to Down Town Disney and eat dinner at Wolfgang Puck Cafe. By the time we got there Brennan had ruined the shorts that he was wearing (for the second time). As I went to change his diaper I realized that we had ran out of diapers. So everyone starts walking all over Disney to try and find a diaper. With no luck, one of us comes up with the idea to find someone with a child close to Brennan's size and ask if we can "borrow" a diaper. Omg it was so funny, all of us stalking all of the moms that were passing by. Finally someone was kind enough to loan us a diaper. Brennan still did not have any shorts because they were wet and I had already bought him one outfit that day because he ruined the first one he had on, so I just took him in with a diaper and shirt on and THEN....as we were eating he threw up everywhere....so I just took him outside while everyone else finished eating. He was a MESS, but thankfully he felt ok after that. We finished the evening by doing a little shopping, the stores there are fabulous and they have the LARGEST Disney store I have EVER seen. It was great, the kids loved it. There was a Stitch Character on top of the store and every few seconds he would spit water out of his mouth. The kids thought this was the funniest thing ever. We must have sat there and watched it for at least 30 minutes. It was a very long day but Hollywood Studios is definitely my favorite part next to the Magic Kingdom of course!



Here is Stich spitting water....


and the kids thinking it is soooo hilarious!!



Oh and just for fun, look at ALL of these strollers....

The Magic Kingdom

So after our character breakfast, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom. I will never forget the look on Ayla's face as we entered. Her jaw just dropped open, she was so amazed by everything. As soon as we got there, the parade was just about to start so we got a good spot and watched our very first Disney parade. The kids loved it. It had all of their favorite characters and at the end of the parade the characters got off of the floats and danced in the streets. Ayla and Brennan were both out there dancing but I didn't get any pictures because I was with them :)












After the parade we HAD to go and see the princesses. Ayla and Brennan were both in awe of them because they were so beautiful. I was not sure if Brennan would go up to them or not but he was so sweet, he went up to them and would gently place his head on their shoulder. It was the sweetest thing ever. He called all of the princesses "Cinderwellwa", he is so dang cute!!!

We grabbed lunch at the park and took the kids on several rides before we went back to the room for a little rest that afternoon. Their favorite rides were Dumbo and It's a small world. Brennan LOVED It's a small world, their is so much to look at and he was literally amazed at everything. Needless to say, we rode these a couple of times!

We met our friends at Disney who are actually more like family, and Ayla loved hanging out with Ella and Makena! It was their fourth birthday while we were there, so we celebrated all week. Mama Sandy had bought them all matching shirts, they looked so cute! It was so great going with a group of people because we ALL got to ride rides. There was enough of us that we could take turns watching the kids so everyone could enjoy the rides.

To end Day one, we ate Dinner at our friends Hotel, the Contemporary and then spent the rest of the night back at the Magic Kingdom. I think we got back to our hotel around 10pm. It was a long and exhausting day, the temperature was in the high 80's I believe. Overall we had an awesome day at Magic Kingdom! For the rest of the week whenever we were at a different park, Ayla kept saying that she wanted to "go to Disney", I kept telling her we were at Disney but she didn't understand. The Magic Kingdom was Disney to her..lol. So I think it was her favorite park, of course, right??

Mother's Day, Ayla's Garden

These were the best Mother's Day pictures I could get!

I hope all of you Momma's out there had a wonderful Mother's Day. We had a great day. John's parents, grandmother and my mother all came over for a little visit! John surprised me with this Willow Tree collection. I had mentioned a while back that I would love to have these and he remembered and bought them for me. Thank you sweetie, I love them and I would LOVE to have the Willow Tree Nativity set ONE DAY too...just saying..lol.

Isn't this the perfect Mother's day gift. The couple is named "Together", for those who have found their true partner in love and life. Then we have the little boy named "Inquisitive child", which is definitely Brennan and the little girl is named " Spirited Child", which again describes Ayla perfectly. The older boy is named " Heart of Gold", which represents my oldest son Kaleb. He absolutely has a heart of gold and I have said this many times!



Kaleb had to work all day so I did not get a picture with all of my little loves, but when he came home from work he gave me a gift. This is the first time he has actually went out and bought me something with his own money so I was very surprised to say the least. When I opened it up, it was a pandora bracelet. I couldn't believe my 16 year old did that for me. I was so happy and proud of him it made me tear up a little. Of course I did ask him if it was real, hehe and it was, he HAD to show me the receipt. Anyway, I just thought that was the sweetest thing ever! I love all of my children so much, I am truly blessed to be their Momma!

After everyone left, we helped Ayla plant a "garden" as she says. She is always wanting to plant something, she has all the tools to do it, lol, so John took her to Lowe's this morning and they picked out some vegetables to plant. We planted, tomatoes, carrots and green beans. I really hope everything turns out, if not, we still had the best time working on this together. She loves to water the flowers, so we thought this would be fun for her to do everyday. We usually buy flowers and plant them on Mother's day but it was freezing this weekend so we decided to wait for a better weekend!

It looks like we have a lot of work to do!!

First Day of Our Disney Vacation

First I wanted to show you a few pictures of Coronado Springs where we stayed. I had mentioned before that we did not spend much time there, and although the resort is nice, I think I would want to stay somewhere closer to the Magic Kingdom the next time we go. The only bad part was waiting on the bus every morning and evening. It was a minimum of 30 minutes to go anywhere on the bus and most nights it would take us at least 45 minutes to get back to the room. We would definitely consider staying somewhere with access to the monorail because it is just much easier with young children, especially when you have a double stroller. We actually met friends at Disney (there were a total of 13 of us) and they stayed at Bay Lake Tower (which is awesome) and it is within walking distance to the Magic Kingdom so we spent a few afternoons there, it was much easier than going all the way back to our room.


This is the little area where we would eat breakfast every morning!










On our first morning, we had reservations at the Polynesian for a character breakfast with Lilo and Stitch, Pluto, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. We had an awesome time at breakfast, all of the characters came to our table and spent a lot of time with the kids. They took pictures and signed autograph books. The food was amazing and it was overall a great experience! At one point all of the characters formed a conga line and danced around the dining room. They passed out maraca's to the kids and had the kids dancing, it was a lot of fun! Brennan was not afraid at all. He just jabbered in his own little language to all of them. Pluto was so funny, he got down on his knees and chased Brennan around. It was so cute, Brennan was just laughing! If you are going to Disney and want to do a character breakfast, I would highly recommend this one. Our friends that we were with have been to Disney many, many times and this is their favorite one by far!





























Day ONE to be continued, lol...................................................................................

p.s. Hope all of you are having a "Happy Mother's Day", you ALL deserve it!!