Disney, Pt. 4: Magic Kingdom, Day 1

On Sunday of our Disney trip, we got up nice and early and headed out to Magic Kingdom, with Grammy in tow! My mom was nice enough to come not only to watch the kids' races but also to take care of them while Eric and I ran our race, and then she decided to stick around for a day of Disney Fun on Sunday. We were feeling the pressure to show her a great time and make her feel like she got her money's worth, and I think we ended up having a perfect Magic Kingdom day!

The five of us at Magic Kingdom!

We made it to the park in time for rope drop that morning. Actually, we even had time to spare! We were excited to see Mickey & Friends come to open the park and kickstart our day!

The opening ceremonies, if you will!

As soon as the gates opened, we made a mad dash back to Princess Fairytale Hall to meet Anna and Elsa. Eric is a FastPass wizard, and can almost always get us whatever we want for our Disney trips, but this time around we had some trouble getting a pass to see Anna and Elsa at a sensible time. So, we decided booking it back there at park opening was our best bet for a short line. And indeed, it was! We were in to see the Frozen sisters within about 15 minutes!

The kids hanging out with Elsa and Anna

This was E.J.'s first trip to Disney where he would really be out and moving around and interacting (we haven't been back since he learned to walk!), and he definitely got a kick out of meeting all the characters over the course of the weekend. I think it threw things off for Ellie a little bit, to have him wandering around, but overall they both really loved it! Somehow we ended up with two kids who love meeting characters and aren't at all scared of them, even giant animals or "people" with huge heads (like Doc McStuffins and Sofia at Hollywood Studios). So that's good!

After seeing the Frozen sisters, we hopped right over to the other side of the hall to see Cinderella and Rapunzel.

Ellie and Rapunzel! Ellie was a little shy all day.

Cinderella is Grammy's favorite princess!

We had breakfast reservations with Pooh Bear & Friends at Crystal Palace, so we headed over that way. By chance, we bumped right into Mary Poppins and were able to meet her with no wait! She was very impressed with my mom's "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" pronunciation skills.

Ellie and Grammy with Mary Poppins

Then, it was over to breakfast! We were seated quickly and hit the buffet, pausing to greet the four Hundred Acre Wood friends who came by. The food was pretty tasty, too! E.J. loved the Mickey waffles, and after much bribing with ice cream coaxing, we did get Ellie to eat something. So, overall, it was a rousing success!

Fun at Crystal Palace!

After breakfast, Ellie and Grammy went on the Pooh Bear ride (which Ellie henceforth and forevermore will refer to as "The Scary Pooh Ride," if that gives you any idea how that went), while Eric, E.J. and I got in line to meet Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter. Grammy and Ellie were able to join us in time for that meeting, and Ellie made sure to tell Alice that her middle name is Alice, too, and then they talked ballet positions. A productive meeting, indeed!

Nice turnout, ladies.

With Alice and the Mad Hatter

Next, Ellie really wanted to meet Merida, so we went over to Merida's garden. Ellie was thrilled to meet her and told her that she has been eating lots of curly pasta to make her hair curly like Merida's! Ellie also tried her hand at a little archery and rocked it!

Meeting Merida

Get it, girl.

From there, we made our way back to Main Street.

On Main Street

I got a new baby carrier since the last time we went, and I couldn't resist making a new Mickey slipcover for it!

We had a FastPass to meet Mickey at Town Square Theater, so that was our next stop. It was so adorable! The kids were thrilled to see Mickey, and sweet little E.J. ran right up to him and excitedly said, "Gickey! Shoes!" as he pointed at his Mickey Mouse sandals. Bless his heart, the little guy just wanted to show off his shoes to his buddy Mickey! So dear.

So excited!

Group shot with Mickey

Next, we decided to head over to Enchanted Tales With Belle to take advantage of a short-ish wait time. On the way there, we caught a little bit of the "Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It!" dance party.

Also, it was an absolutely gorgeous day.

At Belle, Eric was chosen to participate in the story as a knight! He did a fabulous job.

Waiting in line for Enchanted Tales With Belle

Loving this.

Belle with the knights

Ellie and Belle

Afterwards, we got Grammy and the kids situated on a bench with some snacks while Eric and I took advantage of a FastPass for Space Mountain. Neither of us had been on it since high school, and it was great fun! Somehow it was darker and faster than we remembered. (I guess that could be due to the fact that we're not teenage kids anymore, but we'll pretend they've just upgraded the ride for the new millennium.)

