Connor Driving

Lauren got this pink car for Christmas in 2009. She got it from her Uncle Mark (Todd's brother) and it's been the best present. She loved it when she was little and still loves it at age 4. It was so nice the other day outside that I thought Connor would enjoy riding too. Lauren is still so itty bitty so those 2 had a blast riding together. 

 Random but how fun is she? For her birthday, she got gift cards to Toys R Us. She picked out a Cinderella alarm clock and Cinderella headphones for the car. She was so so excited. Connor was so sweet and wanted to see what his Sissy had.

Our Last Day :( Day 6

On our last day at the parks we decided to go back to Epcot. We seriously love it there. We also had tickets for the Christmas party at Magic Kingdom that evening. With the Christmas party tickets, you get into Magic Kingdom at 4pm. So we went to Epcot in the morning/afternoon and headed over to Magic Kingdom around 5pm. 

This picture of Todd and Lauren cracks me up. She wanted to pose in front of the big ball or whatever you call it. She had to arch her back and so Todd had to as well so he wouldn't drop her.

 

We continued on with getting autographs from her favorite people.

 In so many of these pictures, you can see Lauren's awesome eye makeup. The makeup kit that she got at the Boutique was a huge hit all week long. She did her makeup like she was straight from the 80s. It was so funny but it kept a fit from happening so I just rolled with it.

 

You can't visit Disneyworld without getting a Mickey ice cream bar. We only bought one on this trip. I'm surprised :) Those things are good! Lauren, Connor, and I enjoyed ice cream while Todd was riding the NASA ride. There wasn't really a line so we told him to ride over and over again. I can't handle that ride. That's the one where I banged on the door to try to get off of. They don't let you off. It's awful.

 

Actually, this is what Connor did while we enjoyed ice cream. Poor buddy missed out.

 

We went to visit some countries next. We love to sample food from our favorite places. We made a little stop in Germany for my dear friend Jill that moved there a year and a half ago. We bought a delicious German pretzel and some German beer. The pretzel was good that we decided to split a brat. Man that was good. German food is excellent. Some of the best food Ive ever had was when I visited Jill last August there. It's all so fresh and delicious. 

 

We went to China and enjoyed some egg roll type things. We then went to France and had the best pastries with coffee. Everything is so yummy. We ended up in England where Lauren played in the phone booths for sweet forever. She thought they were the coolest things.

 

Goodbye Epcot :( See you soon we hope!

Next up: The fun Christmas party!

 

We also enjoy the special parties at Magic Kingdom. Even though it's an extra expense with having to have additional tickets, it's well worth it. Only a limited number of tickets are sold each evening so the park is not crowded. We enjoyed riding great rides with no lines, wonderful parades and shows, free hot chocolate and cookies, and the beautiful snow on Main Street. It's truly magical. 

 

I would say Connor is a fan too :) He's the best baby in the world. He never fusses unless he's tired or hungry and he falls asleep so easily. 

 

We got to enjoy a sneak peek of the new Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom that night. They have a new Little Mermaid ride. I was so so thrilled for this. In fact, I think it's my favorite ride now. It's so cute. You ride in a buggy like the Nemo ride at Epcot and it takes you thru all the scenes of the movie. It's so cute.

 

Lauren always has the best seat in the house for the parades.

 

Connor enjoys hanging out in the stroller. By the way, we rented this double stroller. After our stroller was stolen in May 2010, I will never take ours again. It was wonderful renting one. It was sooooo much cheaper than the horrible plastic park ones. They drop it off at the hotel prior to us checking in so it's waiting for us. You then just leave it at the desk as you leave. Easy easy. We went thru Baby Wheels Orlando. They had the best rate. A lot of people use Orlando stroller company or something like that. When I checked the rates between the two, Baby Wheels came with more free items like a rain cover, cooler, etc.

 

The tea cups did not have a line because of the limited number of people in the park. Lauren actually fell asleep during the party but we woke her up to enjoy more rides :) She is sitting next to me in this picture. You just can't see her. She was half awake. 

