Magic Kingdom- 1st Day in the Parks

Our first day in the parks, we went to the Magic Kingdom.  IT was decorated for Halloween.  We got there before it opened and were able to get a few pictures.  Mom was probably as excited or more excited than the girls.

Here we are outside the gate,  getting our stuff organized.

And then Mickey came riding on the train.  They are not sure what to expect and it is all a little overwhelming.

The park opens and we are off.  The first thing we ride on is one of the oldest- the horse drawn trolley.

Here is our horse to pull us down Main Street.  i'm glad we got to do this first as I don't see the horses out very much anymore.

So far Sasha is having fun.  This is her speed of a ride.

The castle!  Our first pictures and few people are down here yet.

Then off to Dumbo.  We went there first, but there was still a slow moving line.

This was our Dumbo.  We all three had to fit inside here.  They couldn't go by themselves.

So far all smiles.   They liked this ride a lot, but it is so hard to get on and the line is so long, we only did it once.

Then we headed to one of Mom's favorite ride.  Winnie the Pooh.  This is his house.

` And into the ride.  A few frowns in the scary rainy part, but mostly they liked this one.

Of course, we had to ride the carousel.

Sasha wanted a pink princess horse.

Then off tomore rides and our first character- Donald Duck.  No fears here.  They didn't really like the Big Thunder Mountain.  Sasha said it ws too fast and bouncy.

Sasha wasn't ready for the princess and prince characters yet.  Leeza however has no fear.

We went to lunch at Crystal Palace. Both girls really liked it, but it was hard to get them to eat anything as characters kept coming around every 5 minutes or so.

Eeyore is mom's favorite.

We had the whole cast of WInnie the Pooh come by the table.  Then we acutally ate a little before round two.

By this time, they were really warmed up to the characters and were high 5ing them and hugging them. 

Then it was parade time.  By the time the parade showed up, some people had pushed in and squished Leeza out of her seat.  At least with the stroller, no one could push it away.

 Ariel, Prince Eric and Princess Leeza.

 Sasha almost got brave enough to go up there, but changed her mind at the very last moment.  Run Sasha Run.

 It took forever to get through the line to Tinkerbell's area,  This is Vidalia and the girls

 You were supposed to feel like you had shrunk to fairy size, but I don't think the girls got it. They really didn't know Tinkerbell that well from stories so they just got their autographs and looked at all the stuff on the tables.

Sasha and Mommy at the entrance to Adventure Land.  We were getting tired and Leeza refused to get out of the stroller so it was just us two.  We headed back to the hotel to eat and then go swimming.  It was a great first day at Disney World.

Off to Disney

 We are off to Disney to celebrate our 2 year Family Day and Sahsa's 4th birthday.  We flew out of Bloomington with a direct flight to Orlando.  The flight was uneventful until the very end.  Leeza and Sasha were looking out of the window as we descended.  I think watching the building and things made Leeza's motion sickness appear because without warning, she threw up all over herself.  I was trying to clean her up with baby wipes as the plane landed.  I took her shirt off and put the only top on her that I had- a long sleeve sweat shirt to go with Florida's heat and humidity.  As soon as we got our luggage, I changed her into a cooler shirt but it ws a long hot walk to baggage claim.

 The first day was travel day so I made reservations at T-Rex that night.  We checked into the Carribean Beach Resort and dropped our bags in our room and off we went.  T Rex is like Rainforest Cafe, but with dinosaurs.

 Outside the restaurant.

 We ate in the ice room which was suppose to be like the ice age, I guess.

 Lots of different dinos and occasional meteor showers.

 The girls were not sure if they wanted to touch the baby mammoth or not.

The food was decent, but everyone was a little tired so we headed back to the hotel to get ready for an early start tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Sasha

 Happy 4th Birthday my little Sasha.  Mommy loves you very much!!  This was the cupcake cake we took to daycare.  The party there was animals.  Animal masks, animal rings, tattoos, puppets, napkins, plates, ......

 Sasha wanted puppies at home.  So puppy decorations it was.

