Our last day at Magic Kingdom

It came and went by so fast.  I dreamed of taking our girls to Disney for years and now it's all a wonderful memory.  In the past, all of our vacations have been spent visiting family or them visiting us.  We love our time with family but we decided that we needed our own family vacation memories too.

 It's not easy sleeping as a family of five in one hotel room, or trying to keep a 2.5 year old in a waiting line for over an hour, or dealing with her tantrums because she is overly tired due to no naps for the past two and a half days.....but I am counting my blessings that we were able to go on this trip, and she really was pretty good considering!  We are truly blessed to take such a fabulous vacation with our girls and I thank our family and God who made it possible.  

On our last day we checked out a few more rides that we didn't get to the first day.  The big girls and I went straight to Space Mountain, we waited for an hour and a half for the girls first ever roller coaster ride. Middle Sis LOVED it and Big Sis almost got sick.  Poor thing was very pale when we got off but was ok after getting some fresh air.  I hadn't been on a roller coaster for a long time but loved most of it.  

While the girls and I were doing that Daddy took Little Sis to see Princess Ariel for pictures and a ride.  He also took Middle Sis, later on in the afternoon, for another roller coaster ride just the two of them.  He said it was special because he got to take each daughter on a ride just the two of them.  What a great Daddy!

It's a Small World, a definite classic!  Little Sis loved it.

Today we saw Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, Goofy and Donald Duck.

 Daddy wanted a picture himself with Goofy.....go figure ;)

One of Daddy's favorite rides is the Steam Engine, He remembers going on it over and over again when he was a little boy at Disney.  

Our First Day at Magic Kingdom

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early, ate breakfast and took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom!

Welcome to MAGIC KINGDOM, "Let the Memories Begin"

As soon as you walked through the gates, there were cast members, that's what they call the employees, handing out Mickey Mouse stickers to the little ones.  Then there was this giant Christmas tree, just look at the size of the popcorn garland!!

Everything was just so beautiful, the buildings, the Christmas decor and the horses walking up Main Street.

The girls were so excited to see Cinderella's castle! Unfortunately the weather was foggy and very damp but we made the best of our day in the park.  

YAY....LOVE this picture....except for Little Sis not looking at the camera but who can control a 2.5 year old?!  

The big girls so happy to be here.

Standing next to the Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse statue in front of the castle.

Let the rides begin, first up was the Merry Go Round, even Drizella and Anastasia the wicked step sisters from Cinderella were on with us!  They were fighting and yelling at each other the whole time, very funny.

Tea cup ride was so much fun.

The thing to do while in Disney is buy a lanyard and trading pins to exchange with cast members when you see a pin you like on their lanyard.  This was our first trade.

Our first character we saw was the Briar Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.  We road the Jungle Cruise and explored the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house.

Riding Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride

A parade on Main Street with lots of characters and dancing.

Ice Cream for lunch of course!

Pics with Pluto

We waited over an hour for pictures with Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Little Sis's ABSOLUTE FAVORITE....Rapunzel from Tangled, aka "Punzel".

We expected the wait to be pretty long when we got in line for Mickey Mouse so Daddy and Big Sis went for a ride on the Steam Engine Train, but the line went quicker than expected and they didn't get back in time for the pic.  Little Sis was a little intimidated by Mickey, if only the little boy in front of us hadn't become scared, I think she would have done fine otherwise.  Mommy get in the picture with her so she wasn't so scared.  

Visiting the candy shoppe on Main Street, so many yummy snacks to choose from.  We had some kettle corn and cotton candy while watching the Electric Parade that night.

We saw lots of characters in the Electric Parade, the floats were just beautiful and fun to watch.  

The parade was at 8 and the fireworks started at 9.  (We had gone back to our room at Shades of Green around 4pm, with the hope that little Sis would take a nap before dinner but she was too wound up to lay down.)  She was awake from 7am until after the fireworks that ended around 9:30)  She watched the fireworks on Daddy's shoulders and as soon as it was over he put her back in her stroller and she instantly fell asleep.  Long day for our little princess.  We rode the ferry back to the Polynesian and walked home from there and she stayed asleep for most of that.  

