Celebrating Elo - Magic Kingdom style

I know it sounds crazy but we live in Orlando & our kids have never been to Disney World....well until last Thursday : ) We had been debating on where we should take Eloise for her birthday.  Following nearly three months with much of our time devoted to the two newest members of family, we felt the need to do something extra special with the big sisters. A sweet friend of ours works for Disney & offered to get us into Magic Kingdom for the day. We were SO excited to share the news with the girls. We gave them their new Minnie shirts(first sewing project in a loooong time) the night before & told them what our plans were for the next morning. Charlotte's jaw dropped which was funny because she really had no frame of reference when imagining what it must be but boy she was excited! This meant that Eloise was excited too since she likes to be just like her sister.

We rode the ferry over from the transit center which is my favorite way to see Cinderella's Castle come into view.  We met Jasmine, got our tickets & headed down main street for the iconic family photo. 

We went straight thru the castle to Fantasy Land where we hit up It's a Small World After All, picked up some fast passes for Winnie the Pooh & headed over to Dumbo.  I was really excited to ride this with the girls & we were pleased to find that the wait time was short. Nonetheless, we got a few pictures while we waited for our turn.

We were excited when they said all four of us could ride in one elephant with the kids on our laps. I didn't want to miss out on their reactions. I was trying to take a couple of picture when the ride attendant told me I needed to stop. I was so busy that I didn't hear him & Robby had to say it again ; ) I wish I could have taken a video of sweet Eloise riding Dumbo on her second birthday.  No one told her to but that girl lifted her arms straight up in the air & kept them there the entire time! I'm not sure she even smiled but she knew how to increase the thrill haha! 

After Dumbo we we went over to hop in a Hunny Pot & enjoy the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This is one of my favorite rides, in fact on my 26th birthday when I was huge pregnant with Charlotte, I requested that Rob take me to Magic Kingdom to ride it : ) The girls have enjoyed the Winnie & Tigger movies & we have read a bit of the classic book so it was all familiar looking to them. They enjoyed it!

she had fun but was maybe a bit unsure about it ; ) 

The girls were getting a little tired & hungry at this point so they hitched a ride on Daddy back to the stroller. He didn't mind at all!

I had packed us a lunch so we grabbed a table in Tomorrow Land & "refueled" as I call it. It sure improved morale! Our next ride was Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. Char's face cracks me up in this picture...she was so serious the entire ride! I think she got 1000 points as she shot her laser at the targets. 

After we finished that ride I took a walk over to the baby care center to take care of business in the nursing mothers room or as Robby said " to nurse my robot baby" that sounds like this..."wah wah wah."  While I was gone they got on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority.  This is a people mover system that travels around on the "second story" of all the rides in Tomorrow Land. It goes through Space Mountain in complete darkness for a couple minutes. When they were in the light again, Rob looked down to find Eloise asleep! It was about that time. I am pretty sure he loved every second of his baby girl snoozing on his shoulder. 

She took a quick hiatus from his shoulder while Charlotte begged us to ride the Transit Authority one more time.

We decided why not ride the ride with no wait three times in a row?! Charlotte was the happiest rider aboard & would not allow us to sit next to her...

 But then I convinced her to let me get my picture taken with her ; ) 

The ride zoomed around pretty quickly & we did not have seat belts. Char kept sliding across her seat & started doing some silly poses. Robby said "What has that girl been looking at? The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition?!" Haha!

Sleepytime for Eloise was a great opportunity for me & Char to ride The Great Goofini Barnstormer roller coaster. We love a good roller coaster! Here we are going up..

It was special to have some moments with Charlotte while sissy was asleep. This was after she had been exclaiming how much fun she had on the roller coaster. 

She is getting the hang of taking a picture with my big camera (strap around her neck & always seated). 

During the first year of living in Florida, the happy couple pictured above had annual passes. We spent many an evening at the parks & really enjoyed our time.  We avoided going on busy days for the most part & were accustomed to pretty much walking onto rides & not sweating.  We could decide on a whim that we would leave Epcot & head over to Hollywood Studios to binge ride Tower of Terror 9 times.  We took books with us to Animal Kingdom, picked up a hot tea & spent a Saturday morning reading among the pretty surroundings. We commented on all the parenting skills we observed because you know, we were really good parents before we were parents ; ) 

Fast forward to 2013. I could hardly wait to go with our children & thought they were the perfect ages for a first trip. The girls did great, we enjoyed ourselves but it was hot & there were a lot of people there. We did have some hard laughs due to my husband's comedy king like commentary. We walked up to the castle & the first thing we heard a mom say very meanly "You better smile or I am going to spank your butt." Hahaha! I mean really, isn't the Magic Kingdom supposed to be the happiest place on earth? Not long after we witnessed a family with all sons walking past us where the Dad said "I know son, there's a lot of things I don't want to do either but we started Fantasy Land as a family & we are going to finish Fantasy Land as a family!" We heard so many hilarious things parents said to their children...it kept us well entertained.  As we dodged oncoming  traffic, we decided that Disney was a breeding ground for zombies with strollers.  No one could walk in a straight line.! At one point Robby told me he thought I got bit as I kept bumping into the stroller ; ) 

Over all, we really enjoyed our day with the girls but felt like we were constantly saying, "get in the stroller," "hold my hand," please don't touch that again," "scoot back before you run into the person in front of you. as I write this I realize that I say the majority of those things often on a regular day but even more so in that environment. We laughed when Rob said that he thought the girls would equally enjoy playing at the park down the street. My stress level skyrocketed upon our arrival home which I accredit partially to our time at Disney... more on that in "Celebrating Elo- Home style." But for now, here is the birthday girl saying "Cheese" irritatingly at the happiest place on earth. 

A HUGE thanks to the Ziel family for making our day away possible by watching Owen & Anson.  My dear friend Cathy & her children Anna, Clara & Alex spent 8 hours at our house loving on the boys....and from what I hear, they got a lot of lovin'!