Sunday, November 21, 2010

Pre-Thanksgiving Festivities


edit: I updated this from my phone and didn't realize the pictures were going to post like this. They should be in the text. But I'm sure you can figure it out! The second picture is from the It's a Small World Ride- Xander's first ever theme park ride!


Thanksgiving is almost here which means it's my favorite time of year- Joes vacation!!! To celebrate, we decided to take the kids to Disney World! Earlier this year joe and I participated in the give a day, get a day program. We volunteered making blankets for sick children through the Linus blanket program and received two free disney world tickets. The tickets were about to expire so we decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and take Rosemary and Xander to the most magical place on earth. It also happens that Joe had some hotel points so we decided to make a whole weekend getaway out of it. I was so nervous about taking Xander at such a young age, but luckily my fears turned out to be completely unnecessary as all four of us had a magical time!

We made a little game out of it by not telling Rosemary where we were going. We simply told her to pack a suitcase and a swimsuit and that we had a surprise for her. We kept asking her where she thought we were going. She pointed to every building we passed and asked if that's where we were going. We finally told her that it was some where fun and she guessed a playground. We kept her guessing until we pulled up to the hotel. Now, one thing you have to know about Rosemary is that she loves hotels. She would have been perfectly happy if we stayed there all weekend and protested a bit when we told her we had an even better surprise for her. Luckily the hotel had pictures of Mickey Mouse which eventually led us to telling her where we were going. She got pretty excited when we told her she was going to see some princesses and Mickey himself. It was already 2:00 by the time we got to Magic Kingdom which worked out perfectly because right as we entered Main Street, Cinderella appeared, followed by Belle and the rest of the princesses in a street parade! Rosemarys reaction was priceless. She got really shy, completely starstruck seeing all her princesses at once! After the parade cleared we had our first look at Main Street all decorated for the holidays. We took a minute to get a picture of me and my kiddos by some of them.

Then we were off to Fantasy land and the Small world ride, one of my favorites. Rosemary was so adorable. She kept clapping and singing along with the attraction. After small world, we checked out Mickeys Philharmagic, Rosemarys first 3d movie experience. She is still talking about donald coming out of a bucket asking about his hat. She remembers the tiniest details about everything and talks about them nonstop. After some more exploring, Xander and I made ourselves comfortable on a park bench so I could feed him while Joe and Rosemary went on some of the other rides. Then it was time for some dinner for the rest of us. Rosemary only wanted to eat my food and started pouting when I wouldn't give her my pbj. But she was much happier when I "shared" her grapes with her.

After dinner we made our way to Mickeys Toontown where we met the princesses ! I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Rosemary tried showing Cinderella who the real princess was!

After meeting her idols, we took a train ride through the park before going to Mickeys house for the mickey and minnie meet and greet. If you don't know about our last time doing this, let me just say we were very nervous and made it a point not to in any way touch that litigious rodent Minnie! We did get a photo of the kids and me with the mice, if you can make out Xanders head behind mickeys ear!

It was already getting dark by this point, and I was exhausted- Disney was fun with two kids, but a half day is enough with an 8 week old! We hopped the ferry back and settled into our hotel for the night. We had the whole family cuddled in one bed that night and it was so nice! Xander did amazing- way better than his big sister ever did at a hotel as an infant! He even slept 5 hours that night, only waking up to eat and then going straight back to sleep. The two of us ended up staying in bed until almost 10:00 am! Joe and Rosemary brought me breakfast and went swimming while X and I cuddled in bed all morning. We got a late checkout so we took it easy that morning then headed up to see our good friends Ryan and Carrie, who Rosemary loves! We had a special treat because Ryans parents were visiting. His mom is a baby whisperer and made me feel infinitely better about Xanders fussiness. She had 8 kids and said all of them were like that and it's completely normal. She understood every thing I was going through and all my fears about having something wrong with my milk our questioning if it's something I did when pregnant or something I'm eating, etc that is making him colicky. I felt 500 times better after talking to her. And Xander loved her! He slept almost the whole time cuddled up to her and was perfectly content when I put him in the car and stayed happy just about all the way home from Orlando! Carrie is so lucky to have her! Her experiences as a mom are going to come in handy in April when they welcome their own little one into the world! Rosemary is in love with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Carrie and protested fiercely when it was time to go, but we will see them again soon!

So this is just the start to our thanksgiving holiday. Next stop: grandmas and grandpas house!
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3 comments:

  1. I had no idea that you could meet all the princesses at Mickey's Toon Town! That is awesome!

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  2. We had the option to meet the princesses or the fairies. The line for princesses said 15 minutes. The line for fairies said 60 minutes! Luckily, Rosemary is way more into princesses than fairies right now! She actually introduces herself to people as "I'm Rosemary. I'm a princess."

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  3. I'm SO glad you had a good time! YAY :) Those pictures are priceless :)

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