Day Two - Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom Day!  It felt like we were officially at Disney World when we first got to see the opening show and walk under the train station onto Main Street.  We broke off from the masses heading towards the Seven Dwarves Mine Train and Anna and Elsa to go into Adventureland.  It felt silly getting in line for the Magic Carpets of Aladdin first, but that was what Touring Plans told us to do, so we tried it.  While we were waiting to get on (there wasn't a line, we just had to wait for the currently-riding people to get off), I asked Doug to check his watch to see how we were doing on the touring plan.  We're not slaves to our touring plan or anything, but before we break away from the plan, it's kind of fun to see how we're doing compared to the times the touring plan has us arriving at and finishing a ride.  That was when we noticed it was only 8:58am, which meant they opened the parks about ten minutes early.  Pretty cool!

The Magic Carpets were fun; Colwyn and Lachlann got spit on by the camel.  We went to Jungle Cruise next and laughed at all the puns, even though we've heard them all before (they follow a script, unfortunately).  It was so weird being in an almost empty Adventureland.  Pirates of the Caribbean was next.  Fiona was pretty nervous about the drop, but did fine with it anyway.  She loved seeing Jack Sparrow throughout the ride, and I amused myself by pointing out all of Jack's treasure in the last scene and telling her how much I like Jack's booty.  We spent a few minutes checking out the gift shop afterwards and bought Colwyn a replacement pair of glasses.

As we approached Thunder Mountain (the less scary between Thunder and Splash, we thought), Niall worriedly asked if it had a yeti.  We assured him it did not and boarded the train.  Fiona absolutely hated it and wailed through most of the ride.  Niall didn't hate it quite as much, but didn't like it, either.  We snapped a quick picture of them in front of Thunder Mountain, then walked towards Splash.  While we were walking, Fiona kept asking/whining about the drop (Niall again asked if there was a yeti on it), and we probably should have just taken the hint and kept her and Niall off the ride.  But we were sure they would end up liking it since Niall generally likes thrills, and Fiona loves animatronic scenes.  Well, that was a big mistake - they both cried through pretty much the whole ride (they did quiet down for a few of the longer calm scenes).  After the big drop, I apologized profusely to the poor couple sitting behind us, and thankfully they were very good natured about it.  Even after we got off the ride, as we were walking along the exit paths, Niall was still crying, telling us exactly how much he hated the ride.  We tried to make things better by buying the kids something - Niall picked out lollipops, Fiona and Lachlann decided to save their money, and Colwyn bought a Pirates pin.

Naturally, after making your young children go on two rides that terrified them, the next logical step is to bring them on Haunted Mansion, right?  Thankfully, Haunted Mansion went much better than the Mountains.  They liked the interactive queue, although we rushed them through it since there wasn't actually a line.  I rode with Fiona and she wasn't too freaked out, and even giggled at parts of it.  Afterward, she said, "I wasn't expecting that!" - whether she meant she wasn't expecting to be forced to ride or whether she wasn't expecting to not be creeped out so much, I don't know.  We got a Photopass picture in front of the Mansion and then went to ride It's a Small World.  Here we encountered the first instance of Colwyn and Lachlann pouting about doing something that wasn't exactly their cup of tea - a recurring theme for this trip, much to my frustration and annoyance.  Fiona loved the ride, though, and that made up for the boys' grouchiness.

We tried to get in line to meet Gaston next, but the line was closed.  We were a little surprised because last time we met him, there was pretty much no line at all, and everything had been walk-ons so far that morning.  Instead, we went into Gaston's Tavern and got a giant cinnamon bun and some LeFou's Brew to snack on, even though we were having lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table shortly.  We hadn't had breakfast yet, and were pretty hungry.  The cinnamon bun was delicious, but the LeFou's Brew was too sweet, even for me.  Niall was pretty much the only one who liked it.  While we hung out, we took some fun pictures in Gaston's chair.

Once we were done eating, we headed back towards the castle, stopping to take some pictures at the Sword In The Stone - one of my favorite photo ops in Magic Kingdom.  There was a pretty long line to check in for Cinderella's Royal Table, so it was probably good we'd gotten some food in the kids, or we may have had a meltdown.  Cinderella was pretty standard, then we headed up to our table.  The nice thing about our seating was that we had plenty of time before the princesses got to our table - I hate it when you're ambushed by characters as soon as you sit down.

The waitress gave us the spiel about Colwyn ordering from the kids' menu if he wanted or 'un-fancying' an adult meal, but he was having none of that.  He was happy to order the salmon, and though he didn't request it, the waitress had the kitchen swap out the black lentils for mashed potatoes, which was very thoughtful and definitely a good choice.  Doug got gnocchi with veggies which he loved, I got chicken with a weirdly bright green pea risotto (which was mostly meh), and Lachlann got a chicken leg, which he liked.  The appetizers were awesome - the kids got cheese and grapes, while the grown-ups got hummus, crostini, strawberry salad, and cheese and honey.

