Disney Day 2 - January 7, 2012

Our second day at Disney (Saturday), we had plans to go to the Magic Kingdom.  I mentioned in my last post that I had made Avery an appointment at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Cinderella's Castle for Saturday morning.  This was not something we planned on doing, but once we saw the boutique at Downtown Disney, I knew we had to take Avery.  Especially since she is young and very into princesses right now.  Who knows when we'll go back to Disney so I thought we better do it this time.
Our appointment was at 9:40 so we woke up and caught the bus to the Magic Kingdom. 

Side Note: The whole reason we took this trip is because our good friends that we are in a home group with, the Swanns and the Molocks, already had this trip planned and invited us to go.   Also our friends the Davis' were going to be there.  The reason for the trip was for Adam Swann, Jeff Molock and Josh Davis to run the Disney half marathon.  They are all big runners - Adam has even qualified for the Boston Marathon!  So Saturday morning was the race and they all did great!

Avery wore her Cinderella dress that day.


Here is Avery seeing Cinderella's Castle for the first time!


We got to the boutique a little early and they took us right back.  It was such a neat place!  Everyone treated Avery just like a real princess!


Getting ready for her princess makeover!

 

The package we chose included a princess hairstyle with a tiara and rhinestone Mickey clip, make up, a shash, and plenty of fairy dust!  I was a little worried because Avery does not like getting her hair cut.  She really has to be in the mood to get it done.  But she was very excited about this and did great!  She smiled the whole time!


Getting her hair done.  You should have seen all the gel that was in her hair!



Getting her make up done.  She got to pick out the colors she wanted :)

 

Being sprinkled with fairy dust


You'll notice that the whole time Avery is facing away from the mirror.  When she was done, they got her to sit up straight, cross her legs and hands like a princess, and then turned her around to see herself.


Preparing to see herself as a princess!

 

Seeing herself for the first time!



Her rhinestone Mickey clip

 
This was my favorite part of the whole trip!  I'm so glad we did it.  Seeing Avery enjoy herself so much was priceless.  I'll never forget how she looked that day dressed up like a princess!

While we were at the boutique, they told us where we could go meet the princesses in person before it got too crowded.  So we headed straight there when we left the boutique.  This was Avery's first encounter with Disney characters and I was a little nervous about how she would react.  She's never been a fan of mascots or anything like that so I didn't know if she would be scared.  I think the princesses were a great way to start since they do not have on big costumes.  She of course loved the princesses!  She ran up to all of them and hugged them and talked to them.

The first princess she met, Aurora

 

With Belle, one of her favorites



So excited to meet Cinderella!

 

This is one of my favorite pictures!  Avery likes to look at it and say "There's Cinderella and me dressed like Cinderella!"

 
We spent the rest of the day riding rides and exploring the Magic Kingdom.


Riding the teacups with Daddy and Mr. Adam

  

On the "It's a Small World" ride with Daddy and Mommy

   

Elijah happened to wear his Peter Pan costume the same day that Avery dressed up.  They walked around the park holding hands and people would stop and stare and say how cute they were.  And they were super cute!

 



Laura, Adam, me, Adam, Melissa, Jeff, Mattie, Elijah and Avery


That night, we had dinner reservations at 'Ohana at the Polynesian Resort.  The food is served family style and you don't even have to order!  They bring out salad, vegetables, chicken wings, lo mein noodles, pork dumplings and bread...and those are just the apetizers!  Then they bring chicken, pork, steak and shrimp on big skewers and put whatever you want on your plate.  And it's all you can eat so they just keep coming back with more food!  Then the bring dessert...bread pudding with ice cream!  It was the best meal we had and I highly recommend it.  Just be ready to eat a lot!

