Preschool Girl and Reality

We are slowly settling back into the real world after our magical trip to Disney. I really missed my preschoolers while I was gone and I was glad to see them Monday morning. Not only did I miss our preschool friends, but Hope missed them as well:) My girl adores preschool and it has been such a blessing to both of us.

Here she is at the library with our preschool friends on "blue" day!

At the table with our friends, she looks so big and grownup. I cannot believe how much she loves it! She is already talking about having friends over for playdates!!

Wednesday we made apple pies for letter A and here she is making her own little pie. For the most part, she fully participates in whatever the class is doing. I love it so much that she loves books and learning already

Yummy apple pie!

Doing her color sheet for "green" day. For green day we decorated cookies with green icing, ate green grapes, and drank green juice. The kids loved it so much.

I adore this picture of my girl so much. She is obsessed with coloring and writing. Truly different from my boys at this age. A stack of blank paper and crayons will entertain her for hours.

My classes did the sweetest thing for me for my birthday. The parents asked each family to send in a flower for me. When they got there with the flowers my wonderful aide organized them into this beautiful bouquet! I loved watching the children's excited little faces walking in clutching those flowers. I love that some of the flowers had been loved so much that they were about dead by the time they got to me. I truly have the most supportive and awesome families to work with at preschool.

David had a checkup over his ear tube surgery and the surgeon said that his tubes looked great. We are going to go back to the audiologist next week to check and see if the surgery did indeed improve his hearing. It is hard to tell because David is not the most reliable informant! Ha!

We have lots of fun on the horizon with a fun Hokie night game this weekend. Tomorrow David and I are going with AShley and several other friends to Roanoke for the Jason Aldean concert!! After all the planning it is here! I cannot wait to watch my David sing along with his hero:)

Farewell Disney

Saturday was sadly our last full day at Disney. We allowed the children to go back and visit their favorites one more time. We were so blessed that the lines were super short so we got to do almost everything we wanted to do.

David and Hope chose to see Beauty and the Beast again, Disney Jr. Live on Stage, and the Little Mermaid. We also HAD to take David to see The Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom because it was so awesome.

The Disney Jr. Live on Stage was so cute and such a cool break from the heat.

David was SO EXCITED when Little Einsteins came out! He just had to jump up and dance!

I love his enthusiasm!!!

Saturday we caught the boat to head to Broadway to watch the Hokie game at the ESPN zone. It was really hot so we thought it would be fun to use our last sit down dining to eat in the cool to watch the game. The kids were excited to ride that boat!

Hope outside after the Hokies WON!!

Here is where we went to catch up on some college football and cool off. Saturday was super hot!

At Broadway, there was this cool dude doing magic and Kyle was chosen to be in his show:)

Kyle had to pick a random guy from the crowd so he picked his Daddy. (I love this picture of Mike!)

Mike loving being in the magic show too!

What is hidden in that sleeve? Amazingly he pulled out a hankie from Mike's sleeve! Even Mike has no idea how he did it:)

At our resort it was based on the different decades of pop culture and we stayed in the 60's. Across from us was the 70's and Kyle thought that building was so cool that he wanted to take a picture!

Disney was such a blast but it definitely wore us all out! Monday after preschool Hope Madeline wanted to watch her princess movie. This is how I found her a few minutes after the movie started:)

Overall our vacation was magical and wonderful and I am so thankful for all the memories that we made on our trip. As our kids get older, we realize how precious time together is. The kids are so busy that time is truly the most precious commodity. I was talking with Pam, my sister-in-law in Shreveport about how and when to get together next. We want to get together with family and visit, but between the kids' schedules, Mike's work schedule and now my preschool schedule life is too crazy. I am so thankful that we carved out this special family time to go visit the happiest place on Earth:)

Disney Day 4

Day Four at Disney was awesome at Magic Kingdom. It was HOT but we had fun and stayed cool in shows.

We rode the steamboat around Tom Sawyers island!

David trying out a Goofy hat. We were going to buy it for him, but he said "too hot!" I agree!

Kyle did buy this cute goofy hat which will come in handy later for crazy hat day at school:)

David was super excited to get Jasmine and Alladin's autograph at their meet and greet spot. I love his expression in this picture:) Jasmine was super sweet to Dave.

The cars were such a favorite that we had to hit them again. Here is Mike with a car full of cuteness. It had just rained so this Momma chose to sit under the bleachers and watch.

Friday night was special because we had reservations for Chef Mickey! That place is super hard to schedule reservations and we were so thankful our travel agent got us in. David bought this cute shirt to wear and Hope bought her Minine ears and her Minnie purse for the occassion.

Walking into the restaurant. The princess dinner was super special but Chef Mickey was probably my favorite. It is a great buffett and the characters, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto are there. They come to your table and it sure beats standing in a long hot line to see them.

Chef Mickey is in the Contemporary resort so we took a monorail over to it.

A quick family picture before we headed into the restaurant. Such a cute photo op outside of the restaurant:)

GG and Pops with the kiddos! We were so thankful for their help on the trip. It was nice to have extra sets of hands so we could divide and conquer the parks. Our kiddos are so spread out in age that it was neat that we could split up and everyone could do something age appropriate.

