Boo to You & Turning 2! Oct 2012 PTR *NEW* 10/30 We're Back! TR Link Posted!!

[khertz]

We celebrated DS's 2nd birthday with a Mickey Mouse party on Saturday! It was a total success, from the food to the cake to the attendees, although my house did feel a little crowded with everyone who showed up. I think next year we will try having it at a park where we can spread around, especially since we will probably start inviting his friends from daycare.

We kicked off the morning of the party with breakfast of cinnamon rolls, which DS devoured. He was excited to eat at the card table we had put out which would eventually become the cake table.

Our subdivision does a big garage sale twice a year so that everyone can have their garage sales on one day and get more people coming to look, and it happened to be Saturday morning. So since the weather was nice, we took him for a walk around the neighborhood hoping to tire him out so he would take a good nap later. We tried keeping with his daycare schedule, so at 11 I tried feeding him lunch, but he didn't eat much. My parents showed up a little before we were ready to put him down for his nap, so he played outside in the backyard with them and got so sweaty he needed a bath before naptime!

While he was napping, DH went to pick up the balloons, cake, and party food while I finished decorating and cleaning up the house and my parents were getting together the food they had brought.

Decorations​

Soon DH made it back with the cake, which looked AMAZING!!!

Cookie favors​

People started arriving about an hour early, and with every person that arrived, I was so worried he would wake up early, but he got his whole 2 hour nap! I actually had to go wake him up because almost all of the party guests were there by 2:00 when the party officially started.

House full!

Had to get a picture with my sweet godchild Stryder

Eating some mac & cheese​

We decided to do presents first! He opened his first gift from one of my work friends, and decided he only wanted to play with that! It was really hard to get him to open any more presents because he kept looking for his fire station toy from her. lol

This was the fire station that kept his attention

Spinning light up toy from my FIL

Where's my fire station?

He got excited about this one from me & DH! It was a birthday Vinylmation

A trike from my parents

Singing Happy Birthday!​

We actually had to sing twice because my aunt was manning our camera but didn't have it recording until we were pretty much done singing. So we lit the candle, sang again and blew out the candle a second time so we could get it on video. lol DS loved it even more the second time!

Playing outside with my cousins

Katie (my sister), Mom, Dad, Paxton, DH, and me!

Playing with the Mega Blocks from DH and I

Riding his trike (we also got him one so now he has 2!)​

His other big present from DH & I and I guess my parents as well was a new puppy! My dad found her on his way home a week ago (he is the stray or lost dog magnet) and sent us a picture. We decided to try her out at the house on a trial basis (ha! After just 2 days, we are pretty sure she's permanent!) and named her Belle since DS loves Beauty & the Beast. She is a wonderful puppy, very calm and sweet. Still working on housebreaking her though. Meet Belle!

Anyway, it was a great day with family and I couldn't have imagined a better way to celebrate my baby boy turning 2!! To think we will be celebrating even bigger in less than 2 weeks in Disney World is just so exciting!!

Hopefully I can get moving on our daily plans and get those finished up before we leave. Just...

12 DAYS!!!! ​

...to go!!

 

[afwdwfan]

Happy Birthday Paxton! It looks like he had a great birthday party.

So what are we going to do with Belle in about 12 days?

 

[MEK]

Happy Birthday Paxton! Sounds like you had the best birthday party possible for a 2 year old.

I will stop back later when I can see your cute pictures!

 

[KTgE]

Happy (almost) Birthday Paxton!

It looks like his party was a success and his cake was perfection! I love it. Not going to lie I chuckled when I noticed the tv on during the party with a football game on. That would totally happen at my house!

Hooray for a new friend for Paxton...Belle looks like she will be a great addition to the family. Samson, our mix breed dog, is thick as thieves with our kids. He loves Avi-Kate because she will share her entire snack cup with him. She'll eat a treat then give one to him and it goes like this till it's all gone and then she'll bring it to me requesting more!

It's almost time...you are so close!

