family is everything

Catch the Moment: Wk.22

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

hello again.

It’s been a week full of Fs. Fun, friends, family, and festivities! Linking up with Mindi, Stephanie, and Carrie for week 22 of Catch the Moment.

148/365: Thursday, May 28th. Sweet little toes.05-28-2015

149/365: Friday, May 29th. The boys were out of school the week of Memorial Day and camp didn’t start til the next week so we had to piece together childcare for the whole week. Ryan stayed home a day, Ryan’s parents kept them 2 days for us, and I stayed home Friday. It worked well because Dexter had a dermatologist appointment that morning. Afterwards, we met up with friends, waited out a thunderstorm, then had some fun in the sun. 05-29-2015

150/365: Saturday, May 30th. We finally celebrated Dexter’s birthday with family and friends at the lake. Again, we waited through a thunderstorm before the clouds parted for a few glorious sunny hours on the water.  It was such a relaxing and fun-filled weekend.05-30-2015

151/365: Sunday, May 31st. After we got home from my in-laws’ and I ran a few errands, the weekend was winding down. Snuggles on the couch before getting ready for bed and the first day of summer camp.05-31-2015

152/365: Monday, June 1st. What else could I expect when I asked them to smile nicely? Eh, that’s alright…this is the real Theo & Dexter. Silly faces, fart noises, tongues out, and muddy shoes – they are my little boys through and through. Good news – they seem to love their new summer camp so far. Shew. 06-01-2015

153/365: Tuesday, June 2nd. Lazy photo night. Yummy dinner night. Chili & grilled cheese!06-02-2015

154/365: Wednesday, June 3rd. Well, well. Look who we have here. Some of our closest friends welcomed sweet Kennedy Noelle in the wee hours of the morning. We were over the moon in love and through the roof excited to make her acquaintance. Perfect ending to this post, but just the beginning of getting to know this little lady. My favorite picture for this week by a million miles. (That’s Dexter’s gigantic-looking hand next to hers). 06-03-2015xo,

~C~

 

#mcdanfamloveswdw: Day 4

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

ICYMI:

Click HERE to see the photos we shared on Instagram from our trip. 

Click Here if you missed Day 1.

Click Here if you missed Day 2.

Click Here for Day 3.

Shew, I’d planned to lump these posts together, 2 days at a time but once I start rambling, I can’t stop and before I know it the post is already too long covering just one day. What is wrong with me? I just love Disney and I want to remember the details!

Saturday, May 9th. We were up and at ’em at 630am in order to make it to our 8am dining reservation at Tusker House, located in the Africa section of Animal Kingdom. We arrived at Animal Kingdom around 730am before being escorted through the completely empty, very cool looking park.

001 {side note}: See how I have my fit bit around my tank top strap? Yeah, that’s because it doesn’t work when pushing a stroller. This was a constant annoyance during our vacation! The main reason I bought the dang thing and it ended up being a hassle. 002 005

I was so excited to try Tusker House – they offer plenty of American breakfast fare with lots of additional African dishes we had fun sampling. The set up and the atmosphere in the restaurant was beautiful.007

First ones in the restaurant!010 011

Jungle Juice was a treat! Orange juice, Guava Juice, and Passionfruit juice – it’s delicious. I don’t know or care how much sugar we consumed during this meal. 012

The bad things about character breakfasts… the kids are so excited for the characters to come to the table that they have a hard time concentrating on eating. Understandable. Buffet style is awesome for value (hello, all you can eat!), convenience, variety, and all taste preferences…but if you are gone from your table to fill up your plate when Mickey comes around, you have to wait til he makes it back (or ask your server to have him make a special trip – they will). Also, the character interactions happen so fast and I am still slow and unsure when it comes to manual settings on my camera so I just turned it on Auto or no flash and there is a lot of blur in many of the pictures. One other note as far as pictures at character breakfasts are concerned – the table are close together and I had to spend a lot of time trying to crop other families out of our special moments. 014 019 021 022All in all, it’s still a super fun experience and just seeing how excited the kids were to have the characters come to us was worth any of the hassle involved. I made the mistake of saying “we’re going to eat breakfast with ___” (fill in any character’s name), which made Dexter think that those sweet, huge stuffed animals were actually going to sit down with us and cram donuts in their furry faces. He was a little disappointed but understood once I explained.

