Day 2- Character Breakfast and Campground Singalong

Ready for our character breakfast at Cape May Cafe to meet Minnie, Donald, and Goofy (and celebrate Mommy's birthday)!

This was one of our favorite days! The Beach Club Resort was beautiful, so we spent some time walking around that morning while we waited for our character breakfast reservation. 

 

Let's meet some characters!!

 

 MINNIE!

Caroline would not leave my arms if there was a character in sight, so I had to accompany the kids for most of the pictures. 

As soon as we sat down to eat, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy started coming around, so there was too much excitement going on for us to actually eat for the first 30 minutes or so. 

 

 DONALD DUCK!

 GOOFY!

I didn't bring an autograph book, so we got them to all sign our table paper instead.  I'll somehow figure out a way to preserve it for Grayson. I didn't think he'd care about their signatures, but he was very excited about it.  I'll remember an autograph book next time!

 

Our breakfast was really perfect timing! Since it was an 11:00 meal, we were one of the last families in the restaurant, so the characters each came around about 3 times to visit with the kids.

And then as we were getting ready to leave, they all came over one last time so that we could get a family picture with all 3 of them!  We felt very special--a great birthday surprise!

 

After our meal, we headed back to the beach right outside the cafe.  We all put on our swimsuits and spent the remainder of the afternoon there. 

 

They had a really cool pirate ship swimming pool with a slide, so Grayson had alot of fun swimming in the pirate ship. 

 

Later on, we took the ferry across the river to the Boardwalk. 

The kids fell asleep in the stroller, so Chad and I took advantage of the  quiet time and walked around enjoying the beautiful scenery. 

After naps that afternoon, we loaded up on the bus and headed to the Fort Wilderness Campground to take part in the campfire sing-along with Chip and Dale.

As soon as we walked up, guess who we saw?  

 CHIP AND DALE were there to greet us!

There were not many people there, so Grayson got to play cornhole with the chipmunks before the sing along got started. 

listening to the cowboy sing songs and eating dinner....

 

 SMORES!!!

 After Smores, they showed a movie, but it was Lilo and Stich, which Grayson has never seen, and he decided it was too scary.  So, we took a bus to the beach area and they played in the sand while waiting on the water parade and fireworks. 

Unfortunately, a huge rain storm came right after the water parade, so we left before the fireworks got started.  We did not get back to our resort until about 11pm that night.  It was a very long night after that because Caroline started vomiting in her bed, so we were up until 12:30 that night trying to get her bed cleaned up. Of course she would vomit for the first time in her entire life on our Disney Vacation, right?!?   Our next day was Magic Kingdom and we had to be up early, so I was a little worried that the late night would make everyone miserable while there.  But everyone ended up getting a good night's sleep and woke up happy the next morning. 

So...Day 3--Magic Kingdom--up next!!

Let the Memories Begin- Day 1

We just got back from our first-ever family vacation--just the 4 of us!!  We went to the most magical place on Earth--Disney World!
We decided to make our first trip to Disney very low-key, since our kids are 4 and 2.  We didn't want to completely wear everyone out with each day being slam-packed, so we only planned a character breakfast and one day at the Magic Kingdom.  We planned to spend the rest of our time scoping out all of the other Disney resorts, swimming in pools, and taking advantage of all of the free activities that Disney has to offer.
Thanks to some tips from friends who frequently visit this magical place, we had lots of options to fill our days.
We were very happy with the outcome.  Everyone stayed rested and relaxed and we were able to accomplish all that we had planned.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure we chose the rainiest week of the entire year for Florida.  However, we kept moving along with our plans and everything worked out.
Another bummer was that the kids had a bad cold the whole week, so I'm pretty sure they didn't feel 100%, but we all survived and had a great time!

After all the prepping and packing, we finally made it out of the door at 6:30am on Sunday morning, Florida-bound!
The kids slept a total of maybe 45 minutes the whole 7 hour drive (someone was excited!).  We attempted afternoon naps shortly after getting settled at our resort, but no one fell asleep except Chad, so I eventually took the kids out to explore the resort a little.  We stayed at Pop Century and there were huge statues of movie characters scattered all over, so they loved running around checking everything out.  For some reason, I have no pictures of this--don't know what I was thinking!

A little later, we  headed to Downtown Disney for the evening.

This is the closest Caroline would come to a character the entire trip!   She was not a fan of the huge, fuzzy  animals walking around trying to get a hug!

 Due to no nap, Grayson's eyes were pretty much glazed over the entire time as he tried to take it all in. 

