Disney World- Day 3 Mickey's Christmas Party

Sunday evening, after a nice nap and dinner at the hotel, we headed back to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Christmas Party. This is a special event after the park closes and only a number of tickets are sold. So basically we had the entire park to ourselves with no wait times on any of the rides!

The castle looked AMAZING with Christmas lights!

The Christmas spirit was definitely in the air with Christmas music playing, hot chocolate with sugar cookies, all the characters were dressed in their Christmas attire, fire works and a Christmas parade!

We got a fantastic professional shot of our family right in front of the castle without me wearing a silly hat, but we haven't gotten our CD yet!

These two girls were so happy and running from ride to ride, eating popcorn, and having a blast!

My favorite part of the evening was the Christmas parade. We attended the later one at 10:30pm since we were too busy riding rides to watch the 8:30pm one. My brother (having been to Disney several times before) knew where the parade started, so we got amazing seats and watched the parade and had the back part of the park to ourselves as the rest of the people watched the parade! It was very cold, so we bundled up and watched all the Christmas fun!

These guys were too cute!

My favorite part of the parade were these toy soldiers!!!

Here was Brinley's favorite part! Cinderella in her coach! It was beautiful!

Mickey and Minnie starting the parade off!

The main man who ended the parade!

I was so impressed with how well the kids held up and lasted until the park closed at midnight! They were cold, but still going strong!! Their bodies were running on pure "magic"!!!! As we were leaving the park, we noticed Santa had ended the parade and sat down at the end of main street! I figured we better give it a try and see if the kids would sit on his lap (that way I wouldn't have to take them to the mall!!) My favorite picture is at the top of the blog, but here is another one! Not too shabby considering it was taken at midnight!!!!
We got back to the hotel around 1am and everyone passed out!!! We were slow moving the next morning so we ate breakfast in our room while the kids watched classic Disney cartoons (the ones Jason and I grew up on!) and I attempted to pack! I don't know how I did it, but I managed to make 2 big suitcases full of clothes and make them fit into one. The other suitcase turned into the souvenir suitcase! It is a good thing we flew Elite status and had a 70lb bag limit because both bags weighed 65 lbs!!!

The flight home was less than desirable! Clayton screamed bloody murder for 2 hours (he finally fell asleep the last 30 minutes). He was DONE!!! We were all in bed by 8 pm that night!!! It was great to be back in our own beds and off our feet!

Since then we have been trying to catch up on rest, but that has been hard! We have had Christmas parties, Clayton's birthday and getting ready for Christmas! I am ready for January 1st!!!

Thank you mamaw and pops for such an AMAZING trip!!! It was wonderful to see the magic in my kids eyes! It was hard not to feel magical myself, Disney really knows how to do it!

Disney World Day 3- Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is the smallest park, so we got there early and planned to spend 1/2 a day there. The kids needed to take a nap in the afternoon, because we had the Mickey Christmas party from 7pm to midnight!

Brinley and Reese in front of the Animal Kingdom Christmas tree

The first thing we did was ride the safari ride. Since we were one of the first to ride, they were feeding the animals and they were all very active! We saw rhinos, giraffes, elephants, fl amigos, lions, and birds. Brinley was very excited to see the giraffes since the last time we went to the zoo, they were being moved and we didn't see them. We even saw a baby giraffe that came right up to the safari bus and it was so cute!
A giraffe eating off the safari bus

After the ride you could walk around and see lots of fish, birds, monkeys and meercats! There were so many fish in this tank, it looked like they were swimming in gel because they were moving so slowly!

They had a child area that was dinosaur themed with a few rides for little kids. Clayton loved all the dinosaurs!
Animal Kingdom also has it set up where you can visit certain characters under their huts. We saw Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy all dressed up in their Christmas attire. It was really cute!

After we ate some yummy BBQ (which we were thrilled to find since we had been living on waffles, chicken nuggets and fries!!!) we headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap for everyone!

Disney World Day 2- Hollywood Studios

We spent our Saturday at Hollywood Studios (formerly known at MGM).