The whole group at 'Ohana


When we left 'Ohana, we went back to the Magic Kingdom.  At this point, Avery had had a very exciting day, no nap, and was on a sugar high from eating ice cream at dinner.  So she was WILD!  She was really hilarious.  She had one meltdown (we referred to them that week as "Mickey Meltdowns") when we rode the race cars and she wanted to drive but couldn't because she was too small.  She spent the whole ride crying and trying to push me out of the car so she could drive.  We knew it was time to go at that point!  Afterward, she cried for a little while, then she was fine :)  


Here she is hugging the wall when we arrived back at the Magic Kingdom.  I guess she was really glad to be back!

 

The castle lit up at night

 

Avery dancing!  There was a dance party going on and the girl can break it down when she wants to!

 



One last picture before bed


Adam gave her a bath that night and he said the water just rolled off of her hair because there was so much gel in it.  And there was "fairy dust" (glitter) all over our stuff for days!  But it was probably my favorite day of the whole week.  It was perfect!

Disney Day 1 - January 6, 2012

I need to hurry up and document all of the details of our Disney trip!  We had such a great time and did so many things.  So it will take me a little while to document everything.  I think it will be easiest to do it one day at a time!

Day one started very early!  Our flight left Birmingham at 7:00 a.m. so we left our house at about 4:00 a.m.  We met up with our friends and headed to the airport!  I have to say that I am very glad that we decided to fly and highly recommend it!  Southwest has direct flights from Birmingham to Orlando and if you catch it at the right time you can gets tickets for as little as $59 each way.  So it can be very budget friendly as well.  Disney also made flying very easy!  We checked our bags in Birmingham and the next time we saw them they were being delivered to our hotel room at Disney World!  No baggage claim hassles!

We printed our boarding passes the day before, so all we had to do when we got to the airport was check our bags and go through security.  All of that went very smoothly.  Before we knew it, it was time to board the plane.



Elijah, Mattie and Avery at the Birmingham airport

 This was Avery's first time to fly and I was a little nervous about it.  But she loved it!  We boarded the plane and took off right on time.  Avery loves watching the Little Einsteins and if you have ever seen it, you will know what I am talking about.  When we were taking off, she started patting hers legs and saying, "Pat, pat, pat, pat..." and the she said "Blastoff!" just like the Little Einsteins do when they take off in Rocket!  Taking off didn't phase her one bit!  Then as soon as it was safe to unbuckle our seatbelts, she climbed in my lap and went to sleep.  She woke up right before we got ready to land.  The flight is only 1 1/2 hours from Birmingham so we had enough time to get some peanuts and a drink and then it was time to land.  The whole flight was very smooth.

We landed in sunny Orlando at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.  Since we didn't have to get our bags, we headed straight for Disney's Magical Express.  This is the bus that took us to our resort.  It was only about a 30 minute bus ride from the airport.

We stayed at Disney's Pop Century resort.  It is one of the value resorts and it was very nice.  When you go to Disney World, you don't spend a whole lot of time in your hotel room, so we weren't looking for anything fancy.  It was a little farther away from some of the parks than the more expensive resorts, but it worked great for us.  Different sections of the resort are themed for different decades.  We styed in the 1950's.

We stayed at the resort for a little while and I let Avery take a nap (one of only 2 naps she took the entire week!).  Then we headed to Downtown Disney that afternoon.

Downtown Disney has a lot of stores and restaurants.  There's a Lego store, World of Disney, which is a HUGE store with anything Disney you could ever want, a Ghiradelli Chocolate store, and much more.  It's a fun place to walk around, try different things and buy souvenirs.  This is also where I saw the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and decided to make reservations for Avery at the one in Cinderella's Castle for the next day (stayed tuned for pictures...she was so cute!)



Let the Memories Begin!  Avery and Daddy at Downtown Disney.

 

In front of the Lego dragon

 

Buzz and Woody made out of Legos


 We had dinner reservations that night at T-Rex.  (Word of advice...it is recommended you make dinner reservations up to 6 months in advance at Disney World restaurants.)  T-Rex is a dinosaur version of the Rainforest Cafe.  The decor was amazing!  And every 20 minutes or so all of the dinosaurs would start roaring.  It was actually a little scary for the younger kids.  Avery really didn't care for that part.  But the food was great!  I would definitely recommend it.