The princess were all very good, to my surprise.  On our last trip, we'd found the princess interaction at character meals kind of lacking, but they were all lots of fun.  Snow White commented on our tie-dye shirts, saying that Dopey must have done our laundry.  After the posed photo and hugs, she gave Niall a huge lipstick kiss on his forehead!  I was lucky enough to snap a picture before he wiped it off.

Aurora said her fairies must have been fighting over what color our clothes should be that morning, Ariel called us Rainbow Fish, and Jasmine said that Abu must have gotten into our laundry.  I had the most fun talking to Jasmine - Niall told Jasmine that he calls himself precious, which is something he gets from Colwyn and Lachlann doing their Golem voices.  I explained that to Jasmine and she immediately got how "fun" that must be to have the bigs use their Golem voices all the time!  Overall, Cinderella's Royal Table was fun, but I enjoyed the food at breakfast more.  I'll also add - I did not enjoy Lachlann's major grouchiness about having to meet the princesses.  I even walked him downstairs at one point to remind him that we made Fiona and Niall ride on two rides that terrified them, because they were rides that Colwyn and Lachlann wanted to ride.  I told him that if he didn't stop pouting in the pictures, he could sit out of the rest of the rides that afternoon.  I hated having to have that kind of talk with him while in "the happiest place on Earth," but seriously!  He was driving me batty.

Peter Pan was next - one of everyone's favorites.  I rode with Fiona, and there's just something so wonderful about hearing her exclaim with delight, especially given the attitude I'd just gotten from Lachlann.  There was just so much innocent joy in her voice and face, it made everything better.

Then we went to the carousel, and Fiona and I managed to snag Cinderella's horse!  She was beyond excited and I was thrilled that she was brave enough to ride on it (half the time she gets freaked out and demands to sit on a bench).  Then Lachlann decided to be a grouch again and refused to get on a horse.  He just wanted to stand holding onto a pole.  Oh my god, I thought I was going to strangle him.  I know it's not out of the range of normal for a 9 year old boy to decide he doesn't want to meet princesses or ride on a carousel, but for the amount of money we were spending to take the kids on vacation, and the number of times we humored them and did things we'd rather not do.. it was pretty hard to swallow.

Next was the teacups, and that went smoother.  Who doesn't love spinning around and around until you puke?  It was still pretty empty in the parks and we were enjoying getting to ride attractions one after another with no wait, but it was really, really hot.  So when we got to Dumbo and they told us we could bypass the play area and just ride, we said, 'Hell no!'  I was so looking forward to the air conditioned play area, and so were the kids!  They gave us a pager and said to just come back whenever we were ready to ride.  So we let the kids blow off some steam and cool off, and reapplied sunscreen.  We were in there a decent amount of time before they made an announcement that 'inclement weather' was approaching the park and that the ride might be shut down at any time.  Our stroller was uncovered, so we jumped to take our turn on Dumbo and then cover our stroller before the rain came.  We made it through Dumbo and covering the stroller no problem, and then since it wasn't raining yet, we went on the Barnstormer.  Niall loved it, but Fiona was more 'meh' about it.  Colwyn and Lachlann liked it, but I think they'd done some growing up since we were there last and it didn't have quite enough thrill for them.  

When we got off, it was still dry but looked like rain, so we went into Pete's Silly Sideshow to meet Minnie and Daisy.  We had to wait a minute before going in because someone had spilled an entire popcorn in the entrance and they were cleaning it.  While we were in line, some CMs brought a new popcorn to the woman in front of us, saying something along the lines of, "We know you said we didn't have to, but it's your birthday, and we wanted to embarrass you even more!"  She had obviously been embarrassed to have dropped the popcorn in the first place, and her face turned bright red when they brought her the popcorn, but it was pretty funny.  Minnie and Daisy were fun, then on the way out, a CM in the gift shop stopped us to play ring toss with her - the kids probably thought that was more fun than meeting Minnie and Daisy, but whatever.

Colwyn and Lachlann were so excited to finally get to ride the Seven Dwarves Mine Train now tha tour Fastpass window was open.  Fiona panicked and refused to ride, so I took her on Winnie the Pooh.  Again, with the same innocence and joy as on Peter Pan - which made it much easier to not be annoyed that she chickened out of the Mine Train.  Niall loved the Mine Train (after asking if there was a yeti on it), and laughed hysterically at Dopey with diamonds on his eyes.  After they finished their ride, I got to ride it with Niall (lucky him getting two go's on the Mine Train!).  It was a fun ride and well themed, but boy, are those seats tight!  The part that was painful was the lap bar - your legs are forced to squeeze together in between the tight bars, and that really sucked.  I was a bit surprised, to be honest, since Disney is generally known for being so accommodating to people of all sizes. 

