Our Disney Vacation- Day 3- Epcot

On Monday, day 3 of our Disney Vacation, we went to Epcot. We loved it there and had a really great day and even stayed on through the evening. Here are the things that we did while we were there:

Spaceship Earth- is a ride through an eighteen-story-tall sphere. The ride tells the history of communication, the development of cultures and the future of technologies.

The Seas with Nemo and friends- a ride chronicling Nemo's journey, featuring projection technology that makes it appear as though Nemo, Dory, and Marlin are swimming with the live fishes in the aquarium behind.

Turtle Talk with Crush- an interactive show starring Crush, the Sea Turtle, from Finding Nemo. The kids sit right up front and were supposed to ask questions to Crush. So many of the kids just shared random information instead, which was hilarious!

Journey into Imagination with Figment- a ride that encourages using your imagination!

Fountains- the kids had the best time messing around with/in the "jumping water" fountains!

Soarin'- Aaron and I went on this ride which was a hang glider simulator that "flies" over areas of California. The simulator has you strap in like you're on an airplane and takes you up in the air for the simulated movie. It was really cool!

Circle of Life: An Environmental Fable- a movie with the characters of the Lion King that talked about protecting the evironment.

Living with the Land- a boat tour through a working greenhouse.

World Showcase- we went through all of the countries Mexico (we went on the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros- a boat ride with Donald Duck), Norway (we went on Maelstrom- a boat ride showing Norway's past and present), China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, France (we had some pastries during this visit), United Kingdom (we met Tigger and Pooh), and Canada. The kids got passport books so that we could search out the site in each of the countries where they could get their books stamped. They had a lot of fun doing this!

We had dinner at a wonderful restaurant in the Mexico World Showcase and ended up leaving Epcot around bedtime.

Our Disney Vacation- Day 2- Magic Kingdom

On Sunday we got up and got ready for our first day at Disney! We went to the Magic Kingdom and saw the following things:

Swiss Family Tree house- Inspired by the film, this "house" takes you way up high—6 stories—as you see the living quarters of the Swiss Family Robinson. There's even a bucket pulley system that brings water up to the top!

Jungle Cruise ride- a safari style boat ride where we got to see lots of animals (not real ones). The tour guide was hilarious and have some really "punny" jokes!

Mad Tea Party ride- the kids loved riding in the giant tea cups and watching for the mouse to pop up from the pot in the middle and you could even control how quickly your cup would spin. Amy & Chris took the kids on this one, as Tim and I really don't like to spin in circles!

The Enchanted Tiki Room show- this was a unique show where the flowers, tikis, and animatronic birds sang songs. The kids were mesmerized.

The Magic Carpets of Aladdin ride- the kids were able to make the magic carpets go up and down and tip forward and back, which they loved!

Tom Sawyer's Island- Inspired by the Mark Twain novels, this was an island with all kinds of things to explore. Aaron loved leading us through the cave that was dark and had uneven floors with his flashlight and thought the barrel bridge was fun.

Haunted Mansion ride (Tim & Aaron)- this ride goes through a haunted house. Tim had talked with Aaron before we went about this ride and said he definitely wanted to go on it. He thought it was a little scary, but enjoyed it!

Pirates of the Caribbean ride- a ride that was created before the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which Captain Jack hides from those trying to capture him.

Pirate show- a show that took kids from the audience and had them sword fight with Captain Jack.

It's a small world ride- shows brightly costumed dolls that showcase music and culture from the various continents of the world.

Prince Charming Regal Carousel- an antique carrousel ride.

About 3 pm we'd had a great time but were all tiring out, so we decided to call it a day. On the way out, we caught the "Celebrate a Dream parade", so we went to the Confectionary and let the kids pick out a treat to enjoy during the parade.

Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel. We tried to do a little swimming, but it was a little chilly by the end of the day, so we didn't last very long! We hit the hot tub for a few minutes and then called it quits. We made some dinner at the hotel and relaxed the rest of the night.


Eating some breakfast at our hotel before heading to Magic Kingdom for the day.




Magic Kingdom!

Riding on the magic carpets

Mary Poppins in the parade

Mickey Mouse in the parade (Maggie would point to Mickey Mouse everywhere during this trip and scream "Mickey Mouse!")