 The 3 way noise makers were a hit.  They were also pretty noisey.

 Puppy paw print balloons are amust for every puppy birthday party.

 Lots of presents from mom and family.  The pink pile is Sasha's.  The purple is Leeza.  She still gets a few presents.  They got leappads whcih they really liked.  And a car race track from mom and train track from Grandma and Grandpa.  They were also a hit.

 We are getting ready to go to Disney in a week.  You have to have princess dresses to go there!  Complete with crown and wand.  Leeza got Aurora(sleeping beauty/pink).  Sasha got Cinderella's wedding dress.

 The princesses opening their gifts. 

 Sasha has the whole opening presents thing down and is really good at doing it quickly.

 The Princess Leeza in her pink princess dress.

 THe two princesses playing with their race track.  Leeza wore her dress most of the day.

 I took Sasha to Krogers to pick out any birthday cake she wanted.  Once she saw the Batman cake, it was all over.  despite my attempts, she could not be talked into a cute animal cake or anything else.  She had the cute cake at daycare and the BLUE frosting cake at home.  it was really blue.

The paw print balloons were a hit and one of her favorite toys of the day.                                                   



 

The cake was good and the blue frosting made our fingers turn blue.  Yes, that is another crown.  You must have a lot of crowns if you are 4.

Pumpkins

We made this years trip to the pumpkin patch last weekend.  It is in Arthur about 30 miles away. 

 The girls had a good time.  Lots of opportunity to take photos.  And lots of pumpkins.

 Yes, we are getting tall.Leeza is 42 going on43 inches.  Sasha is at 39.5.

 The princess pretending to be Cinderella.

 They had no problems figuring out the smaller mazes this year.  This one is a broom corn maze.

 This one is the sunflower maze.  Do you notice Leeza is always running?  She rarely walks anywhere.

 Then we went out to the fields to pick pumpkins.  these were a little big for us.

 We ended up with 5 pumpkins.  2 for each of the girls and one for mom.  At least I got one.  They hauled them out of the patch themselves,  they like taking the pumpkins right from the vines.

 It took both of them to move the wagon once it was full.  the pumpkins were heavy.

 There goes Leeza running through another maze.  This one I went through the first time and then I was sent to the park bench outside while they did it themselves.  You can see a little of Sasha at the corner.

 Coming out the exit and going around for another turn.

 We decided to brave the haunted house this year.

 When you pushed the button, the witch took her head off.  Sasha had fun pushing the button, but Leeza wasn;t quite sure.

If you look close, there is a werewolf crawling out of a log.

Once we got home, we used Mr potato head parts(large size for pumpkins) for the small ones.  Sasha did the pirate.  Leeza did the witch.  We haven't carved the large pumpkins yet.  Maybe tomorrow.

Full Circle Now

Now that it is almost October, they FINALLY got the girls school straightened out.  Sasha is offically back in the Pershing preschool at her day care.  They finally got all the paperwork done.  It had to go all the way to the capital in Springfield to get approval.  Pretty stupid.  We almost got busted sneaking her in though.  The music teacher who comes one day a week to the daycare preschool was Leeza's substitute teacher for a couple months last year and we see her at swimming every Saturday.  A few weeks ago, she was mentioning how she saw Sasha in the preschool class and asked how Leeza was doing and I mentioned that Leeza was having issues with the bus.  I quickly stopped talking since I didn;t want to bring up why she couldn't ride the bus.  I just found out she had later asked Sasha's preschool teacher what the issue was with Leeza's bus.  Oops.  Good thing is is all worked out now before she says anything to anyone else.
Leeza also started preschool at daycare in the afternoons.  They had told me early in the year that this was not possible.  But now it is.Why?  I don't know.  So she goes to preschool and gets her speech therapy each week.  She does have to skip her afternoon nap which has meant a lot of meltdowns at night, but we will see how that goes.  They do the little kids in the morning and the older in the afternoon so if she switches to morning(she and Sasha would have to trade places) she would not be learning new stuff.  And this is PRESCHOOL.  How complicated is grade school or high school going to be???