Tag Archives: CT

My Weekend: Pumpkins and Candy

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We were a little late getting around to doing pumpkins this year. We were all still getting over being sick from vacation. Saturday was our towns day for Trick or Treating, so we knew we had to get them done. No more procrastinating. The pumpkins were from our trip to the pumpkin patch last weekend. Originally we were going to cut three of the large ones and let CT paint her little one. But the light pink one that I picked out (and forgot to take a picture of) was just too pretty to cut into. So we ended up only cutting two of them, and CT still painted her, as you can see above! She loved the painting part, but hated the getting paint on her part. Ha!

Here is her finished pumpkin…

… and these were the ones we cut. Mine is on the left and JC’s is on the right! (above photo, their switched in the bottom photo)

CT couldn’t make up her mind about what she wanted to be, everyday was something new. Towards the end of last week I asked if she would like to be Alice again, and she freaked out and said YES! So that what she was. This time I had her hair down, with a little black ribbon as a headband. I also put her in tights since it’s a bit cooler here than Florida. She was really eager to get ready and loved that everywhere knew who she was!! (If you’re interested in the pattern to make your own Alice dress, check out my post about it)

I was originally going to go trick or treating as a mounted deer head mask thingy I found. But last minute decided to dress as a hip Mad Hatter. It was actually my husbands idea by the way. I already had the hat from a Disneyland trip years ago, plus most of my clothes are brightly colored. Also, lucky for me, I forgot to straighten and do all that fancy stuff to my hair, so it was a huge curly mess. Perfect. Next year I’ll wear my deer head, and maybe JC can be a plush hunter or something.

We live in a new construction neighborhood, and were early moving in. So last year there were hardly any house. This year there were loads (apparently it was a good year for the builders). Loads of houses meant loads of candy! CT’s bucket got heavy halfway through, and we had to help her carry it all. Last year I was able to explain to tell CT that candy was only for looking at, so I didn’t have a super hyper kid running around. This year she caught on and ATTACKED her bucket the second we got back to the house. I don’t think she went to bed until about midnight Saturday. It was worth it, she had so much fun and can’t wait for next year!!

On a side note… we took advantage of the fact that she was wide awake Saturday night, and took an impromptu trip to the grocery store to get a bunch of dry goods in preparation for Hurricane Sandy! It wasn’t crazy at all. Yep, I’m going to talk about that… we live in Maryland and are in the path of the storm. Were expected to get loads of rain, winds over 80mph (we get bad wind to start with here) and possibly some snow. The power will most likely be out by late tonight. Our power is finicky as it is. I have one more blog post scheduled for tomorrow, but after that if you don’t see anything here it’s because we don’t have power! I hope all my east coast friends out there are doing ok, and are safe in their homes!! I’m also hoping it’s not as bad as expected, because really, were not prepared for this!! We moved to the mountains expecting just to worry about rain and blizzards. Instead in the past two years we’ve had two tornados, an earthquake, a tropical storm and now a hurricane. What is going on?!?

Anyway, again, be safe everyone!! and Happy Halloween, just in case I can’t say it on Wednesday.

 

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Our Disney Vacation: Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

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Our original plan was to do the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party the second night we were there, just in case any of got sick or something else happened. Kinda get it over with before everyone was exhausted. Well, it rained that night, so we were able to switch our tickets over to the next party, which was the night before we left. So it was basically a party to celebrate the end of our vacation!

You may be asking what the difference is between the party and any other night at the Magic Kingdom? well, a lot! They have these events a few times a week starting in September and ending right after Halloween. It cost additional and tickets should be purchased before heading to Disney, and if you go on Halloween (like we did for our anniversary in 2008) you have to get those tickets months ahead of time. It’s a great time to have your entire family all dressed up in costume, because everyone else was! (CT was snow white, us parents ran out of time to make costumes)