This park was the best place to see all the characters and get their autographs! When we walked in, there were 8 different characters in the same area! So we divided the adults up to stand in line and had the kids run from line to line. It worked out perfectly and we got pictures and autographs of all 8 in under 20 minutes!!!

Another Pluto sighting...this lil man was in heaven!

While there, we took a behind the scenes tour. It was really interesting to see where they make the costumes, design the animation, and see old artifacts from all the Disney movies (including Herbie!) Here is me and my happy little man who loved riding on the tram!!!

We also got to see a car stunt show. Jason and Brinley really enjoyed watching all the cars and it was amazing to see how some can drive with such control! This car looks photo shopped in, but I swear it was jumping from one truck to another!!!

We also got to watch the Block Party which featured all the character from Toy Story, Monsters vs Aliens, and lots of dancers! It was a perfect time to sit down and rest and the kids had a fabulous time watching it!
On our way to the light show, we stumbled onto these guys. For the record, my kids LOVE the movie Cars. They would watch it everyday if I let them. To say they were excited to see them would be an understatement! Clayton could barely stand still!

We ended our evening with the Osborne Family light show. Let me just say WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The entire main street was covered from top to bottom with lights and synchronized to music! It was really breathtaking to watch. I tried to talk Jason into decorating our house like this next year, but he didn't go for it ;-)

We headed home when the park closed and got to bed by 10! Another long day in the books, but no time to slow down because tomorrow was our last day!!!

Disney World Day 1- Magic Kingdom

I am really behind on blogging, mostly because we have been soooo busy and this is the first time I have had time to sit down to recap our wonderful and exhausting trip to Disney world! As a Christmas present to the grandkids, my parents took us to Disney World the first weekend in December. It was the perfect time to go! The weather was in the low 70's, the parks weren't too crowded and it was decorated for Christmas!

Brinley and Reese all ready to go with their first of many mouse ears!
Friday morning, we got up bright and early and headed to Magic Kingdom. Brinley was really excited to see Cinderella's castle. I was very skeptical on how Clayton would react to all the characters, since he threw a fit when I tried to get him close to Santa before we left! As luck would have it, Pluto was standing at the entrance! Clayton is obsessed with Pluto and lugs one around wherever we go and sleeps with him every night! Clayton immediately ran up to him and gave him big hugs! That was the end of character fear for the little man!!
Clayton absolutely loved the Tea cups and cried when we took him off! He kept asking to ride cups! We couldn't spin him fast enough, he loved it! Brinley also loved riding the teacups with Reese because they went REALLY fast. All the pictures we took were blurry because they went so fast! I got sick just watching them!
Another favorite ride was the Dumbo ride! We were lucky that we only had to wait 20 minutes (when crowded, it can be a 2 hour wait)!!!

My family in front of Cinderella's Castle

Brinley's favorite princess is Cinderella! She was in complete aww when she met all the princesses! When they would ask her questions, she would be tongue tied! I equate it to what would happen if I met Brad Pitt. She was star struck! It was so cute to see her eyes shine whenever she got around one of the princesses!

Of course, it is all about the Mouse! We were fortunate to meet both Mickey and Minnie at the same time! Clayton really took a liking to Minnie and climbed right in her lap and gazed at her as she gave him kisses! Here is our big family shot!
Friday evening, we ate dinner at Cinderella's castle! While you ate dinner, all the princess walked around to visit, take pictures and sign autographs. The girls were given wands and the boys a sword (great a weapon for Clayton!) The food was yummy and it was nice to sit down for more than 10 minutes!!!!
After dinner, we took a bus to Downtown Disney. This an area that had restaurants, bars and lots of shopping! They had a HUGE Christmas store where we stocked up on ornaments and also the biggest princess store where we also did some damage! After picking up some deserts at Goofy's candy store, the kids got to play in the snow (shaved ice) while Christmas music was playing! It definitely got us into the Christmas spirit!

Once we got back to the room around 10pm, we discovered that Mickey and Minnie had visited our room and left us stuffed animals, hats with their names on them, autograph book, blanket, balloons and snowflakes! It was quite a surprise and Brinley was so happy that Mickey visited our room...(wink, wink)
Day one was fast and furious with lots of sights to see and walking done! Both kids held up much better than I thought they would. I even got Clayton to take an hour nap in his stroller. I think both of them were running on adrenaline! We fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows! We had to get up early to start day 2!!!

