Valentines Day

Valentines Day fell on a Tuesday this year. Tuesday is my busiest/worst day with preschool, ballet, basketball, and mutual. So, I didn't really do much to celebrate this year. I did want to let my family know how much I loved them though, so I did a few little things. The night before Valentines Day, I heart attacked their doors and wrote on each of their hearts things that I loved about them or things they were good at. I think they enjoyed reading them in the morning. I thought it was cute.

Maggie and Paige's Door

Noah's door

 They woke up to a little box of chocolate candy at their breakfast place

This is Noah enjoying one of the girls' Valentines suckers from their parties.  He had it everywhere.  Paige taught him to hold his hands up in the air and yell Suckers everytime he has a sucker.  He was a mess, but he loved it.

For dinner, I had Garrett pick up some heart shaped pizzas again (fast and easy baby) and I just added a green salad.  Garrett also brought roses home for each of his beautiful girls. 

We had heart shaped brownies with raspberry filling, vanilla icecream and fresh raspberries for dessert.  YUM!

I also wrote each person a LOVE letter that I hope they will appreciate some day.  And that was it.  Pretty low key for us, but nice just the same. 

The Saturday before Valentines Day, the Relief Society activity was a Valentines Dance at the church.  We almost didn't go because Maggie was sick and didn't feel like babysitting, but we helped her get Noah in bed and the other kids ready for bed, then went a little late.  It was a lot of fun with a lot of great people.  They had a guy in our ward who's from Hawaii teach a Hawaiian dance, and a lady in our ward from Russia teach some Russian dances.  One other thing that they did that was fun was have a "dance off" between the men and the women.  Each group would take turns coming up with a dance move, then they would walk/strut to the middle of the floor and all the guys would do that dance move and then they'd walk back to their side.  Then the women had to come up with a dance move that would top that move and so on.  It was hilarious.  The men were better by far, but it was fun.  Garrett didn't want to dance much that night, but I did get to dance a slow song with him.  We got the picture above taken there. 

Last Day at the Happiest Place on Earth

Our last day in Walt Disney World, (third day in Magic Kingdom) was spent visiting characters, shopping, watching parades and riding a few rides.  We did the things we didn't have time for on the other days; plus a few of our favorite rides. 

When we first got there in the morning, we hadn't eaten breakfast, so we splurged on some yummy cinnamon rolls and croissants from one of the Main Street Bakeries.  After that, we went to meet Cinderella, Belle and Aurora.

I love this one of Paige and Belle!

Aurora made Noah bashful

Then we rode the train around the park

After the train ride, we did some shopping for souveneirs, then all of a sudden, it was lunch time.  The parade was going to start soon, so we got some hot dogs and nachos and found a spot to watch the parade. 

The parade was a ton of fun!  We loved seeing all the characters, especially the ones that we hadn't seen yet. 

Bella and Noah LOVED it!

The step-sisters were my favorite.  I wish we could've met them and gotten pictures with them.  They were hilarious!

After the parade, we had to go ride Bella's favorite, It's a Small World and then Garrett and I went on Haunted Mansion while Maggie watched the kids.  Luckily, Noah fell asleep for her in the stroller and the other girls played with their new Princess Polly Pockets. 

Then Maggie and I went on Pirates, and then we all did Jungle Cruise one last time.  We finished up our shopping and then went back to the hotel to pack and have dinner and get to bed.  We had an early flight and so had to get up really early.  Ugh!

--The End--

Almost Done: Day 6: Hollywood Studios (again)

The first thing on our agenda for Hollywood Studios, was to ride the Toy Story Mania ride.  We have heard numerous people tell us how awesome it is.  Waiting in line was fun because they made all these giant toys to make it look like we were the size of toys.  It was fun to look at them all and see really old toys that you had when you were a kid. 

Bella not wanting her picture taken

Still waiting in line...Noah loved the giant Mr. Potato Head; it's one of his favorite toys.  His face doesn't look that excited though, does it?

This is what you ride in.  It's an interactive 3D ride, (well 4D ride if you count getting splashed with water when you pop some of the balloons) kind of like at a carnival and you get to shoot at things and throw rings around little green aliens, and throw baseballs to break plates.  It was a fun ride and definitely worth the wait. 

Next, we went on the "Hollywood Studio Backlot Tour".  Studio Backlot Tour is a 35-minute, behind-the-scenes guided walk and tram ride showcasing the art of special effects in movies at Hollywood Studios. 

Us on the tram going "behind the scenes"...

We found this from Return of the Jedi

At the end of the tour, we visited the showcase of villains' costumes and paraphanelia.  We ran into Darth Vader here.  Lydia cracks me up in this picture!!

Noah loved the light saber and the swords...a true boy!!

 Right nearby, we found Mike Wazowski from Monsters.  I can't imagine what Noah was thinking as he was staring at this one eyed green thing. 

After a lunch break, we split up. Garrett took Lydia on StarTours. Once again, I chose not to ride this one, even though I love Star Wars, because you ride in a flight-motion simulator vehicle, which gets me really sick! Lydia had a great time, though. 

After we were done shopping in the Star Wars store, we came out to this parade:

It's the Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun Parade.  There were characters from the Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, A Bug's Life, Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. 

We split up again, but this time had Maggie take all the kids to see the Disney Jr. Show with Mickey Mouse while Garrett and I went to the "Great Movie Ride".  It's housed in a building that is a replica of  Grauman's Chinese Theatre, complete with hand and footprints of celebrities.   

This one's for you mom...:)

I love movies, so I thought this was a cool ride.  They had scenes from different popular movies and even had some real actors acting out part of a gangster movie and we were right in the middle of it.  They mostly used lifelike Audio-Animatronic replicas of legendary movie stars in the scenes.  Some of the movies were Raiders of the Lost Arc, Mary Poppins, Aliens, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, and some Gangster movie I don't know the name of.  It was fun!

Next, we grabbed some ice cream and headed to the Indiana Jones Stunt Show.  Noah was freaking out for his own ice cream, so Garrett and I shared.  He really liked it, can you tell?

A scene from the Stunt Show...pretty cool

After this Garrett took Lydia and Maggie back to Star Tours and the rest of us walked around, getting Noah to sleep.  Paige was really good about walking around the whole time without complaining.  I'm sure she was pretty bored, but we couldn't go on anything with Noah asleep.  Bella got to ride in the stroller the whole time, so she didn't care what we did. 

In front of Star Tours, they had "Jedi Training" against Darth Vader.  Maggie took these.  She and Lyd are pretty big Star Wars fans these days. 

When Garrett and the girls got back, Maggie and I went on the Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster which was a lot of fun. Then Garrett went on it with Maggie.  Maggie seemed to get to do most things twice.

The Tower of Terror

Maggie kept saying she wanted to go on this one.  Here it was the end of the day and we hadn't made it a priority.  I don't like free-falling, so I wasn't going to go at all.  Then when I was waiting for Garrett and the girls to get back from Star Tours, I kept watching this ride and trying to talk myself into it.  By the time they did get back, I was all set to go on it.  But we had fastpasses for the rockin' roller coaster that were about to expire, so we went on that first.  When we were done, Garrett told us to go and ride on Tower of Terror because we were about to leave.  We got right up to the line and we both decided that we didn't want to do it.  So, yes we are big chickens and I have a small amount of regret that I didn't try it.  But not a lot.  Oh well, there's always next time.  :)

Back at the resort eating dinner.  After dinner, the kids (minus Maggie and Noah) went swimming and I got Noah in bed and had a chance to read a book. It was fairly chilly at night, I really don't know how they swam.  They loved it though. 

French fries with dad