My Day

If you're here for a bright, shiny, spirit-lifing post, keep browsing the interwebs. If you want to hear the brutal reality of my sucktastic day, read on.

It was a normal day for the most part. LO was back to school (thankyouJesus) and that left just me and Chase. He's still a potty-using fiend which is fabulous on the one hand, but ohsoveryannoying on the other one. He's getting to the point where he's self-sufficient in there, but every time he heads that way a certain very lazy and tired pregnant mama must remove herself from the couch and meet him in there to assist. Imagine that about a dozen times just before lunchtime hits, and you'll have a tiny glimpse into my morning. Oh, and add the fact that the boy, while he was in desperate need of a good #2, simply refused to knock it out and chose instead to wander the living room aimlessly all morning, whining that his tummy hurts. OMG. Seriously?

I won't get into the detail here since I feel it deserves its own lengthy and annoyingly irritating post, but I've been monitoring my blood sugar 4x/day for about a week now and have learned some interesting things. Like I'm on the path to gestational diabetes. Like my doc wants to put me on medication. Like I'm choosing to manage it with diet, which for those of you who know me rather well, know that I am NOT one to make healthy food choices consistently and am NOT one to walk away from sweets. So imagine the fun this is for me. More on that later.

After lunch I decided to call about LO's new furniture. We were told 4 to 6 weeks, but that it typically was coming in earlier like 3 to 4 weeks. It's been 4 so I thought I'd inquire about it. Lo and behold, the woman dares to tell me that LO's bed IS STILL IN PRODUCTION and wouldn't be here until MID-MARCH.

I just died.

I couldn't believe it. You're probably aware that we can't do anything to set up the baby's nursery until we get LO's new furniture and do her room first. So this puts a HUGE delay in getting things ready for the baby. And let's not mention how completely and totally inpatient I am about all things fun and home decor-y. And on top of that, I'm pregnant, people. Ever heard of nesting?! I'm driving myself INSANE not being able to do anything with LO's room or the nursery, but it was okay because the furniture was supposed to be here Any. Nuggin'. Day.

Notsomuch.

So once I'm done with my first bout of tears over the furniture, Chase and I head out to pick up LO. Boy was I pleased to hear she had a blue day (imagine the rainbow... blue's towards the bottom... 'nuff said). Great. Then there was the fact that a little fender bender took place in the pick-up line that should've resulted in the side of MY vehicle being scraped up, but luckily the rude lady in front of me was talking and wouldn't scoot up for me to go around her, so the guy behind me went around me and was the lucky one to get hit instead.

Then we get home. And I see a huge pile of fresh dog poo in our front yard. Thanks, unknown neighbor or wild dog/coyote.

And as I'm helping LO get set up to do her homework, Chase heads off to the bathroom to go pee. While he was sitting on the potty, he magically managed to pee All. Over. The. Floor. instead of IN the potty.

Whoa. Could this day get any better??

It's nap time. Things are starting to look up for me. Oh, and LO ate some of the Lay's sweet heat southern barbecue potato chips that I left out on the counter and about cried (not really, but sort of) over how hot they were, so that was funny. ;) She kept eating them, though, but then proceeded to clear out her cup of milk from the fridge. It helped make my day just a little better. (I'm a horrible mom.)

Okay, so this sums up my day so far. Yes, I fully realize all of these things are completely trivial and just a blip on the radar compared to what some people are going through, but it's been a crappy day and I just felt like sharing.

Woe is me.

Okay, I'm over it. The End.

;)

Baby Gear

Those of you readers who are rather astute may have caught the fact that I mentioned in yesterday's AMAZING post about Chase's AMAZING potty training progress that I registered for our baby boy at Buy Buy Baby. The list is pretty small... there's not much you truly need by the time your 3rd little one comes along. But we inventoried our supplies when we cleaned out the storage baby's room so we'd know what stuff we actually needed to include on the registry. It's basically some towels, blankets, bottles and a few sleepers.

