Look-a-like babies

Halloween x3

My kiddos dressed up three times this year.  First, the administrative staff at the church had the staff kiddos come trick or treat (seriously the cutest thing EVER).  Second, Halloween night in our neighborhood.  Third, Trunk or Treat at the boys' preschool.  It was kind of a good thing, because Ellie had 3 (!) costumes.  I know seriously right.  Poor Ben didn't get a costume at all his first one and Ellie gets 3!  (OK, give some credit, the boy was only 3 weeks his first Halloween)

 

Zeke was a rocket ship and Ben a Ninja Turtle (or Injun Turtle if you ask him)

Outfit #1- UNC cheerleader

This was too funny not to do.  The Thompson boys were Thing 1 and Thing 2 and let us borrow a wig for a photo op.  (Also, big thanks to Cynthia and Kathryn for hanging onto E the whole time!)

Ellie LOVES babies.  It's the first real difference I have seen in behavior between my boys and her.  She went NUTS over Jack.  It's been rumored that she tries to hold his hand in nursery. (side note, check me out in the background with out any kids and a plate full of desserts, heaven)

Ladybug is costume #2

headed to the first house

 

we trick or treated with some small group friends who were dressed at policemen

chubby little bug!

HORRIBLE pic, sorry.  But we set up and gave out hot chocolate and candy with our small group again this year.  I love doing this for our neighbors.  It is such a great way to meet people

TRUNK or TREAT.  This concept was a bit odd for the boys

OH, and Ben shucked his costume not even half way through. 

Convo between a rocket and a bee

Happy little bumblebee!

Visit to YaYa and PawPaw's

 

 

This girl loves to swing

We love this playground near my parents.  If you are in the Burlington/Elon area, check out Beth Schmidt park.  It's really nice and has stuff for every age

My parents decorate haybales each year. 

The boys love how fun it is on the farm

As a special treat, we took the kids through the field to the haybales on the back of my dad's pickup

Can you tell how much they loved it?!

And Sophie had a sweet moment and picked flowers to give out ;)

Disney iphone pics- Disney post #1

WARNING! This is chock full of pictures. And these are only the pictures from my iphone. Just wait til I get Spence's and our camera's loaded and edited.

We spent September 30-October 5 in Disney World. I have a zillions tips and tricks that I will be sharing in a few posts as well. I will break up our trip into each day, also. This was our first ever family vacation and it was awesome. To try to put into words the wonder on my kids faces is just not possible. There were many moments where I teared up because of their excitement. I honestly can say I wasn't one of "those" Disney people, and I wouldn't say I am one now, but wow I totally want to go back soon! OK, here's our trip through the eyes of my phone

 

This was my packing strategy: Ellie away from the harm of her brothers craziness, and the boys watched A LOT of PBS on my phone or Angry Birds on the iPad

I tried to let Ellie have a ton of time moving the morning before we left

This is what we took: 2 strollers (one jogging and one double), 3 suitcases, a diaper bag, a bookbag, my carry on bag, and the boys each had a backpack

We got to the airport with PLENTY of time because we didn't know what security with three kids would be like.  (it ended up being a BREEZE, happy dance)

We sat in back to back rows (Spence with Ben, and me with Zeke and Ellie).  The boys got suckers to help with take off and I fed Ellie to help with their ears.  Everyone did amazing on the flights!

Once we landed in Orlando, we boarded The Magical Express. It showed a video about Disney World, and we were the first stop so it didn't take long before we arrived at Port Orleans French Quarter (our home for the next 5 nights)

Our first night we went over to Art of Animation resort for dinner.  We had heard that this resort was really cool with it's Cars theming.  (it also has Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, and Lion King).  After eating, the boys had no idea that we were going to see all their favorites.  We couldn't keep up with them and this was the first of many times I cried at their excitement

The entrance to one of the buildings

Another building entrance

Lightning!

Sarge

Our first day was Magic Kingdom, the boys had no clue what to expect.  Once we rode the bus in and got through the ticket lines, we walked in and they got really excited about this, they had no idea what the rest of the day would hold

This is just to show our stroller and my matching boys (shirts by YaYa)

 

oops out of order pic!

Here's the back of Filmore.  I love all these fun bumper stickers!

The money shot! Ben screamed "Cinderella's Castle!" every-single-time we saw it.  (it didn't matter that he had no clue who Cinderella was, he was so excited!)

The one thing I have always wanted to do was walk through the castle (I know it's no big deal).  I wasn't able to do that the only time I went in middle school, so we made sure we did it!

DAY 2 was Animal Kingdom!  Ellie and I hung out while waiting for our lunch reservation

Side note: a friend from our church ran into us here!  We knew that we were all going to be there at the same time, but still didn't actually think we would see each other.  How fun is that?!

Ellie wasn't so sure about Mickey

She did not want him all over her at all

She recovered quickly though

The Nemo show was so fun.  The singing was really good and it was so pretty

We also went to see The Lion King.  It was cute as well and very audience interactive.  This was the one day we didn't return to our room for a nap/rest time.  Ben had a slight meltdown and then fell asleep during the show. It was so loud, I don't know how he did it!

When we got back to our strollers, it had rained :(

We were able to tweak things so that Spence could put Sleeping Beauty down with out waking him up and that kid took a great nap!

Downtown Disney and the Lego store were huge hits!  The boys both got to choose a lego set

Ellie took a nap looking all cute while in Downtown

This picture is also out of order. On our day off we went swimming, I did laundry (seriously a GREAT idea and I highly recommend it!), and we had dinner at The Rainforest Cafe (do not do it!  Ben fuh-lipped out. It was pretty much awful, but my 3 bites of food were good)

Headed back to Magic Kingdom on our last day.  The boys sported their mouse ears for the occasion

Breakfast was from Main St. Bakery.  This is ONE cinnamon roll and it counted on our dining plan as ONE snack.  What the what?! Seriously, go get one.  YUM!

The very best souvenir ever.  It was $8 and you get two copies.  So we did each kiddo's silhouette.  It was pretty incredible watching this girl do it.  The kids just sat so she could see their profile and she went to town cutting. It was amazing

Ben didn't nap when we went back to the room this day, and instead napped in the stroller while we caught the boat to go for dinner at Fort Wildnerness

 

OK, this came from Spence's phone, but he had texted it to me.  As we were having dinner on our last night, the heavens opened and it rained like no other.  We ate slowly and still it rained.  We dawdle and still it rained.  We finally decided we just had to bite the bullet because we needed to pack and get these kids in the bed.  I strapped on Ellie and put on a poncho.  Spence put on the diaper bag and a poncho.  And we put the boys in the double stroller and covered them with a clear shower curtain.  The craziness continued when trying to catch a bus back to Magic Kingdom and it drove right by.  We ended up catching a bus to another resort, then riding the monorail back to Magic Kingdom to then catch our resort bus.  So on this one day, we traveled by bus, boat and monorail!

 

This is in the Orlando airport waiting to board.  We let Ben run like a wild man so he wouldn't try to on the plane.  We were definitely those parents.