And for some reason, this little girl gets more energized with the less sleep she gets.  So we pretty much spent the evening chasing her around as she refused to ride in the stroller.

We enjoyed the live music and entertainment that Downtown Disney had to offer and it was not crowded at all.  We ate at a highly recommended sandwich shop, Earl of Sandwich, and walked around until dark. Then we decided to head back to the hotel since we had a character breakfast to look forward to the next morning.

 Of course the kids were rejuvenated once we made it back to the resort, so we had to unwind by watching Mickey Mouse cartoons on TV.  We eventually headed out for a late night swim at the pool.  

For some reason, they LOVED being in the room. And Caroline thought it was so funny that we were all sleeping in the same room.  She was in a pack and play and kept popping her head up to tell everyone good night.  It was quite humorous!

COMING UP:

Day #2---WARNING:  picture overload!!

A Pirate's Birthday Party!

Grayson is 4 years old!

 We finally celebrated with a few neighborhood friends this weekend. 

His birthday is in March, so we wanted to wait for  nicer weather before having a party.  Ironically, the temperature the morning of the party was 41 degrees and the wind was TERRIBLE.  But when it was actually time for the party to start, it was beautiful outside and the temperature was bearable.

 

 As I was trying to set up the table and decorations, everything was blowing away,

so I sort of gave up on doing everything that I had planned to do, but it turned out cute anyway. 

The loot table...

 I also forgot to take pictures until most everyone had already grabbed their pirate gear, so the table looks a little empty.

Digging for buried treasure....

Decorating their "loot" bag with pirate stickers so we could go on our treasure hunt....

treasure hunt.. .

pinata....

 cupcakes....

Happy Birthday to Grayson!!

and the most faithful pirate who kept all of his gear on the whole time...

We really had a great time despite the wind and 

temperatures!  We are so thankful for our sweet Grayson! Can't believe that he's already 4 years old!

We love you, buddy!!

College Friends, Birthday, and Egg Hunt!!

I'm trying to play catch-up, so I'm just cramming everything into one long post.

All of this happened a few weekends ago and life has been crazy busy since, so here we go!

First things first.  Isn't this the cutest little cowboy you've ever seen?

Okay, so I met up with my college friends and all of their kiddos at my mom's house in South Carolina.  It was so great to hang out for the day and see what's going on in each of their lives. 

 Sweet Leslie brought some flowers for the kids to plant.  My kids loved it!

It's so neat to see our kids play together.

 College roomies--Leslie, Steph, Lara, and me.

The next day, Bonnie, William, and Abby Ruth joined us for a birthday celebration for the girls.  We dressed them in their Easter clothes so we could get some pics.

I just love these girls!!  

And they love their Papa!

Birthday time!  First we sang to Caroline....

and then it was Abby Ruth's turn...

The cake was beautiful thanks to Aunt Bonnie.

After the birthday celebration, we had an egg hunt.

Needless to say, it was a very long day with NO naps.  But everyone stayed pretty happy and had a good time.  I can't believe our little girls are 2!!!  

After visiting with Mimi and Papa for another day, I dropped the kids off with their Grandma and Pops.  So they had a week at the beach with Chad's parents and loved it! 

Chad and I had a week at home without kiddos to get some work done.  We built a picket fence in our front yard, so unfortunately there was not much resting!

We were very thankful to get them back home and now we are counting down the days to our first real family vacation...

Disney World!!!

8 more days!!!!

Easter 2013

We finally had some days of nice weather around here and we were able to get out and take part in some Spring festivities.  Egg hunting was a big hit with Grayson this year.  We were able to attend several hunts and he never tired of finding eggs and opening them to see what small treasure was waiting inside.

Our neighborhood hunt was canceled this year due to rain, but a few of us got together the following weekend so that the tradition wouldn't be broken.

 

Caroline was not so much into hunting eggs this year, but would rather chase the cat or squirrel or whatever else she might see, or just have mommy hold her which is one of her favorite things as of now.

 

The weather turned out nice for Easter morning, not too cold, so the kids were able to wear their matching bunny attire.

 

and of course the Easter basket surprises were a special treat after lunch. 

This year was especially fun with Grayson as we were able to discuss a little deeper, why we celebrate Easter--teaching him about the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Of course there were many questions asked and it was so encouraging to see him really think about the truths of scripture.  One night as I was tucking him into bed, he looked up and asked, "mommy, why would Jesus choose Judas if He knew that he was going to be bad?"

I thought that was an impressive question for a 4 year old!  

We are always praying for him to begin to ponder the truths in Scripture as we talk about them in our home.  We are so thankful for opportunities to teach him about all that our Savior has done for us.