This is where YOU come in! I'd love to hear some suggestions on must-have baby gear for 2013! It's been 4 years since we purchased baby stuff, and, let's admit: the stuff we picked up for Chase was a bit different from what you'd buy for a healthy little arrival. Case in point? I have a TON of snap-front sleepers that worked great for Chase while he was in the hospital because of his leads and wires and stuff, but those aren't so handy when you're changing a newborn's diaper in the middle of the night. And sure, we have all the big stuff like furniture, car seats, strollers, pack n' play, etc... but there's gotta be some "fun" stuff out there that would make welcoming #3 just a tad easier, right?

So please, feel free to comment below or on my Facebook post or via Twitter and let me know what things YOU found incredibly helpful with your recent little ones! :)

Ahhhmazing!

Okay, folks, for those of you who couldn't care less (yes, it's couldn't not could) about potty training, please move on to the next item in your Google Reader. But for the curious few out there (read: Grandmas), prepare to be amazed.

Last Wednesday, January 2nd, I began the lengthy and arduous sojourn of potty training Chase. I was expecting the worst. After all, I've always heard boys are harder to train than girls. And LO? She was a BREEZE in the potty training department. I never understood how we got so lucky with her. In fact, check out my concerns about potty training Chase in the except below from my post about what it was like to potty train LO that I wrote just over one year ago, on January 4, 2012:

I documented her "training" in this post...and I'm afraid she set the bar a bit too high. Seriously. It was like, 2 days of training and she was DONE. Trained. Fully trained both day and night. Zero accidents since. See what I mean? Set the bar too high. I'm scared thinking about what Chase has in store for us! Haha!

So of course I figured karma would bite us in the bottom when it came time to get Chase using the potty. It couldn't be that easy the second time around.

Or could it??

Today is Tuesday. I started potty training last Wednesday, so we're just shy of one full week of potty training. Let me give you the highlights:

• TWO accidental pees on his first day of training.
• TWO pees on the potty with his big boy underwear not pulled down (obviously in a hurry) on day 2.
• ONE poop in his big boy underwear on day 2.
• ZERO accidents in the past 4 days. No peeing on couches, carpet, flooring, car seats, beds... NADA!
• DRY DIAPERS in the mornings.
• DRY PULL-UPS after nap times.
• NO I am NOT kidding!!!

The kid will even fuss in his room after bedtime if he needs a trip to the potty. Last night hubs took Chase's little potty into his room when he was fussing and the boy pooped on the potty, went to sleep and, of course, woke up clean & dry.

Tonight I put him to bed and after our story, prayers, hugs and kisses, he informed me he needed to go potty. I took him to the kids' bathroom and helped him sit on the actual "big" potty. He pooped. The end.

It's seriously unbelievable, people. I had NO IDEA. Do you know how many potty training horror stories I've read? How many blogs about the drama and online forums about the frustrating and sometimes strange issues and problems parents face when it comes to potty training their kids??

I had NO idea. I am so shocked. And so blessed! I can't believe I'm not scrubbing poopy underwear 8 times a day and cleaning messes out of carpet left and right.

Honestly, the most frustrating part of this process had to be yesterday (Monday). See, Sunday we had church and then I had to work all day. This means hubs was home with the kids and had the joy of handling the potty training after I spent the previous 3 days solely responsible for it. Apparently Chase only peed like twice the whole day and never pooped. Like, EVER. For the entire day. Seriously?! I was so worried about the explosion that would be in store for me on Monday while hubs was at work.

But there was no explosion.

