Life Lately

The end of the school year is upon us! HECK TO THE YES!!!!! This is my VERY favorite time of year! It is warming up outside and we are about to have almost no school responsibilities!! AH yes! The end of the school year brings SO many activities, here's what we've been up to lately!

Brooks and Mia both had field trips to the zoo! I went with B and Josh went with Mia! The trips were two days apart and I was super thankful my hubby didn't mind taking one of the trips! One is enough! haha!

Allison and I took Reece to the Carrie Underwood concert! It was amazing! She put on an awesome show! We she announced the tour back in the fall we thought it would be a fun end of year/end of elementary school treat for Reece! The day tickets went on sale I bought what I knew would be super awesome seats! There were two opening acts which we skipped because we are extra. When we arrived to our seats there was only one row in front of us, I thought there would be four. I front of that row were several empty chairs. Everyone was pretty much there at that point so I wondered what was going on. Then the lights went dark, Carrie started singing and I looked up to see Mike Fisher(Carrie's hubby if you live under a rock!) and their TWO babies walking to those seats! Y'all, they sat right in front of us! It was such a treat to see them. Little Isiah was singing and dancing to his mommy singing...I can not even! Baby Jacob slept through the entire thing!:) It was a fun night, one Reece won't forget!

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I went with Griffin to his soccer banquet! That was a fun night! I'm so thankful he has found a sport he loves!

Griffin and Peyton had their spring band concert. Look how tall my boys are! Sheesh! Griffin doesn't love band anymore but Peyton is in the jazz band and killing it!

Mother's day! At the beach because it was about ME! :) I love these kids to their bones!

Brooks and Reece had their annual color trot at school! I always help with throwing color and end up covered myself! haha!

 

That's about 1/4 of life lately! HAHA!

Spring Break in Disney: Days 7 & 8!

On day 7 we made a trip back to Magic Kingdom! I mentioned in the other MK post that we spent that day in one half of the park-this day we did the other half! I don't remember the order of riding things at this point but I know we rode everything we wanted to plus we rode Splash Mountain for the third and fourth time that week! haha! We rode Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Dumbo, The Barnstormer, The Ariel Ride, Peter Pan's Flight, It's a Small World, Haunted Mansion...pretty much all the things. And, we caught the parade!

We had dinner at Be Our Guest! Best meal of the trip, hands down! I had the filet and it was perfect!

We planned to stay until the park closed because it was our last day...but that was going to be 11pm and I wasn't down for that. Lucky for us, they still did a fireworks show at 9pm so we saw it and then called it a day!

Day 8 was go home day. BOO. We hung around our resort until time to head to the airport.

We seriously had the most magical vacation! I love travelling and spending time with my people! In fact, I'm in charge of the next family trip....you'll never guess where we're going! :)

Spring Break in Disney: Days 5 & 6!

Back to the Disney posts! :)

Day 5 was our "break day"! The only plans we had were for dinner at Ohana! We spent the day at the pool and just hanging around resting! It was a much needed break from the hustle and bustle that Disney trips bring! If there is any way you can do this, I highly recommend it! Dinner at Ohana was pretty good. For some reason it was not as good as it was last time we ate there.

Day 6 was the day the grown ups had been waiting for...EPCOT! We spent the early hours riding Test Track, Soarin' and the Nemo ride. We were SUPER excited because somehow Mia grew an inch during the trip and was suddenly the required height to be able to ride! I have no idea how this happened but WE WERE PUMPED she was able to ride! Soarin' is one of our top fav rides! She loved it!

Then it was about time for the World Showcase to open! We spent the rest of the day exploring the different countries. We got matching henna tattoos, snacked, got pearls in Japan, had lots of fun with Mia in China, got STUCK on the Grand Fiesta Tour(where Brooks yelled to the staff, "Y'all really need to hurry up!" to which everyone applauded!) and we ate at San Angel Inn that is in the Mexican Pavilion.

That wraps up days 5 and 6!

Happy Birthday Brooks!!

Last Monday Brooks turned SIX! Our baby boy has turned into a big kid right before our eyes! He is ALL boy...and if you have a son, you know what I mean! I love it! He has the sweetest, tender heart. He is always picking flowers and bringing them to me, telling me he loves me loves me a million times a day and he likes to hold my hand. He also likes to run around wild like a banshee monkey and tackle his sisters! See, he keeps himself balanced. :)

We celebrated his birthday earlier this month at the Fun Factory! He had lots of fun!

On his actual birthday he chose to go to Chuck E. Cheese! The kids all had fun playing games and eating pizza!

