Disney, Day 2!

This was our first full day at Disney, and man was it jam-packed!  We squeezed a lot of fun into our days on this trip, while making sure the chickies still had their beauty rest. ;)

We got up early for our 7:40 reservation at Chef Mickey's!  Reagan was ready to roll, in her Minnie gear.

 Reagan, Reilly and I may have had all matching Minnie shirts on.  We just had to.  I remembered Chef Mickey's from the first time I went to Disney, so we were all really excited.

 I was not sure how Reagan (or Reilly for that matter) would react to the characters.  In the past, Reilly has loved them from afar, but not wanted to get really close to them.  But this trip, she really turned a corner!  She LOVED everyone we met!  I think it was all the excitement, and also the amount of personality the characters showed.  They were very enthusiastic and sweet, it was like they were talking. 

 Here is Reagan baby blowing kisses to Goofy!  He was so sweet.

 Reilly Belle doing the same!

 Reilly kept addressing the fact that they weren't talking - she would say, "Mommy, they can talk, we just can't understand what they are saying.  But when the princesses talk, we can understand them, so that's why we can hear them."  She is so funny, she had to make sense out of the fact that they were walking around silently!

 Precious Reagan meeting Mickey!

 With Grandma and Grandpa!

 Sweet girl, she was so excited.

 Family with Mickey!  (At this point, none of us had eaten yet!  I didn't want to miss any characters, and they started coming full speed the second we walked in.  It was a delicious buffet, once we finally ran and got some!)

 I just love her face in this one.

Reagan loved Minnie too!  All the girls with the lady.

 Pluto, neither of them were too thrilled with.  Here is Reagan making sure he wasn't going to eat her up.  I think it was his giant open mouth. :)

After our first trip to the Magic Kingdom, Reilly was asking and asking when she was going to meet the princesses.  So we knew it had to be our first stop on Tuesday morning!  We went straight to Fast-Pass the Ariel ride (which had the longest wait in the park every day, being the newest ride - 80-90 minutes by peak time!), and went right on line to meet her at her grotto.  I brought Reilly's Ariel shirt that I made her for her birthday so she could be in her full gear to meet her favorite lady. :)

 Look at her sweet face!  They talked about her shirt and Flounder and how much Reilly loved her. :)

 Little angels..you can tell how hot it was, look at their glow!  We used our spray fan a lot that day, boy.

After we met Ariel, we went and rode Ariel's ride right away.  Since it was so early, there was barely any wait!  Reilly and Reagan both loved it.  We sat in a shell, and they took you through every scene, with every song and character included.  It was so colorful and sparkly, and the technology involved was just amazing.  Plus, we all got to go on the same shell!  I loved that since they were both "lap" sized, they let us all ride together.  We didn't have to split up for even one ride.  That made for lots of family memories.  Then, since we had the fast pass, we jumped right back on her ride for a second time!  I was so happy we had an Ariel-filled morning to kick off our trip - and so was the little princess. :)

 We caught these ladies singing and dancing outside Belle's castle, and Reilly thought they were royalty and needed to go meet them.  They were so sweet!

 We also hit up the Dumbo ride, which Reilly thought we could ride twice as well!  I wish the ride was a bit longer, she had fun going up and down.

This brought us to about noon - and with 2 very hot, very sleepy babes.  They still hadn't caught up from our travel day the day before.  We knew up front that we would have to go with the flow on this trip, and not push the girls too far.  So we took their cue and headed back to the hotel for naptime and some air conditioning, while Grandma and Grandpa stayed on in the park for a while.

Before we left the park, we of course had to get some ice cream from the shop on Main Street.  It was so sweltering, that the ice cream started melting before we even left the shop.  Like, dripping all over our hands and turning to soup in 60 seconds!  I couldn't believe it.  It didn't affect anyone's fun though, Reilly still loved her Mickey cone.  We also got a really cute family picture in front of the castle, where Reagan gave her cheese face!  You could tell how drenched and hot we all are, which is part of the memory. :)

 We had a first floor room, which made napping much easier.  The girl went in for naps, and we sat outside on our patio.  This was right outside our sliding doors on the lawn.  It was nice because while they were napping, we could take turns going to the bathroom at the main lobby, getting snacks (read: Dole Whip), or checking out the Gift Shops.  We weren't trapped by naptime, so that was nice!  Plus, we had a nice spot in the sunshine surrounded by palm trees - not a bad view!

 Here are the girls after they woke up, bathed and ready for dinner.  :)

 It was a little stormy looking when we were leaving (it rained in the afternoon for about an hour every day, and then stopped and was beautiful every night), so we gave Reilly her new poncho!  She loved it.  It's from Target, not from the parks- money saver!

 

We had a "photo shoot" and a dance party while we waited for our table at the Prime Time Cafe. Who needs an iphone - never underestimate the distracting capabilities of a camera. :)

 Reagan wanted to join in on the fun!

