Day 2 - Animal Kingdom

On Tuesday, we went to Animal Kingdom, which we hadn’t done last year.  I’ve read quite a bit about how some people believe this is a “half-day park,” but I guess it really depends on what you want to do, because I think Em could have spent all week here.  She is such an animal lover, and she wanted to stop and look at and read about every animal we passed.

We had a FastPass for the Kilamanjaro Safari that morning that we could use until 10:30, so we didn’t get there super early.  Early enough for a Mickey-shaped cinnamon roll that we all ended up sharing, though!

The safari was awesome—believe it or not, it was actually cool enough that we had to pick up a jacket for Em at one of the stores!  I’m sure we’ll never be on a real safari, so this is as close as we’ll get, but the animals really were just freely roaming around where the vehicles drove through.  A couple of times, traffic was held up by a passing rhino or zebra! 

We rode the train over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch and ran into Chip and Dale playing some games with the kids there—Em joined in for a while and then we spent a little time at the petting zoo. 

We saw The Lion King show, which was really pretty incredible.

After that, we had lunch reservations at Tusker House, which is a character dining restaurant with a delicious buffet!  It was nice to have a good meal and just relax for a bit while the characters came around to our table.

Literally every meal we had, someone brought Em a birthday cupcake or dessert with a lit candle, and here she also got a birthday card signed by all the characters!

This is the kind of stuff that makes me think we could have spent a lot longer at Animal Kingdom--lots of fun things to pass the time.

We saw the Finding Nemo live show, and it was really good too.

By the time Nemo was over, it was around 3pm and Em was wearing down pretty quickly.  I knew we had to find Pocahontas, because you can only meet her at Animal Kingdom and Em wanted to see her.  We found her line and had some afternoon snacks while we waited.  Em also decided that she wanted to entertain everyone in line and make friends with the cast members.  They're all so incredibly nice and terrific with the kids.

Em had a quick conversation with Pocahontas and was ready to roll.

On our way out, we passed the meet and greet spot for Adventurer Mickey and Minnie and the line was super short, so we took advantage of it.

As we headed toward the gate, Em wanted to ride instead of walk (yes, we brought a stroller for her--we bought a lightweight, easy-to-fold one specifically for this trip that has a higher weight limit).  I'm going to hate when she outgrows a stroller completely because we won't have a place to put our stuff!

As soon as she sat down, I told her she should close her eyes and rest, and it was over.  She slept for over an hour, so Mick and I checked out some stores and just took a break for a while.

Best thing about all the Disney photographers is that we get lots of family pictures!

This was the day, more than any other, that I felt like we didn’t really take our time anywhere—I had FastPasses for the shows we wanted to see, and on top of lunch reservations, it just felt like we were rushing to get to the next place on time.  Em would have loved to spend more time seeing the zoo portion, which we really didn’t even go near.  Next time!

Once we were back at the hotel, Em was rested and ready to play, so we spent some more time down at the pool.  The Wilderness Lodge is actually inspired by national park lodges in the northwest, and there's even a man made geyser that you can see several times a day.  We caught it a couple of times! 

We had dinner in the hotel at Whispering Canyon Cafe--it was a little bit like a family version of Dick's Last Resort or something similar.  There was a card on the table that you turned to green if you wanted to participate in the fun and games, and red if you didn't.  You can probably tell by Em riding a stick pony around the restaurant that our card was on green!

When our food came and Em asked for ketchup, the server yelled out "we need some ketchup!" and some little girls at another table brought over about 20 bottles.  A few minutes later when another table needed ketchup and yelled for it, it was our turn to take all 20 bottles over to them.  Em loved that part.

And of course, what's dinner without another birthday cupcake!?  Em didn't actually get to eat this one because she didn't do so well with her dinner, but it didn't make it less fun for her to blow out the candle!

We went down on the beach area of the hotel after dinner for the nightly electrical water pageant. It didn't last too long, but there were a bunch of floats with animals and characters made of lights, and it was all set to music.  Pretty cool way to end the night.

Pulling off a Big Surprise

We considered spending Christmas 2014 in Disney, and I ended up cancelling our reservations because I didn't feel like I had planned far enough in advance to make the experience what we wanted.  Shortly after Christmas, we decided we would plan a trip for Em's 5th birthday, but that we'd make it a surprise.  The last three months have been so fun for me to plan, but very tough to keep secret from Em!  We really didn't tell anyone we were going, mostly because we didn't want to risk anyone accidentally telling her.

Monday morning, we woke her up at the same time we normally would for school and told her she wasn't going to school the whole week, but we were taking a surprise birthday trip.  She was very excited and of course asked a lot of questions.  We wanted to keep the secret as long as possible, so she was in suspense all the way to the airport and on the flight.  When we landed in Orlando and started seeing Mickey everywhere, I opened my bag and asked her to look in the side pocket, where she found her Magic Band.  I don't think she could even believe it at first--and she was almost as excited about her blue glitter band (blue is her favorite color, and I painted clear glitter nail polish on it for lots of sparkle)!