They close the park to anyone who didn’t purchase the party tickets around 7pm, which is when they start all the fun stuff. The first thing they do is hand everyone trick or treat bags, this year they were paper bags with Wreck It Ralph and Frankenweenie on them. These are used for trick or treating all over the park! Sometimes its just a Disney employee handing out the candy, but other times its actual characters. Though this time I didn’t see actual characters doing it, maybe its just a Halloween day thing? Soon after all that they start the first of two special Halloween Parades…

We figured we’d just watch the second parade, since they’re exactly the same, and go ride some rides during since they’d be empty. But we got sucked in and had horrible spots, so sorry for the crappy photos. If there’s a next time, we’ll prepare better and wait it out in a good seat. The parade was all about the villains. The whole night was pretty much all about them. Everything was so neat looking and all the costumes were amazing. It really set the mood for the whole night.

After the parade we went to ride the teacups again. As you can see above, the teacups really were her favorite thing at the parks. When you ask her what the best things at Disney were, her first reply is the pool at the resort and her second thing was the teacups!

The Happy HalloWishes fireworks were amazing! Again, they were all Disney villain themed. During the fireworks show they would cast weird lights on the leftover smoke to make it all creepy looking, and they would also project images of different villains onto the castle. As you can see in the green colored photo above, one of them was Oogie Boogie from the Nightmare Before Christmas. There were many others, but I can’t remember them all. Wow, does Disney do fireworks right! They were basically all around, complete 360. As my husband says, what’s considered a grand finale for our local fireworks is just the beginning at Disney. It was all so pretty!

After the fireworks we went to go have dinner before the next parade started. CT had been up a little late every night we were at Disney, so we figured she’d be able to stay awake. We headed down to the beginning of the parade hoping to get a better seat. We had no such luck. Good thing for CT, her dad is tall and she was able to sit on his shoulder to watch some of the parade… She started to get drowsy halfway through and ended up falling asleep in her stroller. We figured we’d seen the parade before, so we would just slowly head out of the park. I took a bunch of pictures on the way out of course, always take advantage of the quiet and calm time you have when your child is asleep! (like me writing this blog post right now) We actually caught the parade at the entrance and ended up being trapped in the middle circle of main street! That’s where that photo on the right above came from. Luckily they let people through inbetween parade floats, so we were able to beat the rush to the bus. which was great, because carrying a passed out toddler, a stroller, backpacks, camera, etc on a crowded bus sucks!! (we know, we had to do it a few nights before)

As you can see, our little snow white was seriously exhausted. I know she had a great time though, because she has excitedly talked about it all nonstop since we got home!!

I’m really happy we were able to take her to Disney World, and even happier we could do the Halloween party. It’s one of my favorite things to do at Disney! It makes me wonder if the next time we go should it be for Halloween, or maybe mix it up and do the Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party? Has anyone ever done both? If so, which was more fun for little ones?

Well, this is the last post I’ll be writing about our actual trip. If you’re interested in seeing all the photos from this our Disney vacation, just head on over to my Flickr page, I uploaded everything finally!!

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Our Disney Vacation: Magic Kingdom

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So, as you may be able to tell from how many photos I took at Magic Kingdom, that it is absolutely our favorite park out of the four! I bet it’s everyone’s favorite! It’s the most recognized park, and what people think of when they hear “Disney World”. There’s such a wide variety of rides, and attractions. Everyone can find something they’ll enjoy here. We found loads to do, and ended up spending a least two days total there (broken up in pieces of course)

CT loved the tea cups the most, as you can see above. We rode that one more than once! She also really enjoyed the Peoplemover, “it’s a small world”, Peter Pan’s Flight, Prince Charming Regal Carrousel, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Dumbo the Flying Elephant (which has an awesome waiting area now, fully air conditioned!!). she DID NOT enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean! that was a bad choice on our part. It was too dark and she didn’t like that first drop. She could have fooled us, because afterward she wouldn’t stop singing “yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me…”. Ha!

