DISNEY DAY!

Well, we started our Mickey Mouse adventure last week...or shall I say...I did...until the wee, wee hours of the morning one night as I sewed and appliqued some Mickey & Minnie clothes for the kiddos! ! I know it takes me longer than it should, but I so enjoy making these little coordinating outfits! 

 

   I totally lucked out, too. I went to Wal-Mart and browsed through the remnant fabrics, and it was like someone had been there before me getting fabrics for their own Mickey projects! All of these red, black and white fabrics you see were remnants.

Saturday morning we woke up early, got the kids in the bath, and got ready to go to the place where dreams come true;)

Ella Grace read a bit while we got ourselves ready!

Ella Grace and Julian LOVED riding on the train around the park! Julian kept asking to do it again throughout the day:)

 Lately, Ella Grace has been folding her arms to say a prayer at random times throughout any given day...it's so cute!  Here she is praying for a safe train ride... ;)

Our first ride was Winnie the Pooh! While we waited in line, the kids played with the activities set up in the line.
It made the wait go by so quickly!

I got lots of "she looks like a baby doll!" this weekend...I can see why in the pic below! lol!

 Laughing at the hedgehogs popping out of the ground:)

 In our honeypot, ready to ride!

This child has such a little adventurous spirit...not only did she have no qualms with meeting characters, she was practically jumping out of my arms to get into theirs!  Julian, on the other hand, was a bit timid when it came to these furry friends.

I wish we had a video of her when she spotted this cat...she was EC.STAT.IC.

The first Disney movie Julian ever saw was Dumbo, introduced to him by my little sister, Jessica. (How fitting that she be the one to introduce him to Disney movies!) Here we were under one of Dumbo's circus tents...

Love!

Passed out while Daddy and Julian rode It's a Small World...

I packed us lunches, but Daddy wanted something a little more substantial than our p,b, & j's. Oh well, at least Ella Grace still ate what I packed!

I just had to get a photo in front of this trash can...ha!jk!

Sneakin in some love while we map out our next move!

Which proved to be a good one...these kids LOVED the carousel!  They've been on carousels before, but something about this one just made them ecstatic!  The music perhaps, plus just the happy atmosphere that is Disney World...I don't know, but this thrilled them to the bone!
This video is one of my favorites of all time...it captures that joy they had quite well.
(for some reason, you might have to skip to the end of one or two of my other recent videos until you get to the carousel video...weird...they're all linked for some reason?:/)

 Why do the BEST pictures have to be blurry?! Come on...

 You could tell Julian felt so proud to be riding all by himself on this big horse!

Ella Grace was like "whatever, I do this one-handed in my sleep."

Just kidding! She was just tickled to be riding that horse! 

If you're wondering why the quality of so many of these photos is so poor, it's because the 4 GB  memory card we brought down decided to be dumb and say it was full about two hours into our day at Disney. We had cleaned it off the day we left, and also Friday night after  Downtown Disney. I was mildly devastated for a cold minute, but Stace gently reminded me we were at the happiest place on earth, and that I needed to get on board, and that he could still at least take pictures on his phone. After a bit of pouting, I chose happiness. :)

I was in  good company...

That is, until the ride ended.  Here I am trying to pry Ella Grace off of that horse. She had a death grip on that thing, and wailed when I finally got her loose from it. They did. not. want. to. leave.

 Don't tell on us...but we stayed on the carousel (twice, what?) when the ride was over to ride it again.  We rode it a total of five times.

 Stace's family has a photo of him on his first trip to Disney World wearing a Mickey shirt and eating a Mickey Mouse ice cream cone.  So we had to get Julian one, too!

 We got 3 total. I shared mine with EGS. She ate more than me, & wanted more when it was all gone! Pixie baby can eat.

Post ice cream faces...

Lady Antebellum was playing in front of the castle that day! Disney was filming their Christmas Day parade and show! It was so cool to hear them live...they sound exactly the same live as they do on radio...pure, unadulterated talent! Beautiful voices!

 Julian LOVED this...Mickey's Philharmagic Symphony in 3D!

 On Peter Pan...

 About to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride!

 One of my favorite parts of the day was the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Factory Comedy Show! We don't have any photos, as we weren't allowed to take pictures, but an animated Mike Wizowski appears on the big screen to do a stand-up routine, and then they filmed people in the audience and poked fun of them, or had them to do silly things.  When they were describing the little girl "Boo" from the movie, they zoomed in on Ella Grace and said Boo was a cute little girl just like her!  But Ella Grace was wiggling all over the place and goofing off, so the monsters who were talking about her at the time were saying "she's a wiggly little one, isn't she?!" It was amazing how they had the monsters look how they were talking, but obviously had someone backstage doing the voice overs and watching the audience as they joked about them. It was so fun! Here's our little Boo, now! 

