it's a small, small world

One more Disney photobomb: It's a Small World. The ride.

This was my favorite escape from the rain of the entire day, because the line and the ride were totally covered. The line went fast. And everyone in our group loved it so much that we went multiple times. 

There's so much to see! Even Bowie was into it. Everything was so colorful and full of detail. Can you tell I'm a first-timer? I loved it.

Loved it so much. But now I can't get the song out of my head.

Cinderella's royal table

So, we had just one more surprise for this kid on our Disney trip. Reservations are tough to get, but Lo and I had a super special girl-date breakfast inside Cinderella's castle with the princesses. 

She couldn't believe we were going to eat inside of the big castle that you see at the beginning of all of the movies. Too. Cool.

Now, I will be the first to admit that we are not a hugely princess-obsessed family. Lo is totally girly and loves to dress up, but she also skateboards and snowboards and isn't afraid to hang with the boys. All things aside ... she's five. She's such a sweetheart. She loves Disney movies as much any other kid. And this experience was super magical for her. The girl can be a bit shy, and I could tell that she was starstruck when she saw who was coming over to our table.

I had secretly packed her favorite Snow White dress-up outfit for her to wear to the breakfast, and she was thrilled that the first princess to come over to say 'hello' was Snow White.

Next up was Aurora (Sleeping Beauty.)

And Ariel (The Little Mermaid.)

And finally, Belle (Beauty and the Beast.)

The princesses were all so incredibly nice, and they all took their time to say 'hi' to us without being rushed one bit. Snow White asked Lo if she had seven dwarves living with her, Ariel said that Flounder had helped her collect shells for her necklace, and they all took time to take photos and give hugs and sign autographs. Their voices sounded exactly like the characters they portrayed. The whole experience was really sweet and a lot of fun.

And the food! There was so much of it and everything was delicious.

Even my picky eater loved her breakfast. She really like the mini cinnamon rolls and her french toast sticks, eggs and bacon.

And I ordered the stuffed French toast with berries. It was awesome.

So yes, we absolutely loved our breakfast at Cinderella's royal table. It was such a special thing for the two of us to do together and I know I'll never forget it. I don't think Lo will, either!

** A quick note. For those of you reading (hi there!) who are planning a trip to Disney in the near future and may be first-timers like me, let me give you a heads up on the whole Cinderella dining thing! Reservations for this book up fast. You basically need to make a reservation online or on the phone 180 days out from the date you plan to be there. Not even kidding. 180 days. But it's definitely worth it if you can work it into your trip. Luckily, you can keep checking back for cancellations and there are lunches and dinners at the castle with the princesses, too. You can find lots more info here.  :)

Disney magic

'We're going to Disney World!' Yes. Our first official day in Orlando started off pretty sweet. We kept it a secret until we actually got there. Up until then, we only told Lo that we were driving to Florida and going to the beach. Which was true ... Disney was just the (surprise) cherry on top. She was pretty stoked. Bowie was indifferent. But he was in for a fun day, too.

I had made some fake Disney tickets with our names on them to make the surprise more real for Lo.

We gave each kid a pair of Mickey ears and told them we were really going. That day. Like, right now.

(Eeeeeeeek!)

Even I got excited as we drove in. Bo had been here before, but this was my first time at Disney.  :)

 

We met up with Bo's family at our rad hotel. The kids loved checking everything out.

We stayed onsite at Disney's All-Star Movies Resort, which had enormous statues of characters from Fantasia, Toy Story, 101 Dalmations and other animated movies.

We decided to hit the pool first to let the kids hang and relax.
 
It was cloudy, but nice! And no rain. (Yet.)

This would be Lo pretending to be shivering next to an 'iceberg' at the kiddie pool.

Even Bowie got to dip his toes in for a bit.

It was late in the day, so we hit up Downtown Disney and had dinner, then came back to the hotel and hit the hay. 

The next morning, we woke up to a rather rainy situation. Hmmm. This would be that whole Tropical Storm Debby thing. This was our day at Disney World, however, so we grabbed our jackets, stroller rain covers and super attractive plastic rain ponchos and went for it. 

Lo and I got to the park early to be ready for our princess breakfast at Cinderella's castle (more on that later.) 

We got to see the little show with all of the characters as the park opened. Yo, Mickey! See him waving at us?

Thank goodness we had those rain covers for the strollers. Things got seriously wet. Never in my life have I seen rain like that. It was a steady downpour that did not stop for one single minute that entire day. And that is not an exaggeration. (I ensure you that somehow, Bowie stayed totally dry in there. And there was lots of airflow coming in through the sides and underneath. Promise.)

We hit up the rides that were under cover if we could, and checked out some of the shows that were indoors. Luckily, lots of rides were covered so we still had lots of fun. At least we weren't baking in the sun, and the lines were short!