Instead, the kid went on his potty about 30 (THIRTY!!!) times throughout the day on Monday. I'm not even joking or exaggerating here, either. He'd pee. We'd dump and flush the potty, wash hands, get M&M's, and go back to the task at hand (usually Super Mario Bros. Wii). Then about 2 minutes later he'd pee again and we'd repeat the entire process. Then not 10 minutes later, he'd sit and poop on the potty, and we'd repeat again. About 30 seconds after that, he'd sit and pee. This went on All. Day. Long. I got the point of wondering if the kid was manipulating the "free candy after potty trips" policy and was purposely holding things in to go more frequently to get more candy. I wouldn't put it past him. He's no dummy.

So the worst part of this entire process was the fact that I had to get my lazy, tired, pregnant self up off the couch like 62 times yesterday to empty the potty chair and give out candy rewards. I'd say that's not too shabby, eh?

And let me just add that today was the first day I ventured out of the house with him to run errands now that we've started the potty training. The boy went pee twice while we were at Panera meeting one of my BFFs for lunch and then went pee again while we were at Buy Buy Baby adding a few things to my baby registry. Then we picked up LO from school and he was still clean & dry when we got home. I continue to be amazed by this kid!!!!!

Okay, enough potty talk. Here are a few pics of my little big boy from the past few days.

This first one is hilarious!!! Our first two days of training was without any coverage on the lower half. It certainly didn't keep this kid from his Wii games! LOL!

Still with the Wii. I loved that he was all curled up on the couch with no bottoms on. Seriously the faith I had in this kid's potty training! I wasn't worried one bit about a pee'd on couch!

By Day 3 we were able to start putting underwear on and taking it off during potty trips. He loves them!

So he needed to go potty, yes, but he was in the middle of a very important task on Super Mario Bros. Wii and felt it necessary to multitask. Just love this kid!!

Mommy kept him all kinds of hydrated during training to be sure there would be plenty of potty opportunities. I can't tell you how many sippy cups of watered down apple juice this kid blew threw over the past week! His kidneys sure are working great! Don't ya just love The Incredibles? ;)

Can't. Stop. Playing. Wii. Seriously, it's like a sickness for this kid. The first thing out of his mouth the past few mornings has been "I be Mario the red guy, you be the green one." Haha!

So there you have it! My next steps beginning tonight include removing diapers completely (he was just wearing them at night anyway) and putting him in Pull-Ups at night time instead. And at nap times, I'm opting out of Pull-Ups and going straight for the big boy underwear. And I'll attempt to keep the big boy underwear on him when we're out running errands, too, because I like to take chances like that. ;) Of course I'll keep a spare set of clothes handy just in case...

In summary, WAY TO GO, CHASE!!! YOU ARE MY ROCK STAR!!!

Prayers Needed

Please pray for this beautiful young lady who is undergoing a heart transplant at MUSC this morning. She was born with a heart defect similar to Chase's and has lived the past 17 years with half a functioning heart. Pray for her surgery, recovery and the family who made the sacrifice that is giving her a whole heart.

We love you, Taylor!!!

My Sweet Girl!

I came home the other night to find a little note left for me by LO. Well, technically, a series of notes.

Check this out:

TRANSLATION: "If you come home on time,  you can come give us a kiss and a hug."

TRANSLATION: "If you come home late, then you can't give us a kiss and a hug."

TRANSLATION: "Chase went pee-pee on the potty and I got a marble!!!!"

((Side note: Marbles are part of our rewards system for the kids.))

TRANSLATION: "And Chase got a marble, too!! And Daddy said that we had..."

TRANSLATION: "A really good good day today!!!"

Floating Shelves

HELP!!!

I'm desperate to find floating shelves as seen in the photo below, but unbelievably have been striking out everywhere online! I can't believe how hard it is to find these guys! They are white and I'm guessing between 12-24 inches long. I want them to be floating shelves so you won't see any hardware or support beams below them. Anyone seen such things??

Source: http://www.daffodildesign.com/2012/04/i-decorate-room-for-two.html

I've tried contacting this blogger but haven't received a response so I'm turning to my blogosphere friends for help. I really want to use these on a wall in LO's room when we complete her room transformation in a few weeks.

HELP!!!

