ten little toes

so i left you with that one disney shot, and that was supposed to tide you over for two weeks?!??! sorry! we hit the ground running when we arrived home from disney world, and i have yet to catch up on life... (why do i even try?!) this weekend is finally an uneventful one, so there is hope on the horizon! :) enough about my shortcomings as a housewife-- let's talk disney! we had a marvelous week. it was cold, it was rainy, it was tiring... but it was so. much. fun. i want to share everything... all the "firsts" the kids had, the funny stories, the real moments with tired kids... and alllll the pictures! but i also want to get on with 2010 and not spend the next month blogging about disney! SO i am shooting for one post for each park, which should amount to 4 disney posts. these posts will be long and chock full of pictures, but what did you expect!? :) so go potty and grab your mouse ears... you're goin' to disney world!

sunday, february 7, 7:00 AM... the morning of our departure had finally arrived. the kids could hardly stand it. caroline and ethan both wanted to move the mouse for the last day of our countdown chart... so they each got a turn moving it. (you pick your battles at 7 AM before being confined in the car all day!) here is a very groggy caroline happily completing the disney countdown!

in the weeks leading up to our trip, i kicked my "travel agent mode" into high gear. i love a good reason to plan something, especially a trip to disney! i ordered a copy of the unofficial guide to walt disney world 2010, which i highly, highly recommend. it was truly an entertaining and informational read. as if i needed to be any more excited about our vacation, this book did the trick. the authors of this book also have a great website where you can download touring plans for each disney park. here's a peek at my vacation brain on paper...

go ahead and laugh, but these babies were very helpful. we didn't need to follow every dot and tiddle at the time of year that we visited disney, but i think they'd be absolutely indispensable during peak crowd times. if nothing else, it helped me get a good feel for what we wanted to see at each park. and it was fun to see other families in the parks with the same printouts in hand!

my number one goal was to get to magic kingdom on monday morning in time for the opening. i had never seen the opening ceremony, and i knew it would be a neat way to kick off our day! we did in fact make it there on time! i couldn't believe it. we arrived at the gates with about 20 minutes to spare. it was perfect timing and perfect weather. let our magical day begin! :) ethan and caroline were not sure what to expect as they waited for the hoopla to start. (my sweet friend made their cute shirts! thanks, debbie!)

as the characters started to show up, ethan was grinning from ear to ear. caroline was a little more reserved about it all...

the opening ceremony! i can still hear the "welcome, welcome" song...

they opened the gates of the magic kingdom at 9 AM, and we were on our way to ride dumbo! we were not in the park for 10 minutes when we encountered our first disney characters...... cinderella's wicked stepmother and the stepsisters. what a way to start our disney experience!

poor caroline... she was already a little overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds around her... and my little girl wanted nothing more than to see cinderella. so who did she meet first!? the wicked stepmother and stepsisters. she did NOT want to get out of her stroller to meet them. she did NOT want to ask for their autographs. but ethan was a good sport and asked the stepsisters for their autograph. they were totally in character and rudely retorted, "can i have YOUR autograph?!" so ethan whipped out his autograph book and worked on writing his name for anastasia and drizella! ha!

ethan ended up with not only the stepsisters' autographs, but a big kiss on his forehead as well! blech!

we finally made it to dumbo, where we had our longest wait of our vacation (~15 minutes). our wait probably would've been shorter if we had not stopped for the wickeds.... but oh well. caroline was a little sulky after our previous character encounter, so brian tried to cheer her up while we waited to ride dumbo. they practiced what she would say when characters talked to her. i love this picture of brian and his girl.

waiting for their first ride at disney world! gotta love the pigtails....

here we are flying high with dumbo!

dumbo provides quite a view of cinderella's castle! it's a good thing brian snapped this shot since we never really took any more castle pictures this day. :(

after riding dumbo, we headed over to storytime with belle. in this quaint little gathering, belle chooses people from the audience to help her tell her story. this was caroline's first encounter with any of the princesses.... you'd think she'd be giddy.

i wouldn't exactly call her giddy! she was so solemn as she watched the show. look at the little girls behind caroline...THEY are giddy.

these girls were chosen as lumiere, cogsworth, chip, and mrs. potts. aren't they cute?!

ethan would have LOVED to have been lumiere or cogsworth... but belle chose him to be gaston after she asked everyone to show their muscles. i cringed when ethan was chosen because i knew he would not be happy about it. when we have watched beauty and the beast, we have emphasized gaston's arrogance and selfishness, telling the children that gaston does not please God. so needless to say.... ethan does not aspire to be gaston! i figured he'd decline belle's offer... but much to my surprise, ethan willingly hopped up on stage and donned gaston's muscles. doesn't he look tough!?

poor guy... he looked like he was going to cry through the whole thing. but he did it! check out this little video of ethan as gaston. (i was taking pictures with our nikon while i videotaped, so bear with me.)

the one part of being gaston that ethan did enjoy was fighting the beast!

ethan stayed strong until we were standing in line to meet belle. a family told him what a good job he'd done as gaston, and i started talking and talking and talking to him about being gaston. s-t-u-p-i-d mommy.... he LOST it and told us that he didn't want to be gaston! he refused to meet belle but then quickly sort of got over it. i'd say it's still sort of a touchy subject around here. :)

caroline became so shy when she'd get ready to meet a princess.... here she is waiting to meet her first princess, belle.

and caroline was finally all smiles after she met belle!