The one ride that Lo had her heart set on was Dumbo, which was totally out in the open, but we were wet anyway and rode that thing about seven times. It was still fun and she loved every minute of it.

We eventually hit a point in the day where we were all tired, soaking wet, and needed a break. We went back to our hotel and dried off a bit.

We ordered pizza and the kids chilled out and played Cut the Rope while we decided if we wanted to head back to the park, or call it a day.

And call us crazy, but we hadn't had enough of Disney World yet. The rain tapered off a bit and we went back out for some nighttime fun.

Our little fam stuck it out until the very end and got to see the light show that's projected on the castle. 

(Gosh, it was cool.)

And then, much to our delight, they still had the fireworks over the castle in the rain. Yay!

It was the perfect ending to our rainy day at Disney.

Our little sweetie went to bed with a magic wand in hand, making wishes on stars and talking about the day. She didn't even care about the rain. Magic and memories. That's what it's all about.

the drive

In case you missed my last post, I'm doing a little re-cap of a road trip we took as a family to Florida with our five-year-old daughter and four-month-old son. I'm sharing the details, which I realize may be TMI (listen to me talk about our family vacation!!) for a couple of reasons. Maybe someone out there is wondering if it's a good idea to take a long road trip with a baby. Or a preschooler. Or both. Obviously, this is going to be a different experience for different families, but it's always nice to hear someone else's story. This was also our first family trip to Disney World, which I'll share about tomorrow. So maybe you're curious about that. It's quite possible you don't give a hoot about any of this, which is fine by me, so hit that 'next' button on your blog reader. Just hit me up again next week when I promise to be talking about something un-Florida related. I swear.

 

So, the drive. We drove for two full days, each way. We averaged 12-14 hours each day, including breaks. Lunch breaks, dinner breaks, snack breaks, gas breaks, late-night ice cream breaks and of course, milk breaks. I nursed that baby up and down the coast and across six states. 

Lo got a real education about just how big the world is. She saw mountains and rivers and bridges and sunsets and the ocean and everything in between, which was pretty cool for all of us.

On both trips, we drove during the day and stopped about halfway, just outside of Nashville to sleep for the night. We had considered driving overnight, but for us it worked better to stick to the daylight hours. Plus, it's always fun to stay overnight at a hotel where you get to make your own waffles for breakfast. Exciting!

 

Lotus did not sleep at all in the car – not a single nap! Except for one night that we drove until midnight, when she slept for about an hour at the very end. Whew. This kid doesn't like to miss a thing.

So ... how did the kids do on the trip?

 

Lo watched movies, played games on our iPad, listened to an iPod with headphones, ate Pringles and granola bars, sang songs, talked our ears off ... and watched more movies. (I'm pretty sure she watched 'Madagascar' at least 8 times. Thanks, Grandma Carol.)

I had secretly packed several little sticker and activity books that I surprised her with along the way. These served as a little reward each time she was extra patient or well-behaved, especially toward the end of each trip. 

All in all, she did incredibly well with the drive. She is five years old and did not complain one single time about how long we were in the car. I kid you not. 

 

She is also really good at giving us fair warning when she has to go to the bathroom, which was extremely helpful. We made sure to make lots of stops for snacks and meals so she could stretch her legs. One break at a rest stop turned into a mini skateboarding sesh, since it was 'go skateboarding day.' We tried to keep it fun.

Bowie, on the other hand, slept a ton. Just as we had hoped. The car ride put him right to sleep and he would often take three to four-hour naps between feedings. The few times that he did get fussy, I squished myself into the space between the carseats in the back seat and played with him or gave him a pacifier until he was chill again. 

I still cannot believe how good he was on this trip. I think we totally lucked out by taking him at such a young age. If he had been more mobile, there's no way he would have been this content with staying in his carseat for so long. We did take lots of breaks when we took him out of the car, changed his diaper, let him stretch and play for a bit while we ate and what-not. You have to take breaks to keep everyone happy. If he needed to stop, we stopped.

 

The only problem we ran into with the little guy is that he slept so much in the car. When we'd stop at a hotel for the night, he would be wide awake. I ended up staying up with him quite a bit at night, which was cool because I'm used to doing that. Bo and Lo slept right through us playing and talking at 4 a.m. and we got a little bit of quality time while they snoozed. 

So that became the plan. I took the night shifts. Bo got enough sleep to keep driving our little family to our destination. It worked.

Once we got to Florida, Bowie was back on his normal schedule. He slept through the night like he usually does. This whole weird sleep/driving thing was totally okay with us, because the littlest member of our fam made it through the drive without any trouble. That was our goal. Whatever works with the least amount of tears is cool by me. Sleep away, little dude, sleep away.

