a little chit chat from Maeby

longest blog of my life haha...

So Wednesday night we drove to the airport and picked up our friend Tana. She was a good sport playing with Kinzie :)
The next night (Thursday) we went back to the airport and picked up PopPop, GiGi, and Sissy. Then Friday we all got up crazy early and poppop GiGi and Sissy stayed home with the baby while Bert, Tana, Kinzie, and I went to the Magic Kingdom! Finally!

It turned out to be a really great day! :) When we got there, Kinzie wanted to go on the snow white ride first... there was a 0 minutes wait... .and then most of the rides after that we just walked right on! It was pretty unbelievable!

Here is Kinzie and Bert on the Peter Pan ride which had no wait but later we saw was up to a 50 minute wait! (yikes!)

Here we are on Mary Poppins Carousel

We spotted the Sword in the Stone.... Kinzie couldn't get it out....

....but boy was Bert determined haha...

And it still did not budge (but man did it push down Berts ego ;) haha)

Next was the Dumbo ride! This is Berts attempt to get a picture of us with the castle in the background... do you see the castle????? (don't look too hard - its not there haha)

Here is Tana and Kinzie on the Winnie the Pooh ride.... which turned out to be her favorite all day

Here's something new we didn't do last year... we met Ariel!!! :) She was a very nice mermaid :)
Then we did the 3D Mickey mouse something or another (I forget the actual name). This turned out to be favorite among the adults (I am including Bert in this count ...this time haha)

Then we played in Pooh's playground

Here is Kinzie with Alice and the White Rabbit

then here is the first time my heart was racing for my daughter.... we got on goofys rollercoaster... but it was a pretty intense roller coaster for a 3 year old.... but bert assured me she could do it... look at the people in the picture to show just how huge ths rollercoaster is....

So I held my breath... and it turns out that she liked it!!!!

Good for her... but bad for me... because this just opened up a world of possibilities (in Berts mind) of all the great rides Kinzie could now attempt to conquer.... (ugh!)

Here is Daddy, K inzie, and Rafiki (We know you are jealous uncle Bear!!!.... I'm sure you'd much rather be meeting rafiki than being in hawaii!)

When we finally made it over to the pirate ride.... Kinzie was so tired that she was actually drooling on Bert within 2 minutes haha...

So she slept through the pirates ride.... but no worries... we are with Bert... of course we are going to go on it again before we leave ;)

Then it started POURINGGGGGG!!!!!

It poured for about an hour.... we just stood in a store.....

Then the sun came back out and we met Peter and Wendy!

Now here is the next time my heart skipped a few beats for my little girl.... Bert wanted her to get on Splash Mountain!!!! He even decided to prove to me that she is tall enough.... and I mean JUST tall enough....

Here is a picture of the mountain....

I can't believe I allowed this (insert nervous laugh).... but she did it.... there wasn't even a lap bar! i was so scared... and was yelling at Bert the entire ride to hold her down .... Here she is when its over... she said that she liked it (which was a total front because she didn't want to dissapoint daddy) and when I asked if she wanted to do it again she quickly said no because the fox is too scary (note that the fox is NOT scary at all haha)... so I guess only time will tell if this tramatized her for life....

bert then wanted to take her to go on Big Thunder Railroad... which I pleasantly said absolutely not haha.... so we did a few more rides and then saw some of the parade and of course had to fit in the pirate ride one more time before we headed home... this time Kinzie was awake!

Here is Bert trying to Twitter during the ride...

Okay.... moving on to the next day.....

Pool time!!!!! Tana and I stayed just for a minute to grab a few pictures and then headed back because it was too hot for the baby .... and sneakily to make sure we got hat showers before everyone got back haha... sneaky sneaky sneaky....

Here's our crazy family in the van.... Bert and I had to yell at the kids in the back to settle down and stop hitting each other quite a few times....

We had a nice dinner at Kobe's

After dinner we headed to downtown disney...

This picture is for Uncle Play-Doh!

Pretty Girls

The best picture I could get of Sissy and Kinzie playing in the fountains

And of course the infamous shots....once again.... (can you find the hidden PopPop?!)

haha... and we gotta switch up the routine of this a little bit..... Minnie Mouse is now on my hit list ;)

PopPop enjoying his dessert... mmm!

And Kinzie finally got what she wanted... as much as I wanted her to get the Pocohantas Dress.... she got her Alice in Wonderland dress....

She watched the movie and did everything Alice did.... here she is laying in the flowers....