Thanksgiving Week

We have had a wonderful and busy Thanksgiving week. We started out the weekend by celebrating Jason's birthday. We went to his parent's house for some lasagna and cookie cake! Brinley and Clayton were more than happy to help Daddy blow out his candles.

Monday and Tuesday were spent sleeping in, since we had nothing on our calendar! We also met up with friends for play dates on these days!

Wednesday, I spent the entire day in the kitchen baking for my contribution to two thanksgiving dinners. I made 2 cherry pies, 2 pumpkin bread loaves, cranberry/apple jello salad and a cheese ball!

We woke up Thursday, watched some of the parade before heading to my parent's house for thanksgiving lunch. Then we waddled over to Jason's parents for Thanksgiving dinner. Needless to say we were stuffed turkeys before the day was done!

Friday was spent being lazy and putting up Christmas decorations!

Saturday, we headed down to Moody Gardens Festival of Lights in Galveston. We had a great time bundled up and viewing the Christmas lights and ice skating. It was the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit!

Birthdays, Beach and Princesses!

We have had a very busy first of November! The first weekend I was able to get away with several of my dear friends to celebrate Patty and my birthdays! Since hers is around Thanksgiving and mine is before Christmas, this was the only time we could squeeze them in! Luckily, she owns a beach house and we headed down to Crystal beach for a weekend full of laughter, eating, drinking and taking silly pictures! It was a much needed, kid free, girl time! This is the only one I know the three women wouldn't kill me for putting on here.....

Last weekend, we went out to dinner at the Taste of Texas to celebrate my dad and Jason's birthday (only a week apart!) The steak was yummy and the restaurant was already decorated for Christmas, which kinda put me in the festive mood!

On Sunday, Brinley and I headed out for our girls day to see Disney's Princesses on Ice. We went with her BFF's and their mom's. The girls were really excited about wearing their princess dresses and realized once we got there that was the thing to do! Everyone was in costume! We first went to lunch at Pappasito's and then enjoyed the show! Brinley was in a trance the entire time and hardly said a word, even at intermission! Once the show was over, she would not shut up about the Tinkerbell (her new princess obsession) and all the other aspects of the show!

We are now gearing up for a very busy month! We have thanksgiving, Disney world with my family, Clayton's 2nd birthday, my birthday, Christmas and our 7th wedding anniversary. I think I need to sleep for a few days just to get ready for all the chaos! It will be a blast...there I put in writing to remind myself when I am smack dab in the middle of it :-)

Halloween Happenings

Our Halloween festivities started last Sunday with Trick or Treat at the park. We have attended this for the past 3 years with Brinley's BFF's and a good time is had by all. Clayton really enjoyed it this year and after a few booths, realized he would get candy if he walked up and said "pwwweeeeze". It was so cute! He also got the "thank you" part down really well.

My little sock monkey

Brinley the "bat-arrina"

photo opt at the park

Wednesday was the Halloween carnival at Brinley's school. She got to wear her costume and play all sorts of fun games. I sadly did not take any pictures, but believe me, she had a great time ;-)

Friday, we spent the evening eating king ranch chicken, watching "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and carving pumpkins. Clayton did not like touching the innards so he used a scoop. Brinley on the other hand, went elbow deep and had a ball pulling the pumpkin brains out!

The finished products (l to r: Brinley, Jason and Clayton)

Jason also dressed up for work on Friday as Count Dracula

Sunday, Brinley had a costume birthday party to attend in the afternoon and then we headed over to the Mulsow's for the 2nd annual Halloween bash. The live on a cul-de-sac, so it is an ideal place to party and trick and treat! Every one brings food, lawn chairs and the kids run WILD!

The crew all ready to trick or treat
Clayton taking out the pinata
She was going full speed to get to each house for trick or treating

Clayton really got into the trick or treating this year too!

Taking a break to eat some candy

I am glad October is over because it was soooo busy! But with November here, I will be planning a 2 year old bday party, getting ready for Disney in December and I have already started Christmas shopping! I am ready for January already :-)