Ella Grace and I danced like crazy with Stitch and Pluto in Tomorrow Land!

The castle was sooo beautiful at night! And we loved the show Mickey, Minnie, the princesses, and many more put on in front of it that night.

Riding the train home! 

(EGS not looking...)

Now J's face is blurry...

(I'm reminding myself again...choose happiness, choose happiness, choose happiness...)

Ella Grace saw this kitty cat in the gift shop and was absolutely smitten by it!  She was so cute! I've never seen her go crazy (in an excited way) in a store like she did for this kitty!  I'm wondering if she recognized it because she met that kitty first thing that morning...hmm...anyway! She and this kitty have been almost inseparable since we got home!

Stace's parents told us to get J a shirt, too. Tried as we might, we could not get him on board for a shirt, or even a toy! But when he saw this hat...he fell in love! So we got him a hat! It was the same price anyway:)

Julian was out before we left the Disney complex!

This day was truly one for the books!!! 

Nothing short of magical:)

Mini Tally Trip!

I feel like we used to be able to go to Tallahassee at the drop of a hat...in the words of the wise sage Shakira: 

"Wheneva! Whereva!"

Now we really have to have a good reason to leave, because Stace is so. busy. And if we do go, I feel like it's always so jam-packed and scheduled between my dad's, my brother's, and Stace's parents...sometimes I feel like we barely get to spend a few hours with each party before it's time to go home again. We're lucky if we get to see any friends!  But last weekend was a rare occasion where we just got to get up and go for a relaxing weekend in our hometown. My sister-in-law was hosting a Premier Jewelry party for my friend Lolly on Thursday night, and then Sunday we had a family reunion in Georgia, so I figured that was a good excuse as any to get home for a long weekend!

After the jewelry party, Candace and I joined Stace and Berk at Po'Boys for a VP Debate Watch Party.  Apparently there was some seriously hilarious material that was covered because Joe Biden sure had the giggles! Or maybe one of his buds from across the aisle slipped him some brownies beforehand? Either way, we had a great time!

On Friday morning a few friends got together for a little play date at the mall. Stace got to spend some time with Kyre for lunch here, too, which was fun for all of us!  It's always great to spend time with the la-la-la lovely Lahtinen's (no matter which branch!;)

 Hannah had to leave before this pic was taken, but it was so good to see old (and new!) friends... even though it was a bit loud and crazy!

 Ella Grace is all. over. the. place. at a mall playground/ any playground! She does not let her stature slow her down. She is ready to keep up with the big kids, no problem!

 She is so fearless.  Not scared of pools. Not scared of animals. (More on that in a future post.) She absolutely LOVES animals, actually. Here she is making a beeline for Colby!

Friday night we hit up the best babysitters ever (Grandmommy and Pop Pop;) and used the AMC gift card they got Stace for his birthday. Date night! Whew hoo!  

Saturday morning Stace went and helped Chris and Hannah paint their old townhouse, and Katie let me tag along on her run! She is training for a marathon and is running 20 miles now! (AMAZING!) I thought if I went with her I would be inspired to run farther than I normally could. To give you an idea of where I was, on Friday I ran/ walked 2 miles as part of week 4, day 2 of Couch to 5K Program.  Well, with Katie I went six miles!!! (with hills!) I've never run that far before! It was so much more fun with a friend! She was such a fun running buddy...I wish we lived in the same town so I could tag along with her on a regular basis!

I truly want to thank her though because now I have hope to train for a Turkey Trot 10K instead of the 5K!

On Saturday night we spent the night at Beth and Chris' and had a grand ol' time, per ushe, partying it up with them.  Then we left early Sunday for the reunion. By the end of the Reunion I started feeling really sick. By the time we got home at 5 PM I had a 102.5 degree fever and basically slept for 2 days! (Thank goodness Stace could work from home those days!) Tuesday night Stace's parents picked the kids up,  Stace left on Wednesday for Atlanta, and I basically recovered all week (how lucky am I?! I know.) But this sickness really knocked me out more so than any other sickness I've had, time-wise, since senior year of high school! 

Sooo...maybe I shouldn't run the 10K!? haha!