Now we are caught up to last night.... Prince charming and Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner!!!! Here Kinzie caught herself a good one! ;)

And here is her twin

And PopPop's dreams finally came true! ( He had been talking about this moment for awhile now haha)

The Fairy Godmother

Anastasia was so funny

and Drizella was nicer than we expected... Mackinzie made sure to tell her to be nice to Cinderella!

Bert was sooooo excited that they had the strawberry soup again (which I think is supposed to go on fruit??)

After dinner, we took a monorail ride , shopped in some stores, and Kinzie danced on the "stage"

Prince charming found her lost shoe.... and it fit! :)

Back at home we played games where Bert and I dominated PopPop and GiGi in Sequence and the Bert won in phase 10 ...
And Kinzie and Sissy took a nice "relaxing" (yeah right haha sorry sissy) bubble bath together! ;)... (ps. Sissy had a bathingsuit on)

So today they went to the pool for a little bit before it started raining and now we are relaxing and i'm about to bring up a rematch of phase 10... We take the Sroka's back to the airport tonight... but what a wonderful visit!

Fun with the Kents! :)

Yesterday was such a fun day! And what a lovely change of pace for Kinzie to have a friend her age to play with! :) We went and met the Kents at their hotel for some swimming and then to downtown disney for lunch....and then for a most excellent car ride to find the disney outlet haha...

so while the daddy's took the girls in the pool for a swim, I made friends with this lovely bird... it got freakishly close... i was not too excited about that, but thought I would capture the moment anyways haha...

Here are the 3 beauties! :) Kinzie, Catherine, and Eleanor in the hottub:

It ended up having a few downpours throughout the day. Here daddy thought it would be a bright idea to go stand in the pouring rain. (Hey, they were wet anyways right?! Who cares about a little thunder haha)

I'm not sure who was more excited about going through the awesome waterfall... Kinzie or Bert? I will let you decide ;)

Yayyy for friends! :) I think this picture was taking right before the hug took both girls down for a fall haha... such big brains.... little balance ;)

Here they are waiting for the parents to get ready... It was a difficult task to get all the girls looking and smiling at the same time so we get what we get ;)

After we left the pool, we went to downtown disney and had a nice lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.
Then of course, the girls LOVE taking their picture with the fake disney characters haha... who are we to take away from their fun?! ;)

We had a GREAT time with our friends! :) We look forward to getting together more often when we get back to MD. It's nice to have some grownup conversation while the kids get to play too! Catherine and Mackinzie are so alike, so it is a wonderful blessing to have a friend in her! Thanks for a great visit Kent family!

My days are all mixed up.... Hoop-Dee-Doo!!

Happy 4th of July! We started off the festivities by watching a golf cart parade here at Del Boca Vista... more commonly known as Royal Highlands ;) Here is Bert and his little ladies as we are getting ready to head out the door for more fun!

and me and my big girl!

First stop was to the rec center building to get Kinzies face painted :)

yayyy for pretty little stars!

Then we got in the car and headed to Fort Wilderness... and when I say "headed" ....apparently I mean "Sped" because Bert got pulled over! (ouch!)... but thankfully the Kinzie smiled at the cop and he only gave Bert a warning... (coming very close to having our last frustrating words in the first year of our marraige haha)
Then we got to Fort Wilderness. We park the car, and get on the bus that will take us to the area we are having dinner. As we are on the bus we realize that (UGH!) we left the diaperbag in the car! So here are the girls patiently waiting in crazy heat as daddy rides the bus back to get the diaper bag....

And at last we make it into the nicely air conditioned Pioneer Hall! :) And look at the seats MiMi got for us!!! Front and Center! :)

Now Bert had been telling me about this place for weeks and he kept mentioning how you get to twirl your napkin over your head... well here is what he meant (so happy haha)...

Kinzie LOVED the show! and as we were in the very front, the actors and actresses paid a lot of attention to her which she also loved! :)

At the end of the show we got to play along! :) This might just be Berts favorite part haha... look how excited he is!

The food was yummmmmmy! We had salad, cornbread, fried chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, beans, beer (or chocolate milk for Kinz), and strawberry shortcake!! mmmmmm!!! here's Kinz when the show was over...

After the show we had a little time to pass until we headed over to the campfire, so we let Kinzie play on the playground

Then we headed over to see Chip and Dale at the campfire.... Yay another family picture!