Getting ready to get on the ferry to leave the Magic Kingdom

Our Disney Vacation- day 1- travel day

We left for our Disney vacation on Saturday, December 3rd. Our flight left Midway around noon, so it was nice to not have to rush around in the morning to get ready to go. Tim & I had almost everything packed the night before, so all we had to do in the morning was pack our last minute things. The kids woke up really excited that the trip was finally here! We had been tearing links from our countdown paper chain, as well as keeping track of the "Disney bucks" that Aaron was earning to spend on the trip. He earned Disney bucks for taking naps, clean plate club, not having any potty accidents, helping to set the table, not whining, etc. (Maggie got to earn some loot too, but isn't old enough to keep track of it on the chart that Aaron was using.)

We were a little nervous about the amount of luggage that we were taking, but it takes a lot of stuff to travel with 2 kids! We had 2 big suitcases for clothes (one for Tim and I and one for the kids) and one smaller suitcase for toiletries, shoes, diapers, etc. We decided to take our good (but big and pretty heavy) stroller, so we had a huge bag that held that, as well as a high back booster seat for Aaron. (We rented a car seat with the car for Maggie.) Then we had the pack and play for Maggie to sleep in and a couple of backpacks holding the laptop for watching movies, snacks, blankets, stuffed animals, and softies for the kids- all of the stuff that we'd need to keep them occupied!

We took a taxi to Midway, curb checked our luggage, and off we went. Super easy! The only issue on this leg of the trip was that we forgot to put diapers and wipes into one of the backpacks (had them packed in a checked bag). We figured this out as we were eating lunch and wanted to wipe the kids hands with a wipe. Glad that we figured it out before we really needed them! We ended up having to buy a small package of diapers (like 10 diapers for $15) and a little purse size thing of Handi wipes (none of the stores sold baby wipes- the Handi wipes were $5) at the airport. Thank heavens we did because Maggie had a dirty diaper on the flight! The kids did well on the plane. It was Maggie's first time flying and we took her as a lap baby. Thankfully we had our own row of 3 seats, so it worked out fine. Maggie is a little big to be a "lap baby", but it was nice to have all of us together and not have to try to sit beside anyone else. We felt badly for the people in front of us though, as it was really hard to keep Maggie's feet off the seat! The kids watched a movie, had snacks, and stayed pretty well occupied. It was during nap time and neither of them fell asleep, so that was a little disappointing, but not shocking!

After we arrived in Orlando, we got our rental car, and the kids fell asleep in the car on the way to our resort. We stayed at the Parc Soleil, which is a Hilton Grand Vacation Club resort. We got to the room and got all settled in and looked around. Chris, Amy, & Asher arrived a couple of hours later, so we made dinner for the kids and then ordered pizza for ourselves later in the evening. After finally getting the kids to bed (it was quite a chore to get Maggie down), Amy and I went to the grocery store to pick up food for breakfast and lunches for the week.

Gingerbread Village

We had a great time building our gingerbread village tonight!

Getting started.....


We put together all of the buildings and let them set while we ate some dinner.

On to decorating... lots of goodies to choose from!


Candy cane? Don't mind if she does!

Yummy!

Aaron tastes some of the candies too

Cheese!

The finished product!


We had a great time and were very happy with the result.

We love Christmas!!!

Videos of the Christmas train

The kids LOVE the Christmas train that Papa Coenen gave to us a few years ago. We always begin the Christmas season with it circling the bottom of our Christmas tree. Usually within a week or two, we have to put it away and just get it out every few days to play with, as the track gets all torn apart and it's really difficult to keep setting it up underneath the tree.

Sharing a couple of videos of the kids with the train, a couple of days after we got it set up.

Decorating for Christmas

While we're off to Disney World this week, I figure that I would share some pictures of our recent adventure in Christmas decorating!

The most hilarious part of all is that Maggie insisting on wearing her pumpkin shirt this day, so it looks pretty hilarious with the Christmas backdrop!












We got Aaron this santa hat with his name on it for his first Christmas and got Maggie one for her first Christmas. Didn't get very good pictures of them, but I think their hats are so cute!

We're getting in the holiday spirit! Can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner!

Chatty Maggie

I've really not done a good job of keeping track of Maggie's speech and language development the way I did with Aaron, so I'm going to focus here on our little lady!