 

Todd loves the tea cups too. Love it!

 

We ended the night with a good dance party. Watch out for Todd. He'll jump on a dance floor in .2 seconds!

 I already miss Disney. There's something magical about seeing your kids light up with delight. Im sure some people wonder why we keep going back. Our kids are only little once. There will come a time where Lauren doesn't care about Cinderella or Connor won't care about Mickey. It's so fun to enjoy this time in their lives and soak it up. Im already looking forward to our next trip. It's so much fun!

Just so I have it written down so I don't forget, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort, Lake Buena Vista this time. Our favorite is still Buena Vista Suites, however, the Holiday Inn allows pets so it worked great having our dog with us this time. If you're going, they had a promotion where every 3rd night was free so it was a fantastic deal.

Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney (Day 5)

I do not know what it is about Animal Kingdom but each time we have been, Lauren acts out in a major major way. I almost joke that it's the Animal Kingdom curse. Maybe she wants to be one with the animals?!?! It's kind of interesting. She is really good 90% of the time. We definitely have 2-3 big tantrums a day but what do you really expect with Disney? It's long days, you're away from home, there's a lot of people, etc but when we're at Animal Kingdom.....it's a whole new world :)

One of the fun things we did this time was have Lauren's face painted like Tinkerbell. In the midst of a major fit, a lot of the paint came off but it was super cute.

Lauren is finally getting taller. She is still an itty bitty thing but she measured right at 38 or 39 inches (can't remember) and could finally ride a big kid ride. We road this and got really wet. She was so serious the entire ride. It's so funny because she was so so excited to be on a big kid ride. She practically ran to the ride. There wasn't a line so I was so excited that maybe we could ride it over and over. After the ride was over, I think she was terrified. At one point while actually riding, she said "Im really nervous." Poor thing!

 

Lauren wouldn't ride with me again so we convinced Todd to ride. He didn't want to at first because there's a chance that you could get soaked. See that lady with the poncho? She's pretty smart because no matter what, your pants will be wet from sitting in the water. Todd had a blast too. Its really fun.

 

Animal Kingdom closes early so we headed over to downtown Disney to eat at T-Rex that night. If you aren't familiar with being a Landrys Club member, it's really great. There are quite a few Landry's restaurants throughout the US. When you eat at one of their restaurants, you can sign up for their card. I think it was $25 to sign up. After you sign up, $25 gets put on the card for future use and then you get $25 during your birthday month. If you know you're going to Disney every year around Nov. 9, just say your birthday is Nov. 1. It was great because we had $50 to spend at the restaurant, $25 of that being free. You also get to bypass the crazy long lines down there to put your name on the wait list to eat. There is a separate line for you so the wait for us was 20 minutes vs about a an hr. It's a great deal.

 

Connor loved eating some of his Sissy's mac and cheese. This boy eats anything and everything. It makes going out a breeze.

 

Lauren capped off her meal with a yummy pudding dessert with gummy worms, her favorite.

Epcot, my favorite! (Day 4)

Oh I love love love Epcot. I love Magic Kingdom too but there's just something special about Epcot. I think it's because I love to travel so much. I love how you can walk country to country and everyone working in that county is from there. The food is authentic and it's just wonderful. We discovered a wonderful program for kids while on this trip. This was Lauren's 4th visit to the parks and we just figured this out, go figure! You can buy cute little passports in the stores in each country. After getting the passport, you put stickers on the pages for each country, and then you walk around and get stamps at each country you visit. It's so so special and neat. The sweet people working in the countries would often write Lauren's name in their native language, so cool!

We started off by meeting some characters at the front of the park. Lauren was excited to get more autographs!