 

[debrapagliasotti]

Happy Birthday Paxton! Looks like he had a great party

Love that birthday cake and those cookie favors...ADORABLE!!

Belle is so adorable.

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

What a great B-day party! Sounds like everything went well, thankfully he got that nap. I have had some where our DD's didn't get the nap!
You guys did a great job with the theme..love that cake and Paxton's shirt was too cute!

I can't believe you guys got a puppy! She really looks like a sweetheart just sitting there nice for the pic!

Can't believe how close our trips are now!!

 

[khertz]

Happy Birthday Paxton! It looks like he had a great birthday party.

So what are we going to do with Belle in about 12 days?

I made an agreement with my parents since they really want Paxton to have a puppy so they really wanted us to take her...THEY had to make arrangements for her while we were on vacation! I told them with just a few weeks to go, I wasn't going to kill myself trying to find somewhere to put her. So luckily, my aunt agreed to keep her for the week.

Happy Birthday Paxton! Sounds like you had the best birthday party possible for a 2 year old.

I will stop back later when I can see your cute pictures!

He seemed to have a GREAT time at the party! And since we had to do it so early in the month, I'm keeping all of his decorations up in the house until after we come back from Disney World.

Happy (almost) Birthday Paxton!

It looks like his party was a success and his cake was perfection! I love it. Not going to lie I chuckled when I noticed the tv on during the party with a football game on. That would totally happen at my house!

Hooray for a new friend for Paxton...Belle looks like she will be a great addition to the family. Samson, our mix breed dog, is thick as thieves with our kids. He loves Avi-Kate because she will share her entire snack cup with him. She'll eat a treat then give one to him and it goes like this till it's all gone and then she'll bring it to me requesting more!

It's almost time...you are so close!

Oh my gosh, people coming to the party actually called to ask and make sure I'd have the LSU/Florida game on during the party!!! My boss who loves LSU was complaining that someone she knew was having a baby shower that same Saturday during game time and she said, "I mean, who does that?" and I responded, "I do that!" And we actually purposely choose his parties on Saturday so that they don't interfere with the Saints games on Sunday.

Belle is warming up to Paxton, and Paxton just LOVES Belle. When she first got to the house, Paxton was trying to throw her rubber bone for her and ended up clocking her in the face. So needless to say, she was a little skittish at first! But now they run around together in the backyard in the evenings and have a blast. SO cute about the snacks! I think Belle is enjoying nabbing his crumbs from under the high chair after dinner, but so far, no snack sharing.

Happy Birthday Paxton! Looks like he had a great party

Love that birthday cake and those cookie favors...ADORABLE!!

Belle is so adorable.

Thanks!! The cake & cookies came out exactly how I pictured them in my mind, and they taste delicious! Can't get better than that!

Thank you, she has been a wonderful addition to our family.

What a great B-day party! Sounds like everything went well, thankfully he got that nap. I have had some where our DD's didn't get the nap!
You guys did a great job with the theme..love that cake and Paxton's shirt was too cute!

I can't believe you guys got a puppy! She really looks like a sweetheart just sitting there nice for the pic!

Can't believe how close our trips are now!!

I was TERRIFIED of him not getting that nap, I knew it would not be a fun party for anyone without it! I think napping at daycare has helped him sleep through more noise than he used to.

I can't believe we got a puppy either! I never really wanted a dog, because I never had them growing up so I was fine with just our cat. I knew we'd end up getting one eventually because DH always had dogs growing up and likes having them. Plus, since my parents started doing rescue work, my dad has been dead set on getting his grandson a puppy! So it's a little sooner than I expected, but we are enjoying her!

Today our trip is in single digits, which means yours almost is too!!

 

[mandas08]

Cinnamon rolls, what a great way to start your Birthday Party Have you tried making them in a waffle iron. We treat ourselves to them on Christmas morning.