 This was an awesome meal (as always!).  I had chicken pot pie, and s'mores for dessert, with the most amazing all natural lemonade.  So delish.  here is Reilly and Daddy, with her souvenir Ariel cup from her "Ariel Punch"!  It doesn't take much to thrill her!

 That night, the grandparents stayed in since they didn't get a rest that afternoon.  So we put Reagan to bed since she is the sleep lover, and took Reilly out for the Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom!  It was just Mommy, Daddy and Reilly time.  This was one of my favorite memories of the trip - because Reilly knew how special it was.  We surprised her with a Strawberry milk, and set off on the monorail!

 We went to the Magic Kingdom just in time for the fireworks show.  Reilly was SO excited, and kept saying, "I'm getting to stay up extra late, because I'm being SUCH a good girl!"  It was so cute.

 We were all wired on Disney energy that night!  Nothing was stopping us three!

 She was in awe of the fireworks, and naturally I cried.  It was amazing.  The songs in the background were so beautiful, they had princesses and other Disney characters saying famous lines from the movies.  Reilly would hear a princess voice, and immediately know who it was.  The theme was "Wishes" so it was all about your wishes coming true.  It was so moving.  And she loved seeing Tink fly!

 Then we saw this guy at the Silhouette stand, and decided we needed to have her silhouette done!  It's so classic and old-fashioned looking, and what a perfect souvenir from our trip to remember exactly how little they were when we went. (We got Reagan's done the next day too - I'm in love with them!)

 We passed by the Fairies meet and greet, which had a 60 minute wait earlier.  Well, at 10:45 at night, go figure, it was empty!  We got some awesome one-on-one chat time with Tink and her friend in their adorable fairy-land.  Tinkerbell was so sweet, and became one of Reilly's favs on this trip.

 So sweet.

Well, it was after midnight by the time we rode Alladin's magic carpet, Pirate's of the Carribean (no waits), caught the lights parade, and finally made it back to our room!  Reilly was skipping and singing and still didn't want to go to bed!  It was so funny.  But this is when The Tired began to set in for me.  My goodness, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, and be aching as I walked to the bathroom.  My feet ached, my calves ached.  The long long hours, combine with the pregnancy, put such a strain on my poor feet!  I was happy to be off them at the end of every day, and wished I had a stroller by the end!  But stopping was not an option - we had more to see!  Day 3 was when we had lunch with ALL the princesses...

Disney World!!

 We just got back from 5 days in Disney World!!  Hubby's parents took us, and we had the most amazing time. We made some wonderful memories, got very little rest, and pretty much made all of Reilly's dreams come true. ;)

We stayed at the Polynesian resort, which we absolutely loved.  It was right on the monorail, so we could jump right on (with the stroller - very key!), and head right over the parks.  We spent most of out time in the Magic Kingdom, since we are all about everything Princess, so this made it very easy.  Besides that, the hotel was gorgeous.  The tropical gardens and waterfalls were beautiful to wake up to every morning.  Reilly caught on very quickly that all of the staff members say "Aloha!" whenever you pass them, so she said, "Aloha!" to every single housekeeper, groundskeeper, waiter, cashier, or concierge that crossed her path. 

I have so many memories to share!  Here is a taste of Day 1..

We woke the girls at 4:30 (Reilly actually woke herself and climbed in bed with me...she was so excited!), to get to our flight at 8:00.  We flew out of Philly, and stayed with Hubby's cousins the night before (a whole other post on what a fun Father's Day we had at their house!).  Our flight was smooth, the girls were great.  Reagan slept for a little, Reilly was OVERJOYED.  She was obsessed with the idea of flying, not at all scared.  She was jumping and shouting "WOO HOO!" when we took off from the ground.  I cried when I saw how excited she was, she couldn't believe what was happening.

 The girls while were are checking in!  Aloha!

 Our rooms weren't ready yet, so we gave our bags to the valet, grabbed some waters and snacks from our groceries that I had delivered, and heading right over to the Magic Kingdom!  I mean, why not?  We jumped right in!

 My girls and I with Cinderella's castle!

We stumbled upon a parade almost as soon as we entered the park!  It was so fun, Reilly was all excited right away.

 So excited!! Then we had to take Reagan to get changed, so we headed to the baby changing area.  I remember being so overwhelmed right away by the heat.  I LOVE being hot, and despise the cold, but let me tell you...this. was. HOT.  All week was the same way, and man did I feel bad for the kiddos.  The were little troopers though.  We drank water like camels, and I started putting Reilly's hair up wet everyday which helped keep her cool. We took Reagan's bottoms off as soon as we got there, so she was just wearing her little tank/dress.  I had Hubby go get some ice creams while I took the girls to the bathroom, and I remember while walking to the changing area, we passed a fountain and I doused the girls heads with water!  I'm telling you...it was stifling.  Poor Rea Rea had beads of sweat on her nose instantly.  Thank goodness for our spray fan! (Which, by the way, we were spraying on ourselves at MIDNIGHT watching fireworks. I can't even express the kind of hot this was!)