Here's a little snapshot of what Maggie is up to and talking about at 20 months old:

*Maggie loves to sing and can be talked out of almost any bad mood with a song! (My mom was singing London Bridge with Maggie over Thanksgiving and we took her to Target with us and she kept singing the "take the keys and look her up" portion of the song! Mom & I were worried that she might be giving people the wrong idea!)

*She counts all the time, in English and Spanish. She skips a number or two every now and then, but can often count from 1-10!

*Her vocabulary is amazing! I have no idea how many words she has, but if I had to guestimate, I would say it's probably at least 250-350 words. She has a word for almost everything that she wants to say and is now using more action words, rather than just labeling things.

*Maggie is putting together 2-4 word phrases a lot these days. Some of my favorites recently have been: "Mommy, you get up!" (When she comes into our bedroom in the morning and wants me to get out of bed!) "Mommy, you come with me." "I love you, Daddy!" "What's this?" "Maggie's turn" "Bows in my hair." "Me rip chain. (We did a paper chain to countdown our trip to Disney.)

*Maggie is a lover and she loves to snuggle and give hugs. She is also a go-getter, can almost always keep up with Aaron, and doesn't let anyone push her around. She just manages to do it in a sweet way! :)

*She is a tough cookie, which I think she has had to be living with a big brother! She will fall down, get knocked over, hit her head, etc and as long as she's not tired, she'll just get right back up and keep going. Rarely do you see tears when she gets hurt and it's something that people comment on a lot.

*Maggie is starting to develop her sense of humor and when she thinks something is funny, she will point and laugh really loudly!

*When she gets excited, she will jump up and down and dance in circles.

*Maggie is in LOVE with our Elf on the Shelf (named E.) and will look around and laugh and laugh when she finds him! She also loves the Christmas tree ornaments and has currently broken 3 of them. (She has 2 or 3 that she can take off the tree as she likes and the rest are supposed to be touched with "one finger"!)

I'm not as thorough about keeping close track of all of Maggie's development, but I think that's because it's so much easier to relax and just enjoy it with the second child. We love you, Maggie, and are so proud of you!

We are so thankful....

.... that the fire we set in the oven didn't take the whole dinner, or the whole house for that matter!

Yep, that's right- the sweet potato pie went up in flames in the oven! Mom & I must have filled the pan just a little too full, which we figured out when we saw some smoke coming from the oven. Being the savvy cooks that we are, we put a pan under the pies (which we should have done in the first place and saved ourselves a lot of trouble) and opened a few windows. Well, the smoke got thicker and thicker and the smoke detector went off, which brought the kids in from their play and the men in from their football watching positions on the couch. Next thing we knew, there were flames in the oven!! Mom scooped the kids up and took off out the front door while Tim, Dad, and I tended to the fire. I tore the fire extinguisher off the wall in the kitchen closet- literally TORE it off the wall, screws and all! Dad opened the oven door, Tim aimed the fire extinguisher underneath the flaming pie, and Dad quickly shut the door after the attack. Thankfully, one shot was all it took!

The clean up was a drag, but we only lost the corn casserole, the fruit salad, and obviously, the sweet potato pies! The turkey was in a roaster on the kitchen table, mashed potatoes were in a covered pot on the stove, stuffing in a covered dish, cranberries chilling in the fridge.

It could have been a lot worse.

After the fact, all we could do was laugh. So much for my first time tackling the holiday meal!

Thanksgiving day

We were so excited to have Nan & Papa in Chicago to celebrate Thanksgiving with us! The day started out very peacefully- we ate home made pumpkin & zucchini bread for breakfast, watched some of the parade on tv, and Papa had a nice long coloring session with the kiddos before throwing the "old bird" in the roaster and heading off to the showers.

The Coenen fam all dressed up in our Packer gear and we took a bunch of pictures by the Christmas tree of the whole gang.

Mom and I headed to the kitchen to get started with our cooking. We'd made our cherry pie the night before (and enjoyed eating half of it for dinner that night as well), so we had the rest of the menu to tackle. We'd already started the turkey, so we got busy on our mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn casserole, cranberries, fruit salad, and sweet potato pies. It was all going so well.... everything seemed to be turning out great and timed just right.

It's amazing how quickly things can go wrong.

(To be continued)