Christmas at Disney World Part 3

Our 2nd full day in Florida was a non-Disney day. We spent the morning taking some much needed family photos, which turned out to be quite a hilarious undertaking. When John and his brothers get together, it is pretty much non-stop joking around, which makes for great entertainment for the rest of us. Even the photographers were cracking up during the process.

While we waited waited to have our pictures printed, the kids found a fountain to play in.

Hudson tried to throw one of Makenna's shoes into the fountain, but Grandma CeCe made one amazing save, by batting it into the air about 4 times before knocking it onto the grass. It was really quite impressive!

Makenna with aunt Natalie and Uncle Mike outside the portrait studio

It was also Natalie's birthday that day, so we celebrated that night by going out to dinner in Downtown Disney, at T-Rex, which was a really fun restaurant. It was filled with life-size animatronic creatures. The biggest challenge of the night was trying to keep Makenna and Hudson in their seats, because they kept wanting to walk around and look at all of the dinosaurs.

Hudson with Grand-Da (John's dad)

We sat in the ice cave portion of the restaurant, which from a distance looked really cool, but up close had some crazy (almost too crazy) lighting.
After dinner, the rest of the gang went and saw a movie, and John and I walked around Downtown Disney with the kids before heading home in time for their bedtime.


The next day we went back to Disney World, this time to

Hollywood Studios.

We got there an hour before the park opened, and were able to go on some of the big rides (Rock N' Roller Coaster and Tower or Terror) without having to wait in any lines. John's parents took the kids for us so that we could go on those rides with the other couples. They made good use of that time by getting everyone fast passes for the Toy Story Mania ride, and visiting with some of the characters.

Here is Makenna on the Toy Story ride, which was really fun! I think that everyone enjoyed this one. It is an interactive ride, where you play a bunch of different carnival-style shooting games (and of course uncle Mike had the highest score of the hour!).

We spent a lot of the rest of our day seeing some of the fun shows. Makenna loved watching the Voyage of The Little Mermaid, and the Playhouse Disney Live on Stage shows (Playhouse Disney cartoons are her favorite to watch in the mornings).

One of many tram rides

Here is a picture of our whole group with the Monsters Inc. characters

The rest of our trip was a little more low-key than the first couple of days. We mostly just spent lots of time being together as a family. We played games, went swimming, had a few hours of girls-only shopping, ate lots of delicious food, and celebrated Christmas. I thought having a warm Christmas might be weird, but I actually loved it! We played sand volleyball for about 2 hours, and then went swimming on Christmas afternoon...it was wonderful! We also had some really nice meaningful family devotionals throughout the trip. I loved spending time with, and getting to know my new sister-in-laws and soon-to-be sister-in-law. The kids too, loved playing with all of their aunts and uncles. I only wish that we all lived closer together so that we could see each other more often. Overall, it was such a fantastic trip, and we were so lucky to be able to go! (Thank you, Thank you to Mom and Da for making it all possible...We love you!)

Christmas at Disney World Part 2

The Disney Princesses and Fairies

The first thing we did when arriving at Magic Kingdom, was to find out where we needed to go to meet the Princesses, knowing that this was the most important thing to Makenna. We split from the group and after stopping for a few photo ops, headed straight to the back of the park to the Toontown Hall of Fame, where the Princesses were.

When we first arrived, we thought that maybe we were in the wrong place, because it was SO empty. We found what said was the start of the line to see the Princesses, and started following it. When we got to the beginning of the line, there was only one little girl there with her mom and dad, and that was it! They told us they started letting people in to see the Princesses at 9:00. It was 8:50, so we only had to wait for 10 minutes, and Makenna was 2nd in line!! We really could not believe our luck, because we had heard horror stories of people waiting in line for hours and hours to see the Princesses. So after waiting for a very short 10 minutes, we were led into the room where 3 Princesses were waiting.

Each of the Princesses were SO wonderful, and took several minutes with Makenna, asking her questions, signing her autograph book, giving her hugs, and posing for pictures. It was so much fun watching Makenna interact with the Princesses...she was SO HAPPY! (I really am getting giddy just thinking about it, it was such an awesome experience.)

First Makenna met Princess Aurora

Then Cinderella

And finally Belle
I'm not sure if it was because Makenna was wearing a Belle dress, but Princess Belle was so, so sweet with Makenna. All of the princesses were great, but Belle especially took extra time with Makenna, and really made her feel so special.

One last hug

After we left from seeing the Princesses, I really felt like we could leave the park, and our day would have been complete. Makenna enjoyed the experience so much that she wanted to go right back in and see the Fairies this time. By this time the line was a little longer, but we still only had to wait about 25 mins. to see the Fairies.


First there was Rosetta

Then Tinkerbell

And lastly Iridessa

This was by far Makenna's favorite part of our trip to Disney World, and one of mine as well.

Christmas at Disney World

John and I were lucky enough to get to spend a week in sunny, 70+ degree Orlando, Florida for Christmas this year with all of John's side of the family. It was especially exciting because since our last Christmas with John's family (2008) all 3 of John's younger brothers have added a significant other (2 are married, and one is engaged). This was our first chance to be all together as a family. John's parents rented a big villa so that we could all be under one roof, and we had such a great time visiting Disney World, enjoying the warm weather, and spending time as a family.