Something that is extra awesome about early character breakfasts waaay in the back of the park is when breakfast is over, you are already in the back of the park. Breakfast ended for us right around 9 (park opening) so we rushed right over to Expedition Everest. We hadn’t made FastPass+ reservations since the boys couldn’t ride it. But wait.

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I went first and walked right onto the ride with no wait. As soon as I returned, Ryan did the same. I was standing outside near the Standby entrance when I noticed the measuring device. I looked at Theo then back at the measuring thingy. Then said “oh my God!!” Theo and Dexter asked “what!?” 20 times as I practically ran, dragging them over. I told Theo to get measured and guess what? He hit that 44″ mark, no problem. You guys, I had a major moment here. I was ecstatic on one hand because he was ecstatic and dying to ride Everest. With me. I was freaking out because I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that my sweet, tiny, innocent, little bitty baby boy was BIG ENOUGH to ride a BIG roller coaster. It doesn’t go upside down and there are far scarier rides at non-Disney parks. But for Disney, for me to have not expected it, for him to be so excited, for me to be riding a big roller coaster with my little (but apparently not so little anymore) son…I had a moment. Proud, sad, excited, and full of adrenaline, all at once. We quickly dragged the strollers into the gift shop so we could greet Ryan as he exited the ride. Theo and I both were blabbing about it before he was even within earshot and Ryan had the same reaction that I did. We rode it and HE LOVED it. He talked about it the entire trip and STILL talks about it every time we talk about our trip (he subsequently rode Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom and loved it as well). 024 025One of our favorite family moments on this trip, for sure. What a great start to our day!

As was the case in every park, the free play/exploration area was a hit. Ryan and I had fun too – I wish this was our backyard!026 030 031

The Tree of Life. My little thrill seekers love adrenaline rushes that come from exciting rides but they did not like It’s Tough to Be a Bug inside of the Tree of Life. Too many unexpected interactive elements combined with darkness. We loved finding animals “carved” into the tree.032

Ryan had a daily date with slushies. Obsessed. 036

Playing the drums. 039 040041 045 048 050 051We loved the Kilimanjaro Safari, as usual.

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The boys adored Animal Kingdom. Dinosaur was a favorite ride – we went on it twice. I think I enjoyed the Finding Nemo show and Ryan enjoyed Flights of Wonder more than the boys. We all got lucky on Kali River Rapids – we were refreshingly splashed but not soaked like the other half of our boat. We shared treats. We were hot and tired and decided to call it a day a couple of hours before the park closed. We missed the Lion King show (but saw it last time) and the Maharajah Jungle Trek (in all the times I’ve been to Animal Kingdom, I’ve never done this). 054 057 058 063More swimming at the hotel on Saturday night to ease into Mother’s Day on Sunday morning!

See, I’ve done it again. Up next – a day off from the parks, a little break from being on the go. We had a nice relaxing Mother’s Day.

xo,

~C~

 

 

 

 

#mcdanfamloveswdw: Day 1

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I have another post sitting in drafts titled “random thoughts” about our recent trip to Disney World. There’s so much swirling around in my mind surrounding the planning and execution of our vacation. I’m a processor. I like to hash it all out and get my thoughts collected in some sort of organized way. The post was turning into a big rambly mess that I know no one would care to follow so it will sit in drafts until I figure out what else to do with it.

Click HERE to see the photos we shared on Instagram from our trip. (or search #mcdanfamloveswdw). On to the fun.

