Disney World: Hollywood Studios + A Night at the Castle...

Hollywood Studios is home of the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground". We spent hours in here...and could have easily spent the whole day.

Here you can see the blades of grass, and we are below in the dirt. There is a supersoaker up top that gets sprayed occassionally, a large dog's nose makes loud sniffing noises, slides are made out of bug's tongues, opened rolls of film, etc. It's super creative in it's design...




Ezra playing at a fire hydrant in the NYC movie set area...


Excuse the cliche, but I have to say that our night at the castle in Magic Kingdom, was quite magical. We spent the afternoon at the hotel napping until almost 7pm, and then headed to Magic Kingdom for a 9:30pm dinner reservation.

We were able to catch the Disney Electrical Parade before heading in for dinner...




Upon entering the castle everyone gets to have their photo taken with Cinderella. She was an excellent "Cinderella" for the job who stayed in character with everything she said. Then we headed up to the ballroom where we ate our dinner and also where we were able to catch the firework show that was happening just outside the huge cathedral windows. Ezra was feeling a little nervous about more fireworks, and wanted to be held and we suggested just holding hands, so that's what we did, and then later in the night when the fireworks started again, he declared "hands!" and reached out for us to all hold hands again. :)

Several of the Disney Princesses made their way around the dining room to say hello, take photos, sign autographs. I didn't think to take a photo of my younger nieces who are definitely more into the princess scene...I'm sure they are on another camera and I'll see them at some point.

Here is Ariel with Ezra and Haleigh...


We all got dressed up for the occasion, some in more royal attire than others....



And, as a complete surprise to us, they came out singing Happy Birthday with 2 gluten-free cupcakes (with candles!! ...he loves candles!!) to celebrate a certain someone's 2nd birthday! A total highlight of the night for Sir Ezrito.




My boys with swords held high...


"Belle" and "Minnie Mouse" looking out the window at the carousel below...


Lydia waving from above. It was rumored to us that the next Disney movie has the princess dressed in this style dress...just leave it to Lydia to always be above the fashion curve...


After dinner playing...there were no lines at any of the rides, so we stayed and closed the park down at 1am!

Disney World: Epcot

So I have learned that it is actually possible to have a prego mama on her feet for too long. Wow. Had I been a little further along in my pregnancy, I'm pretty sure I would have gone into labor yesterday while climbing the rope ladder/netting while carrying Ezra in the Dinoland playground. Somehow I climbed this contraption approximately 4 times before realizing that there were stairs on the other side. I think the Disney workers were probably secretly chuckling at how much effort it was taking me, knowing I could have chosen an easier route.

That said, we decided to take it easy the morning we explored Epcot. We spent the morning at the pool splashing around.




And how about this outfit to scream cute and tourist? I love that he loves wearing sunglasses and hats.


Epcot is filled with beautiful gardens...


And, in case you are like me and didn't know...Epcot is a walk through a bunch of different countries (a.k.a. there is amazing food every where you turn!). We ate lunch "in Paris", watched some really cool candy art making "in Japan", were entertained by some improv on the streets "of England", and jammed on the drums "in Haiti" (Haiti isn't one of the official countries of Epcot, but it was the name of the particular little area we were jamming in)...


Oh, and a very captivating electric train in a country I don't remember...perhaps Norway?


Just before the night show...(or should I say the fireworks that totally freaked Ezra out and left him trembling?...sad!...don't worry he and Ryan walked into shops so that he didn't have to be afraid the whole time...)

Disney: Animal Kingdom

So far this has been my favorite park. There are lots of trees for shade. Hardly any lines. Many not-so-scary rides.

Princess Cinderella and Ezra eating popsicles.


Snippets of our safari... we also saw lions, zebras, and gazelles, to name a few others...


(I love how Ezra's little hand is pointing to the hippo in the bottom of this photo)




Animal Kingdom had a really cool parade filled with animals that had been carved out of wood and were all manually moved via bikes, people pushing them, etc. Clearly Ezra was way to into it to look at the camera...


Here's what the 'floats' looked like...a frog...


Flying Rhinos (as Ezra called them)...by far a huge hit from the day! I think we rode this ride approximately 6 times.


Much time was also spent here at this sweet playground in Dinoland...

Guess where we are??

DISNEY WORLD!!!

My parents have ever so generously flown the whole family (my sister, brother-in-law, their 5 kids, my brother's daughter, and our little family of 3) down to Florida to spend the week together at a resort and hitting the parks.

I was in Disney World once before, when I was 4, but truthfully I don't remember any of it.
I had no idea that
a.) it is soooo BIG (as in over 30,000 acres or 47 square miles!)
b.) that it has so much education infused into the rides, activities, etc.
c.) there are so many things for toddlers to do!

The first morning we woke up here, was Ezra's 2nd Birthday! (How is it that he is 2 already?? I think the second year flew by even faster than the first!) We didn't receive our luggage (long and frustrating story that thankfully had a happy ending), so he slept in his clothes. And at 10:30am, we deemed it okay to wake him up to a choir of cousins singing of Happy Birthday.


And the first park we hit up was Magic Kingdom. Here are my boys on the carousel...


And here they are riding on a boat through "It's a Small World"...one of Ezra's favorite rides...


