Our Morning at the Happiest Place on Earth

This past Saturday morning, we woke the kids up and piled into Papa Crosby's Pilot, and didn't tell them where we were going. So, when the Magic Kingdom gate appeared before us, Kaitlyn was excitedly surprised! Zac had never been before, so he was excited that we were headed somewhere that made Katie so excited.

Zac's first ride was the tram from the parking lot. I have a feeling he thought that was pretty cool in itself.

 My Mom appropriately dubbed this photo, "The Two Princesses".

 

Here is my planner. Katie cannot handle not having a plan. She had to figure out where we were headed!

Another cool mode of transportation. Can we ride the monorail all day?

She has decided upon our first destination! Sorry kid, Mommy and Daddy are in charge.

Main Street was beautifully decorated, of course.

 Our first family photo of the day. We had spotted Mickey and Minnie, but they were doing some private photo shoot with a group of women. I'm guessing they were a bunch of visiting bloggers.

 It was pretty foggy that morning, which translated into humid for the rest of the day. Where was our crisp, cool December weather?!

Through Cinderella's castle to the new Fantasyland!

 The mosaics are still amazing.

Our first stop was "Belle's Enchanted Storytelling". While waiting in line Zac insisted on holding his ticket. He didn't really have one, so we had to make a makeshift one for him out of our ticket envelopes.  He was satisfied with that.

 

 Here we are entering Belle's cottage.

Every detail was awesome.

 We loved the portrait of Belle with her mother.

Here is something you never see, Disney fixing something during park hours. They whipped out the double-sided tape to re-adhere one of Maurice's blueprints to the table.

My five year-old is as tall as an 8 year-old french one.

Here we have entered Belle's bedroom in the castle. There are multiple roles to fill for Belle and the Beast's love story.  This is where you are chosen.

The wardrobe helps instruct everyone.

Jake was chosen to be a knight. No surprise for me there!

Here he is standing guard.

Belle is there for the entire storytelling experience. You get a photo with her and bookmark at the end. Considering some of the line to take pictures with the characters in the park run well over 30 minutes, the 40 minute wait for this interactive experience is well worth it! Our recommendation is to go here first when you reach the park. The new part of Fantasyland was barely maneuverable once it got a little later in the morning. Zac wasn't into participating along with everyone else. Rebel. However, his favorite part of the whole thing was Lumiere. (See him on the mantel. He was an animated robot/statue.) Once we were leaving he said, "Want one for my birthday." Can you make that happen Daddy?

While waiting in line for the storytelling experience, my mom had gone and gotten fastpass tickets for the new Little Mermaid ride. So, after we got done telling Belle and the Beast's love story, we went straight there. It was Zac's first "real" ride. He liked it!

Here are my two goofy sisters.

Here is our motley crew watching Ariel sing about her collection of human things, while Bethany calls her a hoarder.

Afterward, Daddy took Zac to the carousel while the ladies waited in line for a chance to meet Ariel. She is Katie's favorite princess.

So, not wanting her hair to be in her face in her pictures with her favorite princess, I stepped forward and readjusted her headband. Then I stepped back, and promptly slammed my camera on the ground, jamming the lens, rendering it completely useless. So, this is the last picture taken with my 4 month old Panasonic Lumix. Sigh.

It was a really awesome day otherwise. I'm glad we went with the kids at this age. They were really excited and really enjoyed seeing all the rides and characters. We had a couple of close calls with meltdowns, but all you had to do was tell Zac another ride was waiting around the corner, and he got moving. Zac's favorite was of course, the "Buzz Lightyear Space Explorer" ride. Katie is our adrenaline junkie and loved "Thunder Mountain" and The Little Mermaid ride the most.

A Series of Unfortunate Photographs

 So, this post should have been titled, "Kailyn's First Report Card!" 

Instead, I decided to document what an extremely difficult task it is to get Kaitlyn Belle Crosby to take a respectable photograph! 

(And just so you know, she was "On Level" and "Satisfactory" for every subject, and she received 3 ribbons for: academic excellence, perfect attendance, and good citizenship. She got to pick out a good handful of her Halloween candy to celebrate... and we saw "Wreck It Ralph" today.)

 

 

 

 

Seffner Ward Primary Sacrament Program

We Have a Kindergartner!

This morning marked Kaitlyn's first day of Kindergarten! 

She was excited and nervous... and a little sun burnt from our beach weekend. 

She smiled easily and happily hopped into the car with Daddy to go to school. 

I can't wait to go pick her up and see how her day went!

--- UPDATE AT END OF DAY --- 

Kaitlyn was picked up at school and fell asleep in the car before we reached home. She couldn't tell me much about her classmates, but her favorite part of the day was playing outside and doing "centers" in class. Her favorite center is the blocks and she likes eating in the cafeteria, or "restaurant" as she likes to call it.

 

I loved the note I found from Mrs. Haynes in Kaitlyn's agenda. It's been a long road with my iron-willed child. Hopefully, she will continue to behave beautifully and learn to love school. When I told her there were 180 days of school, she said, "I don't want to go to school for millions and millions of days!" She is hilarious!

Even at the prospect of millions and millions of days of school ahead of her, she is still excited for tomorrow. 

Gwen Cometh

 The Crosbys from New York have come to visit! Yay!

Gwen and Katie are fast friends and do not like do anything with out the other as long as they are within the same vicinity.

 The girls finished a princess puzzle together.

Gwen is a cutie pie!

 Grammie and Papa Crosby rented a beach house for the week, so we headed over to Anna Maria Island on Saturday. Papa even splurged and took us all to Bonefish for he and Grammie's
35th Anniversary! Congratulations to them this Thursday!

I don't think anyone really had lunch that day, with all of the packing and setting up camp at the beach, so we were pretty hungry and inhaled our food. Gwen was especially determined to fit 5-6 penne noodles in her mouth with each bite.

Zac had dinner and a movie. Notice, he propped up Jake's ipod on his sippy cup and watched
"The Incredibles" while chowing down on some french fries.

 After dinner, we hit the Coldstone across the plaza. The girls each had heaping scoopfuls of cotton candy ice cream coated in rainbow sprinkles.

The humidity was not our friend. 

 Uncle Jake's attempts to wipe things up and keep the melting under control were completely fruitless. As we went to leave Jake commented, "I hope they have a hose out here." It was funny because it was true.

 

Once we got back to the island, we headed to the beach. Zac hitched a ride with his daddy.

The girls grabbed their pails for some sea shell collecting.

 Kaitlyn would happily live at the beach.

Once everyone was back, and in their pajamas, the kids watched a little "Max & Ruby" before hitting the hay. They were pretty happy to have one another to play with and giggle with. They were really sweet.

In true Riebow style, my battery died the first day. It was flashing as soon as we got there because heaven forbid I learn from the mistakes of my forefathers and check camera batteries before leaving for vacation. So, I missed out on a lot of photo opportunities the next couple days. Lame. I especially missed getting pictures of everyone together, and of Uncle Johnny and his sweet new wife Loren. They'll more than likely be gone by the time we get back on Friday afternoon. The kids loved having them around. And we'll look forward to the next time we get to see them.