So. I must say that when Bo suggested that we should drive and not fly, I was like 'Hell to the no.' It took me some time to come around to this whole road trip thing, but now I'm convinced that it was the way to go for us. We had a ton of baby gear to deal with. Strollers for both kids. Car seats. All of the extra crap. I know that you can check everything at the airport, and I've done that in the past, but this time it felt easier to pack everything up in the car and just drive. We saved quite a bit of money on travel expenses because we drove a hybrid. We didn't need to worry about a rental car when we got to our destination. It felt pretty stress-free. I'll admit it – I'm a convert. I'd do this again.

Bo told me to relax. I tried to do that. Even though it goes against my nature. I tried my best to go with the flow of my little family and stay positive. There were definitely times when things got hairy, but they didn't last long. I felt like we had more freedom by driving instead of flying this time around. We were able to take a quick detour to check out Cocoa Beach on our way home. I'd never been to St. Louis to see the arch. We didn't have to catch a flight or rush to an airport. It was good.

 

(And I had so much knitting time.) 

Tomorrow! I will post about the next part of our adventure. The part where Tropical Storm Debby enters our lives. You know ... right when we're supposed to go to Disney World. (Eff.)

Oh, Debby.

 This is how we felt about Debby. More tomorrow.  :)

road trip

What happens when you decide to take your five-year-old and four-month-old on a 24-hour road trip to Florida? 

We packed up the Honda Civic for two solid days of driving; 1,484 miles each way.

 

This week, the story unfolds. Each day, I'm sharing photos and stories about our Florida adventure. Because I can just tell that you want to know more.  ;)

Close encounters with Tropical Storm Debby. (Debby Downer, as we called her.) Downpours at Disney World. Thunderstorms and tornado watches. Beach adventures. A shark attack. But lots of fun stuff, too.

Driving, driving and more driving. 

(So much driving.) Check back tomorrow.  ;)

GAP-tastic ... en francais

My knitting pattern for GAP-tastic is now available in French! A big thank-you to misstlog on Ravelry for working on the translation. I really love looking through the finished project gallery for this pattern and seeing how many different yarns and color combinations people have used. So fantastic. (I think there are over 5,500 finished GAP-tastics out there now!) I can't wait to see some French knitters work their magic now, too. Thanks again, Lydia!

ode to dad

On Father's Day last year, I told Bo I was pregnant. I had kept the secret for two whole days, which had been nearly impossible. I gave him the news in the same way that I told him I was pregnant with Lo. Before he woke up that morning, I wrapped up a tiny box of baby-sized Vans with a note inside, and set it on the night stand next to him. This time around, he saw the box and already knew what was going on. He said 'No way.' And I said 'Way.' 

Fast-forward to this year, and he's settled into being a father of two with ease. We often find ourselves doing the whole 'divide and conquer.' He is awesome. He has really bonded with our little boy and it's so much fun to watch that happen. 

He has also been super diligent about taking Lo out on special one-on-one adventures whenever he has the time. They go biking, hiking, camping and swimming. They hit up the skate parks and go on ice cream dates. A kid is lucky to have a dad like that.

He makes life fun. He always goes the extra mile. He doesn't hold back. He might be the best dad in the universe. He's definitely ours.

easy things I found on Pinterest, part one

You've gotta love icy cold treats in the summertime. Big bonus if they're quick to make and not very messy. A couple of weeks ago, I pinned some Frozen Yogurt Dots on Pinterest. The person who originally made these appears to have filled a plastic zip-lock with yogurt, but I decided to make this even easier by using a tube of squeezable yogurt. One tube makes a perfect plate of dots! And they only take a minute or two to make. (Maybe a little longer if your kid does it themselves.)

This is a no-brainer. You just need a fairly flat plate and a tube of yogurt.

Make a plate full of yogurt dots, and put them in the freezer for one hour.

What a tasty frozen summer snack!

treat!

Looking for the perfect Father's Day card? (Because I can tell you how to find a really cool one and send it for free.)

I'm excited to be partnering up with Treat, a new site recently launched by the lovely people at Shutterfly and Tiny Prints. Treat allows you to send a personalized card from your computer. They have a great selection with hundreds of new designs. Lately, I never have enough time to get to the store to shop for cards for the various upcoming events and holidays, so this is pretty fantastic.

 

It also gives you the option to add a gift card and have it sent to the recipient's address. Cool? Yes.

Pick your favorite cards and save them in the sidebar. Personalize them, if you want.

You can also choose to sign in with Facebook to get birthday reminders.

 

Best of all, the first card you send is free. Enter the code FREETREAT at checkout. (So there you go ... Father's Day card, all taken care of!) You are welcome.  :)

from the west coast, with love

Once again, a crafty California friend hits me up with a surprise in the mail. My talented pal Amy Tan sent us this adorable little hand-stitched t-shirt and I'm in love. Yo!? Could it be more perfect?

But hold on. Just when you can't stand the cuteness ... she also embroidered 'Bowie' on the back. It is too good.

 Thank you so very much, my friend! Bowie is definitely the cutest baby with the cutest t-shirt on the block.