Disney World - Round 2

Wedecided to stay "on property" this trip to Disney World.  We decided on the Disney All Star Music hotel because it was one of few with a suite big enough for a family of six.  Fortunately, it was also one of the most economical hotels.  We arrived on Monday, September 20, 2010.  We got a package deal with the hotel and meal deal which included a sit down meal, a quick service meal, and a snack each day for each person.  If you planned well and way in advance you could set up character meals for the sit down meal.  Many of the good places are booked several months in advance, so combined with our procrastination we only got a few of our first choices.
When we arrived at the hotel we found out we were the "family of the day".  They had balloons waiting for us and a person to give us a tour and show us to our room.  It speed up the check in process, but it made our walk to our room longer because we received a tour along the way along with a stop for a family picture.  We arrived in the early afternoon and decided to spend the rest of our day at Hollywood Studios.  There are buses at the side of the hotel the leave for the different parks all throughout the day.
Monday  - Hollywood Studios
Some of our highlights for Monday were watching the Indiana Jones Adventure Show and riding the Rock'n Rollercoaster.  Matt and Kylee also rode the Tower of Terror together.

I tried to entertain the younger kids with lollipops outside the Tower of Terror.

At the end of our first day of travel and exploring the park everyone was still pretty animated.  The kids shirts chronicled our activities with stains picked up all along the way.

Tuesday - Magic Kingdom
We started our day with breakfast at 10:55 at the Park Fair Restaurant.  In preparation for the character meals we were watching various disney movies before our trip so the kids would be familiar with them.   The characters that we got to meet were the Mad Hatter, Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), Tigger, Winnie the Pooh, and Mary Poppins.

Waiting to be seated for our meal.

After the meal we started our adventure at the Magic Kingdom.  Julia had not gotten her character fill yet so I went with her to meet the princesses. We waited in line so she could see Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle.  The fairies are more popular than the princesses, but their line was twice as long.  We decided to that we could only do the princesses.

Blake rode his first roller coaster, the Barnstormer in Mickey's Toontown.  He did great.  He was a little bit scared during it, but after he said he enjoyed it.

Wednesday -Animal Kingdom

We went on the safari ride and the kids enjoyed checking out the different exotic animals.

The kids were a little freaked out when we saw the 3-D bug show because it feels like the bugs are flying in your face and go across your seat.  Luckily Blake was asleep so Matt waited for us outside.

In the afternoon we met up at the Expedition Everest with the Caraways, who had arrived that morning.  It was a fun roller coaster but Blake was sad that he couldn't go on it.  Even Julia just barely made the hight cutoff to ride, and actually enjoyed it.

Thursday - Magic Kingdom

Riding the train to Tom Sawyer Island

We started off the day exploring Tom Sawyer island.  It was fun even though the kids were scared to go through the caves.  

After Tom Sawyer Island we met up with the Caraways and went to the Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion.

For lunch we went to Chef Mickey's where the kids had a lot of fun meeting Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, and Goofy.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to rest so that we could come back in the evening for "Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party".

We met up with the Caraways for the party and the boys dressed as pirates, little girls were cinderella, and the older girls had Halloween shirts and ears.  The Halloween party had a parade, lots of trick or treating spots, and lots of mostly "evil" character sightings.

Since Julia was Cinderella it was fun that we saw her stepmother and step sisters

Friday - Epcot

Epcot, despite having many features targeted at older kids, had plenty of excitement for our kids as well.  We enjoyed Soaring, Nemo, the Test Track, Mission to Mars, and Spaceship Earth.  It was a rainy day with several intermittent down pours.  Julia and I even got stranded in a bathroom during one heavy rain.

Epcot was fun because there are areas that represent different countries.  They have different areas with buildings, activities, and rides representing specific countries.  We ate lunch in Italy, rode a viking boat in and had yummy pastry snacks in Norway, and road a boat and had an excellent dinner in Mexico.  There was so much to do we only scratched the surface.  

Saturday - Hollywood Studios

On Saturday we headed back to Hollywood Studios.

The young girls watched the Beauty and the Beast show with Kristel and Tiffany while Matt and Damon took Kylee, Avery, Brayden, and Gavin to the Tower of Terror.

We all watched an exciting car stunt show.

During the Block Party Parade the kids got to see lots of fun characters from the different Disney movies. (Toy Story, Monsters, A Bug's Life)

Julia, Blake and I went to the Little Mermaid showagain and then the Playhouse Disney show.

Matt stuck it out in line for the Toy Story ride with Brayden and Gavin for almost 2 hours and we missed our 50s dinner meal time slot.  Luckily we were able to get in a little later.

Sunday, September 26, 2010, exhausted and ready to sleep in our own beds again, we headed for the airport to board the plane back to San Antonio.

A decade

Kylee turned 10 on September 16, 2010.  The timing was a little chaotic not long before our planned departure to Disney World.  So we decided on a low key family celebration with the promised birthday party to be a combined Halloween party with Brayden in October.  

