Our trip, this time for real!

***Do I really need to post a warning, I think you know this will probably be long :)***

Alright, here's the real deal. We went to "the happiest place on Earth" from Feb. 4th to the 12th to visit with the mouse.

We flew Southwest for the first time since it was cheaper and there were no added fees. I was a little nervous at first since they don't assign seating, it's first come first served, but Paul was able to get us "A" boarding passes (A21-A27) so I was able to relax a little since I figured we would all be able to sit together. When we boarded the plane we realized that the flight originated somewhere else, Boston maybe?, and there were already people on it. We did manage to get seats close by but we had to split up 3 and 3. I, and I hate to say this, ended up sitting with both Megan and Zach. Paul got the easy kids so his plane trip was pretty enjoyable. I got the child that talks non-stop and the other child that gets so easily excited he can't sit still. Plus to add to my misery we were delayed leaving by 2 hours, an hour of that time we sat on the plane. Here's my flying companions:
Once we landed in Orlando we took the Magical Express bus over to our resort. I loved the fact that we didn't have to drive anywhere and we didn't even have to pick up our checked bags. They were going to pick them up for us and send them to our resort. We stayed at the Boardwalk Inn for all but one night we were there. What a great resort but we had a lot of walking to do just to get to our room. We later switched to Port Orleans Riverside for our last night, it was nice too just not as big.

During our time there we visited all 4 parks at least twice, we didn't do any of the waterparks. Of course we had to start with the Magic Kingdom since that was the original park. As you look at these pictures you will see that we're all in sweatshirts early on but then gradually end up in shorts. That's because it was COLD the first two days. It was so cold that I even put a hat and mittens on Zachary that first full day we were there. Here we are in the Magic Kingdom on our first day, you can barely see the castle behind us.


I made all our dinner reservations before we left and on our first night I thought we would start out with a character dinner at 1900 Park Fair. We got to see Cinderella, her prince, Lady Tremaine (the wicked stepmother), Anastasia and Drizella (the stepsisters). The stepsisters were absolutely hilarious! I was almost on the floor laughing so hard. Later during the dinner they asked who was celebrating a birthday so Megan and I raised our hands and they came over and gave us tiaras. For some reason they gave Zach a crown, not sure why, but okay, we'll take it.

While Paul was riding Rock 'n' Rollercoaster with the girls in Disney's Hollywood Studios I took Zach over to meet Lightening McQueen and Mater. He loves the movie Cars and I thought he would be a little more excited. He wasn't. It didn't phase him one bit that he was standing between the two. Oh well, at least I enjoyed it.



This picture was taken by Megan while we were waiting for the rest to ride Mission Space in Epcot.


I know it sounds like I was always the one waiting but what usually would happen was Paul would take whatever girls wanted to ride with him and I would "baby swap" it. That means he would wait in the regular line and when he was done I could take up to 2 of the kids back on and enter through the fastpass line so my wait was much shorter. We did this all the time, it was great. That's one of the reasons why I love Disney, they make it somewhat easy to be there with a young child.


In Epcot we would visit all the countries and try on the hats. Here's my kids in Mexico.

Here's another character dinner I planned. It was at Akershus in Norway and we got to meet Belle, Aurora, Alice in Wonderland, Ariel and Jasmine. Lauren and I both thought that Jasmine was a little snobby sounding but Zachary (at least according to the people at the table behind me) was eyeing her belly button so at least one of us liked her.

And of course here's the hat picture from Norway. Lauren and Megan were pretending to sing. I always had to take all of these pictures quick because Zach would try to take the hats off (as he's doing in the picture below).

The girls loved riding Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom. When we were there 4 years ago we saw this ride being built. I thought it could have been a little better, it was kind of cool riding it at night though.

Thank goodness Zach is pretty easy going. Everyday that we were there he would take his naps in his stroller. The one day I did go back to the room so Megan could take a nap was the time he fell asleep and woke up before we got there. That was fun, I had to try and keep him quiet while Megan slept.