Pre-roller coaster selfie!

After that, we decided to take a little break. We grabbed some lunch at Casey's Corner, then let the kids run off some energy (yes, they had energy to run off in the middle of a Magic Kingdom day, how do kids do it) in the grass along Main Street. The kids played, E.J. picked flowers for Grammy, and we watched the Festival of Fantasy parade from there.

Look at these two!

Ellie and Grammy

Scenes from the Festival of Fantasy parade

As Mickey rode by in his hot air balloon, sweet E.J. ran the entire length of the grassy area to wave at him.

When we got moving again, we hit the carousel and tried our hands at the Sword in the Stone.

Carousel time!

Good effort, E.J.!

Then, we met Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck at Pete's Silly Sideshow.

Happiness!

Ellie's toddler smile was out in full force that day.

And of course, what would a trip to Magic Kingdom be without a ride on Dumbo the Flying Elephant?

Grammy and E.J. in line for the ride

Dumbo!

In need of a bit more sustenance to finish out our day, we stopped at Gaston's Tavern for a LaFou's Brew (a huge hit with the kids), and then paused to dance along with the passing street party once again.

Ellie loved it.

Sharing!

Well, some of us danced. Others complained about the noise.

And with that, we called it a day. Phew! What a day it was! That was a jam-packed Magic Kingdom day, if I do say so myself! We saw rope drop, had one character meal, met six princesses and ten other characters, saw two street parties and one parade, rode four rides and took roughly a billion pictures. Needless to say, we were all pretty exhausted!

This little guy snored the whole way back to the car.

Even Ellie was powerless against the sleepiness.

When we got back to to the hotel, Grammy gathered her things and headed home, and we ate some dinner and got the kiddos to bed. We had more fun ahead of us!

Coming up next: Another day at Magic Kingdom!

If you want to see the full set of our pictures from our first day at Magic Kingdom, click here to see them all!

Ellie's Easter Program

On Ellie's last day of school before spring break (St. Patrick's Day!), the preschool held a little Easter celebration that included a concert, parade and egg hunt.

Given how Ellie's Christmas program went:

Oh my.

...we went into this performance with much lowered expectations. A couple of weeks before the performance I was talking to Ellie about it and, operating on a hunch that she only sulks like that when I'm around, I asked her if she wanted me to come watch her sing on stage. She answered "no," and I lied through my teeth and told her okay, I won't come. LIES.

I went. We all did. Eric left work early, Grammy came to visit, E.J. rode in the baby carrier on my back. But, we snuck in at the very last second, found seats in the back, and literally spent the entire show hunched down to stay hidden behind the people in front of us so Ellie wouldn't spot us. We must have looked absolutely ridiculous.

The glamorous world of motherhood, my friends.

BUT IT WORKED. She still didn't sing, but I didn't expect her to given that in addition to seeing her prior performance, her teacher specifically mentioned at our parent-teacher conference that they can't get Ellie to sing. So I didn't expect singing; I was just hoping for at least a neutral expression on her face. Not only did she rock a neutral expression, but she DID THE HAND MOTIONS. To every song! She actually did it! It was so great.

GO ELLIE!

Look at her doing it!

Here's a little snippet of the closing number so you can see for yourself:

VIDEO: Ellie's Easter program

(pardon the shaky camera work - I was hiding and just holding my camera up, plus had an antsy E.J. strapped to my back!

After the performance, the parents were invited out to the walkway alongside the church building to watch the kids in a little Easter parade, led by the Easter Bunny himself. They were all so cute - each class made their own Easter bonnets and looked adorable!

E.J. waiting for the parade to start

Here they come!

E.J. was so excited to see the Easter Bunny!

Ellie on parade!

When the parade reached the front of the church, each class posed for photos with the bunny.

The cutest.

Then, they went into the garden for an egg hunt!

They're off!

Ellie on the hunt

I don't think he was supposed to, but E.J. couldn't resist lending a helping hand!

Ellie gave him a soccer ball egg!

Ellie had so much fun playing with her friends, even after all the eggs had been found.

Playing with her best friend

It was such a nice morning! I'm so pleased with how it went. We're so proud of our Ellie!

Way to go, Ellie!

And you better believe that we're going to be hiding behind people in the audience at Ellie's ballet recital this month!