Me, Laura, Meghann and Melissa at T-Rex

 After dinner, we walked around some more and got some treats at the Ghiradelli store.  Adam got hot chocolate, I got salted caramel hot chocolate, and Avery got some chocolate squares.  It was the perfect end to a great day!

DISNEY!

It's finally here!  Tomorrow at 7:00 am we will board a flight to Disney World!  We are so excited about this vacation.  Avery is very excited as well.  When we ask her where we're going, she'll say, "Disney World!"  Then we'll ask her who we're going to see there and she'll say, "Princesses, a BIG castle, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Goofy, Chip and Dale, and Pluto!"  She's so funny!

I never thought we would take Avery when she was this young, but when the opportunity arose, we couldn't pass it up.  And since Avery is still 2, everything is free for her at Disney! 

To prepare for Disney and help get Avery excited, we went to Disney on Ice in November in Birmingham.  It was a really good show.  They did The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Lilo and Stitch, and Peter Pan. 

Disney, here we come!

Doing the hula with Lilo and Stitch

 

Blowing kisses to Mickey and Minnie



Felt and Fancy

Is anyone else somewhat addicted to Pinterest like I am??  It's a great website with great ideas...recipes, organizing, crafts, fashion...just about anything you can think of.  I have a crafty side to me, so I started looking for different crafts that I could do.  Several friends and I decided to get together and have a craft night one night.  My friend Laura and I had seen some cute wreaths on Pinterest so we decided we wanted to make wreaths.  We had each made one for our homes already, so we decided to make one to send to our friend Rebecca who is working at an orphanage in China.

Melissa, Laura, me and Meghann at our craft night.  We are holding the wreath that we sent to Rebecca.

We kind of joked that night that we should start making and selling wreaths.  Well, a few days later, Laura told me that she found out about a craft show in our area and so we decided to give it a try!  So Felt and Fancy was born!

We worked really hard and made a lot of wreaths for the craft show.  We also made yarn wrapped letters and hair clips.  We had fun at the craft show and actually made a profit, so we were happy about that!  We have decided to stick with it and do some more craft shows.  We also have a Facebook page where we sell our wreaths.  This project has been a lot of fun and I hope we will continue it for a while.  I know a lot of people are making different crafts for their home, but I know that some people just are not crafty or they do not have time or patience to spend making crafts.  So those are the people that we hope will like and buy our items.  I will leave you with some pictures.

Laura and I at the craft show

Some of our hair clips

Harvestfest and Other Fall Pictures

Our church, Harvestfield, had a Fall festival the weekend after Halloween.  It's called Harvestfest.  It's set up in the parking lot of the church and it was so much fun!  There were tons a games that Avery could play and win prizes, there was a cake walk, pumpkin painting and a chili cookoff. 



Participating in the cake walks.  We won a yummy cake!



Throwing an Angry Bird



Blowing bubbles

 

Throwing the bean bag.  She has a good arm!




Even Daddy got in on the action!

Another highlight of Fall was attending a baby shower for one of my childhood best friends.  Lindy and I met when we were about 5 years old at Scenic Pool.  We instantly became good friends and have remained that way ever since.   Lindy lives in Mississippi now and I don't see her very often.  So I was very happy to get a chance to see her and catch up at her beautiful baby shower.  Her little boy, Davis is due in January!

One thing that we are very grateful for is our church.  Harvestfield has been a huge blessing for us as a family.  We have made great friends there and enjoy going there to worship every Sunday.  Avery loves going to church and usually doesn't want to leave!   One thing Avery loves to do is the get on stage and sing in the microphones.  She usually does this after church or during band practice, but I hope that one day she will be able to sing in church just like her Daddy!




Is this thing on??