We took Disney's Magical Express transportation from the airport--they picked up our checked luggage for us so we didn't have to wait at baggage claim, and we headed straight to the Wilderness Lodge.  This is Em showing off her Magic Band.

She changed clothes when we got there into a festive birthday outfit, and we picked up this Happy Birthday button at the front desk that they customized for her.  It led to everyone we saw all week telling her happy birthday, which was pretty cool.

We got to the hotel a little after noon, and took the bus to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon.  It had rained all morning and was a little overcast, but not hot at all.

There just doesn't seem to be a lot for us at this park--we knew we weren't going to repeat everything we did last year, so it made it a logical choice for a short afternoon.

Em was pretty excited to see the real golden coach from the Cinderella movie!

And the green army men from Toy Story!

She couldn't resist the face painting.

And of course a few Mickey-shaped treats!

We did see Disney Junior Live, which we hadn't seen last year.  It was okay, but all of the seating was on the floor and the stage was up so high it was tough to see the puppet-type characters on the stage.  Em loved the end where she got to dance and pop bubbles that blew from everywhere.

We went to the Frozen singalong show, which was mostly singing to the movie clips, but Anna, Elsa and Kristoff did come out at the end for a last rendition of "Let it Go" while it snowed on the audience--again, this was Em's favorite part.

I took this picture as we were leaving the park, because Em found this deer again--it was the first thing she saw and loved last year, and I just think it's cute to look at the comparison and see how much she's changed in a year.

This is the same picture last year--and no, I didn't ask her to kiss the deer either time!

We left the park before dinner and went back to the hotel--our bags had arrived by then, along with the groceries I had ordered for our room and a birthday surprise of balloons and a stuffed Goofy for Em!  Mick and Em went down to the pool while I unpacked and organized our room a little.

Em played in the kids' area of the pool for a couple of hours and loved it--her favorite thing was the kid-sized water slide.

It was a fun, full day and we were all exhausted, so we had a fairly early bedtime to get ready for a big day on Tuesday!

BREAKTHROUGH!

We have struggled with Em and her teeth since she was a baby--it has always been the single most difficult part of our daily routine with her.  I literally used to put her on the floor and straddle her so I could hold her arms down and brush her teeth, because that's the only way I could keep her still enough to do it.  I'm certain those types of desperate measures haven't helped her associate brushing teeth with anything good, but dental hygiene is just a non-negotiable with me.

As she's gotten older, she refuses to try different toothpaste and toothbrushes.  Years ago, my mom had given her some Kid's Crest toothpaste that had a picture of Elmo on it--of course, it became the only toothpaste she would use, and when we tried to restock, I found out they don't make it anymore. So I found the closest thing to it and cut the label off to disguise the new toothpaste.  It worked and has continued to work, but the label has seen better days now.  Still, Em refuses to use anything but her "Elmo by himself" toothpaste.  The daily tooth-brushing routine has its ups and downs, and she is able to brush her own teeth, but we almost always do it for her because she won't do a thorough job.

So needless to say, her dentist visits are something we all dread every six months.  Mick and I have both always gone to the appointments, and typically it takes both of us plus another hygienist to hold Em down while they look at or polish her teeth.  We've been working up to this appointment for a while now--I even bought dentist tools so we could play with them a little at home and she could get used to them and understand they weren't scary.  Mick wasn't able to come to the appointment, and we decided to try something different.  I got in the chair and held Em in my lap--so they leaned us back and she was lying on top of me with my arms around her.  She was nervous and cried a little, but actually opened her mouth and let them polish her teeth.  When it was time for the dentist to examine her, she was okay by herself  (which is when I got to take this picture)!  She did bring Daku (her stuffed tiger) for bravery, and her silky blanket for comfort.  I was so excited and relieved I was in tears by the time I took her back to school that morning.

It was by far our best dentist appointment ever--she will get x-rays the next time we go, so we'll see how that goes!

St. Patrick's Day

Em's home project in March was to make a leprechaun trap.  Again, this is one that required a little help, but Em came up with the idea after looking at some suggestions on Pinterest, and did quite a bit on her own.  I cut out the rainbow, but she placed it, made the pot for the gold, decorated the clouds and made the "Free Gold" sign to trick the leprechaun into going up the ladder.

The idea is that once he climbs up for the free gold, he falls through the clouds at the top of the hat and he's trapped.  Em also added the matching feathers on the rainbow and made the multi-colored ladder to the top of the hat.

She was excited about wearing green to school that day, and apparently some mischievous little leprechauns visited their classroom and made a big mess.  Em was disappointed that she didn't trap one with her free gold.

