DisneyWorld: Hollywood Studios

This was a really neat park. It gave you that old hollywood feel. They had some cute shows. We watched the Mermaid show, Disney Junior Puppet Show, and Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was worth seeing - the other two really weren't.




We had been trying to see Woody since he is one of the girls favorites so on our last day, we finally tracked him down!



And of course, a real favorite at our house - Lightning and Mator!
So much so that I thought the Cars DVD was going to come out smoking a couple months ago. We watched it at least 18 times a day:)

I love these guys so we all snuck in the picture.


We played on the Honey, I shrunk the Kids Movie Set.




Twain and I rode the Tower of Terror - I didn't get any pictures of that one. I was too busy screaming!

Rode Toy Story Mania:



All in all, it was a pretty low key day. I mean we were worn out by this time!
Notice the huge bags under my eyes????




I really liked this park. It was very mild compared to Magic Kingdom. There were not a ton of people there and all the lines were short.

This is is my final post on the parks. We did not visit Epcot so I don't have any knowledge of that park. If you are thinking about taking a trip to Disney, it is well worth the trip! Now I am not going to ever say you can go there cheap because lets face it if you think gasoline is high - you should order a diet coke at Disney. But there are ways of saving money and making it more affordable. There area also ways of saving time. You can pay a small membership to some of the websites that will even print a plan for you of where to go at what time to stand in the least amount of lines. We didn't do that. We just went for it and had a good time!

Birthday Girls

Happy 3rd Birthday Braelyn and Bailey! My heart swells every time I think about the wonderful three years that we have had together and all the memories that we have already made.

Here you are Bailey at 4 pounds and 17 inches long and Braelyn at 4 pounds, 7 ounces and 17 inches long.



Here you are now Braelyn at 3 years old, 31 pounds and 38 inches tall! Healthy as a horse!


And you, Bailey, are now 3 years old, 31 pounds, and 38 inches tall! Exactly the same as sister. You aren't the runt anymore:)


You two girls have brought more joy to my life than I would ever be able to explain. We love to watch cartoons, play with play-do, read, and color together. You love going to preschool. You love your friends at school and talk about them a lot at home. You can count from 1 to 15. You can sing the B-I-B-L-E, Jesus Loves Me, Deep and Wide, and several other songs. You know all your colors. You know your full name as well as the rest of your close families full name. You know where daddy works. You can sing most of your ABC's. You can recognize your name on a name tag at school. One of our favorite things to do is travel and visit new places. We have done everything from Sea World:



to Jellystone Park:



to Disney World:



to the Gaylord Texan's Shrek the Halls:



You go to the gym with momma almost every day so you love to exercise and have already ran your first race! Bailey you had to run yours at home because of your ear infection, but you defintely came in ahead of daddy!

Look how fast you were, it was blurry!


Braelyn at the Chigger Chase

I look forward to the many more memories that we will make together. You two are my best buds and thank you for the happiness that you have brought to my life! I can't believe we have gone from thinking that you were too little to go home from the hospital to wondering when you are ever going to quit eating!!!!!

Magic Kingdom

The second Disney Park we went to was Magic Kingdom. This park was definetely the best one for two little toddlers that dream of being a princess. Literally, the girls sleep in a princess dress every night. They had dreamed about eating breakfast in the castle for months now. Everything in Magic Kingdom was so much fun. They had a lot of rides for their size and had a whole fantasy land that was just for the small ones. The only bad thing was that Toon Town was closed for remodeling which would have probably been a great place for the girls. Even with that part closed, it still took us 2 days to get through this park. We reserved a place for breakfast in the castle with the princesses. The one thing that we were not told when making our reservations was the length of time it would take to actually get to the entrance of Magic Kingdom so if you ever have reservations right at opening, keep in mind that you will need to be there early because once parking you had to ride a tram to a ferry and then take a ferry boat or the mono rail on to the entrance of Magic Kingdom so it took us about half an hour after parking to get to the front gates. We were close to missing our reservation. Just an FYI!

If you go and have little girls, eating in the castle is a must!











You can let your kids dress up to attend any of the parks but we saw a lot dressed up like princesses at Magic Kingdom. Bailey wore her Belle dress from the Beauty and the Beast and Braelyn wore her Snow White dress to the castle. One thing that we didn't do because we didn't know about it ahead of time to make reservations was to let the girls get their hair done up like a princess at the Bippidy Boppidy Boutique. That would have been fun!
Another nice thing about the castle meal was that you got to see five princesses during your hour long meal. So, with lines over an hour long to see each princess around the park - that saved us a whole lot of time! Don't let the lines scare you off, I don't know if that is always like that but we picked a dandy of a week to go. It was Nascar Race Week in Orlando, some states' spring break, and the All Star Basketball game so I think it was busier than normal for a February.