Ezra and me on the race track...Ezra stearing of course...(my brother-in-law and nephew are in the car right behind us)...


Lydia, Nichole, Alyssa, and Roger at the park before dinner...


Ezra mountain climbing...


Puddle splashing after dinner...


Some were "worried" ahead of time that Ezra wouldn't know who any of the characters were, but it only took him seeing them once for the names to stick. Now, if he sees Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, or Pluto he will point and shout out there names! (Kristy, if you are reading this...at first he got excited about Pluto because he just recognized him as a dog...then we taught him his name...and now he is a big fan! :)

Random side note: Ezra now likes to call Dada "Uncle Ryan" to be like my nieces and nephew :)

Clark Kent is my partner...

As of the last two months, I've started waking up early (7am) to go for a run all by myself. Although our stroller is super easy to push and I love it, the extra 25 pounds of Ezra + stroller in addition to the poundage I'm already carrying naturally is a bit more than this prego mama wants to deal with these warmer days.

However yesterday morning Ezra conveniently (for him) woke up at 6:50a.m. (the dude rarely wakes up before 7:30...and more often not until 8 or 8:30!), so I decided to take him with me for a stroll.

I didn't want to deal with clothes, so I just buckled him in the stroller with his pj's on and a snack in hand. When we got outside though the sun was tooo bright, so sunglasses were requested...and thus supplied.

I thought I'd just start out slowly and walk until the end of our street before I actually started running, but my lil' partner/coach/cheerleader kept saying, "mama run? mama run?"...and so I decided running I should do...

Here he is back at home after our run.

Barrel o' monkeys...

Here are Eleanor and Ezra climbing about after our picnic last night...

Happy Birthday to Cameron!

Ezra has been super into birthdays lately. I think it's because we have been going to so many birthday parties.

He turns everything into a birthday cake with a candle...
-a ball of playdough with toothpicks in it
-a jar with a carrot peeler sticking out
-a book with a jar on top
-...you name it, this boy has birthday cakes on the brain!

And, he starts singing Happy Birthday, and at the end blows out the candles...it's a pretty fun game that he created.

Well, the other day it was Cameron's birthday so a little video was in order...

babies...

Baby Evelyn and Abby came over the other day.

I think Ezra might have a bit of a crush...

Happy Spring!!

Last Wednesday was the first official day of spring. And although winter here is usually quite mild, Tuesday was actually "really cold" (read: 50 degrees, which is really cold for Tucson). But, that made the start of Spring all the more exciting because it was in the 80's!

We pulled out Ezra's pool and gave it a good cleaning. Ezra was chomping at the bit to take off his clothes and get in. At first I tried suggesting he leave on his underwear...but that lasted all of about 5 seconds.





On Thursday we had Owen over for the official Grand Re-Opening of the pool! Ezra was feeling like he wanted to show off his bathing suit (and crack)...


Watching Ezra and Owen play together is one of my favorite things. They make each other soo giggly, and love to chase each other around. I feel like they are constantly setting "laugh bait" out for the other to take, and the other always does...we are going to miss them soo much when they move to Colorado next month!!!

Ren Fest Take 2

We headed back up to the Renaissance Festival last weekend! (It's a pricey ticket to get in, but friends of ours work there so they were able to get us a couple of comp tickets!)

The night before we were planning to go, Ezra was blowing on a wooden whistle we had gotten for him last time were at the Festival. Not expecting he'd know the answer, Ryan asked him, "Where did you get your whistle?" And to our amazement, Ezra said, "Festibal!" Then he started talking about everything else we did at the festival. "Mama and Ezra ride elephant", "Marcia and Dick" (our friends who work there), "Corn" (what he ate there)....I know it was only a month ago, but still that is 1/23 of his life ago!!...crazy how much kids remember!

Somehow it was mentioned that we were going to be going to the festival the following day. And, sadly this happened right before bedtime. Which meant we had a very excited little boy who was ready to go to the 'festibal' then, not in the morning. As we were cuddling in bed and talking about it, I told him that we had to wait until we woke up. To which he sat up and replied, "Awake! All done sleeping." Needless to say, he went to bed a little late and we had to wake him up the next day to get going.

Ezra, Ryan, and Joel watching "Three men and a bunch of drums" perform...


at the petting zoo..


enjoying every kernel of corn...


Ezra, Ryan, Estrella and Joel on the giant rocking horse (which is powered by a person pushing it--very cool!)


Ezra and Ryan playing a dice game with our friend Marcia...


And, the whole day was enjoyed with the company of good friends...

Family Date Night

The other night we decided to take Ezra out to ice cream for the first time. And for some reason I decided to phrase it, "We are going to an ice cream restaurant!"...Ezra was sooo excited that he ran into his bedroom to put his clothes on as fast as he could (remember, the boy prefers to be a nudist whenever we let him).


I think he suffered from a little brain freeze after taking a massive first bite because he asked if we could warm it a little. Instead we told him to just take small bites...which was awesome for us, because I think this is the first time ever that he didn't out eat us in ice cream!

Next stop, was the park...




Then back home for trains, popcorn...


...and jumping/rolling on the couch!




(I promise you this rolling game is not nearly as 'violent' as it looks...in case you can't hear him, he is requesting "more". :)