Matt made Kylee a piano cake because she is starting to take piano lessons.

Here are  things about Kylee

*She is very creative

*She is a leader

*She likes to read and can tear through a thick book in no time if she likes it

*She likes to hug

*She is an animal lover

*She enjoys spending time with her friends

*She is a listener and tunes in to conversations around her

Hearts everywhere

Julia tends to see hearts and rainbows everywhere.  She gets so excited to show me when she sees them.  Julia found the heart shaped leaf outside the front door of the kids school.  She found the heart shaped rock when we were camping in March.  One day after she washed her hands she saw the soap form into a heart shape.  She called me into the bathroom so I could see her discovery.  Recently Matt made some cookies and Julia was so excited when she was watching them cook in the oven there was a heart shaped one.  She claimed it to be hers.  A couple of days ago at Sea World Julia discovered a really big leaf at Sea World in the shape of a heart.  It is very fitting for her to be wearing her heart shaped glasses in the picture.

Deep thoughts about hugs from Julia
Julia loves to give hugs and she likes to classify them.   She will give a hug and say it is a love hug.  I then asked her what other kind of hugs do you give and she said nightime hugs, flower hugs, morning hugs, mommy hugs, and daddy hugs.


On a different occasion Julia out of the blue said, "Giving a lot of hugs is good, and if you give bad hugs they are pee and poo hugs."


update:  Julia found a heart shaped nugget

First weeks of school

The kids just finished their second week of school.  We are all getting used to the early mornings and the after school homework responsibilities.    

Kylee was really nervous about her first day because she was going to be at the same school for the 2nd year in a row.  She didn't want to go, but was relieved after the first day was over.   This year Kylee has 2 teachers in her 4th grade class that will be team teaching.  She says that they are really nice and she likes Ms. Thomas.  She was happy to discover that she gets to see her friends from last year during recess.  She made a new friend in her class that she said was really nice.

Brayden's report from the first day of 2nd grade was,  "Everything was fine and the teacher was nice and the kids were nice."  Unlike Kylee, he was excited to start back at school.  He said he sits at the good table which  always gets points for being on task.  He was especially happy that he gets to do his specials class with one of his friends from last year and gets to see him every day.

Julia was able to get into the Pre-K program at the same elementary school with Kylee and Brayden.  She was assigned to the afternoon class which means she gets to take a lunch.  She has really enjoyed the whole experience and has been excited to share all that she gets to do.  They provide a bus service to pick the pre-K kids up even though we live right next to the school.  Julia was so excited to be able to ride the bus.  One day we missed the bus because it came earlier than expected.  She cried and was so sad that she wasn't going to be able to ride the bus that day.  The next day she got things ready early so she wouldn't miss it again.

Here are some of Julia's activities for the week. 

She came home the first day telling me about the purple monkey Coco who didn't follow the rules and did things like standing on the table, pushing a child, and running.  Then he learned the rules and followed them.  The second day they went to the library and Julia told me she cried that there was not a princess book.  She told me they were able to find a Dora Princess book for her.  The 3rd day they were practicing cutting and a boy ended up cutting his hair.  They ended up having a talk about not cutting hair.  She identifies him now as the boy who cut his hair.  Julia has come home each day singing a different song that she has learned about counting, days of the week, letters of the alphabet, and months of the year.  

Blake has had a tough time with Julia going to school everyday.  Julia goes to school from 11:30 - 2:45.  That leaves the morning for them to play.  He is grouchy every time we say goodbye and she gets on the bus.  He has been a little bit difficult to take places by himself.  I took him to the grocery store and he screamed nonstop for 30 minutes until I left.

Info on the pictures
We walked Kylee and Brayden to school on the first day because parking is crazy.
Julia is standing in front of the school on the first day.
Julia was so exhausted from the first day that she fell asleep looking at a book on the floor.
Blake upset after Julia left for school.

Stubborn Monkey

Blake is testing me with his stubbornness.  When I give him his yogurt he has to split it into 3 different bowls and eats it with 3 different spoons.   He spilt some on the table, so I went to clean it up.  He got upset because he didn't want it cleaned up, so he took the paper towel with the yogurt on it and put the yogurt  back on the table.

He has been stubborn about just hanging out with the fridge door open.  He just likes to open it up and gets mad if I try and close it.  I found him sitting in the fridge watching TV.  I don't know how long he had been there but his skin felt cold.

He has recently gotten into dressing up.  Brayden is a great dressing up buddy because he gets into the role.  Blake especially likes to carry swords, light sabers, and put on the green Skippy John Jones cape.

Blake has been really bad about taking naps lately.  I have tried laying down with him and reading a few  stories.  On this day Blake decided that a couple of books was not enough.  He kept bringing more and more books until all the board books were off the shelf.