This one's in Animal Kingdom on Kali River Rapids. Zach was two inches too short so he couldn't ride so I stayed off with him. I'm glad I did because Paul came off the ride soaked!

One night for dinner we went over to another resort to eat, the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We ate at Boma's which was a buffet and for dessert our waitress brought out a special dessert for both Megan and I to celebrate our birthdays. We each got a plate like the one below. I had gotten cupcakes at other restaurants but I thought this one was unique. Very delicious too.

I just want to mention that from the 5th to the 9th (the 9th being my actual birthday) I wore my birthday button that I got at the parks. You can see me wearing it in a lot of these pictures like the one below. I didn't wear it for the free stuff (though those things were nice!), I mainly wore it to see how many people would say happy birthday to me. I got the most in Animal Kingdom. It was nice to hear complete strangers say, "Happy birthday Amy." I sort of expected the Cast Members to say it but it took me by surprise to hear other people say it. On my actual birthday I even got sung to in French since we were eating in a French restaurant and they put a candle in my Creme Brulee.

We only stopped at one character spot to get pictures taken the whole time we were there. This one is actually on my birthday and I really wanted to get pictures of Mickey and the gang. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Donald. I think Zach was in awe of all the characters and he wasn't one bit shy meeting them.

Yet another hat picture, this time we were in Morocco.

Megan's birthday is the 12th and when I originally planned the trip we were leaving on the 11th. So I had already planned on celebrating her birthday on the 10th with dinner in the castle (Cinderella's Royal Table). That was a fun dinner. Paul and I were called the king and queen and they referred to the kids as princesses and the prince. The kids either got a wand or a sword, we got a picture of us with Cinderella and all the kids got wishing stars when we left. Megan got a special cake since it was her birthday. (Those birthday buttons were amazing!) The fireworks went off while we were in the castle, couldn't see them too well but it was neat to just be there.

Here's the little prince with his plate of noodles. At any kind of buffet anywhere on Disney property kids under the age of 3 get to eat for free. This wasn't a buffet but they brought him this plate for free. I was very surprised at that as I was ready to share my food with him. He loved the Mickey plate. He's blowing on his noodles in the picture.

I had said before that we added a day on to our vacation because of the space shuttle launch. We had it all planned out, I booked a different Disney resort for that one night, Paul switched our airline tickets, etc... The morning that we were leaving for Disney is when we found out that the launch had been postponed. Oh well, it was a bummer but what are you going to do? Instead of seeing the space shuttle we added an extra day to our tickets so we could at least visit a park in the morning of our last day. Plus it was Megan's birthday so she got to have some extra fun on her day and take advantage of the birthday promotion.

We had two Magical Moments happen that morning. The first was in the Emporium gift shop on Main Street. We were using Megan's fun card (the $63 she got for her birthday) to buy souvenirs and the cashier noticed Megan's birthday button. He sang her a song then called another cast member over and he went and got a mini golf game and set it up for her to play. He was being funny and Megan was enjoying it and the cast member handed Megan a certificate about the Magical Moment.

The next one was when Paul, Kristin, Megan and Zach went into a Christmas shop. Lauren and I hung outside for a bit but went inside when Paul told us they were decorating a tree.

And the top of the tree.

The cast member there gave them another Magical Moments certificate and let each one of them (she even included Lauren) pick out a Mickey head ornament with the year 2009 on them. Very nice! She boxed them all up for us too so they wouldn't break.

We got two more rides in that morning before we had to leave. The first being the Indy Speedway where you drive the cars. Here's my ornery looking boy while waiting in line for that. Paul went with Zachary, Lauren and Kristin each went by themselves and I went with Megan. Megan was scared to drive at first but towards the end she was wanting to go again.

Our very last ride in Disney was Goofy's Barnstormer. It's a roller coaster for young kids like Zach. While we waited in line he was fascinated with watching the roller coaster go by, he would crack up laughing when it got close to him. Lauren said he enjoyed the ride too. Here's the picture from where I was sitting behind.

