Happy Father's Day TJ... We LOVE YOU so much!
Bats can be guitars too...
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Happy Father's Day
There are not enough words to explain how AMAZING TJ is as a husband and a father! I am so VERY thankful for him and that he is a man of God and an amazing leader for our family. I took these pictures several weeks ago of TJ and the kids playing baseball in the back yard... they LOVE it when daddy gets home from work and they get to play baseball.
Happy Father's Day TJ... We LOVE YOU so much!
Happy Father's Day TJ... We LOVE YOU so much!
Friday, June 10, 2011
A Boy & His Letter Book
Anderson has his own morning routine...
Pick out cereal bar...
Open letter book...
Break cereal bar into small pieces...
Enjoy breakfast...
Same thing, every morning...
Pick out cereal bar...
Open letter book...
Break cereal bar into small pieces...
Enjoy breakfast...
Same thing, every morning...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Love Is All You Need...
Karoline and Anderson had their end of the year program and last day of school on Wednesday. It's hard to believe Karoline is FINISHED with preschool! So many different emotions ... sad because she's still my baby, but excited that she's so excited about going to the "big school", riding the bus, and getting to eat lunch at school :)I am SO thankful for the year we have had and we will miss their teacher's so much.
The school program was "Love is All You Need" and they sang different Beatles songs. Anderson's class and the other 2's sand "Birthday" and Karoline's class sang "Can't Buy Me Love" and everyone sang "Let It Be". It was precious.
Unfortunately I was in the back and even though I have a great zoom lens I didn't have the proper flash so it was VERY VERY hard to get any sort of good picture. Oh well...
On that note, can't we all agree that parents look like crazy people at school programs trying to take pictures and waving at their kids... it really is comical and I know I'm one of them :) Haha...
The school program was "Love is All You Need" and they sang different Beatles songs. Anderson's class and the other 2's sand "Birthday" and Karoline's class sang "Can't Buy Me Love" and everyone sang "Let It Be". It was precious.
Unfortunately I was in the back and even though I have a great zoom lens I didn't have the proper flash so it was VERY VERY hard to get any sort of good picture. Oh well...
On that note, can't we all agree that parents look like crazy people at school programs trying to take pictures and waving at their kids... it really is comical and I know I'm one of them :) Haha...
"They say it's your birthday, We're gonna have a good time... are you 1,..2?"
"Can't buy me love, love. Can't buy me love...
I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend If it makes you feel all right..."
Mrs. Benson and Miss Suzanne
Beach themed picnic...
Karoline's friends Graycen & Abby
Alli & Karoline
Karoline & Seth (who she says she's in love with!)
Rose & Karoline
Mrs. Meehan, Anderson, and Miss Candice
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Disney- Overall Thoughts and Tips
Since I knew NOTHING about Disney I had a lot of help planning. A special thanks to Christen Causey for her day by day blog post and suggesting touringplans.com and Chelsea Wall for lots of great tips on saving money.
Vacation Package:
I get asked a lot how did we get such a great deal and who did we book our vacation through. I just went through Disney. Click this LINK. They had an unbelievable deal where we didn't pay anything for the kids except for their meal plan and there was an extra discount on our hotel. My parents also took advantage of their great Military deals. They got 40% off their hotel and amazing ticket prices.
Where to stay:
Chelsea told me about their experience at their "Value Resorts" and we knew that was the only option for us. We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort and loved it! Yes, the rooms are small...BUT it's all you need! We were hardly in the room at all and when we were we were all in bed! It was clean, quiet, and you can't beat it for the price! The larger than life characters were so fun for the kids! Two little tips: Bring your own coffee pot of coffee is important to you (see pic below)... also they have coin laundry but I just took a travel size detergent so if there was an emergency (remember Karoline, bus, and my dad) I just washed the shirt in the sink.
Benifits of staying on property:
There were so many things I loved about staying in Disney. First, we parked the car and didn't have to drive again until we left. That's NO gas used all week! It was great! But if you do use your car you never have to pay for parking. The bus was great. We never had to wait very long for a bus and it was very convenient. Secondly, if you don't stay on property you can't get the dining plan and I can't say enough about their dining plan! As I said before the character meals were probably the kids favorite part and there would have been NO WAY we could have afforded them if we paid individually for them. We ate like kings and queens all week! Here is how the dining plans work... LINK.