Niall and I meet up with the others after they finished their turn on Pooh.  We stalled in the gift shop so I could check on when Gaston would be meeting again.  We were expecting the heat to be bad, but I wasn't really expecting quite how hard it would be to stay in a 'magical' frame of mind when it was so relentlessly hot.  As it turned out, we just missed Gaston's line again, and I very nearly had my first temper tantrum of the trip.  But we checked out Under the Sea and decided to brave the 20 minute wait because that would get us out in just enough time to get in line early for Gaston's next meet.  It turned out to be a walk-on, which was good because even though we headed straight over to Gaston's line and were 15 minutes earlier than we expected, we just barely made it in before they closed the line two families behind us.  The line was long and horribly hot, and I won't say too much more about that.  I did get a compliment from a guest about my Magic Band, which was nice.  To add insult to injury (aka the long line), the kids all refused to interact with Gaston.  Fiona hid behind me the whole time, and Colwyn and Lachlann were totally wooden while Gaston chatted at them.  It was so embarrassing and frustrating.  I left wondering why the hell I had just waited in such a long if none of my children wanted to enjoy the experience.

As annoyed as I was, we got the boys in to ride Space Mountain with Doug.  I had some anxiety about it - if they freaked out and decided they didn't want to ride any more thrill rides, I was just going to lose it!  But thankfully they loved it!  Fiona, Niall and I rode Buzz - a huge hit, as always.  After we met up again, we rode the Peoplemover and Fiona was thrilled that she could see her Magic Band glow in the dark.  We got in line for Buzz again so the bigs could ride it, but got a little unlucky as far as the line went - we had to wait for a whole five minutes before boarding.

We were pretty hungry by then and didn't want to eat dinner in the resort again, so we hit up Cosmic Ray's.  We got seats in the Sonny Eclipse area, who I probably found more entertaining than the kids did (nostalgia adds a lot of value, I guess).  I think we all got ribs and chicken combos, and Colwyn shared his with Lachlann.  We were too full to eat our desserts, so they went into my bag (this was a recurring theme throughout the trip, trying to find desserts that would transport well, and having bags stuffed with goodies).

It was getting close to 7:00pm by the time we were done, which was when they would kick out all the day guests as the Halloween Party started, so we headed out, with a quick stop in the Confectionary to get even more desserts (little cakes baked in plastic cups only go so far, I guess).  The kids picked out Mickey cake pops, Mickey sugar cookies, and I got a pecan caramel roll.  It was quite pleasant when we got back to our room, lounging in the air conditioning, eating our snacks!

It was a pretty mixed day overall, I think.  On the downside, it was very hot and sunny (it never ended up raining).  Lachlann was a big grouch about doing anything that wasn't top on his list (Colwyn was also annoyed, but less so).  Fiona and Niall had a really rough time on Splash and Thunder.  On the upside, we got a LOT accomplished because of the low crowds.  The only rides we had to wait on were 5 minutes on the Mine Train and 5 minutes on Buzz Lightyear, everything else we walked right on (even the three mountains).  Gaston had a long line, and that sucked, and Minnie/Daisy had about a 10 minute line, but that was in the air conditioning so actually pretty welcome.  The princesses were wonderful, and Fiona and Niall absolutely loved most of the rides.

Day One - Animal Kingdom

Monday was our first day in the parks!  We had originally intended to use park hoppers and attend morning Extra Magic Hours, but we decided that it would be better to just do one park a day and not have to get up quite so early.  Waking up at 7:20am and getting everyone out the door by 8am was hard enough as it was!

We got to Animal Kingdom about 15 minutes before rope drop.  We used the time to put on sunscreen and consult our maps (the kids love looking at the maps).  Once the park was opened, we headed straight for Mickey and Minnie's meet and greet at the Adventurer's Outpost.  We were the second or third family in line.  Everyone was a little hesitant for the first character meet, and Niall refused to acknowledge them at all!  Fiona had her stuffed turtle with her, though, and Mickey got a giggle out of her by pretending to tickle her with the turtle.

After that, we went to Expedition Everest.  It was a walk-on that early in the morning, and Doug rode with Colwyn and Lachlann while I hung out with the littles.  We took some pictures in the viewing area and checked out the gift shop, being silly with the stuffed Yeti toys.  Lachlann kept his eyes closed on the first ride, but he and Colwyn gladly rode with me right after their first ride, and he kept his eyes open that time.  I tried to get them to make funny faces for the ride photos, but they refused.  We did snap a quick picture of them with the photo of Josh Gates in the queue.

After Everest, we rode Kilimanjaro Safari with our Fastpasses.  It was a fun ride, but not especially  notable.  We made it to Tusker House for our reservation after our safari.  The food was great, of course.  Colwyn and Lachlann really love the buffets because we let them get their food by themselves.  Our waitress was nice enough to get me a big glass of the juice - I love the taste and was so thirsty.  The characters were fun, but Niall refused to interact with any of them and mainly hid underneath the table, poor guy!

Breakfast ran a little late, so Colwyn, Lachlann and I high-tailed it to Dinosaur as soon as our bill was paid while Doug got the littles to the bathroom and then followed after us.  In fact, he caught up with us while we were waiting outside the bathroom just outside Dinoland - Colwyn had to go.  It was alright in the end, we made it to Dinosaur just barely within our Fastpass window.  Lachlann hadn't ridden Dinosaur before and freaked out in the preshow.  I managed to help him keep it together and we rode it - and afterwards, he commented on how silly he felt to have been so scared.

