Get a cup of coffee. this one will be long.

Random moments from the past two weeks:


Jasmine: "she's a geeseherd. It's like a shepherd, but geese." (on "it's a small world" ride)

The highlight of Hudson's day: Meeting Buzz and Woody, and showing them both that they're on his shirt.

(he's offended that this is a picture of Buzz. He insisted, all in mime, that we bring a picture of just him next year.)

Nothing quite as cute as having Hudson narrate Beauty and the Beast to me at the live show. He loved telling me what was going to happen next!

Jasmine has gone on a real roller coaster, and loved it. (The Rock n' Roller Coaster). My little girl is growing up!

me: "okay, Jasmine. Do you want your camera so you can take pictures on Safari, or not need to be responsible?"
Jasmine: "not responsible. That's a good choice, right?"

Hudson, upon seeing a tiger through a window: "can I touch him? he's soft."

Hudson seemed much more concerned that the flame throwers were "naked" than that they were throwing fire!

Standing in line to see Winnie the Pooh and friends, hearing Hudson call out, "Tigger, I wuv you!"

Me: "why am I carrying you?"
Hudson: "you pick me'd up!"
(at this point I think he wonders how smart Mama is!)

Hudson kept asking, "where's Charla, Daddy?" A little young for that, kid!

Went to China with Kimberly, then ate dinner in France. We'll sleep well tonight!

(we spent Saturday with my friends and their kids, and Monday at Epcot with another friend and her family.)

Hudson looked at me with concern as we stood in line to meet Tinkerbell and said, "What's Tinkerbell's name???"

I overheard Aladdin tell Princess Jasmine just how cute Hudson was as we were walking away. He melts hearts!!

How quickly Hudson goes from "I scared from the pirates" to "I want to go on again!"

Hudson ordered "leafs" with his dinner. And yes, that's what he called it to the waitress. He enjoyed his salad, too!

A wild first: I waited longer for the change table than Josh and Jasmine did for Rock n' Roller Coaster!

Hudson, walking away from Rafiki, said loudly enough for the monkey to hear, "I LOVE dat guy!" I looked back to see Rafiki sign the same thing back to him!

Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother to Bekah, when she saw Bekah's Mickey Mitt-ed hands: "have you seen someone about those? I think I'd be concerned."

(Josh calls this one "the view from the bathroom")

 My rockstar, doing her best to make "floods" be the next big thing in pants! (how'd she get so TALL???)

They were so proud to get all 6 stamps at Animal Kingdom!

 let there be music!

 (Legoland. one of two days not at a Disney park)

 Butterfinger Cupcakes (wisely changed from being called Butterfinger Muffins). Found only at Disney Hollywood Studios, and worth the sugar coma that follows unless you share it with your entire family.

 riding the rides! (hard shots to get, even with a cool camera!)

Enjoying the shows (yes, that man IS on fire, and yes, that car IS driving on two wheels!)

 Just a bit too short...

*happy sigh*

Disney Trip

We just got back from the most perfect vacation in the most perfect spot on Earth.

*happy sigh*

I'll just leave you with this collage of the characters we met. Well, this is most of them, anyhow!
Stories headed this way soon...

Dreaming of Disney

Yesterday we got the 1,309,473,273th thing in the mail about Disney Cruises since we got home from the trip in early December.

Apparently Hudson's ready to go back.

In the evening, we were cleaning the house. Jasmine decided it would be fun to switch roles, so she was Mommy and I was Jasmine.
I played it for all it was worth ;)

"Mommy, can we go to a Disney Cruise again?"
"No, sweetie, I don't think so. See, that was for something special. Grandma spent lots and lots of money on that cruise, and so it was something we can't do again."

You mean she was listening?!?!

Artsy Photos

These are the pictures that, as Pioneer Woman always puts it, make my skirt fly up. These are the ones I couldn't wait to load onto the computer and play with in Photoshop.

Which one(s) is/are your favorite?

Chalecters

We did very little visiting the characters this year. Or, as the girls insist they are called, the "chalecters." I refuse to teach them the right way to say it.

But we managed to find a bunch anyways!