On our first day at Disney, we went to Magic Kingdom. We arrived shortly after it opened, and enjoyed a less-crowded morning at the park. John and I took Makenna straight to see the Princesses, and had an Awesome experience...post on that to come.

Makenna and Grandma CeCe
Heading down Main Street wearing our "Family Reunion" pins
Trying to pull out the Sword in the Stone

Riding the "Prince Charming Regal Carousel"
Getting ready to watch Mickey's PhilharMagic 3D movie

We left the park about noon to head back to our cars and eat a lunch that we packed. On the way back to the park we took the ferryboat instead of the monorail.

Hudson and Uncle Joey on the ferryboat

Shortly after we got back to the park, Makenna fell asleep in the stroller. I really can not remember the last time she slept in a stroller (it has been a long time). She was thoroughly worn out from our fun morning!
We stayed at the park long enough to watch Mickey's Once Upon a Christmastime Parade. Makenna sat right in front waving at all of the floats as they went by. Of course she was especially excited to see the Princesses. Hudson watched most of the Parade sitting on John's shoulders, and took advantage of the opportunity to play with John's hair in between the action.

The stars of the parade After the parade, we did a little souvenir shopping on our way out, and left the park at about 4pm. We were all pretty tired, and were ready for a nice, relaxing evening at home.

Lessons Learned

from celebrating Christmas 2010...

1. Santa sometimes visits early.

2. Our student budget doesn't really allow for buying the best and nicest items.

3. Grandmas and Grandpas go a LONG way in making up for the student Christmas budget...THANK YOU!!

4. John continues his streak of buying a better present for me than I buy for him. (Think ear buds and a pull-up bar vs. an ipod nano)

5. A one year old + a zhu zhu pet = lots of fun.

6. Shopping for stockings is fun...shopping for your own stocking is even better!

7. Buying $2 stockings at Target rather than stressing to finish the kids' homemade stockings is a really good idea. (The countdown for next year is on)

8. It is possible to lose, and I mean really lose things in a 1200 sq. ft. home. Case in point...my bag of thread needed to finish the kids stockings. I have looked everywhere, and it is no where to be found. Hence the $2 Target stockings.

9. Just because it is a good deal, doesn't mean it is a good deal.

10. A one your old + a large Barbie Castle is not a good mix.

11. Bigger is not always better.

12. No ornament is safe (we have sadly lost 4 this year to Hudson's "I-must-get-into-everything-nature," all of which I thought were safely out of his grasp).

13. John is well on his way to being a Husker fan!

14. Kids are much easier to please than adults (even though I wasn't thrilled with the quality of my black Friday amazing deal on a Barbie Castle, Makenna LOVES it, and really that is what matters.)

15. Celebrating Christmas with kids is really fun!! Some of my favorite quotes from Makenna of our early Christmas celebration:

"All of these things are SO CUTE!"

"How are we going to fit all of these in our room?"

"This is the best Christmas EVER!"

Here are some photos from our "Best Christmas Ever"

Indy Children's Museum

At the beginning of the month, the kids and I (along with some friends) made a trip up to Indianapolis to visit the Children's Museum. I had heard lots of great things about it, and I was not disappointed. It was HUGE!! And we spent almost 4 hours trying to see as much as we could, and probably only saw a quarter of it.

Here are just a few of the things we did:

Rode on the carousel

Had a tea party with some bears

Played in a snow castle
Saw Santa (although neither of my kids were brave enough to sit on his lap)
Dressed up like dinosaurs and protected the dinosaur eggs
Drove a tractor
Played in the sand
Walked the Barbie Runway
And after a fun morning and afternoon of playing...slept all the way home!

A Tale of Two Snowmen

December started off with a very light dusting of snow (our first of the season), and Makenna was SOO excited. All day long she kept asking if she could go outside and build a snowman, but since Hudson was sick, I told her that she would have to wait for Daddy to come home. John didn't get home until right before dinner, and even though it was starting to get dark and the snow was pretty much gone, out they went to build a snowman. After much effort on John's part to rake up a little bit of snow, here is the result:

A teeny, tiny, little snowman

Luckily, just a few days later, we got our first real snow of the season. After shoveling, sledding, and playing outside in the snow for almost 2 hours, John and Makenna got busy building a proper snowman at the bottom of our driveway. We enjoyed being welcomed home by our snowman for over a week before he sadly started to melt away.

The Princess Party

Last week Makenna got to celebrate her birthday again with a joint Princess Party with 2 other cute little girls in our neighborhood who also turned 3 in November. (Last year we had a Fairy Tea Party with the same girls.) Makenna loves dressing up in her princess dresses on a daily basis, and so was thrilled to have an excuse to wear one of them out. She chose to dress up in her Snow White dress.

Here are all of the princesses and princes.

The 3 birthday girls are on the front row.

The kids had a great time making crowns, decorating royal doorhangers, playing pin the crown on the princess, eating cupcakes, and having a princess dance party.

Here is Makenna writing her name on the back of her doorhanger. She is SO "into" letters right now, and loves practicing writing them. She can write all of the letters in her name, plus a few others. She is forever asking me what letters different words or names start with, and always wants me to write down all of the names of her friends. I think that it is great that she has taken an interest in learning letters, and it is so fun to see her write her name. (We haven't started working on the last name yet...I think that will take a little work!)
Dancing/twirling/spinning princess fun

And of course no party is complete without a goody bad filled with delightful princess favors.