We met up with Doug and the littles inside the gift shop and traded off so he could take Colwyn and Lachlann on Primeval Whirl.  I continued looking around the gift shop with the littles - it was incredibly hot out and while the gift shop wasn't very well air conditioned, it was at least better than being in the sun.  While we were in there, a CM noticed our Magic Bands and ooh'ed and aah'ed over them.  She even asked for advice on how to do the same for her boyfriend's band, and expressed some sadness that as a CM, she doesn't need a band.  While on Primeval Whirl, Colwyn left his sunglasses in the pocket - which was funny because on our last trip, Doug left his hat in the same place.

Once we were reunited, we headed over to Kali River Rapids.  We were all very excited about this as none of us had ridden it before.  We got more compliments on our bands while scanning our Fastpasses, and I opened up two ponchos while we were in line.  Fiona decided she would go on the ride but did not want to get wet, and I didn't want to get soaked, either.  She was pretty nervous but ended up enjoying it.  Niall thought it was hysterical and giggled like mad during the whole ride.  He and Doug got drenched, lucky guys!  I got sprayed right in the one spot that wasn't covered by the poncho, but overall, stayed fairly dry.  Colwyn and Lachlann loved the ride and wanted to do it again right away, but it was the one long line we saw all day (30 or 40 minutes midday).

We were wicked hot and most of us were uncomfortably wet.  We decided to skip the Maharajah Jungle Trek and looked for Baloo and Louie, but that line was too long.  We ended up going to Flame Tree BBQ, even though we weren't very hungry.  Doug got three kids meals for them to snack on while we rested, cooled off, and reapplied sunscreen.

Feeling a bit refreshed, we met Russell & Dug.  The meet wasn't quite as much fun as the last time, but that's alright.  Niall hid again, and Fiona hung back and wouldn't get in the picture.  After, Doug grabbed Fastpasses for another ride on Kali for later in the afternoon.  We decided to catch the Finding Nemo show to rest and cool down.  Lachlann really, really did not want to go - I think he had bad memories from the first time we went.  In the end, he said it wasn't as bad as he expected, but that it was still annoying.  I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I'd hoped because in our haste to get over there (we almost missed the start of the show), I forgot to switch my sunglasses for my regular glasses.  The other kids seemed to enjoy the show pretty well, though, and we all appreciated the AC.

After Nemo, Doug took Colwyn and Lachlann on Kali again.  Their Fastpasses really weren't needed as it was back to being a walk-on by that point.  Fiona, Niall and I headed to the other side of the park to find Pocahontas, stopping along the way to check out the kangaroos (Niall's favorite animal sighting that day).  Pocahontas' line wasn't too bad, and it was mostly shaded with a fan aimed at it, so that was pleasant.  The real thrill, though was how amazing Pocahontas was.  I had zero expectations because she was pretty 'meh' last time, but she was fantastic.  Immediately she started talking about the animals on our shirts - Fiona's first, then mine, since Niall was hanging back by the stroller.  We talked about the kangaroo on my shirt, and I seized the opportunity to include Niall in the conversation by mentioning that we'd just seen kangaroos, and that Niall has a 'Mama Joey' costume at home.  She managed to get him talking about that a little - he told her about his costume and our new house in Maine, then hid in the stroller again.  However, his seat was reclined and facing away from her, so he could peek at her through the mesh of the reclined seat.  Pocahontas had the brilliant idea of talking to him through the mesh and instructed the Photopass photographer to take pictures.  

She looked through the autograph book with him, pointing out characters, and he told her how Mommy got us a new house in Disney World (I think he was referring to the hotel).  It was absolutely amazing.  She took probably double or triple the time she's supposed to take with a family, and then after hanging out with Niall, she came back and talked to Fiona about her turtle and the Galapagos turtle exhibit just to the side of where we were meeting her.  After a posed picture, we thanked her profusely and then went to check out the turtle.

We met Doug and the big kids in Pizzafari, but they had stopped serving, so we decided to just head out of the park.  We stopped at Guest Relations to fill out an appreciation card for Pocahontas, and then on the way out, we saw Thumper and Miss Bunny greeting guests.  I was so excited as they're somewhat rare, so we hurried over there and were thankfully the last family allowed in line.  While we were waiting, we noticed a baby squirrel playing around by their feet, climbing on the guest's shoes!  The handler warned Thumper and Miss Bunny to keep their feet still, and then the squirrel ran off, but ended up colliding headfirst with a bench leg!  It seemed okay, as it kept on going, but sheesh!

We got back to the resort pretty early, by 5:30pm or thereabouts.  We got pizza and a bacon mushroom Swiss burger for Doug, stopped to check out the Toy Story area of the resort, rested a little in the room, then went swimming for an hour or so.  Fiona even decided to dunk underwater for the first time!

It was a pretty awesome day, despite the heat.  Everything was a walk-on all day, even Everest.. the one exception being Kali for a little while midday (obviously, everyone wanted to cool off).