Okay, whew! If you've read this far this is it. After riding the roller coaster we hopped on the train to take us to the front of the park. From there we took a bus to our resort then once at our resort we took a different bus to the airport. I tell you, it was modes of transportation week. I didn't even mention the boat rides we took all week or the monorail rides. Here's the girls on the Magical Express bus.

And just so he doesn't feel left out here's a very short video of Zach on the bus. See what kind of child we had to deal with all week? You would think he had ants in his pants.

In case you missed it he says, "Eww, nasty" at the beginning. Not sure why he was saying that though.

We had a great trip and hopefully created some wonderful memories for the kids. Can't wait to go back someday!

Our Trip

Warning: Lots of pictures ahead!

Once we landed in Florida all of us were so tired that no one felt like driving. That is except Zach, he was bouncing off the walls so he took the lead and got us to Disney. What a great driver he was.

That is once he consulted his map. Anytime we had to get anywhere Zach came to our rescue.

We arrived at our hotel but none of us got much sleep the entire week because the floor kept dropping from beneath us and we heard lots of screaming.

Lauren didn't waste anytime getting into a fight with Kristin.

So off she went to be punished.

In Epcot we had a tough time. The kids all got eaten by a shark!

When Paul and I tried to save them we got eaten too.

Thankfully at least one of us made it out alive!

The food was just so so, we did enjoy our McDonald's french fries while we were there.

But some of the other food was just disgusting!

Even the drinks were bad.

Zach was so bored with everything that he resorted to playing with his shadow.

And I had to take Megan and Kristin to get glasses while we were there.

Paul did manage to survive the shark attack but he was such a beast the rest of the week. Here he is posing with the kids.

Early in our trip he found a cute girl to hang out with.

But that's okay since I found a prince.

Even Zach had a thing going with Anastasia, Cinderella's stepsister. Check out that kiss on his cheek.

Zach ended the week by getting violent at dinner, stabbing his father with a sword.

His last day in Disney and he had to be punished.

Alright, I'll eventually get around to posting what really happened. Hope you enjoyed this silly little thing I did. :)

Out of all the above pictures there are two that I want to explain now. The first is with Kristin eating the food and making a face. We were eating at Chefs de France in Epcot and for an appetizer we ordered escargot. We wanted the kids to try it since they've never had it. Kristin was making a face before she even tasted it, I'm sure it was just the thought of eating snails. She did like it though, just not enough to have another one!

The second picture I want to explain is the one where Lauren has a cup in her hand and is making an awful face. That was also in Epcot at Club Cool. There you can try different Coke products from around the world (for free!) and the one I had her try first was called Beverly and it's from Italy. I knew it was nasty tasting from reading about it on the internet so I had my camera ready. And she didn't disappoint me, I love that picture because she fell for my trick. Boy, what a mean mom I am!

Angel Choir

I never knew that the Children's Choir was called the Angel Choir until I saw it printed in the bulletin last Sunday. Anyway, here they are singing again, it's about 37 seconds long I think. They sang this last Sunday but due to technical difficulties I'm just now getting it on here.

I almost didn't tape it since Barbara, the choir leader, was standing in front of them. Then my mom said it was a song that my grandfather (her dad) used to sing alot so then I had to at least get some of it on tape. You can see Megan but not Kristin, probably better that way since Kristin doesn't really sing much!

Christmas continued and New Year's

The rest of Christmas...

In the afternoon we had our families come over and there were more presents for everyone. Here's Zach looking at a shadow book that his Aunt Kelly gave him.

Ilene, Mamaw and Papaw and I think that's Megan are sitting on the couch watching.
PopPop got a little sleepy so he took a nap!

We got a Keurig (which makes coffee, tea and hot chocolate) and Paul's showing how it works.

Baby Lehlan's modelling his new bat that his PopPop gave him. Now all the grandsons have a bat with their names on them.