We had an AWESOME first day at Magic Kingdom, we rode the Merry-go-Round, the Tea Cups, the People Mover, Astro Orbiter, Steam Engine Train, Jungle Cruise and the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.  

Disney's Shades of Green and Downtown Disney

Here are a few pictures of the military resort at Disney World, Shades of Green.  It's located across the street from the Polynesian Resort where you can walk to and take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom .  We drove to Disney on Wednesday afternoon and stayed until Saturday morning.  

 

 

 

Beautiful Lobby welcoming the Troops and their Families. 

 

 I was excited to see that the resort and Disney World were still decorated for Christmas!!

 They have a Disney movie playing for the little ones while you check in, very smart!

A Patriotic Mickey Statue in the lobby as well.

They have a breakfast and dinner buffet and a restaurant called Mangino's Bistro.  We ate breakfast at the buffet both days and dinner at the bistro.  On the morning we left we had a quick breakfast at the Express Cafe, looking back we could have eaten breakfast there all three mornings and saved some money because they had a nice selection of breakfast sandwiches, cereal and pancakes.  

After we got checked in we headed to Downtown Disney to check it out since we wouldn't be going to Magic Kingdom until Thursday morning.

Lots of beautiful things to see, the girls LOVED playing at the Lego Store.  They were lots of life size Lego statues and displays all around the store.  

Next Stop....MAGIC KINGDOM!!!!

Stay tuned :)

Back from the Happiest Place on Earth!

It's been almost a whole week since I've blogged, but with very good reason!

We just got home from our family vacation to DISNEY WORLD!!!  I'm uploading the pictures, all 414 of them and will be working on getting them on the blog for you to see. 

 

We had such an amazing time and made lots of wonderful memories.  Can't wait to share all of them with you.  Meanwhile I recently created a Facebook page for you to keep up to date with all of our blog posts, pics and other fun things that I'll be posting.  I've posted a couple of pics from our trip on there already and am working on getting a video loaded.

 

Please like Happy House of 5 on Facebook and share some love by sharing the link with your friends and family....THANKS :)

 

Be back soon.

 



Our Christmas Morning 2012

Santa came to our house and once again between Santa and all of our loving family, we couldn't want or need for any more presents!  Looking back, I didn't take all that many picures, I guess I was too busy enjoying the morning with my sweet family.  Here are a few that I did get though.

Hand carved pilot wings from R2R Designs, they are

 fellow Coastie Wifes that make great things!!  Check them out.

Plus a new Remote Control plane for my Happy Hubbie :)

 Middle Sis bought me this pretty bracelet from her school's holiday boutique.

The grls new hats from one set of Grandparents.

Sparkly boots and skinny jeans for big Sis from Santa

Some presents from cousins and Great Grandparents.

Santa brought Little Sis this Rapunzel doll, and a Minnie Mouse hair/make-up set. 

She put on more "lipstick" every 10 seconds!!  She loved it.

 

Then at the very end of opening all the presents, Santa had left a BIG surprise!!!

A Scavenger Hunt with clue's scattered across the house that ended back to a present under the tree that left the following items and announcement:

(I made the girl these Minnie Mouse shirts

 the same way I showed you how on my Pumpkin Shirt)

"Merry Christmas Girls....We are going to DISNEY!!! 

 Love, Santa, Daddy and Mommy"

The girls are BESIDES themselves with EXCITEMENT!!

 I found free printables to make autograph books at All Sam's Idea's, saving us at least $35!

I printed them out, cut them down to size, punched holes and hooked them with  metal ring clips.  I read that we should bring fat pens with us so the characters can sign them.

I found a really cute Disney contdown on Etsy but decided to save some more money and make my own cardboard version.  I spray panted a peice of cardboard wih chalkboard paint, then taped a Mickey Mouse head on top of that and spray painted over that with white spray paint.  I used scrapbooking stickers and some ribbon to decorate it a little more.  I'm sure a wooden plaque woud hold up better than cardboard but it only needs to last for 8 days, so I'll deal with that :)

My husband bought me a GREAT Christas present this year and I'm very excited to learn how to emrboider things and make appliqued shirts for the girls and if I get good at it....who knows maybe I'll start a little business making them for Happy House of 5's Followers and your kiddos!! :)