breakfast with mickey!

so blogging about disney during the christmas season is kind of hard to do! there is so much i want to share! and there is so much going on right now at home! so i'll do my best to cruise through this post. :) we spent our first day at disney outside the parks. this was a really nice way to ease into our week! we "slept in", if that is possible with 3 kids in your tiny hotel room... and then we headed to a late breakfast with mickey and his friends at chef mickey's! this was our first character meal ever, and we all loved it!


it was such a treat to have the characters come right to your table and interact with you! we needed a little "non-syrup zone" on the table for the camera and autograph books, though. :) so i said we all loved it... i guess that wasn't entirely accurate. amelia was not so sure about the characters. i expected this, but it was still pretty funny since the poor thing was trapped in her high chair! she did ok for mickey, who was first....


and then donald "kissed" her, and that sent her over the edge...


so when pluto stopped by, amelia did her dead-level best to get away from him! she never got upset, but it was obvious that she did not want an autograph!


ethan and caroline were so eager to hop up and meet the characters.


goofy was tickling ethan here-- ethan loved it. i have a whole series of pics with goofy tickling ethan and then goofy acting like he didn't do it. really cute. and i just realized that it looks like goofy's ketchup is pouring out onto caroline's head! even goofier! :)


pappy missed the first time pluto came to our table, and he was determined to find that dog. so right before we left, pappy finally chased him down for a picture. :)


this was ethan's response to, "hey! show me your mickey waffle!" that little stinker. but those were some delicious and cute waffles!


ethan, nana, and pappy joining in on the napkin waving hoop-la song


and here's the second birthday cupcake in less than 24 hours!


the kids' favorite part: the chocolate mickey on the cupcake. and thankfully, pappy shared his with ethan. :)


i love this one of nana and pappy with the kids!


after our big breakfast, we took a little ride on the monorail. this always is near the top of my kids' disney favorites.



we stopped off at the monorail resorts to look around. i'd never been to the polynesian... it was nice but did not have the spectacular christmas decorations i was expecting. brian did snap this shot of some pretty plants in the lobby.


i knew the grand floridian would be all decked out for christmas. i remembered this resort from our visit without the kids in '07. what a beautiful place!


the kids were really amazed at the huge gingerbread house but did not want to take this picture. tooooo bad! get used to it! our week has just begun, kiddos!!!


this fancy place was begging for a girl picture!


we spotted this sea of poinsettias as we were leaving the grand floridian. wow. beautiful.


we headed back to our resort (not quiiiiiiite the grand floridian!) for a much-needed afternoon nap. and as resident-travel-agent, i had the sad duty of waking up every single person in our family. we couldn't sleep the evening away! it was on to downtown disney! we ate at wolfgang puck express for dinner, which was fabulous. yum. if you are on the dining plan, i think this is your best use of a quick service credit. look at my salmon. this is not fast food, folks.


i want to say that i will not post food pictures from the whole week, but that would probably be a big fat lie. so just get use to my food pictures. we ate well. :) and after my salmon was mmmmmmm....... creme brulee! it was so. very. good.


so good that neil got up from his spot on the other end of the table so we could pose with our delicious desserts. :)


brian ordered creme brulee as well, but of course, my non-rich-dessert husband could not finish his... so amelia helped him out! she loved it! and notice that she has a bite of cookie in her other hand. she probably had more sugar that week than ethan consumed in the first two years of his life!


after our fantastic dinner, we went on to shopping! caroline loved seeing the princesses, even if they were fake ones.


and here she is dancing with "spanish mode buzz" as she called him.


never mind that we saw the real deal earlier that day... the kids wanted to pose with this mickey and minnie. amelia was much more comfortable with these characters! :) (the last time my kids posed with these guys, caroline was almost the same age that amelia is now!)


thank you, ethan, for the goofy face. this was his default face for most of the week. no problem. mommy will just take more pictures of you until you can cooperate! i think he surrendered by the next evening. :)


and heeeere's what ethan (and brian) had been waiting for since we left orlando in may. the lego store! these guys love picking out legos on the pick-a-brick wall. and my husband was just a little bummed when he thought he left his lego-brick-list at home. mmmhmmm. a list. complete with pictures and dimensions.


so ethan got his legos and then begged all week to go back to the hotel to play with them. note to self: buy legos on the way out of town.

i want to say that the kids got to bed super early because we had a big day at the magic kingdom the next day! that was my plan. but the late nap lead to some semi-late shopping at downtown disney, and by the time everyone fell asleep in our little room, it was nearly midnight. not how i wanted to start out our park days, but we rolled with it! it was an early morning for our first day at the magic kingdom! i hope i can come back in the next couple of days to share that day.

(also... i have really narrowed down my most favorite pictures for these posts... if you want to see more, click on over to my disney flickr album!)

one more trip to disney!

we are back from a magical week at disney world! i am at a loss of where to start and what to share, so let's start at the very beginning....a very good place to start!

we arrived at disney world on the saturday after thanksgiving. yes, this was our third trip to disney this year... those season passes were burning a mickey-shaped hole in our pocket, and we just had to go one more time. and what better time to go than while everything is decorated for christmas? we did things a little differently this time by staying at a disney resort and using the disney dining plan. i will write more about that later, but in a nutshell, we loved the dining plan. we will probably never go back without it. our first stop after quickly checking in on saturday evening was to eat dinner at boma, a wonderful buffet at the animal kingdom lodge.


what a way to start out our week! the food was deeee-licious, the atmosphere was unique, and the service was awesome. here we are after this super buffet. we were so blessed to have brian's mom and dad join us for the week!


i was that annoying tourist who walked through the buffet with my camera, but for the record, i waited till there was no line. :)

there was salmon.


beef striploin.


ribs.


fresh fruit. really fresh.


the most delicious cornbread: mealie bread or something like that.


i tried some things with more of an "african flair", and i was so glad i did!

cous-cous with dried fruit and nuts


pearl cous-cous seafood soup (note the cous-cous theme!)


i had to snap a picture of my plate... it all looked so good. i'm getting hungry just looking at it again.


i was determined to save room for dessert because i'd read about these... zebra domes.


don't they look scrumptious?! and those little guys were in good company. i was so glad that the desserts were bite-sized because i wanted to try all of them. so i did.


and here's the aftermath. i just took a bite of most of them. even the zebra dome. it was good, but definitely not one of my favorites for the week.


the boma dessert award was an easy one... it most definitely went to this little treat:


do not let its monocromatic look fool you. there was nothing boring about this goodie. you are looking at crisp peanut brittle topped with creamy peanut buttery goodness... and i can't remember what was on the top, but it was good. yum. i went back for another one. or maybe two.

this trip was a sort of birthday celebration for caroline and brian's dad, and with their birthday pins, they received more birthday attention during the week than is necessary for 5 years! here are the birthday boy and girl with the first of several birthday treats!


amelia was pretty impossible during this meal (we'd been in the car all day), but i happened to snap this picture of her totally happy and charming. :) do not be deceived!!


after dinner, we explored the animal kingdom lodge a little. i'd heard it was amazing, and yep, it was.


we went out back to see if any animals were sneaking around in the dark... we saw zebras and giraffes enjoying the peace and quiet (well.... till we got there!).


the kids loved banging on these drums in the lobby.


amelia wasn't so sure what to do when this nice cast member gave her a shaky toy to dance around with!


after some dancing and some singing and some running and some melting down, it was time to head back to our resort! we had a great non-park day on sunday! be back soon with more.