Not quite sure Lehlan likes Uncle Paul's goatee. Sure makes him look older!
We all had dinner and everyone had fun playing with all the new toys the kids got. It was a nice ending to a great day, I'm already looking forward to next year.

New Year's

Paul's brother Steve came over for New Year's Eve and he brought a live lobster to cook. He also brought mussels which he cooked for an appetizer. Here's our little friend "Pinchy" before going in the pot.

Here's Pinchy as he's being cooked.
For some reason I didn't get a picture after he was cooked but he turned a nice red color like they're supposed too. I've never seen a lobster being cooked before so that was neat. And sorry Pinchy but you sure did taste good! Paul supplied the Filet Mignon so we had surf and turf for a New Year's Eve dinner. It was all delicious.

Other News

Yes, Zachary finally got better, after a whole week being sick. He did okay New Year's Eve but was so much better by New Year's Day. He finally got to enjoy all his new toys. Kristin and Lauren ended up getting sick this past weekend and they both missed school yesterday but they were better today so off they went. Zach and I finally got a day to ourselves!

Christmas Morning

I'm going to have to post about Christmas in two separate posts since there are way too many pictures to put in one. So this one is going to be all about Christmas morning.

The girls know not to go downstairs until everyone is up and this year they were very good to us, not getting us up until 8:00. Actually I think Paul and I were up before most of them! So here's the gang waiting to go downstairs.

The night before the kids leave cookies and milk for Santa and Santa must really love it because the milk and cookies are gone the next morning and in their place he leaves a note. In fact, that's the first place the kids head to when coming down the stairs. Kristin and Megan didn't even peek at the tree, just headed straight to the kitchen. Here's Kristin reading the note from Santa.

Next we open our stockings. Paul got a fake goatee in his which he promptly modelled for everyone. I missed it but Paul said that Zach gave him a funny look when he first saw it.

After presents we took a quick break to sort of clean that mess up (and I quickly got a cup of coffee!) then onto the presents under the tree. Megan was really wanting a Nintendo DS this year, I think she looks pretty happy that she got one.

Lauren's big gift was one of the new ipods, a purple one. She very quickly got it set up and used all of her itune gift cards to download music to it. She also got an ihome to play her music in her room.

Kristin didn't have a big (meaning expensive) present that she wanted. Instead she got a lot of smaller things like this gum maker. Paul helped her do this a few days later and it tasted pretty good.

Zach's thing was just unwrapping the presents, he could have cared less what was inside. He kept saying "more, more" even when he was done. He found where I had all the presents to family members and he started to unwrap one of those. If one of the kids hadn't said, "where did he get that present?" then Mamaw and Papaw's presents would have been opened. Good thing I caught him in time! Here he is actually opening one of his.

My little climbing monkey. I don't know why Santa brought him any presents, he should have just gave him wrapping paper and boxes!

It just wore Zach out to unwrap all those presents, he's taking a break leaning on daddy.

After all the presents were opened we spotted an envelope peaking out from under the tree. It was for Zachary. It said that he had one last present and that he had to go downstairs in the basement to get it. So we all go downstairs and find a Cars ball pit and he quickly climbed in. We had to bring it upstairs just to get him to come up with us.

So now all the presents are opened and Paul's job is to take things out of the boxes (why do they make that so hard!) so I can start making breakfast. Here's one of Kristin's presents that she got, a Nerf automatic gun. When the Toys'R'Us toy catalog came out before Thanksgiving the only thing Kristin saw that she wanted out of it was this toy. I nixed the idea very quickly since I don't like guns but I guess Santa relented and got it since it was the only thing she asked for. It does shoot fast.

Here's another one of Kristin's toys. It's a crane that gives you 60 seconds to get a piece of candy. It's neat but it plays a song while you do it that can absolutely drive you crazy when it gets played over and over. It's very loud and there's no volume control.

One of our family presents was Guitar Hero World Tour band kit. Paul was just dying to play those drums. He was downstairs all morning playing that thing (and probably the guitar too), barely getting ready for when family came over!