After our Mickey ice creams melted all over us while we made an attempt at eating them, we went on "It's a Small World".  The girls loved it!  Reagan was pointing to everything saying "Look!", loving all the colors and dancing dolls.

After Small World, we went to see Mickey's Philharmagic.  I have loved this one since I first saw it, and I knew Reilly would be obsessed.  She's never been to a movie theater, and didn't even know what 3D meant. Not to mention, some of her favorite movies were in this show!  Well, let me tell you.  She could have been in a Disney advertisement for this ride.  She was hysterical laughing, completely in awe, and DIVING out of her seat to grab the 3D objects moving toward her!  She almost grabbed the woman in front of her like 6 times.  When something went flying toward her, she would turn around to see where it went. Perfect age for that kind of magic.

Then, we went on Pirates of the Carribean!  We saw Peter Pan the night before we came, so she loved the whole pirate idea.  She was very unsure about "the cloud with the Pirate in it", which she closed her eyes for, but the rest of it she loved!  She sang along and giggled at the pirate's stinky feet.  Reagan, again, was pointing and wide-eyed throughout the ride.  It was so cute.

 After we left Pirates...we saw this in the stroller.  I think this was 30 seconds after we buckled them in.  Maybe 45. Haha.

 Successful first afternoon at the park!  Let's get napped!

We went back to the hotel and sat outside on the balcony while the girls napped.  We had a 5:40 dinner reservation, so it wasn't long before we were back on that monorail heading to our fav place again!

 We ate at the Liberty Tree Tavern in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom.  This was a somewhat random reservation I had made - read the menu online and it looked good, plus I love the Colonial times. :)  Later, I found raving reviews about it so I was excited to try it!

 Here is Reilly coloring with a bunch of kiddies while we waited for our table.  The number one phrase she repeated on the whole vacation was "Can I please go say Hi to that little girl/boy?"  Waiting on line was no issue for her, she just found the closest child and started becoming their best friend.  I swear, this girl.  She LOVES other kids, and LOVES making friends!  She's pretty darn good at it too.  Kids love her right back!

This meal was SO GOOD.  It was family style, one menu so we didn't order.  They just start bringing delicious home-cooked kind of dishes to your table right away.  Holy yummy.  We all loved it.

 My girls and I!  Okay...on this trip...Reagan perfected smiling for a camera.  You will see this AMAZING face over and over again.  All I have to do is say to her, "Gimme a smile, Rea!"  and she will look RIGHT at the closest camera and make this hilarious toothy nose-crinkling face.  I can't handle it.

 Reilly and her Disney cup!

We got free refills on those cups for the whole trip - so this was us going back after dinner to get Reilly some hot chocolate. :)  This girl got so many treats this trip, but it was because she was so darn good.  Both the girls were so awesome,  it was such a blessing.  With limited naps, and the crazy heat (did I mention the heat yet?), we were prepared for meltdowns...but were thrilled to have very happy girlies for 99% of the trip!

That night, we all got in our beds.  Reilly slept like a queen in her own bed, and Reagan right next to her in the pack and play. (Reagan won't have it any other way than with her sister RIGHT next to her.)  Reilly sang us all to sleep, singing her Ariel songs until she passed out.  The magic filled the room already. :)

Mama and her Fawns

Since we moved to our new house, we have seen so many baby animals everywhere. A mama turkey gave birth to about 30 baby turkeys in our backyard (and they flutter through every few days since!).  But my favorite has to be the little fawns we see everywhere.  One Mama and her baby walks by our house everyday, and it's the sweetest thing ever. 

 The fawns are so tiny, and spotted, I just love them!

 They just prance after their Mama every move she makes.

....I somehow felt such a connection to her... ;)

 The other day, we were 5 feet away from a little baby fawn nursing from her Mama!  We stopped and watched for a little while, it was so amazing to see.  But we were careful not to disturb them, I didn't want to stress her out and affect her milk production. :)

We love watching our baby fawn friends.  So glad they love our house.

Baby Names

 Back when I first found out I was pregnant, Reilly and I had a conversation about what new little baby's name should be.  Here is how it went. :)

Me: Reilly, what do you think we should name the baby?
 Reilly: REAGAN!

Me: Reagan?
Reilly:...Is Reagan going back in your belly?
Me: No, honey, it's a new baby! So what else do you think we should name the baby?

Reilly: REILLY!
Me: Reilly?! We already have a Reilly baby silly!
Reilly: OH! HOW ABOUT ADEENA?!
(Adeena is her little BFFs name)

Me: (laughing) That's a good idea.
Reilly: GASP. We have to name the baby Ariel!!
Me: I love that name.  What if it's a boy?
Reilly: It's not gunna be a boy.

Well, I'm glad we settled that.  Ariel it is. :)