My boys with Pluto! The food at Chef Mickey's was awesome and the kids even had their own buffett with kid friendly food.

Kyle with Minnie Mouse!

David and Mickey! I love the expression on David's face:) This was really one of the highlights of the trip. This restaurant is so much fun and we all had a ball.

At one point during dinner, they do a special dance and they ask everyone to wave their napkin in the air! David loved that part and here he is waving it proudly!

Hope loved all the characters from a distance! She did nto get her picture taken with them, but she loved them coming to the table for autographs.

An Enchanted Evening

One eveninig at dinner we divided up for dinner. The boys headed to Garden Grill and the girls headed to Norway in Epcot for dinner with the princesses! Because of Hope we are getting to see and enjoy a different side of Disney-the princesses! Hope has princess mania big time right now and is really into the different movies and we are starting to collect lots of princess stuff.

Belle is our favorite princess and while you waited to get seated, you got your picture made with her. Here she is signing our autograph book! I love her because she is a bookworm and Hope adores the movie. Of course my Princess did not love the photo op!

This is a terrible picture of me (we were drenched from a rain storm) but I think it is hilarious because Hope is WAILING!! SHe loves Belle from a distance and this photo op was a little too close for comfort:) Ha!

Princess Aurora during the princess processional. During the dinner the princesses paraded around the room and all the little girls were allowed to follow them in the processional. My little princess of course wanted nothing to do with that, but she enjoyed watching all the glitz and glamour parade by.

Here is my little princess watching all the princesses big and small parade by. The food at this dinner was awesome! There was an appetizer and salad buffett and then we also got a plated dinner and dessert. It really felt like a special evening and all three of the princesses at our table felt like belles of the ball. I did not bring her princess royal gown but she did look cute in her pink princess tutu dress that the Jonas gave her for her birthday.

GG with Snow White!

There is beautiful Cinderella, but here is my princess wailing her head off because once again she got a little close for comfort! Ha! This restaurant was full of sparkles, gowns, tiaras, and smiles. What a magical evening with my Mom and my little princess.

My princess certainly had a magical night with her Mommy and GG. Because of Hope we are experiencing things at Disney that we have never gotten to do! Last time we came I do not even remember seeing one princess and now this trip we have gotten all their autographs! I am so thankful for this wonderful girly night with my ever-growing princess.

I use to roll my eyes at all the princess-mania but about a year ago I read an article from a christian magazine about the fact that it is okay to let our little girls idolize the princesses, because it is a good reminder to them that they are the princess to the most High King. Ever since I read that article in Focus on the Family (I think) then I have been okay with Hope falling in love with all this princess stuff. Because of this trip she is even more obsessed with all the princesses, with Belle being her favorite. I am okay with that because Belle is a book worm!

I am so thankful for such a wonderful and special night with just the girls on this trip. Despite my crazy hairdo from the rain and humidity we all felt like true princesses on this magical night at Disney!

Disney Day 3

This sign walking into Magic Kingdon made me tear up because so far this whole trip has been so much fun that I am so thankful for all the wonderful memories we have made here.

One of the precious memories that I will always cherish is how my red-head has become obsessed with this autograph book and how he wants to get it ready and get those autographs by himself! A couple of years ago he would not have had the guts to approach characters but now he does it with confidence. Here is my favorite seven year old with Mickey and Minnie!

This also is so precious to me because we were leaving our greet and meet time with them and David ran back to Mickey and grabbed him in this hug and said "I love you Mickey and Minnie!" It was so precious and it even touched the photographer!

What is that big, tall, beautiful thing in front of us???

Oh my word it is Cinderella's castle!!!! Several times during the day they have this really cute show!

My princess cannot believe that is really where Cinderella lives:) Thanks to Hope we all know our princesses now:)

Not only did my girl love the castle, but she and David both loved these race cars. Super cool!

Kyle was thrilled that he finally is tall enough to drive solo. This trip has totally made me realize how fast my children are growing up. It seems like yesterday we were here with Daniel and Pam and Kyle was still dancing with Bear and the Big Blue house! Now he is able and willing to ride anything in the parks and that freaks me out a little.

At Magic Kingdom we were able to walk right on Buzz Light Year Ride and here both boys are posing for a picture in the ride. It was another cool ride where you try to shoot at stuff and it was a hit with us all.

My ever competitive husband racking up the points on our Space Ranger Ride! I thought it was all romantic that we were riding a car together but Mike was way more interested in trying to get more points than me! HA!

Dave and GG in the Space Ranger ride!

One of the rides that I remember as a child was It's A Small World and we all rode it together this trip. Kyle was not thrilled with it, but the rest of us enjoyed it! It was a cool ride in the hot part of the day so that was a bonus!

Me and Minnie!!!!!! We stood in line a short while to get pics with Mickey and Minnie. I love me a good character photo op!

To end the day the boys headed to Garden Grill for dinner, and the girls headed to dinner with the princesses! It was magical and wonderful and it deserves it own post! I still think Hollywood Studios is my favorite, but our day at Magic Kingdom was awesome!!