They insisted on meeting Jiminy Cricket, in spite of the fact that they haven't seen his movie.
I just like that they have photographic proof that they were once "waist-high to a cricket."

I never understood why the lines were always long to meet Chip and Dale. They're cute, but their cartoons always drove me crazy because I couldn't understand them. But now that I've seen them in action, I get it!

Bekah had just bought these Mickey Mitts, and was a great sport about letting Chip and Dale borrow them. And Jasmine was a good sport about what Chip did to her, too.
(ever wonder how to tell the difference? Chip has the black nose, Dale's is red.)

The girls loved that whole experience!

The girls have met Pocahontas every year, even though this is another movie they've never seen. They just think she's really pretty!

Not much else to say. They also met four of the princesses at Cinderella's Castle when we were there for dinner, but those pictures aren't good. like, at all. So you can just imagine them meeting Ariel, Belle, Snow White (who was adorable! She teased a cranky Hudson that he was just like one of her Dwarf friends, but cuter!) and Aurora!

Babies

I don't think it's a secret that I'm a sucker for babies. I like to smell their heads and kiss their toes.*

So when I saw the baby giraffe on the Kilimanjaro Safari in Animal Kingdom (Disney's newest park in Walt Disney World), I was pretty excited. Josh liked even better that we actually saw him running. Usually they're pretty still when we see them in the zoo, but since they have the whole savanna to play in, they actually use it!

Then, a little bit later, we got to the elephants. And saw the cutest baby elephant there, playing with his mother and friends.

The "tour guide" said he'd never seen them playing like that, so we knew we'd seen something special.

After the Safari, we took the walking tour. (from two times there now, I can pretty safely say the Asia walking tour is much more exciting than the Africa one, even if the tigers aren't even visible or there's a woman there taking a video of the tiger breathing in the only location where you could almost see his eyes, just because the decorations are out of this world in the Asia Jungle Trek.)

So where was I?...

Oh yeah. the walking tour. There, we saw a 9-month old gorilla. Oh my goodness.

Watching him (her? I forget) behaving like a human toddler, realizing he (she?) was about the same size as Bekah...it was just too much. I loved it!!

And of course there are the human-types. They can be pretty cute, too.

(I call this one "drunk on Life")
And in case you haven't had quite enough cuteness, this will definitely put you over the edge. (just don't comment on his bruise. He hasn't quite figured out how to safely follow the girls when they start climbing around the furniture).

*no, this is not a hint of any "news" from here. I've retired that type of news and am leaving it up to my sisters and sisters-in-law!!

Second Disney Trip of 2010

I'm still sifting through the 1900 pictures I took over the past two weeks. I've starred 86. This could be a doozy of a post.

1. Cruise food really is that good.

2. And the service was better.

3. Pluto can scare dog-lovers.

4. Chip can restore said person's faith in "chalecters." (no picture but it was sweet)

5. Public bathrooms aren't ideal, but better to need them than to experience dehydration.

6. Crossword puzzles make good Sudoku boards for 5-year olds.


7. It is possible to pack far too much, and way too little, at the same time.

8. Tip: buy enough diapers at the store on land before getting on a cruise. Things are wicked expensive with no competition.

9. this post, and the photo edits, are going to span more than one day.

Disney World Layout Month

I'm leading a challenge at The DigiChick this month. I'm going to give templates each Tuesday and Thursday, and then people will (hopefully!) use them for layouts about a vacation. I have a couple hundred pictures from Disney World and really want to make sure to use the good ones (i.e. the bulk of them!) and make a book for the girls. I want them to remember the trip, and since they're pretty young, this is the best way I can think of to help that happen!

I decided to make all the layouts' journaling as though I'm telling them their stories. I think I'm going to go back and do that with the layouts I've made from the trip over the past few months so there's some continuity. I'll get them all done and put in a hardcover book when I'm done and satisfied, and they'll have a book they can look over as they grow up.

So here's the first layout! If you aren't familiar with LOLcats, the stuff written on the pictures may not mean much to you (and I'm sure mom wishes I hadn't done the captions because she likes the funny pictures to stand on their own) but it cracked me up the whole time I worked on it!