It's amazing how quickly the presents get opened! I think everyone had a good morning, I know I did. I love watching their expressions as they open things up. Megan was particularly funny to watch this year, her face was nothing but a big smile the whole morning.

Christmas Eve

I figured I'd do a little at a time and eventually manage to get everything on here. Zach's asleep right now, still not any better but he did eat part of a donut this morning. Alright, onto Christmas Eve...

Of course Santa brings the bulk of the presents in our house but on Christmas Eve I have the kids open something that I've gotten and/or made for them. I started doing this a few years ago for two reasons: 1) I don't want Santa to get all the credit for the presents and 2) I don't want what I give them to get lost among all the presents on Christmas morning. I would actually like to give them their presents earlier in the day but for some reason that never works out, it always ends up after their pajamas are on, before bed time.

So here's Zach opening his present. He got an I Spy bag that I made for him and since I figured he probably wouldn't quite grasp the concept quickly I didn't want him to feel cheated and I also got him a bag of "Cars". So he ended up with 2 presents.

Megan got a "Restaurant/Grocery Store" kit. She loves these kinds of things, Kristin has gotten several over the past few years (doctor's kit, vet kit, teacher kit...) and Megan wanted some kind of kit this year too. I racked my brain trying to think of something different that wouldn't cost me a fortune to put together. I finally came up with this idea and included pretend food, plastic plates and cups, a menu I made up for "Megano's Diner", a tray, an apron, a cash register, well, you get the idea.


Kristin sort of knew what she would get, a "Business Kit." She mentioned that idea last January and I thought, well that one's easy. All I had to do was wait for back to school sales, plus I had a year to put everything together. In her kit she has a briefcase, a bunch of different types of forms, different notepads, an actual phone that has different lines (to put someone on hold!), bins to put forms in, petty cash money and a bunch of other stuff.

Lauren's tough. I'm not sure she would appreciate anything homemade, at least not during her teen years. She did when she was younger and I'm sure once she gets older she'll go back to appreciating those things. So for her I bought a little white Christmas tree and decorated it with simple decorations. I hung what presents I could from the tree and the rest I wrapped and place them beneath. Some of the things I hung from the tree were: a necklace and sunglasses from one of her favorite stores, a 3 pack of itunes gift cards, socks, candy, nail polish and makeup. Underneath I think I had more makeup, gum, stuff for her hair and a bank that said "Shoe Fund" on the front with a little bit of money inside. Since she was little and learned to walk she has always loved shoes so when I stumbled across that bank I just had to get it. It's so her.

After the presents I had to take one last picture, one with all of them in their Christmas pajamas. I do that every year, buy them matching (at least for the girls) pajamas for them to wear to bed Christmas Eve. I think it might be the last year for Lauren to match since she's more into a woman's size than a kids size. I got lucky this year finding her an XL that fit, don't think I'll be so lucky next year though.

Off they went to bed and then Santa came sometime in the night and left their presents. To be continued...

What a day!

I wasn't even going to get on the computer today, let alone do a blog entry. But I'm in desperate need of a break so I'm going to do this blog entry and then maybe surf the internet awhile, play some games, whatever. I guess I'm glad I got up semi early this morning as I did get one major thing done this morning before I almost ended up having a nervous breakdown. Just kidding, not really a nervous breakdown, just very, very frustrated.

It all started when Zach came downstairs. Now I had gone in his room to get him but he didn't want to get out of his crib. He would lay down and just smile. I tried 3 times and then told him that I had a list a mile long to do today and that he could just stay in his bed and I'd get him later. Then downstairs I went. Pretty soon Kristin came up from the basement (Kristin and Megan were up before me) and went to get Zach up. When he came downstairs he started this nasty coughing and I thought, oh no, he's got croup again. I waited awhile and listened to him but his voice was just hoarse and scratchy so I figured I'd better get him into the doctor's office today.