Day 1: Wednesday, May 6th. After having been in the hospital with Dexter less than 1 week earlier, Ryan and I were apprehensive about what could go wrong while we were 1000 miles from home. The 2 things we worried would put a damper on our trip (bad weather and sickness) were non-issues! We’ve had our fair share of illness since then but I am thrilled to say we were all in good health in Florida. My father-in-law dropped us off at the airport. We had a 10:30am flight and got there in plenty of time to let our anticipation build as the boys watched planes land and take off. The beginning of any vacation is such an exciting time.
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I hoped the boys would nap on the plane but they were too excited. By the time we boarded Disney’s Magical Express, they couldn’t hold their eyes open. They wanted to sit together on the bus. They are definitely growing up. It was strange for Ryan and I to be able to sit together in a situation like this. Theo and Dexter are buddies.013

We arrived at our resort mid-afternoon with plans to be at the Magic Kingdom by 4 but things didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. I’d ordered several items from Amazon and it took time to get those to our room. When we got up to our room, our Magic Bands did not work to open the door. Ryan and the boys went back to the check-in lobby while I stood here as time ticked away. I started feeling very frustrated and anxious because I didn’t want to waste a park ticket going to Magic Kingdom for just a couple of hours. The boys were tired – we all were – from traveling all day. We hadn’t eaten lunch. After Ryan returned, I had to go and have my Magic Band reprogrammed, which took up more precious time. We did end up getting to the Magic Kingdom by 5 and as soon as we walked through the gates, all of my stress vanished.017

Theo using his Magic Band to get into the park.019 020 023 024 027

Our first ride, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, was new since our last visit in October 2013. Notorious for long wait times, I made a FastPass+ selection for this prior to our trip. The ride was smooth, fun, and perfectly themed. It was a wonderful start to our adventure. 029

Another top priority on my list was to try Lefou’s Brew -frozen apple juice with a hint of toasted marshmallow, topped with passion-fruit mango whipped cream, from Gaston’s Tavern in New Fantasyland. It was everything I dreamed of and more. YUM. 035

Moment of truth! The majority of rides with height restrictions at Disney World require guests to be 40″ tall. Part of the reason I planned our trip for this time (rather than February 2015) was that I wanted Dexter to have plenty of time to grow. I knew that him being 40″ would make a substantial difference in the number of attractions we’d be able to experience as a family. I had Dexter measured at the doctor’s office with shoes on prior to our vacation and the nurse said he was 40.5″ but I was still nervous. I didn’t know how precise she was or how precise the measuring at Disney would be. There was no doubt, no reason to double-check, tell him to stand up straight. He was over 40″ and he was thrilled! We all were. Throughout our entire trip, I never tired of watching him confidently stand there when cast members asked to check his height. He was proud to be big. As we all stood in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad on that first night, I felt like my heart could burst. Here we were, just the 4 of us, at Walt Disney World. It felt like a dream. And now we were riding big rides together. I wanted this but at the same time, how did we get to this point so fast? My kids are riding roller coasters? What? Granted, we’re talking about Disney roller coasters, but you get my point. 040 043

Sad to say, this is my only picture with the boys in front of Cinderella Castle. We kept meaning to get that traditional, obligatory photo on Main Street but the time was never right. We were only ever on Main Street when people were pouring in or out of the park and I was hoping to get a photo without so many strangers’ butts, faces, shoulders, strollers, and elbows intruding into our special shot. I kept saying “next time,” and then eventually there wasn’t a next time. This will have to do. 052

We hadn’t specified a time we would try to leave but we were all wearing down by 9:30 or 10. It was so hard to leave when wait times for most rides were 5-15 minutes. We ended up staying until after 11pm and rode 13 rides in 5 hours! We stopped to enjoy the parade on our way out. 057

The boys couldn’t stay awake for it. What a big day!058Okay, now I’ve rambled more here than I planned so I think I’ll stop at Day 1 and pick up Day 2 (my birthday at EPCOT) next time.

xo,

~C~