Many props to Maeby today! She was such a great baby!! At the dinner show she just sat on my lap and watched the singing and dancing.. and even when everything got really loud and crazy, she still stayed calm either watching or sleeping :) Maeby really enjoyed chip and dale too! Look how cute:

And here's what she was watching:

Then Dale came over to visit with us and sign Kinzie autograph book :)

And to my surprise, when Cowboy Anthony asked people to come up and do the hokey pokey, Kinzie went right on up by herself! (although I snuck up on the other side to keep and eye on her)... She did so good! :)

After a few more songs and dance, it was time to go home! :) We decided to not stay for fireworks as the girls were already so tired and the place was PACKED! but not only did we skip the traffic, on the ride home we saw fireworks going off in 7 different locations :) Maybe not as close, but definitely really nice to see in our air conditioned car :) Kinzie saw a bunch of the fireworks and got excited.... and then 10 minutes later......

So it was another great day in Florida! :) I love that we have 30 days to spread all the fun out! Maybe I'm getting old, but I am exhausted after one day of fun and could not imagine trying to go to another park all day tomorrow.... so its really really nice to know we have time to have fun, but also time to relax with the family in between :)....

Tomorrow we check out the church down the road and then head to the pool :)

Hope everyone is having/had a wonderful and safe 4th! :)

oh yeah.... and tomorrow Bert and I will have been married for a whole year!!!! Happy Anniversary Bubby!!!!! :)

Day 8 - Swimming and Shopping

Last night both the girls fell alseep when we got home from downtown disney, so I chose to spend the evening with my hubby and blog today :)
Yesterday we started off by going to the pool. Bert and Kinzie swam while I sat with Maeby and finished my first S- series book! (so good!). When we got there I realized I forgot my camera (booo!)....so I took a couple pics when we got back...

And the bee towel! buzz buzz!

After swimming, we hung around the house for a little bit as to not take Delaney out in the crazy heat (when does that end in FL!? haha)... So we left around 5 and enjoyed time in the World of Disney store and then just walking around. She REALLY wanted an Alice in Wonderland costume, but they didn't have any close to her her size so we had a little break down... I was pushing the Pocohantas costume because it was so cute and unlike any of the other princess costumes she has... but no... she would rather have a book! (who raised this child?! haha) So we left with a HUGE book of princess stories (yay for family bedtime storytime!) and some minnie mouse flip flops (which will go great with her fourth of July outfit for tonight!). It actually turned out to be great for kinzie because we haven't gotten to go to a disney park yet (who brings a 3 year old to florida with promises of disney world and doesn't take her for 2 weeks?! haha...) but downtown disney could have been a theme park to her! She loved all the photo-ops with the characters....

Now here's where Bert and I got a little giggly haha... because looking at this scene of winnie the pooh, all I could think about was the mustard fiasco the other day haha... so here's what came of this...

haha... we got a few laughs from strangers as we took this picture.... yea, we are THOSE people haha.. :) We stopped and got our tickets for Disney World while we were here... we got 3 day park hoppers for each of us and we can add on a fourth later if we would like... pretty sweet deal. Then we continued our walk and Kinzie was just not done being photographed, "Mom, hey, take a picture of me on this wall" haha... suuuuure....I made sure to put her in view of that cool tree cause it looks like a pineapple and i think its adorable... my kid too ;)

Then Kinz took a picture of me and Bert....and the tree ;)

This next picture is sweet because its an exact replica of the picture we took last year so I can see how much Bert and Kinzie have grown... Bert grew a diaper bag, and Kinzie grew some legs!

This next picture is for Mimi.... Kinzie picked out a little something for you to put in your Florida house. (Thanks so much for letting us stay here!!!) It's a secret til you get here though ;)

Then of couuuuurse we had to pose with the princessess :)

We left around 8:30 to come home and the girls zonked out quickly. Today (the 4th) we are going to the Hoop-Dee-Doo musical Revue at Fort Wilderness!!! We are so excited about this and I have my camera charging so we will have plenty of pictures to share with you either tonight or tomorrow...we plan on going early afternoon to hang out before dinner, and then after dinner stay for the Chip and Dale Sing along at the campfire... pretty sure Kinzie will LOVE this! I know Bert will haha! So I will end this blog with the sign we saw leaving downtown disney because its so true....

Day 7 - Supercalifragalistic Breakfast!

what an early morning (yawn!)... we were up, ready, and out the door at 7:30 am... this is quite an accomplishment for me and the girls haha... so here are the girls before we leave ... you can tell how excited Kinzie is :) Thanks for the cute matching dresses GiGi!! :)

and here they are ready to go into the car....

So we load 'em up into the car and head out to what should only be a 45 minute drive at most.... sadly to say we left at 7:30 and did not pull up to the Grand Floridian until 8:45! The only person to blame is Mandy.... Mandy from TomTom land :( .... she definitely took us a route where there were no real roads and we ended up in no-mans land sheesh! So we had o turn around and backtrack til we saw disneyworld signs.... thank goodness we made it in time! :)

So we got in and started up at the buffett..the food was YUMMY!!! Mackinzie had Mickey waffles, and Bert was OBSESSED with this "strawberry soup"... we still aren't sure what exactly you are supposed to eat it with haha.. he started out eating it like soup but then moved to dipping a bagel in it... then another....then another... and yes, another haha... (I didn't have to make lunch today because everyone was so full!)