Potty Time!!

UPDATED WITH A VIDEO BELOW!!!

This is happening TODAY!!!

The boy has surprised me beyond belief already! I seriously was worried he wasn't ready. We talk about pee-pee on the potty, but he hasn't been too interested in actually doing it. But I've been talking it up for the past few days and he "seemed" to be on board with the idea.

He woke up this morning and I had out his potty (complete with a few new Cars stickers on it) and a stack of big boy underwear. I asked him to sit on the potty before breakfast and he had a lovely little meltdown. I decided not to push it so I asked if I could change his diaper before breakfast. He agreed and I took off his damp diaper and left it off. I then proceeded to get his breakfast ready. He seemed a little confused and asked about putting his pajama pants back on but I told him his Pop-Tart (don't judge) was ready, so he ran over and climbed into his chair at the table. He didn't seem to mind the fact that he was wearing nothing but his pajama shirt!

During breakfast, he told me he pooped. GASP! I went over to check and saw that he had peed in his chair. No worries! I explained that it was pee-pee, not poop, cleaned him up, and he went back to his breakfast.

After he got down from breakfast, he headed into the play area off the kitchen and a few minutes later he said something (can't remember what) and I looked up to see he had peed on one of the foam alphabet letters. No worries! I told him it was okay, but that we want to make sure the pee-pee went in the potty (which was sitting 2 feet from him in the play area).

That, my friends, as of this writing at 2:00 PM, was his LAST accident so far today!!! I can't even begin to believe it!! Boys are supposed to be much harder than girls, but he's so far proven to be just as easy as LO was to potty train! Keeping his bottom half naked with free roam of the house has been working wonderfully! I can't believe that he'll even stop in the middle of an activity (Wii, board games, etc.) to go sit on his potty and go pee-pee! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! I'm so happy I can't stand it!

Now I know this is only Day 1 and there's sure to be plenty of accidents ahead of us, but I'm just so impressed and proud of his progress already this morning. Simply amazing.

I'll keep ya posted on how things progress (since let's face it, all of you are dying to receive potty updates from me)!

Way to go, Chase!!!!!!

Making Progress!

Today we made a purchase that I am SUPER excited about!!! Well, minus the 4 to 6 weeks it will supposedly take to get here, of course. ;)

As you may know, we're expecting baby #3!! A BOY!! In just 18 short weeks! So exciting!! Since we found out we're having a boy, I started planning the furniture situation for the kids. Both LO and Chase have Munire convertible furniture (crib to toddler to full) in dark espresso finishes. With a little guy on the way, I decided I want to take LO's furniture (converted back to a crib) and use it for the baby's room. That way I can purchase new furniture for LO in a white finish (much more girly, IMO) and finally do her room up nicely, just like we did for Chase's room a few weeks ago.

Of course she doesn't know about this yet, as it is all part of my master plan! We will completely overhaul her room -- including her new furniture -- while she's at a sleepover so she'll have NO CLUE about it until she walks in and sees it for the first time! WOOT!

So back to today's purchase... we bought her new bed and dresser with mirror! Yay! See how cute??

The Legacy Classic Kids Madison full panel bed:

Along with the Legacy Classic Kids Madison Dresser & Arched Mirror:

I am SO in love!! And of course, these will pair beautifully with her new Pottery Barn Kids bedding we purchased last week:

I am so happy to have all of the main components of her new room on hand and/or ordered and on the way! I'm hopeful we'll be able to do her room transformation by mid-February. Besides a few miscellaneous decor items, the only other outstanding purchase to be made is for her new bedroom lighting, which I'm hopeful will be something like this chandelier from eBay (with or without shades... I can't decide... thoughts??):

Once everything is HERE and LO is NOT, we'll knock this new room out in no time! I only gave us about 8-10 hours to do Chase's entire room, but I'm going to allow over 24 hours for LO's room since in addition to painting we'll also be installing wainscoting, chair rail and some other additional "stuff" that we didn't need to do in Chase's room. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

The super cool thing is that once LO's new room transformation is complete, we'll be able to start on the baby's nursery! And I'm keeping that one super simple and low-key (much to hubs' delight), so don't expect TOO much craziness going on with that room.