Spring Break in Disney: Days 3 & 4

Disney day 3 was spent at Animal Kingdom! This is when I tell you how extra we are! hahaha! My kids haven't been to Disney since Pandora opened. Flight of Passage is one of my favorite rides EVER. We had a fast pass for it later in the day BUT I knew the kids would want to ride it more than once so we were at the park at rope drop and we had extra magic hours that day! We RAN to that side of the park and still waited over an hour! I was shocked at how long we had to wait but WORTH IT.

After that we rode Everest which is another fav of mine! Then it was on to the safari where we got to see the new baby giraffe! SWOON! So cute! Pretty sure after that we had lunch. It's all kinda running together at this point but we also rode the Dinosaur ride and saw It's Tough to be a Bug. We went to our actual fast pass for Flight of Passage and this is when Noah and Reece realized they could use the people in our party that didn't ride's magic bands and RIDE IT AGAIN. That's three times, if you're counting. Smart kids, I tell ya.

We had a dinner reservation at the Rainforest Café, we couldn't get a reservation at Yak and Yeti-which is MY FAV but Rainforest was really good!! After that my family stayed and everyone else dipped! That's something else about us all travelling together-if some of us want to leave or do something different it's totally fine. Whatever goes!

We rode several more rides including Primeval Whirl. That normally would have made me sick but I was laughing so hard at Griffin and Peyton I didn't. haha! Josh took the littles on the Triceratops ride while we were on that one-I think they rode it 2 or 3 times.

At this point the park closed in like 10 minutes. I noticed Everest had a short wait time. It was a good 10 minute walk to the ride soooooo we RAN like fire. We literally walked into the waiting cue and the cast members shut the doors behind us! whew. Riding it at night was super fun! You could see the park all lit up so it was fun to see!

We ended up being there for 14 hours! We were pooped but had THE best day!!

Day 4 was spent at Hollywood Studios!

We rode the Tower of Terror, Rockin Rollercoaster(Josh's fav!), Slinky Dog Dash, Star Wars, Toy Story Mania and we caught the Frozen show! We had lunch at Mama Melrose and it was SO FRIGGIN GOOD! Yummo! If you haven't figured it out, we are all about some food in Disney!

We had tickets for Fantasmic but my fam opted out and went back to the resort. We were exhausted-probably from the 14 hour day before! haha! We went to the camp fire at the resort and made smores! So fun!!

That's it for days 3 and 4!

Spring Break in Disney: Days 1 & 2

WHEW. We just got back from a super fun 8 day Disney vacay. I wouldn't call it a vacay though. lol I'm going to take it a few days at a time and get the trip on here.

My sister and her fam and my Dad went with us. Most people couldn't travel with that much family, but it's our jam! We are already planning a HUGE trip for next year!

Day 1 was our travel day! We had a super early flight and were in Orlando at like 9. We went to our resort, Port Orleans-Riverside, then caught the boat to Disney Springs! The boat was SO fun and we were glad we didn't have to travel by bus. We ate lunch and shopped for several hours before catching the bus back to the resort. We had a dinner reservation at Chef Mickey's so we wanted to freshen up!

Chef Mickey's was loads of fun, but the service was TERRIBLE! They made us wait 45 minutes for a table when we HAD A RESERVATION. Then the wait staff was SLOOOOWWWWW. Um, hello, do you see all these 7 kids at the table? Get with it! It was made up for when the characters started coming around. The kids-even the teenage ones-had the best time!

After dinner we called it a night because we had a full day at Magic Kingdom the next day!

We are ALL about getting to the parks early. At rope drop or VERY soon after. This is huge, people. The crowds are low and it's not so hot.

The first thing we did at MK was ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Mia was terrified. Everyone else enjoyed it but for the rest of the trip she was reminding us she hated it. haha! The next thing we rode was Splash Mountain. Well, the cool kids did! haha! Wet that early in the day was a no-go for half of us. Y'all know I was down for it no matter how wet I got.

And we GOT SOAKED. I've never gotten that wet on it before. I told my sister before I went to get on that she was a party pooper and wouldn't even get that wet because she was not riding. When I came back she laughed. haha!

We planned 2 days at MK and this day we tried to stay to the left side of the park. We rode Big Thunder Mountain, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Jungle Cruise, The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Haunted Mansion....I can't remember what else. Basically all the things. OH and we did the Hall of Presidents! Don't miss this when you go!

We had lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern...It was delicious!

I think that pretty much sums up days 1 and 2!

 Cason and Griffin are BFF!