First Day Magic...

Our first day when we went to the Magic Kingdom was truly one of the most magical days of my life. It was so excited to watch Nana and Pop see it for the first time and how much the twins really understood was amazing. We had to ride the monorail to start:

The best part of the day is when we first arrived and were walking down Main Street toward the castle. I do have to say that our matching shirts helped make it a lot more special. We got there as they opened so all the employees were lining the streets waving at us with their big Mickey hands. They all were saying, "Hi, Dodd family. We love your shirts." It was really neat to be greeted by name. It really paid off too because on the rides and everything they always put us together without us even asking due to the shirts. Jon even admitted he kind of wished we had some for other days! Anyway, it was really cool to get there so early and the park be relatively empty. We even got to meet the mayor:


The castle was amazing as ever. Wesley kept yelling, "my princess castle" because that is what we always call it since we took Ashton at 2 and she dubbed it that. It was funny to hear him say it though!

Nana is an avid rabbit collector and she managed to find a mosaic one in the castle.

The characters were out. Our first autograph came from the Fairy Godmother herself!

This was really funny because Will was all about standing next to Peter Pan while Wesley was having none of it. Then Peter thought it would be a good idea to teach Jackson how to crow and let out a really loud crow and Will fled the scene hysterically. That is him trying to hide behind his daddy:

The first ride up was Ashton's favorite- Dumbo (which also fit in with my copious research of which rides to ride first!). Everyone loved it (Jon and I were SO glad to have Nana and Pop along so no one had to ride alone!):

Ashton even scored her ultimate goal- riding a PINK elephant with NANA- dreams really do come true!

Jackson of course felt obligated to show Pop the ropes:

I got the slightly unsure child who ended up really enjoying the "flight":

The longest line we waited in was probably to see Ariel, but how could you miss out on Ariel?

This one definitely needs to be blown up to an 8x10 and framed:

One of the funniest moments of the day came when we went to ride the race cars. I was so surprised the twins were even old enough to ride, but they could even drive! I let Wesley take the wheel (and had whiplash to prove it) while Jon made Will ride shotgun. They run on a track and the boys both thought they were Lightning McQueen. Jackson and Ashton were right in front of us so every time Wesley saw them he would let got of the wheel, throwing me to the side and start yelling, "Jack Jack, I dwive ca Jack Jack I dwive ca!!!!". It was the.cutest.thing.ever, definitely my favorite Wesley moment.

All of we competitive types were anxious to throw down the gauntlet and rack up the highest score on the space ranger spin. Unfortunately, it was a little hard to get an awesome score while holding a two year old who had the audacity to want to play. I'm just sayin'....

Will had just recently become fascinated with trains. he saw the train when we first came in and wanted to ride right away. As we were riding other things every time we heard the train whistle he would yell to ride. Forget Mommy's organized plan, we HAD to let the boy ride the train.

This is his face when he first saw it up close:

This is his face when we actually got on the train. Entire cost of trip- totally worth it for this smile:

I also noticed he and Ashton holding hands, tissue please...

Oh yeah, these other people liked it too. I believe it was Pop's favorite! That man in the back alone was out stroller wrangler so he got to ride everywhere with a stroller for company:)

We got the best spot to watch the parade only to have it canceled due to rain although they did do their rainy day parade. Everyone consoled themselves with ice cream (another of Pop's and Will's favorite thing about Disney!):

Don't you just love how you spend a lot of money to take them to the most amazing place on earth where you can see things you can't see anywhere else, and they are most fascinated by a bird?

After a slightly rainy, totally awesome and exhausting day it was my favorite time when the castle is all lit up. The twins loved it too.

Then it was time for the spectacular fireworks show: most of us loved it, one of us had a bathroom emergency causing one of us to have to fight our way through a mob to find a bathroom as the fireworks exploded- behind us!

Some us closed our eyes in fear which led to finally giving in to exhaustion, oh to be a kid again!
Main street was just as magical when we left as when we came (though it seemed a lot longer on tired legs!) so we got a final picture with good ole' Walt (his statue not his frozen body!):

This day alone made the entire trip worth it, and we still had a lot of world left to see...

Disney Bound...

I'm finally beginning to recover from my Disney hangover enough to share our trip (especially since lots of people have been fussing at me about it :).

Due to the snow forecast we changed our original plans which had us heading out at 4 Friday morning and left Thursday evening instead. I was a little freaked out because that gave me 12 less hours to pack and prepare, but it ended up working our great. Jon and I were very excited that it would break up our trip since driving 12 hours with 4 kids was daunting to say the least. I didn't let the twins take a nap thinking they would sleep as soon as they got in the car- yeah right! Those little stinkers didn't blink an eye the entire 4 hour trip to Atlanta until Wesley nodded off right when we reached Atlanta! They were amazingly good on the trip though so I can't complain too much.

My wonderful husband drove the entire time despite being up since 4 that morning. I also have to say I was SO surprised and blessed by the fact that he took like 1 work call and then did not work for the rest of the trip (at least that I saw I am sure he sneaked in some e-mails on his phone). That was huge for him since he is on call 24-7. It was so wonderful having his undivided attention :)

So, we were off in our wonderful rented van with Stow-and-Go compartments. I heart that thing! Wed decided to put the twins in the back assuming they would sleep and so we could actually talk to the big kids. Neither thing happened since they were all watching movies the entire ride

(how did our parents ever take us anywhere without DVD players- oh yeah, we read!).

If you know me at all, you know I had activity bags packed for each child, and they were Disney themed bags and activities too!We finally stopped south of Atlanta and checked into a very nice hotel room (thank you Nana). What do you do after checking into a nice hotel room? Jump on the beds of course!

Since we didn't have cribs, Jon and I each took a big kid and a little kid in a bed. Here are the two I was responsible for. Please note that not only are they sleeping, but they are sweetly sleeping holding hands no less. Man, I'm good!
Jon's didn't do so well. Will wanted to sleep on the floor which totally grossed me out because it was a hotel room-eww! So, when Jon was trying to get him off the floor Will threw a fit and hit his mouth on the corner of the wooden bed frame. It was pitch dark so Jon picked him up and carried him to the bathroom. When we turned the light on we all panicked because Jon was covered in blood! Will had sliced opened his gum and, like all mouth wounds, it was bleeding profusely. We finally got it stopped, but the next morning we warned the front desk about all the blood soaked rags!
Friday we got off to an early start and made great time. Again the kids did amazingly well. We made some great active stops at a rest stop and Chik-F-A playground which helped a lot. We arrived at our resort at 5:00. I requested a T*y Story room because the twins love this movie so much. I love this resort because it is fun with the two story characters. We were so excited to have our picture made with "Yeehaw Cowboy" as the twins call him.

Will was loving all the characters, but Wesley was a little scared of the gigantic characters.

Ashton was hamming it up as usual.

They all loved this car and had to sit in it EVERY time we walked past.

Guess which character was Ashton's favorite?

Buzz Lightyear guarded us each night as our rooms were behind him. So comforting!

After Jon and I about had a break down after Will's screaming melt down at dinner, Nana kindly took them to look around some more. They discovered the giant dogs that Will insisted on having his picture made with. There were 2 and Wesley kept showing me the "mommy" dog and "daddy" dog.

This giant TV was my favorite. Notice Will is even trying to change the channel off his crazy self!

Overall, our travel went amazingly well. Before we knew it it was time to lay out our matching shirts and get ready for the big Magic Kingdom day!