Disney - Day 1

We woke up the girls on Sunday morning bright and early and surprised them with the news we were going to DisneyWorld! They were a little groggy and it took a few minutes for it all to sink in. Morgan is very slow to wake up, but her major concern was that Elsa was going to freeze her when we got there. They perked up pretty fast and were so excited!

Our flight was delayed almost 1.5 hours due to a door not closing issue. Talk about a bummer, especially with two kiddos that couldn't wait to get in the air and get to our destination. We were on the plane the whole time, too. Morgan did surprisingly well considering she hates sitting! But, I had packed them each a backpack full of toys, so she was happy. The flight was smooth, other than that. Morgan played the entire flight. Avery napped for about half of the flight.

Morgan's set up - lots of ponies!

We took the shuttle to the hotel from the airport. Morgan could barely keep her eyes open! She finally crashed and got a little power nap in.

Excited to get going to the hotel

And just a few minutes later... she's out!

We dropped our bags off in our room and then grabbed a late lunch at the hotel. We stayed at the Grand Floridian. We picked that hotel because it was on the monorail and this being our first trip, we wanted the convenience of being close to MK. We did the meal plan, which ended up working really well for us.

On Sunday night, we had dinner at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary hotel. I forgot to take the girls' autograph books with us to dinner. Oops! I didn't think they'd get into the whole autograph thing, but they really did. Anyway, both girls started off a little leery of the characters. But, they eventually warmed up! Morgan warmed up faster than Avery, which I totally expected.

Had to pick Morgan up to get a picture with Goofy; Avery watched

Morgan posed with Donald without any problems

Donald stood behind Avery for a picture - smart!

Morgan loved Pluto - and a photo bomb by Mickey

Avery got a little braver

We caught the electric boat parade from our balcony at the hotel, which was really loud! We had a lagoon view and if we looked to the left around a tree, we could see castle and MK and the fireworks. We were in room 8237 in the Boca Chica building. Our hotel had a huge Christmas tree in the lobby.

Thanksgiving

We had a busy few days during the Thanksgiving holiday! My parents came up for the long weekend. The girls enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa staying with us. G and G got a makeover when they arrived! I think my dad's face looked sunburned for a little while after this makeover! Ha!

The girls helped Grandma make an apple pie for Aunt Erin. They really love helping out in the kitchen. Luckily, Grandma is very patient! :)

On Thanksgiving, Matt spatchcocked the turkey in the green egg. Here he is getting it all ready to go!

We all got dressed up in our Thanksgiving outfits and took a few pictures. Morgan loves this silly turkey hat and wanted to wear it for a while, while gobbling of course.

The finished product and the proud chef!

That's pretty much the extent of the pictures I have from Thanksgiving. I forgot to take any pictures of the table or cute place cards Avery made for everyone. Whoops!

On Friday morning, we went to Oakbrook mall and had a visit with Santa. We also grabbed snack at Stan's donuts - hot chocolate and assortment of yummy treats! We tried to explain to the girls that Grandpa's name was also Stan.

At the Santa experience, they have the "naughty and nice book" that you can pre-register for. The kids put their hand on it (and you enter their special code) and they find out if they are on the naughty or nice list. The girls got a kick out of it and thought it was really neat that Santa "knew" what they wanted for Christmas and what their favorite colors were. :)

Avery started off as usual being a little scared of getting too close to Santa. She didn't want to sit on the chair, but was ok standing next to him.

This Santa was really calm and nice and Avery warmed up to him really quickly. It also helped that we were the only ones there at the time. So, we had plenty of time. In fact, Santa even did magic tricks for the girls while I was checking out.

 Morgan talked Santa's ear off! She had a lot to say and is never shy!

On Friday afternoon, we had the entire Wilken crew over for the Iowa game and some brisket - our green egg got a lot of use over Thanksgiving! Since it was nice outside, the kids got some outdoor time while it was still light.

Then, when it got too dark to see, we headed inside and the kids took over the basement. Lots of craziness!

There was a steady game of Euchre going on for most of the night. This was Matt and Brian vs Spencer and Barry.

Erin kept the kiddos busy in the basement playing a version of charades.

Sabrina and Ella loved all the costumes, make-up and jewelry the girls had.

More Euchre... this time Ross and Brett vs Brian and Spencer. I think the turkey hat brought Brian good luck!

We let the kids eat first... this may have been the only time it was quiet the whole time!

Then, the guys all inspected the brisket. I love this picture... it's like they are all ready to dig in!

Aunt Erin got out the face painting kit and all the kids got some pretty fun faces!

Here they are showing off their faces (L to R: Grayson, Oliver, Avery, Sabrina, Morgan and Ella).

For most the night, it was Grayson, Oliver and Morgan (here playing trains) and then Avery, Sabrina and Ella (playing dress up). The kids had a lot of fun playing together... and surprisingly no one was hurt or bleeding during the night!

Artwork

I've mentioned this before, but we get loads of artwork from Avery's day at school every night. I like to ask her the story behind her pictures. When I first saw this one, I thought for sure I was the tall one and Matt was the shorter of the two "adults" in the picture. But, I was wrong! Avery told me that the blue person is Morgan because her favorite color is blue. The purple is Avery because her favorite color is purple. I'm the green and Matt is the brown. We are all getting ready to swim. Avery is the only one wearing a bikini. Morgan and I have one piece suits on. And Matt is wearing swim trunks. The little blue area on the left is the pool. :)

Cirque du Soliel

We took the girls to see the Cirque du Soleil show Crystal, the ice version of Cirque. The performers did gymnastics on the ice, pretty cool. We started off the show with one of the characters coming to our row and handing us all snowballs to throw. :)

The show was surprisingly long at two hours. I thought most Cirque shows were 90 minutes. The girls were getting a little antsy and hungry towards the end. The cotton candy and pretzel could only hold them for so long! ;) But, they really enjoyed the music and craziness and all the different characters.

Leaves

We raked up the leaves and the girls had fun jumping and running through them! It was definitely chillier this year that last!

Babysitting

We switched babysitting nights with the Wilkens. We watched all the kids at their house on our night. The kids had a blast! It was kind of craziness most of the night until the little boys went to bed. I think Matt and I are glad we don't have 5 kids under the age of 5... it would be exhausting! :) 

DeezNuts Reunion

A long time ago (way before kids!), a group of friends were on a volleyball team called DeezNuts. :) Recently, a few of us reunited for drinks and dinner. It's been such a long time since we've seen each other. It was fun to reminisce about old times and catch up on everyone's lives now!

Eric, me, Hany and Brandon