As they've built more houses throughout our neighborhood, they've opened up another entrance at the back.  On the way home most days, Em wants to cut through a back road and come home by driving through our neighborhood, since she knows it means she gets to sit up front with me (and if the weather is nice, she sometimes pops out of the sunroof).

Cinderella Birthday

I knew early on this year that we weren't going to do a huge birthday party for Em at our house this year.  We had done those for the last couple of years and it was just too many people!  Then Disney came out with the new live-action Cinderella movie that was opening on March 13, and I asked Em if she wanted to take some friends to the movie.  She agreed it was a good idea!

We got the invitation printable on Etsy and cut them to look like real tickets--they turned out great.

The theater even put her name up on the marquee!

They actually have a party room, so we decided to have some snacks and cake before the movie.  Em was excited to tell her friends to wear their princess dresses, and most of them did.

We got her cake at Publix again this year--they make a delicious birthday cake!  The little castle was a plastic carrying case that Em got to keep with her little princesses in it.

It was nice that they took care of the decorations--I just brought the Cinderella-themed plates and napkins and a few balloons.

Em was excited to go to the lobby of the theater and "greet her guests" as they arrived!  These were the first few girls, so we got a picture in front of the movie posters.

Not surprisingly, no one had much of an appetite for anything except cake!

After the birthday cake and before the movie, they took us on a tour of the booth where they project the movies from, and let all the girls try on these insulated suits they wear when they change the super powerful light bulbs.

The girls had a great time and the movie was so good--it made for an easy, unique birthday party that Em really enjoyed.  Her favorite gifts were actually Cinderella and Princess Jasmine Lego sets, which she loved putting together and playing with when we got home after the party!

Busy Social Calendar

Since the classes at Em's school are grouped by birthdays, everyone in Gold Room has birthdays within a few months of each other, and spring is our really busy time with all the parties.  Sometimes it feels like they never end, but a few have been really different and creative this year.  Aamani had her party at a cooking studio called Flour Power, and it was so cute!

All of the kids decorated aprons and chef hats before they got started.

Em was pretty proud to show hers off!

The instructors did a great job with the kids so everyone had a turn adding an ingredient or stirring the pizza dough they made.

Then each kid got a little ball of dough and rolled it out into a pizza crust.

Then they spread the pizza sauce onto their dough.  Yes, Em was the only one who kept her hat on the whole time.

And even got a little block of cheese and a hand grater to cover their pizzas.

After their pizzas, they made s'mores that they melted in the oven after wrapping them in foil.  It was a really cute party and they had such a good time digging in and making the food that they had a chance to eat at the end!

Dress Up Days

Em's class had spirit week in February, and each day for a week they were scheduled to dress in different themed outfits.  One day was storybook character day, and we decided on Little Red Riding Hood.

It was a bit of a tough decision and Em waited until the last minute to choose a costume, so we ended up just using stuff we had at home.  I don't think she could have looked any cuter if we'd planned it for weeks though :).

Another day was Crazy Hair day, which Em really got into--she told me she wanted hers to be the craziest, and it definitely was.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of the front and back together.

For Dr. Seuss's birthday, the kids were supposed to wear red, black and white--Em is outgrowing her clothes so quickly that she doesn't have much to choose from in those colors for cool weather, so I made her this Cat in the Hat bow tie that morning before school.

She's very tall and lean, and really needs size 6 already for length in shirts and pants.  Since it's the end of the season, I have only bought a few things in that size, just so she's not showing her tummy and wearing high water pants!

More School Projects

I always keep the really special projects or pictures Em does, but it's just too much to keep everything, so I like to at least get pictures of things before they sneak out (if Em sees any of her masterpieces being thrown away, she doesn't approve).

This is an "all about me" poster she had to make at the beginning of the school year with pictures of her family and all of her favorite things.  This is one she did a lot more of the work on--she cut out pictures, made the 4 in the middle, chose stickers and the flower for the top, and made the little pom pom caterpillar.  It's been hanging up in her class until recently when we brought it home.

Her January home project was to make a snowman out of these three small paper plates.  She decided she wanted to cover him in popcorn, so this was obviously one we couldn't keep around the house :).

For February, the kids made Valentine boxes--we found this train idea on Pinterest and were able to make it with all stuff we already had around the house.  Em was really proud of it--this is one that required a little more help, but she gets to do all the gluing, decorating, and has the final creative stamp of approval :).

 She used chalk to draw some people in the back of the train, but they got a little smeared.

Quick Visit

Mick's parents were able to come for a weekend visit, so we picked Em up from school a little early on Friday and enjoyed some game time.

We wish both sets of her grandparents lived closer, because it's so nice to have them visit, and Em loves spending time with them!  Mick and I also got to enjoy a grown-up dinner for Valentine's Day!