Of course eventually we'll FINALLY get to the master bedroom, but I won't talk about that yet since hubs needs a few days weeks months to settle into the idea of dropping another large sum of money on more new bedroom furniture and decor. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours... ;)

LO's New Room: The Beginnings

I am ecstatic to report that this morning I FINALLY pulled the trigger and purchased LO's new bedding from Pottery Barn Kids. It begins with this adorable Brigette Ruffle Quilt. Oh, the girly-ness of it all!

And the perfectly themed and adorably cute horse and princess Lucy Ringmaster Sheeting.

These items are on their way! While I love the North Star Decorative Sham as an accent to this collection, I'm not a fan of the price tag and I'm pretty sure I can make something similar to this myself for much less (and much more value since it'd be made with love by mommy!).

I'm SOOOOOOOO excited! I'm not sure when we'll actually begin LO's room makeover, but I'm 99.99% sure it'll be before the baby arrives as we are planning to take LO's convertible furniture (crib to toddler bed to her current full size bed as well as her dresser) and put them in the baby's nursery. My logical thought process was that buying a full size bed and dresser for her room would be cheaper than buying a new convertible crib and dresser for the baby. We shall see where the numbers fall...

I've been searching for a white furniture set for LO, and have been sadly underwhelmed by the lack of selection out there. From Rooms to Go to Ashley Furniture Homestore to baby furniture stores, I just haven't found exactly what I want. The closes thing I've found so far, that I like "enough" (though I'm not in love with the price tag), is the Madison Full Panel Bed from Legacy Classic Kids Furniture. I love the simple, clean lines, and I think it'll really look amazing with her new PBK bedding (versus the lame khaki bedding in the pic below).

I want her to have a double dresser instead of the tall chest of drawers she's had so the room will be much more "girly" than it is now. Again, with the simple lines... I really love the double dresser with arched mirror!

I also found that I also LOVED the Enchantment full panel bed from Legacy Classic Kids...

Hubs and I both felt the dresser with photo mirror was just a slight bit too "froofy" or over-the-top for our less than girly-girl...

Plus I was concerned the antique off-white finish for the Enchantment collection just wouldn't look right with the PBK bedding I'm so totally head over heels in love with. Would you agree?

The only other decor idea I really have at this point for her new room is to do an accent wall with wainscoting, similar to this:

A majority of the wall will actually be covered by her full size bed, but I don't think I care. I really love the look of this accent, and as of right now, I'm thinking her room will be a VERY pale pink with the wainscoting in a slightly darker shade of pink (but not quite as fuchsia as the pic above).

There's so much more planning to do but now just isn't the time to focus on all of the details for her room with the holidays so quickly approaching. I know I'll want to do a good bit of homemade wonderfulness, whether it's sewing accent pillows, making framed artwork similar to Chase's, or maybe having her name in letters on the wall (also similar to Chase's). I plan to incorporate some level of horses/unicorns and just a little sprinkle of princess-y stuff. I want it to be girly for sure, but if you know LO, you'll know she's also into dinosaurs and trucks and cars and swords, so I don't want to take it over the top. Ya know?

I can't wait to see how her room unfolds because, you know, after this room there's a nursery to work on. But I wonder if it'll be PINK or BLUE? ;)

20 Weeks

So yesterday marked 20 weeks with this pregnancy, and I'm happy to share we had a good report on our little baby. Granted, it was basically the kind of appointment where you wait in the exam room for over an hour so they could throw a doppler on your belly for 30 seconds to listen to the baby's heartbeat (which I can do myself at home as needed) and send you on your way. ((sigh)) I'm so impatient. This will never change.