Your cake and cookies look amazing. I am taking a cake decorating class now in hopes of someday being able to make a cake like that...they did a great job! I made Mickey rice crispies for our favor

Wow you had a full house. I'm sure opening presents was a ton of fun. I'm excited for DS to have a little bit more interest in opening presents this Christmas. Love the trike. It is definitely the coolest looking one I've seen. Your new puppy is super cute. They are alot of work, but lots and lots of fun

Your trip is getting really close! I'm sure you guys are super excited. I'm so excited that our trip is right around the corner. Speaking of which, I need to look back at your old TR and see how you kept Paxton occupied during the flight.

 

[khertz]

Well, we are officially down to...

SINGLE DIGITS!!!​

Which means I really don't have a lot of time to finish posting daily plans!! So on that note, I'll move on to day 7

Friday October 26th

We will (attempt to) sleep in this morning as it will be kind of our "off" day. I know, it is kind of late into the trip to have our down day but with DS's birthday falling middle of the week and Thursday being rated a 1/10 on the crowd calendar (I can't pass up a 1!), our off day ends up towards the tail end of our trip on Friday.

For breakfast this morning, we will be heading over to the Polynesian resort (I am excited to go here because I have never been inside this resort!) to eat with Mickey, Pluto, Lilo & Stitch at 'Ohana at 8:50 am!

This is taking the place of Chef Mickey's which we did last trip with DS and before that in 2009. I'm excited because it will be a brand new experience for all of us!

We will take our time with breakfast and probably spend some time exploring the resort before the three of us head back to Bonnet Creek. My parents will probably be going to a park. Last year, we had every intention of enjoying the amenities at Bonnet Creek, but got sucked into our timeshare owner's update that ate up all of our free time. So we are skipping it this time (not worth the hassle for the Disney gift card!) and we will be chilling at the resort all day. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of activities they have planned that day to see what DS could participate in, if anything. And if not, we will just enjoy the pool and the splash play area for kids.

After that and probably a late nap, we will head out to a park for the evening, most likely DHS.

Mostly the reason for spending an afternoon here would be to try out Characterpalooza to see some different characters. If it's not too crowded, we might opt to stay for the earlier showing of Fantasmic at 7:30. But that's not a priority.

But I'm not setting this afternoon in stone, exactly. Since it's near the end of our trip, if we feel like we are done with DHS and want to go somewhere else that evening, we will make that decision then. Or we could just go for Characterpalooza and then head to Downtown Disney.

​

That's the end of Day 7's plans! Hopefully it will be a more relaxing day than we had last year. I think my mistake then was planning both a breakfast and a dinner so we had to leave the resort by a certain time to make it to the park for our dinner ADR, leaving us less time to be flexible.

And one more thing to check off the to-do list, we have our rental car booked! DH reserved one a few nights ago at $20/day, then just watched the rates like a hawk. It paid off, because within 2 days, he managed to save us $150! We are down to $11/day now, and as he said to me, not too bad for waiting until the last minute to book!

Tonight we should be sitting down together to reserve our room for the last night before we fly out. We definitely want a suite so that we have a separate living area for Paxton to sleep in, and so far I have not had any trouble finding available options that are less than $100 for the night. We should be able to book that tonight.

I can't believe we have only

9 DAYS TO GO!!! ​

 

[khertz]

Cinnamon rolls, what a great way to start your Birthday Party Have you tried making them in a waffle iron. We treat ourselves to them on Christmas morning.

Your cake and cookies look amazing. I am taking a cake decorating class now in hopes of someday being able to make a cake like that...they did a great job! I made Mickey rice crispies for our favor

Wow you had a full house. I'm sure opening presents was a ton of fun. I'm excited for DS to have a little bit more interest in opening presents this Christmas. Love the trike. It is definitely the coolest looking one I've seen. Your new puppy is super cute. They are alot of work, but lots and lots of fun

Your trip is getting really close! I'm sure you guys are super excited. I'm so excited that our trip is right around the corner. Speaking of which, I need to look back at your old TR and see how you kept Paxton occupied during the flight.

