Disney Day 2, part 1

Day 2 started off with lots of excitement. It was going to be our only non-conference day while we were there so we got to spend the entire day with Ryan!

We decided to start out at Hollywood studios because we were dying to get on Toy Story Mania. It's actually a 3-d "target shooting" type of game and we went on it on our Honeymoon, but when we went last year with the Easler's we couldn't even get a FastPass for it!!!!

We decided to wait in line instead of getting a fast pass for it and Aidan was relatively good considering I think we were in line for close to 30 minutes.

They do have lots of fun stuff to look at while you wait and our favorite was a giant animatronic Mr. Potatohead that sings and tells jokes. Well at one point he says a joke and pulls his own ear out, and dropped it! Everyone laughed and we could all tell that wasn't supposed to happen. So like 10 minutes later we see a ride attendant come out and grab a step stool, climb up and put his ear back in. Of course we all applauded, haha!

Aidan loved it! He even kept his 3D glasses on for most of it!

Ryan had the high score for our car.....

When we were done with that we decided to go across the way and get in line for the Buzz and Woody meet n greet. This was a fun one because while you wait in line there are lots of Toy Story themed things for you to take pictures with. My personal favorite was the Claw. (The claw is our master....the claw has chosen...., et etc.)

We saw there was a short line for pictures with the Green Army Man just outside the buzz and woody spot so Ryan hopped into line for Buzz and Woody and Aidan and I went to meet the army guy. Aidan was willing to give him his book for his autograph but wouldn't get close enough for me to take his picture with him (the green army man was standing at a salute for pics, it was really cute).

By the time we got to our turn to meet the characters Woody was gone and it was just Buzz! Bummer.

Oh well, Aidan told me Buzz was his favorite (he was Buzz last year for Halloween (Austen was Woody) and when we went to the Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom, he got to meet Buzz and have his picture with him all while dressed as him...my fave pictures ever!!) and when we offered up our official autograph pen, Buzz shook his head and pulled out a rubber stamper, haha. He then tapped the side of his head like he was "always thinking"....it was pretty cute.

After meeting Buzz it was time to head over to Hollywood and Vine for yet another character meal. This time it was the "Play n Dine" which features all the toddler-aged Disney Jr. stars, such as Handy Manny, Little Einstein's, Special Agent Oso, Jake and The Neverland Pirates, etc.

Where we were seated I didn't have a great place for photo ops, but we tried to get a few salvageable shots. Aidan met June from Little Einstein's, before my camera was out :( , then he met Oso, Handy Manny and Jake. 

There are also little "shows" every 20 minutes or so and there is dancing and singing and all the kids can join in. Super fun if you have a toddler. It's even buffet-style and since Aidan is under 3 we didn't even have to pay for him!

After that we headed over to the Phineas and Ferb meet n greet where they pulled people out of line to participate in a "movie". Ryan and Aidan got pulled in and it was hilarious. There was a "director" and he told everyone what to do, etc etc. They got to dance in a movie "scene", and that killed so much time while we were waiting in line that by the time they were done it was almost our turn to meet Phineas and Ferb!

Since we could tell Aidan was becoming very tired and crabby we decided to head back to the room for a nap before heading back out to the parks......

....to be continued

Disney Day 1

Ok so this trip started off on a really bad note.

We missed our flight. And not just by like a few minutes. 

I'm talking we woke up at 6:15 when we should have been on the road at like 4am. No joke. Our flight was leaving Syracuse (an hour away) in exactly an hour. There was NO WAY we could get dressed and get there and through security in time. Humanly impossible.

SO Ryan gets on the phone with jet blue while I get Aidan and myself dressed and the suitcase officially packed for the last time. They were kind enough to get us on the 9:15 flight and we ran out the door (literally), coffee in hand (Thanks Nani!!) to catch our flight.

We were waiting to surprise Aidan so he had no idea we were going to Disney, we just kept telling him we were going on a big adventure. We waited until the airport to tell him , and I captured it on video hoping he was going to have a great reaction. Well, it wasn't what I had hoped, but hey he is only 2....

Unfortunately we had to take a flight with a layover, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right? So we did end up visiting NYC for about an hour ;)

We got to Orlando and the Magic Express picked us up and brought us to The Contemporary, where we were staying.

Aidan immediately got off the bus and started calling for Mickey.

"Mickeeeeeeey! Oh Mickeeeeeey!"

Absolutely hilarious. He totally thought that since we told him we were going to "Mickey's House" that Mickey was going to be there when we arrived.

We got checked in and dropped our stuff off in our room, where Aidan was literally bouncing off the walls with excitement, and headed to Epcot since we had a character dinner with Mickey, Pluto, Chip, and Dale that night at The Garden Grill.

Of course he passed out 30 seconds after we walked through the entry gates, so we let him sleep until we had to sit for our reservation (we went to the UK and got a drink to kill some time, heehee), and even though he was overtired and crabby he was still thrilled to meet the characters at dinner!

When dinner was over we still had plenty of time to hang out at Epcot so we headed straight for The Seas which is where Nemo and Friends is located. We went on the clamshell Finding Nemo ride and then we explored some of the indoor aquarium and play area that's attached.

Once we were all done with that we hopped back on the monorail to head back home where we decided to call it a night since the next day we had a full day together out in the parks......

...to be continued.

:)

Lazy Snowy Sunday

We started out our Sunday with pancakes.

But not just any old pancakes, you see.

In our house we have Mickey "Waffler" which totally makes Mickey pancakes, not Mickey waffles, so I feel the "waffler" title is misleading. 