Some less than appealing news I received from my doctor was that, based on my medical history and the current medications I'm taking, it's essentially a given that I will FAIL my glucose screen at 28 weeks, which will result in my having to check my blood sugar at least 4 times a day. It may also result in me taking another medication, which, if that med doesn't work, I'll have to give myself insulin. This will continue through the remaining 3 months of this pregnancy.

As you may imagine, I was less than thrilled with this news.

While it will be a ginormous pain to manage this with diet, exercise, blood sugar monitoring, medication and possibly insulin, it's even more frustrating to know this can negatively affect the baby. Due to the extra insulin the baby's pancreas will make, he/she may have very low blood glucose levels at birth and is also at higher risk for breathing problems. This is not great, obviously. There are a lot of negative impacts of gestational diabetes and I'm just now starting to research and learn about it all. I'm hopeful if I can be diligent with my diet and exercise over the next two months, maybe I'll increase my chances of passing my glucose screening... maybe??

Anywho, here's a little pic of our guy/gal from our ultrasound last week. I'm just praying for God to keep His hand of protection on this sweet child!

We're Having a...

...baby with a HEALTHY 4-CHAMBER HEART!!!

We are so very happy and blessed that our newest little one looked wonderful at my 19-week full anatomy scan earlier this week. However, I was so completely unprepared for the flood of emotions I felt the morning of the appointment.

We were scheduled for a 9AM visit on Tuesday, December 11th. I dropped Chase off at my mom's and hit the road. Hubs and I drove separately as he would be heading to work after the appointment while I would be going back to get Chase. For some reason, I was led to listen to Matt Hammitt's All of Me in the car the whole way there. On repeat.

And I cried.

A lot.

Unexpectedly.

I was so overwhelmed. My thoughts of course turned to my amazing heart warrior as the lyrics spoke of how "I can't give you half my heart and pray He makes you whole." I thought of the unknown future of my baby as "I'm so close to what I can't control." I didn't know what the outcome of this appointment would be. I was so scared. But it was so surprising to me because -- and this is me keeping it real out here -- I honestly hadn't bonded with the baby and or truly accepted the fact that I was expecting for the past 5 months. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was so scared of the unknown future that I thought it'd be better if I didn't bond with the baby so I wouldn't be nearly as devastated as I was when we received Chase's diagnosis. I had already fallen SO in love with that baby boy that his congenital heart defect diagnosis was completely unbearable.

If I didn't accept this baby, I couldn't be hurt if/when I found out something was wrong. Horrible logic, I know, but that didn't change my mindset.

Finally, about 40 excruciating minutes after we arrived, we were called back for our appointment. And much to our relief, we went straight for the ultrasound.

The technician was amazing and very upbeat. It was hard to hide the tears welling up in my eyes as I took my place and she prepared for the ultrasound with the warm gel on my growing belly. I apologized over and over and told her it wasn't her, it was me. Hubs made a brief comment about our history (speaking of Chase) and she knew exactly what he was referring to. Apparently she remembered us from one of our millions of ultrasounds with Chase. She said she was doing her best to hold herself together. Very sweet.

When she started the scan, the baby was breach and basically curled up into a ball. This was the worst possible position for us to see the heart, so the tech continued with the scan. She took measurements, pointed out images on the screen, and did a great job of talking us through the appointment. While everything she saw looked good, every muscle in my body was completely tense. I couldn't budge. I even remember telling myself to relax but I just couldn't do it. I was so nervous. Even though everything she saw looked great, I kept waiting for her to get to the part that didn't look great.

The baby cooperated with us and turned around so we could get great pics of the heart. Even after she said "four chamber heart" I still couldn't be happy. I was thinking, Chase had four chambers, too, but half of them were too small to function. So four chambers didn't really mean much to me.

We saw the blood flow in and out of the heart and great vessels, and it was very clearly red OR blue, not mixed red AND blue. We saw valves functioning normally. I'm no expert and even I could clearly see things looked like what they're supposed to look like.