Never tried them in the waffle iron, but that sounds delicious! I'll have to try it out sometime. We even have a Mickey & friends waffle iron I could use!

Yes, the house was packed!! Next year we will definitely have to do the party somewhere else. Which means I also won't have to do all that cleaning before & after so win-win! He enjoyed opening presents for the most part. Like I said, he got stuck on that first gift. I don't know if it's really that he loved it all that much or just that he didn't understand he had a lot more fun things to open.

Lots of toys & lots of snacks for the plane to keep him occupied! Flying to WDW is no biggie since the flight is only a little more than an hour. But to DL, we bought a bunch of stuff so it would be brand new on the flight. Board books, a mini Magna Doodle, coloring books (with triangle colors so they don't roll off the tray!), little cars, and movies and games on the iPad. I think this time I'm going to get him a sticker book (obsessed with stickers since starting at daycare) and we will definitely be bringing his choo choos to play with. But I think a few episodes of Thomas & Friends on the iPad will be enough to get us there.

 

[KTgE]

Hip, hip, hooray for single digits!

We haven't done O'hana for breakfast but we did it for dinner in March and it was fabulous! You will love the resort. And I understand never using the amenities...we are staying at Grande Vista for the third time now and have yet to step foot in to the pool area. I'm hoping we can get down there this weekend and check it out. I have picture that I posted in my PTR that I snapped from the balcony and that's it. Shouldn't be too hard to swim I have a friend down there right now and she said it has been hot, hot, hot this week!

 

[skier_pete]

I can't believe you guys are going back already! Lucky ducks. I would ask if you are getting Disney'd out, but I think I know the answer.

I like how you said "Sleep in day" followed immediately by "O'hana ADR @ 8:50 AM". The life of a parent with a 2-year old I guess.

Can't believe it's only 9 days away. You must be so excited. We have 8 months to go unitl our ABD-BSM trip, and probably 12-13 months until WDW. (Still leaning towards November to catch some Christmas stuff, but late-October still remains in the mix.)

 

[khertz]

Hip, hip, hooray for single digits!

We haven't done O'hana for breakfast but we did it for dinner in March and it was fabulous! You will love the resort. And I understand never using the amenities...we are staying at Grande Vista for the third time now and have yet to step foot in to the pool area. I'm hoping we can get down there this weekend and check it out. I have picture that I posted in my PTR that I snapped from the balcony and that's it. Shouldn't be too hard to swim I have a friend down there right now and she said it has been hot, hot, hot this week!

Same as us, this is our third trip to WBC and we have never gone to the pool! And it really looks amazing and relaxing. So hopefully we can check it out this year. I always say that and then...well, we decide we want to be in a park! But I'm really making the effort this year.

Yuck, I'm hoping it will cool off at least a tiny bit before we arrive!

I can't believe you guys are going back already! Lucky ducks. I would ask if you are getting Disney'd out, but I think I know the answer.

I like how you said "Sleep in day" followed immediately by "O'hana ADR @ 8:50 AM". The life of a parent with a 2-year old I guess.

Can't believe it's only 9 days away. You must be so excited. We have 8 months to go unitl our ABD-BSM trip, and probably 12-13 months until WDW. (Still leaning towards November to catch some Christmas stuff, but late-October still remains in the mix.)

I can't believe it already either! I think after this trip, the post Disney blues will REALLY hit since it will be a year before we are back! 4 trips in 11 months is something I didn't EVER expect to be doing, especially two trips to each park. I'm really happy we had the opportunity, and Disney'd out I don't even think is in my vocabulary!!

Yes, sir, sleeping in around here is 7:30 am.

I am excited but although I keep checking the number of days left, it hasn't really processed that we are leaving not this Saturday but next.

I'm really missing a Christmas trip! Next year is supposed to be October, but I still feel a tug for those beautiful Christmas decorations!

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

You're getting so close!!

Ohana was one of our favorite character dining from our last trip. Felt like the characters never rushed through our table and spent a lot of time interacting with the kids. You'll love it.