Prep, Travel, & Arrival

We've been planning our Disney vacation for a long time - over a year, at least.  We did all the crazy stuff to cooperate with Disney's reservation system, including getting up at 6am 180 days before our arrival to make dining reservations, spending two hours on the phone (mostly on hold) to get the Free Dining promotion when it came out, and staying up until midnight to book our Fastpasses at 60 days out, only to have My Disney Experience lose mine and my husband's selections (but not our kids), with the resulting stalking of the MDE app to replace our lost Fastpasses (oh, the coveted Anna and Elsa FP!).  To be honest, all this work and hassle took a fair bit of the excitement out of the process.  I don't mind doing some planning ahead, but when a buggy system causes me major headaches, it's just not very magical.

We also did a lot of crafting for our trip.  I made five sets of shirts for the six of us - rainbow tie-dye, vintage attraction posters, the Incredibles, Animal Kingdom, and character silhouettes.  We made Cast Member (CM) thank you cards, an awful lot of treat printables (pockets and bag labels) that we never ended up using, labels for M&M tubes for quarters & pennies to do pressed pennies (again, that we never ended up using), two regular autograph books, a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) autograph book, and a CM autograph book.  I also made costumes for all of us for MNSSHP - an Ariel dress for Fiona, an Ursula outfit for me, Sebastian for Niall, a Triton shirt for Doug, and the boys outfits - Eric and Chef Louis - I was able to purchase.  Oh, and I painted all of our Magic Bands.

Then I slacked off on packing early - maybe because I was so busy crafting.  We did most of our packing the night before our departure and didn't get to sleep until 2am.  Which might not have been as horrible if we didn't have to get up at 4am to make it to Boston for our 8am flight.  Yikes.  Remind me to never book such an early flight again, especially if we're driving an hour and a half to get to the airport.

Oh, and speaking of driving - it was raining and I missed the speed limit signs in one area and - yup, I got pulled over.  The police officer gave me a hard time for not having changed my license to Maine (I need to get my birth certificate and marriage license to do so, and hey, I'm lazy), and for failing to realize that my car wasn't inspected in Maine, even though it was registered in Maine (my MA inspection isn't expired yet, so I goofed).  I was ready for him to just give me the almost $500 in tickets so I could get on my way when he hit me with, "But you know, you've got four kids here and you're on your way to the airport.. I bet you'd rather spend the money on something else.  I'll just give you a warning.."  And then I started to sob!  It was so embarrassing.  I blame it on the lack of sleep and stress of getting us all to the airport.

So anyway.. the actual airport went much smoother.  We got a parking spot right next to the entrance for our terminal (Dad picked up the car for us later), loaded up a cart with our luggage, and checked in with no problem.  Security went really smoothly - I'm so proud of my kids for following directions so well and handling it all in stride.  We got some donuts and hung out for a little bit before boarding, which again went very smoothly.  I sat next to Niall and Fiona, while Doug got to sit with Colwyn and Lachlann.  All the kids did great on the flight, coloring in their activity books, playing with toys, or watching TV.  Niall zonked out about halfway through and only woke up when we were starting to land.

It sounds really repetitious, but they did great disembarking and heading to Disney's Magical Express (DME), too.  We made a quick stop in the Universal Store so they could stretch their legs and let off a little steam before getting in line for DME.  That was a little less fun - we had to wait a long while for our bus, and the lines were not well air conditioned.  But before we knew it, we were on the bus to Disney World!

The biggest hassle of the day (yes, even bigger than only getting two hours of sleep, bigger than getting pulled over) came when we went to check in at All Star Music.  Doug took the kids over to Bell Services to pick up the stroller we rented from Magic Strollers while I checked us in.  Unfortunately, the CM at check in informed me that while I had been assured that, as a family with two adults and four children, I was guaranteed connecting rooms in the preferred section (which I paid extra for to be closest to the food court and bus stops), they don't actually have connecting rooms in the preferred section that would fit my family - I guess they have some with king beds, but those were out for us.  They could put us in connecting rooms at the back of the resort, or we could be next door but not connecting close to the main area.  I was not happy, to say the least.  If our rooms weren't connecting, that would mean that Doug and I wouldn't be able to spend time together at night, that we would each have to go to sleep at the same time as the kids, and it would really complicate getting ready in the morning.  Or we could have an incredibly long walk to and from the buses every day.

After a lot of hemming and hawing and some fairly unprofessional behavior on the CM's part, she said she could move us to either All Star Sports or All Star Movies in connecting, preferred rooms.  We decided on Movies, and despite being mightily annoyed with Disney for causing even more hassle, I started to see a glimmer of hope.  We had originally wanted to stay at Movies, but it wasn't included in the Free Dining promotion, so we'd had to switch.  Additionally, the Music food court was being refurbished with very little options for food there, but the Movies food court was just fine.  They had a CM pick us up in a van and drive us over, and she was super nice.  We had a little bit more hassle when we got there because I had to stop at the Concierge and get our Magic Bands (MBs) and the system took forever to get it done - though I did get to have a fun conversation with the CM about how I'd painted them.