Now for the next child. Kristin started with a cough yesterday and it sure wasn't sounding any better so since I made the decision to take Zach in I figured I might as well take Kristin too. With her having asthma I didn't want to take any chances, especially with Christmas tomorrow.

But it gets better! Megan has had an on again/off again cough for the past few weeks. It never sounded too bad and her peak flow numbers were very good (yes, she has asthma too) so I never took her in. Well... since I was taking the other two why not take her too? Sounds logical, one trip for all 3.

So I call at 9:15 and get a 10:15 appointment. I walked into their waiting room and they were so packed full of kids waiting that I knew this was going to take awhile. Once we did get seen, around 11:00, I was very thankful that I did take them after all. Kristin has bronchitis and the beginnings of an ear infection. She hasn't had an ear infection since she was a baby and then she only had a few. Megan has mild bronchitis and a full blown ear infection. I don't think she has ever had an ear infection in her life. And poor Zach sounded so bad in the doctor's office, very hoarse. He definitely had croup with a flat looking eardrum which she said could be the beginning of an ear infection. So, all 3 kids are on antibiotics, 2 are on prednisolone (sp?), and all 3 are on nebulizer treatments with Kristin doing the most at 4 times a day. I made a joke about how our one nebulizer will be going all day long so the doctor asked me if I wanted 2 more. Uh, yeah, makes my life so much easier. So I walk out of the office with 2 more nebulizers, the newer kinds that I like so much better. The one we have is so old and big, it's from when Kristin was a baby. So that was like an early Christmas present for me. I can have all 3 kids sitting down doing a nebulizer at the same time. Woohoo!

So then we go to drop off the fifty million prescriptions they have at the pharmacy, the one closest to our house. They have everything except the antibiotic for Megan and Kristin and they weren't getting anymore in today. So the pharmacist calls over to another pharmacy to see if they have it and they do have some but only enough to fill one of the prescriptions. So... I ended up leaving the bulk of the prescriptions at the first pharmacy (I love them by the way, I'm in there so much they know me and the kids by name!) I head to the second pharmacy which is actually past the doctor's office where we just were. Of course it's Christmas Eve and parking is a nightmare but when I finally did drop the prescription off they told me it would be about a 20 minute wait. So the kids and I roam around the store and ended up looking at the card section for a good 10 minutes. The girls liked opening the musical ones and showing Zach. Which was fine by me because by this point I'm so annoyed with everything I pretty much didn't care what they did. Zach was getting fussy in the cart, Megan was non-stop talking, about everything, and Kristin was nitpicking with Megan. Of course after 20 minutes the medicine still wasn't ready we had to wait another 10 minutes before we could get out of there.

But I'm still not done because now I have to stop at the first pharmacy again to pick up the rest of the medicines. Of course it was all ready for me so that was quick. It was just a pain because by now Zach is tired and hungry and wanted no part with all the getting in and out of his carseat. Then he didn't want to sit in the cart either. Ahhh! I couldn't wait to get home.

So even though I'm extremely glad I took the kids to the doctor today I really wish the whole thing hadn't taken 3 hours! I fed them lunch when we got home and when Zach took a nap I mopped the kitchen floor. Then that was it for me for a little while, break time! Everything else can either wait or just simply not get done. At the moment I think it's going to be the latter, I just want to enjoy the rest of the day with as little stress as possible (and maybe a glass or two of wine!) Sorry this was nothing but a ramble but I do feel less frustrated now. :)

I hope everyone that reads this has a very Merry Christmas!

Children's Choir

Today the girls were scheduled to sing in church again. Of course when we woke up this morning there was a coat of ice on everything. It had sleeted overnight and was still sleeting while we were eating breakfast. Luckily Paul drove us all to church because I'm a big chicken when it comes to bad weather. Thank you Paul! So the girls sang and of course I have a clip of it. Kristin sang a duet with Joan and Megan had a solo. Unfortunately for Megan you can barely hear her on the video.