 

[CandleontheWater]

Looks like Paxton's birthday was a ton of fun! Everett has the same fire station toy, and it is a huge hit around here too, so maybe its just a super toy for little boys!

Single digits! You'll be there so soon! I think your day sounds awesome, we did breakfast at Ohana once and it was great! I also think that pool time sounds like fun as well as DHS!

 

[skier_pete]

I'm really missing a Christmas trip! Next year is supposed to be October, but I still feel a tug for those beautiful Christmas decorations!

Oh, I'm telling you - you should join us in 2nd week of November next year!

-Festival Of the Masters
-Last weekend of Food and Wine
-MVMCP
-Osborne Lights
-Low Crowds (post Jersey week, pre-Thanksgiving)
-Near perfect weather.

C'mon - you know you want to. I won't tell them Paxton's turned 3 if you don't! We'll be too busy telling them our daughter's still 9. (OK, not really since we will only go for free dining, and if it's free we might as well get adult credits. But if we had to pay for dining I'd be lying my butt off. )

 

[khertz]

You're getting so close!!

Ohana was one of our favorite character dining from our last trip. Felt like the characters never rushed through our table and spent a lot of time interacting with the kids. You'll love it.

I know, I'm getting so excited now that the party is over! That was dominating a lot of my time & excitement for awhile.

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed 'Ohana. I found Chef Mickey's to be rushed with characters. The first time, I thought it was because we were just a table full of adults, but I noticed it with Paxton too. And originally, it was so we wouldn't have to wait to see those characters in the park, but we do anyway! So I figured it was time to try something else. I'm really excited about the fact that they bring the food to us so I don't miss anything while at the buffet!

Looks like Paxton's birthday was a ton of fun! Everett has the same fire station toy, and it is a huge hit around here too, so maybe its just a super toy for little boys!

Single digits! You'll be there so soon! I think your day sounds awesome, we did breakfast at Ohana once and it was great! I also think that pool time sounds like fun as well as DHS!

It must be that particular toy then! What's really funny is that almost everyone else who bought him a toy for a gift either asked me what he was interested in, or told me they spent a lot of time trying to remember what he likes before buying anything. The girl that bought him the fire station said she was hurrying through Wal Mart and grabbed the first thing she saw that looked good for a boy his age!

Glad to hear another review for 'Ohana. I'm excited to be trying a new place this time!

Oh, I'm telling you - you should join us in 2nd week of November next year!

-Festival Of the Masters
-Last weekend of Food and Wine
-MVMCP
-Osborne Lights
-Low Crowds (post Jersey week, pre-Thanksgiving)
-Near perfect weather.

C'mon - you know you want to. I won't tell them Paxton's turned 3 if you don't! We'll be too busy telling them our daughter's still 9. (OK, not really since we will only go for free dining, and if it's free we might as well get adult credits. But if we had to pay for dining I'd be lying my butt off. )

You definitely make a convincing argument!!

 

[Imagineer5]

WOw his birthday party looks like it turned out FANTASTIC!! Nice job!! Cake is amazing, and LOVE the idea of the cookies!! SO CUTE! I might have to steal that idea, I'm toying with a Minnie themed party since Aria loved her so much. We will see!!

YAY can't believe it's almost here!!

 

[khertz]

WOw his birthday party looks like it turned out FANTASTIC!! Nice job!! Cake is amazing, and LOVE the idea of the cookies!! SO CUTE! I might have to steal that idea, I'm toying with a Minnie themed party since Aria loved her so much. We will see!!

YAY can't believe it's almost here!!

Thanks! A friend from high school does the cookies. She has done them for both of my baby showers & both of Paxton's birthday parties, and they are always a huge hit! She makes some really adorable Minnie ones also. Too bad you are not local! I'm sure Aria will love a Minnie themed birthday. You could even do something themed for Minnie's Bow-tique!

 

[debrapagliasotti]

Your trip is ALMOST here!!!