We'd originally planned to swim before heading to dinner, but we were wiped out by that point, so we just crashed in our hotel room for a bit.  It was fine, though - the kids had fun checking everything out and having some down time with the toys they'd brought.  We finally pulled ourselves together and hopped on an empty bus to the Magic Kingdom so we could get to dinner at Narcoossee's.  It was pretty exciting being on a Disney bus, especially for the kids.  They pulled a few sad faces as we walked right past the gates to the Magic Kingdom, but getting to ride the monorail perked them up!  We were going to take the boat across to the Grand Floridian (it's faster and pulls up right in front of Narcoossee's), but the 'seas' were too rough and they weren't operating.

Niall loved the monorail and was a little annoyed that we had to get off, but we assured him we'd get to ride again after dinner.  Narcoossee's was fantastic, as always.  We got to spend some time on the porch taking pictures of the kids.  We got an amazing waitress when we were seated, which really helped us feel more excited about our vacation after the hassles earlier.  Colwyn, at 10, is considered an adult as far as the dining plan is concerned, but she was quick to assure is that it would be fine if he wanted to order the chicken nuggets, or even 'un-fancy' one of the adult options.  We got this spiel several times, which always made me laugh because Colwyn has a very adventurous palate and was dying to try the food that Doug and I had been raving about.  Niall, on the other hand, told her that all he wanted was ketchup.  She took that in stride and brought him out a giant dish of ketchup (to go along with his chicken nuggets, of course).  She also didn't bat an eye when Colwyn ordered the $75 lobster tails and filet.  I guess from her point of view, it just means a bigger tip!

The food was simply amazing.  Doug got the lobster and filet as well, and I got the scallops with  "Trofie pasta with Sultana raisins, Marcona Almonds, young string beans, and herb creme with lobster mushrooms, lemon-thyme-mustard jus, and arugula."  Drool!  Doug loves scallops as well, so we shared our meals with each other.  Colwyn gave Lachlann a good portion of his (Lachlann spent many meals frustrated at having to order off the kids' menu).  Lachlann got the shrimp and gobbled them up.

We were all feeling pretty full, but the dining plan includes dessert, so we got some stuff to bring home.  Again, our waitress was fantastic - the dessert that Colwyn and I both wanted came with gelato, she let us eat the gelato at the restaurant and then packaged up the 'portable' part (dark chocolate mocha bar, which was way more fancy and delicious than it sounds).  We got our waitresses autograph and snapped a picture of her with Fiona, then headed back to the main building and the monorail.  We had to stop to use the bathrooms and Fiona and I spent some time dancing to the music the pianist was playing.

We were back in our room at a decent hour so we could get a good night's sleep.  Animal Kingdom would be our first park!

Frozen Birthday Party!

Some of you might know that I can go a little crazy for birthday parties.  When you mix that tendency with the fact that my daughter chose to skip a birthday party last year, in favor of a trip to the American Girl Doll Store and Coco Keys Water Park, and that she requested Frozen for her birthday party theme this year.. well, you can imagine what happened!

I started planning a month or two ago, trolling Pinterest for the best ideas that also seemed do-able.  As is my habit, though, I left a lot of things to the last minute and there was an excessive amount of rushing around this morning.  Part of it was due to the fact that the weather forecast was so confusing.  It was supposed to rain all day, it had poured the day before the party, and our backyard was soaking wet.  Our plan had originally been to set up a 20'x30' canopy and several long tables and chairs that we had rented.  Biggest waste of money!  I had to readjust on the fly, setting up in my tiny house.

Here's how I set up most of the stuff, in our bay window that usually houses the plants (and cats, which is why we had to remove the hairy curtains for the party).  Instead of making a traditional banner, I just glue-dotted the 'flags' of the banner along the top of the wall.  Note for the future:  glue dots don't work that well for this, the flags started falling down about five minutes after the picture was taken.  A lot of the paper fans and paper goods came from Oriental Trading, one of my favorite shops for parties.  I was a little disappointed that the tissue balls didn't come with directions, because I've never done them before, but we figured it out in the end.  Unfortunately, guests had already started arriving so we used them as 'centerpieces' on the table instead of hanging them from the ceiling.

Here's a slightly closer shot of the spread.  The big number 6 was made from two pieces of foam board I cut out and taped together to get the desired thickness, then wrapped in tulle (and some extra sheer fabric I had lying around underneath), and embellished with some snowflake buttons.

The DIY Network has instructions on how to make glittery trees (for Christmas, but whatever).  We made our own simpler version to go with the decorations.  Then lots of shimmery powder blue gumballs and sparkly branches from the floral section at AC Moore completed the decor of the food 'table'.

For some reason, I thought the cake wouldn't be enough to feed everyone, so I made cupcakes, too.  As always, I overestimate how much food we need - there's half a cake and six of these cupcakes in my fridge right now.  I sprinkled Wilton Cake Sparkles on them, and everyone said they were delicious.

