Halloween Activities

We started this year's Halloween festivities with some pumpkin carving.  The kids enjoyed making silly faces with all the cut out pieces.

For Halloween costumes we did an underwater theme based on Kylee wanting to be a Jellyfish.  

Kylee wanted to make the Jellyfish costume last year, but with Matt's pre-deployment chaos we ran out of time.  So, with a whole year to make it we of course procrastinated until the night before our trunk or treat.

Julia was happy to be one of her favorite princesses - The Little Mermaid.

Brayden was a shark, and Blake was a cute little octopus. 

Uncle Carlos came and joined in on the Halloween night candy distribution festivities dressed as Fred from Scobby Doo.  He had a great costume.

We decided to extend our celebration by making a haunted gingerbread house a week later.  

Halloween Chaos

We didn't do birthday parties last year due to my impending deployment.  Instead we promised them for this year.  As September 16th drew nearer we realized we weren't all that excited about planning for a hoard of screaming kids right before leaving for Disney World either.  After going back and forth between trying to get ourselves psyched up for a party and reneging on the whole thing, we compromised and decided to put the whole thing off.

The thought occurred that we could do a single party for both Kylee and Brayden in between the two birthdays which conveniently landed near Halloween.  We rationalized that a Halloween party would kill two birds with one stone and greatly simplify the what promised to be at least a mildly painful experience.

We went ahead with the plans and as the date got closer the absolutely essential invitee list got longer and longer.  It would be OK, we reasoned, because many of the kids wouldn't even come right before Halloween.  In the end we ended up with 100% attendance plus a few with over 25 kids at the party.

We had quite a few planned activities for the kids, but it was hard to keep all those kids on schedule. We started out with them making candy necklaces.  Most of the boys weren't really interested.  Then we moved on to the games.  They played pumpkin bowling, candy corn toss into pumpkin pails, toilet paper mummies, and gummy worm bobbing.  There was also a box with creepy things to feel. We used grapes for eyeballs, spaghetti for brains, and spam cut into the shape of a heart.

To feed the kids we had pizza and juice boxes.  

We tried to keep the kids divided into groups of Kylee and Brayden's friends.  While one group was doing the pinata the other was inside decorating cookies.  Kylee had a pumpkin pinata and Brayden had a ghost.

The trampoline, which we attempted to limit, was standing room only for much of the evening.  Despite the many alternative spooky theme activities, it seemed to be the highlight for many.

We finished the party with singing Happy Birthday to Kylee and Brayden and eating cake.

While at the end of the evening everyone did survive, we decided this was one experience we would be OK not repeating.  It was too close to our maximum craziness level.  It was hard to take pictures of everything because there was too much going on.  Luckily my brother Carlos was there and we assigned him as the photographer.  Matt did great in keeping things going and fairly in control.  I guess the most important thing was that Kylee and Brayden enjoyed it.  Good thing, because it won't happen again.

Corn Maze

This year we decided to do the Hondo corn maze instead of the Pumpkin Patch in Medina.  The maze changes every year.  This year it was George Straight.  It was divided in 2 sections and each one took us 15 minutes to complete.  You could purchase a postcard with an areal photograph of the maze that served as an essential map.  We might still be in the maze were it not for that postcard.

We could have used a leash as the kids took off running into the first half of the maze, but by the second half they had lost some steam and took some prodding just to go in.   

We were happy Uncle Carlos was able to take a few hours off from the law books to go with us.

All in a line

Blake has taken an interest in lining things up.
Among his list are:

tostada pieces

tupperware

blueberries

cars

more cars

blocks

and shoes (I was not quick enough to get a picture)

He is so sweet and patient as he lines them up...  then at the end he messes them all up.

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.