We stumbled on something really cool one of the days we were there. Disney is building a whole new section of the park, all the way in the back. It’s going to house a few new restaurants, rides, shows, and two new castles!! The Beast’s castle and Eric’s Castle, I believe. Most of it is already built and a little bit is open (like the new, double, Dumbo ride with that air conditioning I talked about). We were being really nosy while trying to take pictures of one of the castles (pictured above), when we found a hidden door to the new section. The “cast member“ guarding the entrance told us we could come in and test drive one of their new attractions! It’s called Enchanted Tales with Belle and is an interactive play. It takes places in Maurice’s house (her dad), which I have pictured right above. They take you in and choose different kids to be part of their interactive play, CT was chosen to be an enchanted frame. We were a little weary she’d freak out, but she seemed happy she was chosen. The play is a shortened story about how Beauty met the Beast. It was really cute! halfway through it was CT’s turn to get up and be part of the play, but instead of getting up she freaked out and started screaming. I guess she has a little bit of stage fright. It was really neat being able to see everything they’re building behind those hedges, and it really makes me want to visit again after its all finished, which should be in about a month and a half!

As with the other parks, we put aside a lot of time to meet all the characters we could. CT was able to meet Alice, Minnie, Buzz Lightyear, Tiana, Rapunzel, Flynn Rider and Cinderella with her Prince. She was also able to meet Snow White again, which as you can see from the photo above, she loved!! She filled up almost every page of her autograph book, which made her very happy. I’m thinking of scanning all the autographs in and making a little Blurb book for her. She loves books, so I bet she’d love a book with pictures of her in it! Have anyone of you used Blurb? How was the quality?

So, I have more photos to share from Magic Kingdom, but they’re all from the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, which really deserves its own post. Oh and as I’ve said before, if you’re interested in seeing more photos from our trip, you can find all of them in my Flickr account.

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My Weekend: The Pumpkin Patch

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This past weekend we headed to Larriland Farms, in Woodbine, MD with my mom and little brother. Going has kinda been a family tradition for most of my life. It’s a great place where you can choose a pumpkin from a pile or pick your own in a huge field. They also have fresh Kettle Corn, Apple Fritters, and Cider. There’s also some farm animals to see, a hay/corn maze, hay rides and much more. If you live anywhere near this place, I suggest visiting!!

As you can see, it was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun. We got a few pumpkins (and a squash) to carve this upcoming week too. It’ll actually be our first time carving a pumpkin as the three of us. Hopefully CT enjoys it, and if it goes well, I’ll share some photos!

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Our Disney Vacation: Epcot

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Ah, Epcot! I love Epcot. There’s so much to see, and so many neat rides and shops. It’s overwhelming and calm at the same time. Ha, like that makes sense.

This time around we weren’t able to stay for an entire day, there just isn’t enough for CT at Epcot. It was actually the park we went to after our two hours at Hollywood Studio, since theres a ferry in between the two. We were able to see a few Disney characters, like Snow White and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). That was really neat! Plus their two of CT’s favorites! She actually sat down next to Snow White and got comfortable as if she was going to stay there all day!

Epcot has the neatest things to see, you can learn a little or a lot about each country showcased, it all depends on how much time you have. Like I said before too, the shops are awesome! We didn’t buy too much, just some little trinkets at the shop in “Japan” (we wanted a lot in there) and a plush, mounted, bear head in “Canada” (to go with my moose head I bought back in 2008)

Since we were there in October, it was also the International Food and Wine Festival. Its an annual event held in the World Showcase section of Epcot. Last time we were there (before CT), we tried out some of the food carts they have scattered around, but this time, Because of my issues with gluten, we stayed away. Everything smelled so good though! I was able to enjoy amazing mexican food at La Hacienda de San Angel. Pretty much everything on the menu was gluten free!

CT was able to ride two of the rides, without being too short or possibly too scared. She loved the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros and The Seas With Nemo & Friends. She talked about them for awhile afterwards.

We stayed for the fireworks, because they are so amazing at this park! We didn’t get a great view (I was standing next to a trash can and as you can see, there was a tree in the way) but it was still amazing. CT loved them and kept telling us “thank you for bringing me!”, which is really the best thing to hear from your child when you do something for them!!