But I still couldn't exhale. I still couldn't relax.

After the appointment, I gave the technician a hug and headed into a small room to wait on the Maternal-Fetal Medicine (high risk) doctor to confirm her findings. While we waited, I was still numb. Hubs was happy and confused as to why I didn't seem ecstatic. I guess I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The doctor came in all smiles and said everything looked great. He spoke of the heart specifically and how wonderful it looked. Then he asked me what was wrong. I didn't even know what to say. He continued by saying EVERYTHING looked fantastic! There wasn't one little tiny thing that he thought we'd need to watch closely, etc... I smiled and guess I was just waiting for it all to sink in.

Even as hubs and I headed our separate ways after the appointment, I was still numb. To be honest, it's been almost 72 hours since that appointment and I'm still having a hard time believing it. It's so weird to feel like I've finally been given the go-ahead to fall in love with my baby.

I always knew the first half of my next pregnancy after Chase would be tough. It's so hard having missed out on 9 months of the joy, excitement and anticipation of being pregnant -- the last half of Chase's pregnancy and the first half of this one. I'm looking forward to being able to believe this baby is our reality. That God has chosen to bless us with a healthy boy or girl. It's so humbling to think of Him blessing us in that way.

So yes, we're having a healthy baby with a four-chamber heart! And we couldn't be more thankful to the One who gave us this gift!

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for this new little one and for hubs, LO, Chase and I as we walked into the unknown at our appointment. God is so good! And for the record, we'll tell the kids what we're expecting soon, and after they know, we'll share the exciting news with the rest of the world! :)

And finally, for those who are interested, here's the song All of Me by Matt Hammitt along with the lyrics below. It's just amazing.

All of Me

Matt Hammitt

Afraid to love

Something that could break

Could I move on

If you were torn away?

And I'm so close to what I can't control

I can't give you half my heart

And pray He makes you whole

(Chorus)

You're gonna have all of me 

You're gonna have all of me

'Cause you're worth every falling tear

You're worth facing any fear

You're gonna know all my love

Even if it's not enough

Enough to mend our broken hearts

But giving you all of me is where I'll start

I won't let sadness steal you from my arms

I won't let pain keep you from my heart

I'll trade the fear of all that I could lose

For every moment I share with you

Chorus

Heaven brought you to this moment, it's too wonderful to speak

You're worth all of me, you're worth all of me

So let me recklessly love you, even if I bleed

You're worth all of me, you're worth all of me

Disney: Day 2

Day 2 at Disney was our first time at Magic Kingdom! It was on Sunday, November 25th (which actually happened to be hubs' and my 7 year anniversary) and the park was open from 9am until 7pm. They had Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party from 7pm until midnight (for an extra almost $300) but we opted out of that, even though it would've been AMAZING. Maybe next time.

So Sunday morning we were up relatively bright and early so we could make it to the park as close to 9am as possible. We decided to drive to the park rather than take the complementary bus transportation from our resort hotel because we liked the flexibility of making stops, taking a different route, etc. It worked out well, but let me tell you. We drove about 10 minutes from the hotel to the MK parking lot. Then we jumped on a tram that would take us to our next stop: the monorail or ferry boat. You had to take one or the other to get the MK and we opted for the monorail. So it literally was about an hour from our hotel to the parking lot to the tram to the monorail to the Magic Kingdom entrance. Whew! Luckily we didn't have to pay for parking (about $13/day I think?) since we were resort guests.

Here's a pic of the kids on the tram. They were kind of excited about what we were up to!

Here's a pic I took from the monorail at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. The kids were getting really excited now! Especially after they saw Cinderella's Castle a few yards back while on the monorail!

We made it into the park and took a few pics in front of Cinderella's Castle.

Our first stop was DUMBO!