I have had this thing since about 2001 when I got it clearanced for $15 at the Disney Store in Utica. You can still buy them at JC Penney now but they're over $60!! so it has seen better and cleaner days...but it still works so I still keep using it! (if you look closely enough you can see black electrical tape holding the broken top handle together haha)

Well anyway they are delicious and always perfectly cooked thanks to a built-in timer.

After breakfast we all bundled up and headed to the park because I had a photo shoot so Ry figured he would bring the boys along with our sled since there are a few small hills at this park...and our backyard is completely FLAT.

They had a great time and I managed to get some shots of everyone enjoying themselves!

Snow Day

They were forecasting for snow yesterday and we actually got it. Being a CNY-er I  was excited because I really miss the snow from home in the winter. I mean seriously it took until Jan 21 to get some snow here in PA. Ugh.

The downside was that it made it a little tricky for me to travel to a first birthday shoot that I had scheduled yesterday so I had to reschedule that which totally bummed me and my client out.

Luckily the night before we were at Kohl's looking for a new baby one piece snowsuit (or pram I think they might be called?) and ended up with actual snow pants and jacket for him instead. It seems the stores that I've checked for these baby snowsuits only go up to 9 months. Well he has a 9 month one and it's pretty small so I wanted to find 12 months but of course anything we found in 12 months was actual "big boy" stuff.

So... official snow pants and jacket it was!

Now he can actually go in the snow with his big brother!

I took the boys out to play while Ry was at work and we had a blast!! After lunch we even went back out with Wells and Maddox...and Aidan insisted on pulling Mason around the snowy parking lot in his old baby sled. It was super cute.

When we got back in Aidan had hot chocolate, took a nap and Mason got to play with his brother's "off-limits" toys and wear his slippers to warm his cold little feet.

Elf Hair?

Santa brought Aidan this neat little Elf planter in his stocking this year. It came with seeds and soil and all we had to do was fill it up and water it! 

Within 2 or 3 days we had grass hair for our Elf and Aidan was soooo excited.

Now we give him haircuts very frequently and keep watering his head. He even survived the week were in Disney with no one to water him!

Gingerbread House

Ryan and I did our annual day after christmas shopping after my Dad left on Monday.( I always grab things like treat bags, wrapping paper and gift tags on these trips. You can't beat 50% off!)

We were actually looking for some new lights for the tree and outside because we didn't have any left this year to do the front of the house! Also we use like 4 strands to do out tree because our longest strand isn;t long enough, so then we added like 3 sets of 10 lights to it. Each set of 10 lights needed to be plugged in to the previous large strand because they were so small they didn't have a plug part on each end.

Talk about a fire hazard.

So anyway all the lights were gone, but we did find this sweet gingerbread townhouse kit that I decided we would use when Nani and Uncle Ama came to visit.

 $4.50? yes please.

It turned out that the house came pre-assembled to all we had to do was the fun part:

Decorate it!!!

I don't know who had more fun....Aidan or uncle Ama.

Uncle Ama's creative decorating skills sure shone through!!

Christmas 2011!!

Our Christmas holiday was pretty fun this year since Aidan actually understood the idea of Santa. There were multiple times a day where I would threaten to call Santa to report on Aidan's naughty behavior and he would freak out telling me not to call him, that he would be good. Hahah it's so wrong, I know.

Grandpa and Uncle Larry were here again this year, and because I had to work Christmas Day, we made Christmas Eve our Christmas.

Hey, Aidan doesn't know the difference!

The night before our Christmas I let Aidan decorate some cookies for Santa, and he sure had a blast. There was royal icing and colored sugar everywhere!

When he woke up Christmas morning we brought him down and watched the look of awe on his face as he saw the piles of presents for him and Mason.

He checked to see if Santa ate his cookies, and he did!! He had also left out some glitter oatmeal (aka reindeer food that he made at Michele's) and it looked like that had been spilled and eaten too!

Everytime he started to open a gift he would exclaim:

"my very own new toy!"

(like he's never had his own toy in his entire life......)

Mason tried to get in on the action too, but he wasn't so good at unwrapping, so his big brother helped him.

Once he got all the presents unwrapped, Ryan got out the tools needed to remove kids' toys from their boxes (a full set of tools most times), and started getting everything opened so Aidan could play.

We spent the rest of the day watching Christmas movies and playing with new toys until it was time for dinner.....

Filet Mignon has become the family Christmas dinner tradition around here so we ate like kings! Since I know Aidan can really chow down on steak when he wants to I actually had the butcher give me a small one for him (because I sure as hell wasn't sharing!!!).

Before we knew it  our Christmas was over (actually christmas eve for the rest of you), and we were all off to bed and I was off to work early in the morning.

Working on Christmas wasn't so bad because I was at muhlenberg and since it was so slow I was able to read a book on my new Kindle from Ryan and he even brought Aidan in to have lunch with me!

I hope your Christmas was great too!!

Snowflakes and Dinosaurs

I bought some giant foam snowflakes for Aidan's first Christmas fully intending on doing something fun and creative with them. 

Yup.

And as Aidan's THIRD Christmas rolled around I realized I STILL had them in my "box-o-craftiness" (yes  I call it that, and I even wrote it on the box).

During my travels to the dollar store one day I found some bags of foam stickers that were holiday shaped and grabbed them figuring it would be the perfect addition to the foam snowflakes.

Aidan had a blast letting me peel the stickers for him and he placed them wherever he wanted.

Perfect ornaments!

We also had a bag of dinosaur-shaped foam stickers in the box-o-craftiness which he insisted we use as well. So I complied but only picked out the red and green ones for him to use haha. 

Christmas Dinosaurs!!