After we got our food, the first friend out was...... TIGGER!.... he didn't talk, but boy was he bouncy! And when Mackinzie asked him where piglet was he was very funny with his charades :)

Heres a pic of Kinzies Mickey Mouse Waffles... mmmm! :)

Nexy was Pooh bear! :) According to Kinzie he was sooooo furry :)

now, if you know me well, you know I'm not a big fan of mascots, or people wearing things to cover their faces, but I took one for the team haha... And I must say that being around Maeby and this kind of Pooh was much more pleasant than the other kind ;) (corny - I know ;))

Here is a picture of Kinzie showing how much fun she was having - which makes all the money spent well worth it --- right daddy?! :)

And in this next picture you can tell how much fun Bert is having hahaha... one of his favorites, Mary Poppins ---- should I be worried that she's taking my spot in the family picture? haha...

Next came pretty Alice in Wonderland...

And then the craziest of them all.... the MadHatter!!! He was soooo silly ... and LOUD! ... Mackinzie was so cute because she said "MadHatter, can y ou be quiet because my baby doesn't like loud noises!"... he replied with "I don't like Mary Poppins either!" which made Bert laugh harder than I've seen in awhile haha... silly silly silly :)

So that was the end of the characters... it really was a nice Breakfast and all three of my kids (not a typo haha) had a GREAT time! :)
While daddy went to get the car, Kinzie got to sit in this beautiful "cinderella Carraige" which she enjoyed :)

Now we are back at the house... daddy got to work, Kinzie watched a movie, and Maeby and I took a nice nap together...

Now here is a picture I took about 5 minutes ago which shows the nap didn't help someone so much haha....

Anyways.... we are having a great time.. lots of family time, which is what our goal for the trip was :)Our next event is Saturday we are going to the Hoop-Dee-Doo show at Fort Wilderness :) We are very excited about this because Bert has great memories of this from when he was a kid! :)....okay, back to my little ladies...

Day 6 - Rain Rain go away....

So we had every intention of going swimming today... but it rained all morning, afternoon, and into the early evening... Here is a picture out the front door... it was actually POURING at this point, but you can't really tell in the pic...
After Bert and I did our Wii Active this morning, I got Delaney out and we were watching tv... I was just being silly and thought I would take a pcture of us and it turned out so cute because I didn't even realize she was smiling... must've been something pretty funny on the tv haha... look at her cute smile!

This is Daddy and Kinzie going out in the golfcart to get the mail... after dinner we actually took a long leisurely golfcart ride around the HUGE neighborhood to pick out our future house ;) haha... After our drive, we got the stroller out and walked the other direction so that Kinzie could practice riding her new big wheels (she has trouble turning still)... we did have one couple pull over in their golf cart and joke with us about how we stick out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood haha...

Here is a silly little tidbit of our day... I was planning on making meatloaf for dinner until I saw that the mustard I was planning on using expired in march.... so I decided against using it... Bert, however, was completely confident that expiration dates are not real and its just a way to get things off the shelf in grocery stores. He even googled it to challenge me (idiot haha).. he came back noting that he is correct (according to some BLOG! haha)... anyways... so long stort he decided he would squirt a lot in his mouth and if he didn't get sick in a few hours I could use it haha... (yea, we are THAT smart haha).... so here are the picks of the expiration and....

a picture of him doing what I would think as the grossly unthinkable (but mustard makes me gag all by itself ... yuck!)

turns out no one got sick so maybe Berts theory on expiration dates has some credibility... I told him wait a month and then try the milk ;)
On another note, Kinz let go of the fan for the day and found a new and exciting toy.. her old camera... all i heard all day is "Mommy smile" Mommy say cheese" "Mom look at me" "Oh this is a good one Mom" "Beautiful, jjuuuust beautiful" haha... silly silly...

And last but not least, this brought tears to my eyes (note as you read more of my blogs it does not take much to bring tears to my eyes haha...) My little girl, who just yesterday was a newborn, singing a song :) Bert can pride himself how Maeby got all his genes, but this little Kinzie got my personality ;) .... Bert will just have to give her some lessons on pitch ;) haha...enjoy!

Tomorrow morning we get up to go to a "Supercalifragilistic Breakfast!" so you will see many pictures of mary popping, alice in wonderland, and winnie the pooh!! :) Yayyy!!!