We got the idea for Frost Bites from Around My Family Table, but changed it a little bit.  This snack was really easy to make.  First, I knew I wanted to display them upright, but I didn't have any styrofoam or floral foam to set them in while they dry (which is how I've done them and cake pops in the past).  Luckily, I had an empty cereal box so I just poked holes in it, and it held the marshmallows up just fine!  So anyway, all you have to do is stick a lollipop stick in a marshmallow, dip them in bright white chocolate candy melts, and then immediately sprinkle them with whatever color sugar sprinkles you want.  The chocolate solidifies pretty quickly.  Who's ready for a sugar rush?

I have snowflake cookie cutters and was going to make snowflake sugar cookies and ice them, but that seemed like a lot of work when I was already running behind.  Thankfully I remembered seeing melted snowman cookies on Pinterest, so we made our own hasty version with leftover candy melts, marshmallows, mini Hershey kisses, candy corn, and pretzel sticks.  I wasn't sure how they'd taste, but everyone liked them!

What's a Frozen party without some Olaf noses, right?  I have to admit, this healthy food option looked a little out of place amidst all the sugar (and a lot of kids skipped right past them, to be honest), but Fiona took a big handful, so I was happy.

I saw these adorable cheese-stick-snowmen on It's So Very Cheri and loved them!  I ended up using ribbon instead of paper for the scarves.  Super easy, and the kids loved them.

Olaf loves warm hugs, and so did the kids at Fiona's party!  Super easy snack, and awfully cute, too.

I couldn't think of anything cool to call the fruit salad, but we decided on Coronation Fruit Salad.  Because that totally makes sense.  However, I did overhear one little girl asking her mom for more Coronation Salad, so yay!

For the main course, we had "We Finish Each Other's Sandwiches".  I wish I'd had time to neatly fold all the turkey and ham, but I didn't, so I'm just glad my husband took care of setting it up for me.

We also had "Troll Rocks".  My boys wanted to call them "Troll Balls" but we vetoed that.  Saucy Asian Meatballs from Gimme Some Oven.

One of the favorite parties I saw was on the Hostess with the Mostess website.  I loved the water bottle labels, so of course we had to come up with our own.  Ours read "Melted Snow" and "Some People Are Worth Melting For" and featured a picture of Olaf.  

Hopefully you noticed the little name tags with each of the food items.  I got the best idea to make snowball tag holders.  It was really easy - I just cut styrofoam balls in half, made a little slit in the top, then used spray adhesive and glitter to make them extra sparkly.  Idea from Paging Supermom, where I also got a lot of ideas for Fiona's Tangled party two years ago.  We also got the idea from them to do "Ice" bracelets - lots of clear plastic beads, and the kids had so much fun pretending they were actually freezing cold.

And here's a picture of the cake.  It turned out really cute, and thankfully wasn't that time consuming.  It's a tradition of mine to stay up until at least 2am working on the cake, but I was done and cleaned up by 12:15am.  It was a Frozen Miracle!  I picked up the little pearl strands in the floral section of AC Moore, after getting the idea from the cake on It's So Very Cheri.  Thankfully we managed to find some Frozen figures after stalking Toys R Us, and Fiona didn't mind sharing them with me at all.

One of our activities was making Olaf in a Mason Jar.  Or Olaf in a Blizzard, since he swirls around like he's experiencing some strong winds.  I got the idea from 30 Minute Crafts and only modified it a bit.  Lots of different kinds of pompoms (white for the head, black for the mouth/buttons), brown pipe cleaners, googly eyes, lots of glitter, and carrot noses I made out of Sculpey.  After filling them up with water, we sealed the lids shut with E6000.

Here they are working on their Olaf Jars.  Out of all the boys, only Colwyn was a good enough sport to participate, but that was alright.  More room for the girls!  Also - Colwyn obviously picked out the least girly shirt he owns.  Of course.  

We also did a photo booth activity.  Some of the girls had a great time doing this!  I cut out a bunch of props with my Silhouette - the kids could pretend to be Olaf, a troll, Elsa, and Sven.  Very cute.

Quicky sign thanks to the Silhouette and leftover scrapbook paper.

For favors, I wanted to do "Snow Dough" - glitter play dough.  I was going to make it myself, but lucked out and found some in the store.  I whipped up my own labels and Doug put them on - ta-da!  We also gave out squirt guns (an activity we were planning on doing if the weather had been nicer), and everyone got to take home their Olaf-in-a-Jar and Ice Bracelets, too.

I'm completely exhausted, but it was great fun.  Fiona had so many friends to play with, and I know she felt really special today.  We made sure the boys had some friends, too, and they definitely appreciated the chance to spend time with their new buddies.

An Incredibles Birthday Party

Niall's birthday is coming up fast - he'll be four in just under two weeks.  I didn't really want to host his party at our house because we haven't gotten the backyard set up yet, so we decided to book a party at the Children's Museum of New Hampshire.  They don't allow decorating of the party room or anything, so I don't have too much to do in the way of party prep.  Niall did request an Incredibles theme, though, so I put together these cute invitations.