 

 

I made reservations for us to have lunch in Norway with the Princesses. I seriously loved this!!! This is the first time that we've done 2 character meals on a trip. We've only done 1 other one, the breakfast at Cape May.  We don't ever do the dining plan because 99% of the time, we stay off property and it just works out better for us. I knew that you had to make reservations for a Princess meal way early. I debated between the one at Cinderella's castle and this one. Todd and I both like food from different countries so we went with the Norweigan yummy food. Delicious!

 

The meal was so so delicious and the setting was so neat. We had lunch inside a castle. When you enter, a Princess is there to greet you. We had our picture taken with Belle and then was escorted to our table. The picture came with the meal so we didn't have to pay extra for that. There was a cold food bar that was an all you can eat type thing. It was so yummy. Wonderful pasta salad, smoked salmon with capers, bread, etc. After getting that, we picked our main meal from the menu. My favorite dish in case you are going was the mushroom ravioli paired up with the chicken from the kids menu. They put the chicken on top of the ravioli and it was so delicious. Our waiter gave us that tip because you don't get charged extra for basically ordering 2 entrees. It was soooo good. They had a traditional kids menu so Lauren chowed down on a hot dog and Connor had cheese ravioli.

The Princesses. First up, Mary Poppins. I love Lauren's face in these pictures. She was so shy to smile really big. Her hair was a hot mess because she demanded on putting on her crown and leaving her hair that way. Her princess shoes broke when we got there. Awesome. :)

 

Snow White. Snow White was wonderful at talking the part. Those Princesses are fantastic actresses. I don't know how they keep a straight face while talking.

 

Sweet Cinderella. Always a favorite.

 

Cinderella was extra sweet. Lauren was being super shy and she got down to her level and just loved on her.

 

Always a favorite, Ariel. Ariel was hilarious. She talked and talked about Prince Eric and all of her sea friends. Lauren loved it.

 

This is what Connor thought about all of this Princess mess. He was just there for the free food.

 

My sweet duo. They have a parade after lunch where all of the Princesses and Princes march around the castle. Lauren thought it was the coolest thing. She was so confused at first and didn't want to participate. That is so not like her so Mary Poppins took her hand and let her around. It was so sweet.

 

We kept on celebrating their birthdays. There's no better way to celebrate that getting free cupcakes at your meals. The kids loved it. Lauren thought it was so cool that they put gummy bears on her plate.

 Connor's first bite of cake. It's safe to say that he loved it and will have an awesome time smashing his first birthday cake.

My own little Princess.

 

Chef Mickeys (Day 3)

On Monday November 12, I planned for us to have an off day. In the past, our trips to Orlando have been around 4 days so we go non stop. We were there 7 nights this trip so it was wonderful to have a down day. I made reservations for Chef Mickeys about 5 months before our trip and Im so glad we did. In the past, we've eaten breakfast at Cape May and that is equally as great. Character breakfast meals are so much fun! It also helps that I could eat breakfast food for every meal. Yum! They, of course, had the Mickey shaped waffles that are always a big hit with Lauren. They had them on the Disney cruise back in April too. Those waffles are so delicious.

My sweet babies were dressed up for such an event. Connor sported his super cute Mickey shirt and puffer vest. He wasn't too sure of the characters. He didn't cry but he for sure buried his head in my shoulder a few times.

 

 

Lauren was so precious in her Minnie shirt and tutu that her sweet cousin sent her. She thought it was so cool that she matched Minnie.

 Pluto was so much fun. Connor was enamored with his whiskers.

Mema and Goofy had a moment. He was so much fun with her.

This was the best way to celebrate my 2 sweet kiddos. I find that I would much rather spend money on travel versus lots of Christmas presents, birthday parties, and going out to eat all the time. It's so wonderful that they've been able to see different places and have a blast. We celebrated them all week long. Thanks again to the best husband ever who works so hard so we can have so much fun on vacation. He loves Disney just as much as us. He was videotaping Lauren getting her hair done at the boutique, taking video of her with the Princesses, etc. It's truly the sweetest.

Cupcakes for breakfast? For sure!