I rode with LO and hubs rode with Chase, so I was only able to get pics of my girl. She loved it!

After Dumbo, we headed over to The Barnstormer roller coaster. Obviously I knew I wouldn't be able to ride too many rides what with being pregnant and all, and honestly Chase isn't able to ride anything that could cause the pressures in his little body to suddenly change (like big coasters with g-forces and what-not), but I figured the Barnstormer would be okay for both of us. I rode with him and LO rode with daddy.

Ready for the ride! I think we held hands the whole time! He liked it okay but I think it was still a bit too jerky and uncomfortable for him. LO had a blast, of course!

Then we wandered into a big top tent that had some of our favorite characters signing autographs! We jumped on it and met some of our faves...

Daisy:

Minnie:

Goofy:

And Donald:

After meeting some friends, we went to the race track to drive some cool cars! Somebody was obviously already a bit worn out from our early morning and several days of traveling away from home with no naps. ;)

But put this kid in a race car and all bets are off! He wanted to drive so I went along to take pics.

Then we met more friends!

Of course we had to ride the ginormous carousel! Too bad LO didn't get the horse she wanted...

But I was able to squeeze a tiny half-genuine smile out of her.

Chase was all smiles!

Until he looked at me all creepy-like, apparently...

No, wait! We're all smiles again! Yay!

We also watched Mickey's Philharmagic in 4D, which was a lot of fun!

Then it was off to the Winnie the Pooh ride, which the kids rode together while mommy & daddy sat behind them to take pics.

Next it was time to fight the evil emperor Zurg on the Buzz Lightyear ride!

We grabbed some lunch and then grabbed a great spot for the big parade at 3pm!

Sadly, this was as close as we'd get to Woody on our entire trip. No autograph from one of our biggest faves. :(

Mickey and Minnie!

Aladdin and the Genie!

Cinderella and her prince!

After the parade, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel, since it would be about an hour to get there and all. We had some quiet down time (i.e. not naps but a break from the crazy madness) before it was time to head over to Disney's Contemporary resort for our dinner date at Chef Mickey's with all of our favorite characters. Here's where I'm gonna get real with y'all. Luckily we had the dining plan so we each used one credit for this meal. That means technically we only paid a tip for the evening. ThankyouJesus. I have never had such a horrible selection of awful buffet food in my entire life! Think of a buffet restaurant that has a little blue and white "C" in the corner of the window instead of the preferable "A" rating. It. Was. Awful. The food was gross, there was NO variety for the kids and  even though I tried small portions of several of the available items, they were incredibly disappointing. Whoa. I couldn't believe it! Not very "Disney" in my opinion, especially since without the dining plan we would've easily paid $175 for this one meal. And I would've died. Right there on the table, signing the credit card slip. It was THAT bad.

Of course the highlight of the meal was meeting some characters. We started with Donald! Sorry these are blurry...

Then Pluto, who we had been hoping to see all day!

Followed by Minnie Mouse herself!

Chase likes him some time with Minnie Mouse!

Then it was time to meet The Mouse himself, Mickey!! I thought about pulling him aside to talk about the lack of quality in his buffet, but decided against it. ;)

A precious hug from our precious boy!

Chase had a thing with crazy blinking when I was taking his picture, so lots of them ended up with his eyes closed. Boys.

Then Goofy stopped by for a silly visit!

LO thought it was hilarious that he was signing her autograph book with one ear over his eyes. LOL!

Haha! Silly goofy!

Again with the eyes closed! Sheesh. ;)

This is a bit better...

Here's Chase enjoying his disappointing dessert. A bowl of melted chocolate ice cream. There wasn't even any toppings to put on it! So sad.

But I should acknowledge the lack of topping didn't keep him from eating the ice cream. ;)

Smiles!!!

After dinner we posed for a free picture with a Mickey statue. Silly eye-closing Chase!!!

That's better! :))

Day 3 was another day at Magic Kingdom... Coming soon! ;)