Small ways to save time:
Take advantage of their FastPass service. Use the app from touringplans.com to find out wait times so you don't walk all the way across the park only to find a wait time is 45 minutes. This was THE BEST! Another way is taking advantage of the character dining so you don't spend your day trying to meet characters but have more time for rides.
Small ways to save money:
Disney Outlet- I bought t-shirts and their Micky and Mini stuffed animal at the outlets for practically nothing ($2- $4 for shirts/ B1G1 stuffed animals/ Karoline's Belle dress clearance from $50 to $14.50!) compared to the shops at Disney. I also got little Disney things from the Dollar Store. They had a little surprise to open each day and they never begged to go in any gift shops!
Buy Pins on Ebay- Chelsea told me about the pin trading thing and I got a "lot" of 20 pins on ebay for $13. I got the kids lanyards for $5 each on ebay. Since the kids traded pins it didn't matter what I got. They can trade pins with people that work at Disney and it was a fun little thing to do. Since usually the pins cost between $6-$12 just for 1 pin, ebay was the way to go! By the time we left they had really fun pins.
Take your own snacks and water- I bought some snacks and water bottles since they DO allow you to take your own food into the parks. This was great... THEIR WATER TASTES NASTY!!
Vacation Package:
I get asked a lot how did we get such a great deal and who did we book our vacation through. I just went through Disney. Click this LINK. They had an unbelievable deal where we didn't pay anything for the kids except for their meal plan and there was an extra discount on our hotel. My parents also took advantage of their great Military deals. They got 40% off their hotel and amazing ticket prices.
Where to stay:
Chelsea told me about their experience at their "Value Resorts" and we knew that was the only option for us. We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort and loved it! Yes, the rooms are small...BUT it's all you need! We were hardly in the room at all and when we were we were all in bed! It was clean, quiet, and you can't beat it for the price! The larger than life characters were so fun for the kids! Two little tips: Bring your own coffee pot of coffee is important to you (see pic below)... also they have coin laundry but I just took a travel size detergent so if there was an emergency (remember Karoline, bus, and my dad) I just washed the shirt in the sink.
Benifits of staying on property:
There were so many things I loved about staying in Disney. First, we parked the car and didn't have to drive again until we left. That's NO gas used all week! It was great! But if you do use your car you never have to pay for parking. The bus was great. We never had to wait very long for a bus and it was very convenient. Secondly, if you don't stay on property you can't get the dining plan and I can't say enough about their dining plan! As I said before the character meals were probably the kids favorite part and there would have been NO WAY we could have afforded them if we paid individually for them. We ate like kings and queens all week! Here is how the dining plans work... LINK.
Small ways to save time:
Take advantage of their FastPass service. Use the app from touringplans.com to find out wait times so you don't walk all the way across the park only to find a wait time is 45 minutes. This was THE BEST! Another way is taking advantage of the character dining so you don't spend your day trying to meet characters but have more time for rides.
Small ways to save money:
Disney Outlet- I bought t-shirts and their Micky and Mini stuffed animal at the outlets for practically nothing ($2- $4 for shirts/ B1G1 stuffed animals/ Karoline's Belle dress clearance from $50 to $14.50!) compared to the shops at Disney. I also got little Disney things from the Dollar Store. They had a little surprise to open each day and they never begged to go in any gift shops!
Buy Pins on Ebay- Chelsea told me about the pin trading thing and I got a "lot" of 20 pins on ebay for $13. I got the kids lanyards for $5 each on ebay. Since the kids traded pins it didn't matter what I got. They can trade pins with people that work at Disney and it was a fun little thing to do. Since usually the pins cost between $6-$12 just for 1 pin, ebay was the way to go! By the time we left they had really fun pins.
Take your own snacks and water- I bought some snacks and water bottles since they DO allow you to take your own food into the parks. This was great... THEIR WATER TASTES NASTY!!
Here are some pictures from our resort...