we spent the rest of the morning in fantasyland, riding peter pan and pooh's adventure. i love this next picture of caroline on the pooh ride... this is a look of disney awe. :)

then gram and i hopped in line with the kids to ride the teacups. brian gladly volunteered to sit with amelia vs. spinning round and round. this is one of my very favorite pictures from the trip.

ethan decided to bow out of the teacup experience once he heard the loud brakes a few times. he joined daddy and amelia and watched us... where he still could hear the brakes. the teacups were by far caroline's favorite ride. i wasn't planning on spinning us that much because i didn't want her to get scared (or sick!), but she kept yelling, "faster! faster!" so we went spinning! and oh what fun we had!

another one of my favorites....

so at this point in the day, you can see that caroline had found her smile, and she was having a marvelous time. at one point, i asked her what she wanted to ride, and bless her heart.... she sweetly said, "the cinderella ride!" oh honey, there is no cinderella ride. she accepted that but then asked if we could go to the castle to see cinderella. umm, well, she's not exactly in the castle. (i'm sure this made no sense to a 3 year old. where else would she be?!) we did not fork out $30 a person to eat breakfast with cinderella, and we were planning on visiting the princesses at mickey's toontown on our 2nd magic kingdom day. if i had known that day was going to be rained out, i would have taken caroline to meet cinderella right then and there! thankfully, there were plenty of other things to see and do to keep caroline's thoughts off cinderella. at least for a little while!

i doubt caroline was worried about meeting cinderella as she frolicked around pooh's playspot. she and ethan both loved it.

on our way to frontierland via the castle, we ran into the fairy godmother!

can you see their fancy-shmancy autograph notepads from the dollar tree?! haha. once we returned home, i planned on putting their autographs with the pictures of the characters in these little books i made....

so i didn't see the need to get cute autograph books just to tear the pages out! the funny thing is that several of the characters commented on how much they liked the kids' autograph books. i just had to laugh.

we made it to frontierland just in time to eat lunch. the kids were surprised to have their lunch packed in cars and princess lunch bags! (thank you, target dollar spot!)

but the big surprise was the mickey cookie at the bottom of their lunch bags! (ethan could not wait to eat his cookie every day. that's my boy! i couldn't wait to eat mine either!!)

after lunch, we journeyed over to tom sawyer's island. we'd never experienced tom sawyer's island before, so this was a fun little adventure for all of us! gram was happy to rock a sleepy amelia on the front porch overlooking the river while brian and i took ethan and caroline exploring all over the island. we climbed the windmill, crossed bridges, and explored the fort. it was the perfect place for the kids to stretch their legs after riding in a stroller for the majority of the morning.

"tee dum, tee dee, a teedle ee do tee day... we're following the leader, the leader, the leader!"

fort langhorn on the island was just what ethan was looking for! there were cannons and guns and secret passageways....

ethan loved that you could "shoot" the thunder mountain railroad as it rattled by. we had to peel this boy away from the guns. he is pappy's boy.

ethan was loving frontierland. ethan chose a gun as his one souvenir from the magic kingdom. he could not have been prouder of his gun, though he really wanted a big one. ummm, no.

ethan and caroline were mesmerized by the afternoon parade. i'll spare you from looking at all the pictures i took at the parade, but i will show you this one of mickey.... this is as close as we got to mickey on this trip. :( we were planning to see mickey on friday when it ended up being freezing and raining... so meeting mickey will be at the top of our list for our next disney trip!

ethan and caroline were so sweet during the parade, waving at all the characters. about half way through the parade, these two foreign girls butted in between ethan and caroline and ruined this picture for me... this is caroline's reflection in one of the floats. it's not that great of a picture, but you can see her sweet little hand waving as she holds onto the rope. the next time we go, i really want a picture of both of them like this. or maybe i'll stand across the street to get their picture while they watch. :)

so what did amelia think of her first day at disney?! she was a trooper, despite the fact that she came to disney with a cold. she caught a few power naps throughout the day, and she stayed pretty happy most of the time. i put her in a carrier for the rides so that my hands could be free and she would be secure. it was a nice break from the stroller for her, i'm sure! here's what i looked like pretty much the whole week! baby on board!

we headed over to adventureland to ride "pirates of the carribeeeeen" as ethan calls it, and then we crossed over to tomorrowland to eat dinner and ride the buzz lightyear ride. we left a lot of the rides for friday, thinking we'd be back then.

we forgot about the spectromagic parade but couldn't miss it once we hit main street. a very kind man encouraged the kids to get up front where they could see (vs. brian and i holding them up! thank you sir!!!). this parade is incredibly beautiful. i love how the lights on the floats change from white to colored.

after the parade, we found a spot to watch the fireworks. while we waited, brian played around with the castle and the camera. i love this one and the mickey ears!

the magic kingdom fireworks are amazing. it was a memorable ending to such an unforgettable day. we ended up with some very funky fireworks pictures!

we ducked into the disney emporium to avoid the crowds and to let caroline pick out her souvenir. that girl had the most fun looking at all the (repeat) princess paraphernalia throughout the week... she is a little shopper! she happily chose a cinderella dress-up set. when i answered "yes" to her question of "may i please take this home?!", you would have thought that cinderella herself had stepped into the room. never mind the absence of the cinderella ride now!

once we got back to the van, all the kids were happy. caroline got her cinderella...

ethan got his gun...

and amelia got her nap!

we all slept hard after our busy day at the magic kingdom! stay tuned for day two!