The longest line we waited in was to see this gal! Braelyn's
absolute favorite!



The girls with Repunzel from Tangled!


The nice thing about having three adults was that we stuck Twain in line along with the other amazing dad's that were sticking it out for the hour and fifteen minute wait to see her and mom and I took the girls to walk around and do some other stuff. Because who wants to stand in line for that long with two year olds - not me!

They got to go in Winnie the Pooh's house. Apparently Winnie the Pooh is pretty short, because Momma wouldn't fit in there:)







Another awesome thing about Magic Kingdom was their parades! The other parks parades don't compare at all to this one. They have two. The afternoon parade and a night time electrical parade where all the floats are light up like Christmas trees and the characters as well. These things are worth getting to early so you can have a curbside seat because the characters will walk right by the kids and give them five, etc. Worth the wait! Here is another opportunity to stick awesome Dad at the curb with the strollers while Mom and I go get a snack with the girls:) Twain really was basically a spot holder for two days, but he didn't mind!
one night, we did stay for the 10pm firework show. It was awesome. They had a laser light show where the castle lit up all kinds of colors followed by a massive fireworks show and then Tinker Bell even flew out of the castle across the park. Itw as a lot of fun! Then, since this particular park stays open until 1am. We stayed late because a lot of the little kids had left and walked on all the rides in fantasy land. These rides earlier in the day were up two hours wait which we weren't about to do with grouchy kiddos!








The second day of Magic Kingdom I didn't get very many pictures. Well because this was the day of the horrible stomach virus and I had to go back to the condo early and well, I couldn't really expect Mom and Twain to keep up with two kids and take pictures! I did get a few though.










Up next: the last park we visited, Hollywood Studios!

Disney World Review Part 1

Wow! It has been so long since I have made a blog post that I almost forgot my sign in information. I have been absent from the blogging world for several months. Mostly because I choose to spend the few free moments that I have either resting or sleeping!

Our family recently went to Disney World and I have been asked so many questions about our trip that I thought it would be fun to write up a review.

Here are several that some of you sent:

Did the girls have a great time? This question is so easy, yes of course they did! They are into Mickey Mouse and all the Disney princesses right now so how could they not, right?

Is it really worth the money? Yes it was worth every penny that we spent, however we didn't spend a fortune because we used a few money saving tips that I had learned from this website as well as talking to family and friends that had been.

What attractions should I take my toddler to and what should I avoid? That I will answer in my post.

I do have a few tips. If you are traveling with young ones like we did, it is absolutely important to take rest days. We bought four day disney tickets. So our plan was to go to Disney two days, take a rest day in between, and then go two more days, take another rest day the day before we flew home. We stayed a total of 7 days. However, since I got the stomach virus one day and had no energy the next day we ended up taking two rest days in between which worked out perfectly for the two old people traveling with us as well. Twain and Mammy! Neither one of them ever read my blog so I can safely say that!

Here is how we went a little cheaper than most do. Twain and I both have credit cards that earn us airline miles. So, we had three free airline tickets and only paid for one. We traveled Monday to Monday which got our ticket that we were actually paying for a little cheaper than flying on the weekend. We stayed offsite at a condo and did the whole 90 minute presentation where they try to sell you something and got an awesome deal on our condo for the week. However, I am still reseraching to see if it really saved us a whole lot because this caused us to have to rent a vehicle and traveling with five of us including two car seats, we had to rent an SUV! We took backpacks with us every day to Disney and brought our own bottled water, snacks, and lunch. (This saves a lot) Now, here is the kicker. While kids are under 3, they are free. So we went three weeks before the girls turned 3. This saved us $500 in Disney Tickets and $200 on the two character dinners that we did. Thats right as long as you are a paying adult at the character dinners, kids under 3 are free! Amazing deal.

First park we visited was Animal Kingdom. I have mixed feelings on this park. Part of me feels like it was just a massive zoo and we can visit a zoo at home. However, the lines for the characters were so much shorter here than they were at Magic Kingdom. The longest line we waited in at Animal Kingdom was 20 minutes. And the breakfast buffet at Donal Duck's Safari Breakfast was great!








You must run by a gift shop on your way in to your first park and get your kids an autograph book. This was one of the girls favorite parts. They would get their books and pens out and could not wait for the next character to sign their book. All the characters were willing to do that. Then, the book is a perfect keepsake!








If you ever find yourself at this park, the safari bus tour is a must! We went in the morning first thing after our breakfast with Mickey Mouse because our waitress told us the animals are more active first thing in the morning. It was fun and the girls had a blast.



Basically, animal kingdom had a lot of cute stuff, but if you are not going to make it to all the parks and you have been to a zoo, you probably could skip it. We chose to skip epcot because it took us two days to get thru magic kingdom. We were really thankful for the short character lines at animal kingdom though:) Next up: review of magic kingdom.