Mom set up a nice coffee station :)
We stayed in The Love Bug
Monday, May 23, 2011
DISNEY! Day 5
Our trip was coming to an end but since it only cost $10 total for a 5th day of tickets we got them because we wanted the chance to go back to The Magic Kingdom even if it was just for a few hours.
We all went and had breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. We got to see Pooh, Tigger, Alice In Wonderland, The Mad Hatter, and Mary Poppins. This was good because Anderson was asleep when Karoline and I met Tigger, Alice, and Mary Poppins at Epcot. We once again had a yummy meal and they brought me a beautiful, yummy cupcake for my birthday. We had to say goodbye to my parents after breakfast. They drove just a little over an hour to visit some of their long time best friends, The Websters.
We rode the Monorail from breakfast to The Magic Kingdom and went to searching for The Pirates of the Caribbean but got a little side tracked by Donald Duck. I honestly didn't think the kids would want to stop since they had seen him twice already but they insisted and I sent TJ to get past passes for Peter Pans Flight because we wanted to ride it again.
While waiting for TJ there was a dance party with the Country Bears and the kids had a blast. Then it was onto Pirates of the Caribbean. Walking around to Peter Pans Flight I wanted to see if Woody and Jessie were out because that was the one character Karoline kept asking about. We saw her earlier in the week but didn't get to meet her... Well, they were there and the line was not bad! Karoline was SO EXCITED!! I was so excited for her!
After Peter Pans Flight we rode the carrousel then started heading out of the park. We caught one last parade and oh was it fun! Goofy kind of attached to Karoline and they danced and danced! She had SO MUCH FUN! By the time we left the park it was 1:15...
We drove to Downtown Disney because we still had meal credits and met TJ's Uncle Darren at Wolfgang Puck Express again (because dinner the night before was so good!). It was great visiting with him then we headed out.
It took Anderson 15 minutes to be completely knocked out for a good 3 hours! The drive home was pretty painless because the kids were so tired and had 2 new movies to entertain them.
It really was an unbelievable trip. We all had a great time! I thank the Lord for beautiful weather, safety, good sleep, and all the memories we made... Yes, the kids are already asking to go back. I will be opening a Disney savings account soon!
We all went and had breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. We got to see Pooh, Tigger, Alice In Wonderland, The Mad Hatter, and Mary Poppins. This was good because Anderson was asleep when Karoline and I met Tigger, Alice, and Mary Poppins at Epcot. We once again had a yummy meal and they brought me a beautiful, yummy cupcake for my birthday. We had to say goodbye to my parents after breakfast. They drove just a little over an hour to visit some of their long time best friends, The Websters.
We rode the Monorail from breakfast to The Magic Kingdom and went to searching for The Pirates of the Caribbean but got a little side tracked by Donald Duck. I honestly didn't think the kids would want to stop since they had seen him twice already but they insisted and I sent TJ to get past passes for Peter Pans Flight because we wanted to ride it again.
While waiting for TJ there was a dance party with the Country Bears and the kids had a blast. Then it was onto Pirates of the Caribbean. Walking around to Peter Pans Flight I wanted to see if Woody and Jessie were out because that was the one character Karoline kept asking about. We saw her earlier in the week but didn't get to meet her... Well, they were there and the line was not bad! Karoline was SO EXCITED!! I was so excited for her!
After Peter Pans Flight we rode the carrousel then started heading out of the park. We caught one last parade and oh was it fun! Goofy kind of attached to Karoline and they danced and danced! She had SO MUCH FUN! By the time we left the park it was 1:15...
We drove to Downtown Disney because we still had meal credits and met TJ's Uncle Darren at Wolfgang Puck Express again (because dinner the night before was so good!). It was great visiting with him then we headed out.
It took Anderson 15 minutes to be completely knocked out for a good 3 hours! The drive home was pretty painless because the kids were so tired and had 2 new movies to entertain them.
It really was an unbelievable trip. We all had a great time! I thank the Lord for beautiful weather, safety, good sleep, and all the memories we made... Yes, the kids are already asking to go back. I will be opening a Disney savings account soon!
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