IF (in capital letters for a reason) we take another vacation to Disney, we plan on staying in a resort off a monorail for once so we can get to parks like Epcot and Magic Kingdom easier and quicker. We just enjoy them more! This was my third trip to these parks, and everytime I see something new! It all makes me smile!

Just like I said yesterday, I took loads more photos than I could ever share on here, so if you’re interested you can see them all on my Flickr account. I haven’t uploaded all the photos from Magic Kingdom or the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party yet. Oh and I forgot about all the photos I took with my phone, so I’m up to about 800 photos now… I just love taking pictures of EVERYTHING!

 

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Our Disney Vacation: Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios

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Whew, that was a long post title!!

I’ve been editing photos all week, while also fighting a slight cold we picked up the last day of our trip (I say that because symptoms didn’t show up until Sunday). I LOVE everything Disney, so of course I took over 1000 photos. I like to pare them down, and then color correct and crop the ones I like, which usually only gets me down to about 600 photos. I get attached.

Don’t worry though, I don’t plan on sharing all 600 photos here on the blog, that would be crazy. Be warned though, I will be sharing my super duper favorites from each park. Here goes…

Animal Kingdom is our least favorite park out of the four. It SEEMS hotter than the other parks every time we’ve gone, plus there really wasn’t much CT could do there. Because of the rules that small children had to sit in the middle of the car on the safari (and not be able to see much) that was out, and then all the other rides and such she’d be scared of. There was a really neat nature walk that had birds and gorillas, you can see a few photos above. CT DID enjoy that.

We wouldn’t have even tried Animal Kingdom out at all this trip if it wasn’t for the safari themed character dining I made reservations for. I was last minute making plans, so it was all that was available in CT’s age range. For those who don’t know, Character Dining at Disney Parks is when you have a sit down meal, served or buffet, in a large restaurant where a bunch of Disney characters are walking around. They guarantee each one will come to your table and see your child. They either talk to them, or in the case of characters with masks on, they hug them and then take a photo with your child. Oh and if you’re collecting autographs, like CT was, then they also do that.

CT was fine when we saw Donald outside the restaurant, as seen above , but when we finally sat down she wasn’t as thrilled. She ended up being scared of Goofy (who was super tall) and Mickey (We got a photo of him standing behind us, and it looks as if he’s with us, that was super nice of “him”). Apparently she only wanted to see Daisy. She freaked out about her actually.

All together I think we spent about two hours at Animal Kingdom. Maybe next time we go CT will be tall enough and old enough to enjoy more there. Maybe.

Another park we really didn’t have much to do at was Hollywood Studios. CT is 38″ tall and a lot of the rides there required her to be 40″s. CT loves the muppets, so of course we had to do the Muppets 3D show! Before this trip she hadn’t really experienced 3D in a theatre, or at all maybe. She loved it! She was reaching for all the things coming at you and all. It was really cute.

After that we tried out this little play area based on the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids. It was really neat looking with all the oversized pieces and all, but as a parent it was the most stressful place ever!!! There were these tunnels that only kids could fit in, and they had lots of forks in them, so you never knew where you kid was going to come out. Plus there were loads of people and it was super loud. I was so afraid we would lose CT somewhere in there, so after about 20 minutes we left. We just couldn’t handle it anymore.

All the other shows and such at Hollywood Studios had an hour or more wait time, and no fast pass, so we ended up leaving after about two hours.

We only had about 5.5 days in our trip to actually go to all the parks and see everything. Before leaving we thought that was plenty of time. We didn’t take into account the weather (which was bad the first two days) or the fact that this time around we had a little person with us, who doesn’t walk fast needs to stop and see everything. It was our first real trip as a family, we needed to be able to actually enjoy it all. That’s why we were being so picky with the parks. Next time, if there is a next time, we’ll add two extra days to our trip, that way we can enjoy more without rushing through it all.

Heads up, I’ll be sharing more vacation photos tomorrow. Oh and if you’re interested in seeing more photos from our trip, I’ve uploaded all of them to my Flickr account, there’s a lot, and I’m nowhere near done.

 

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