Not too bad, huh?  I wanted to do something with the Silhouette, since the Incredibles logo is so easy, but then I saw some really cute Photoshop invitations, so I whipped one up for the other side.

We just got a bunch of outdoor toys from Five Below to give out as favors, and we'll do pizza and cake.  Other than making the cake.. I'm pretty much done!  'Cause we all know how little time I put into cakes, right?

Actually, I'm going to do something pretty simple.  I think just a regular round or square cake, in red fondant with the Incredibles logo on the sides, and then put our Disney Infinity characters on the top.  When we looked through pictures on Google Images, that's what he seemed to like the most anyway.

Next up will be Fiona's party, and she's chosen a Frozen theme.  I'm pretty sure I'll go overboard with that one - partly because I love the movie, and partly because we didn't do a party for her last year (we did a super fun 'experience' instead).

Family Fun Night - Dumbo Style

For the last year, we've been doing Family Fun Nights (usually Disney themed) once a month or so.  We've just started ramping back up because -- *drumroll* -- we have a trip to Disney World planned for September!  For now, we're doing every other week; as our vacation draws nearer, we'll move to once a week.  It's an opportunity to do something special as a family, to be silly and childish, and to remember past vacations and to get excited about future vacations.

We've done a Dumbo-themed fun night before, but since we had it checked out from the library, we decided to do it again.  First, we strung cheap plastic bunting all over the kitchen.  It was a little bit overwhelming, but fun.

While dinner was cooking, I hung up a plastic photo-op thingy in one of the doorways.  The kids had a great time posing.  Here's one of the more 'normal' shots they got.

We also did lots and lots of circus themed temporary tattoos.  Lachlann didn't want any, but all the other kids were fully decorated.  Doug and I may or may not have gotten in on the action with some tattoos (privately applied) in naughty places.

We let the kids have soda for dinner - a rare treat.  Colwyn wanted root beer while the rest of the kids opted for orange soda.  Some festive straws made it even more exciting.

Dinner was 'fancy hot dogs'.  There's a restaurant in Rockport called Top Dog that's a family favorite.  They have amazing hot dogs with all sorts of different toppings, in combinations named after dog breeds.  When we start craving Top Dog but can't make it there (like in the winter), we do our own.  Here's our version of the 'bad dog' - sauteed onions, bacon, and cheese sauce.  Yum.

 After dinner, we put the movie on and had popcorn and animal crackers for snacks.  We'd gotten those frozen soft pretzels but never got around to eating them.  We watched a bunch of the special features after the movie, too.  All in all, it was a great success!  Next up for Family Fun Night is Princess and the Frog, since all the stores have Mardi Gras decorations.

Let There Be Light!

Our kitchen at the new house features a huge bay window.  It faces southwest and lets in so much light that it's a bit blinding, to be honest.  Our kitchen table is right in front of it and on sunny days, mealtimes require sunglasses.  Obviously, I had to put up some curtains.  I thought something light would be best because I don't want to darken the room up too much.  I saw this on Pinterest and thought it would suit our old farmhouse quite well.  The curtain 'rod' was easy to make - we got some 1"x3"s at Home Depot, painted them gray, added some crackle coat, then a nice coat of white.  The single-prong hooks were a pain in the ass to find, but I managed to get them from Amazon.  Screw them in, mount the board to the wall, and voila!

Fora while, the curtains let us use the window ledge as a place to store junk (half-finished Etsy orders, the kids' art projects, miscellaneous electronic devices, etc), but something had to be done.  This window was just begging for some houseplants.  After a trip to IKEA where I got a nice little greenhouse and two hanging planters, we were almost there.  The kids and had a fantastic time at the nursery picking out all sorts of plants in the middle of a snowstorm.  When we first brought everything home, the window ledge looked like a jungle - but we've since repotted things and moved a lot of the plants into other parts of the house.  This is what we have on the ledge now.

Look at that cute little greenhouse!  I've never had succulents before, but they look wonderful and exotic.

These are the flowers that Fiona picked out - pink, of course!

Lachlann chose yellow, and they look so sunny.  You can see how close we are to the road in this photo, too.  It's not ideal, but not a big deal since it's just a rental.  We've all agreed that when we start house hunting next year, we can't be on a busy road.

Here's a wider view.  The tall plant is a hibiscus.. I didn't take a better picture because the ride home and/or the repotting procedure made it think it was time for a dormant period, so it doesn't look so great right now.  I read up on it because I've never cared for a hibiscus before.. so hopefully I won't kill it.  I didn't realize I didn't get two of the other plants in the shot - an African violet and something else blue that Colwyn picked out.  We also picked up a plant stand from IKEA that's now in our living room, holding the terrarium (with new plants because they got neglected in the move), ivy, and a sensitive plant (forget the real name!).  And in our bathroom upstairs we have another plant keeping the air oxygenated.  I'd forgotten, like I do every winter, how happy plants make me.  It's so much more homey here with our new additions.

Oh, and for good measure, a picture of one of our cats, Milky Way.  It's so rare for me to catch them being still and in good light!