A Princess Goes Home!! PTR

[waltsgrl]

Hi princes and princesses!! Let us take a journey, shall we?

Once upon a time there lived a family, a happy family. A King, a Queen & a no joke/die hard/crown wearing/pinky finger tea drinking/fancy dress wearing/sweet little princess. With much joy, they found out they would be adding another beautiful princess to the bunch. Not to be upstaged by her older, very dramatic sister the littlest princess decided to show up 8 weeks early and flipped the happy family upside down and sideways. It was chaos. It was traumatic. It was really really hard.

The family made sacrifices. They supported each other. They made it through 7 weeks in the NICU and are now (8 months later) all healthy and happy once more. THE END.

Don't you just love a happy ending? Me too!! The last several months have been very difficult for our family. Therefore we have decided to take a break and CELEBRATE! @ Disney World!!

This trip is serving a few pruposes:

1. I was on bed rest for a few weeks trying to, you know, grow a human for as long as possible, and I missed celebrating a huge milestone birthday.

2. Celebrating the life and strength of our youngest family member!

3. Thanking our older daughter for being such an INCREDIBLE little girl while all of the crazy was going on.

4. HAPPY FAMILY!! We are once again a happy family. That is priceless and we are ready to party it up!

After much consideration we could think of no better place to celebrate than Disney World. It is my happy place!! <3

 

[waltsgrl]

Cast:

Myself, Chris. I grew up going to Disney World every other year. This will be my 15th trip to the house of THE mouse!! I've also been on one Disney Cruise and Disneyland Paris several times when I was much younger. My favorite park is Epcot, I LOVE me some World Showcase!! My favorite ride is Splash Mountain.

My husband, V. This will be his 5th trip to Disney World. He is a wonderful husband and father whom indulges his wife and child's love of Disney! He is a smart man. Our last trip, which included the free dining plan, converted him into a dessert lover. His favorite ride is Space Mountain.

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Our oldest daughter, Lo. This will be her 2nd trip to Disney World. Her first trip was at 20 months!! She is now a princess OBSESSED three year old. I think character greetings are going to be a big hit with her this year.

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Our youngest daughter, Reese. This is her first trip and she will be 11 months actual (9 months adjusted age). She is an easy going cuddly baby so I think she will enjoy all the quality family time!

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We initially planned to visit in October to be there for Reese and I's actual birthdays, but work schedules and free dining got in the way of that plan. So we will be going for 10 days and 9 nights in September instead!! I am a terrible flyer so last time we drove from central Texas. Never again. This time we are flying and I will either a) Ask a stranger to knock me over the head with a bat. b) Drink a ton of Bloody Mary's & Mimosas. or c) Get a prescription for an anti-anxiety pill. Most likely the later.

Once we make it safely to MCO (fingers crossed) we will take the Magical Express to Port Orleans Riverside!! This will be our first time staying here, although we did visit last trip. We have a River View room in the **hopefully** Alligator Bayou section. Lo will freak out over that trundle bed!!



Since we booked under the free dining plan promotion we also have some pretty exciting ADR's!!

1. Boat Wright's Dining Hall. We ate here last time and really enjoyed it. Plus its an easy TS for arrival night.

2. Cape May Clam Bake. This will be our first time dining here. V and I both love snow crab so I am anticipating a messy pile of shells the size of two grown adults at the end of this meal!!

3. CRT Breakfast. We booked with less than 180 days till our trip. Obviously I had absolutely no chance at BOG reservations, but was pleasantly surprised when I got an early park entry slot at CRT. Lo will lose her princess lovin' mind!

4. Les Chefs de France. Another first for us. Really hoping we get to see Remi being carted around while we are there. We all really enjoy that movie.

5. Sci-Fi Drive-In. Never been here either. The reviews have me slightly worried, but I figured it would be a nice break from the park.

6. Rain Forest Cafe @ DTD. Not excited about this ADR, but we have a gift card to use so we will just suck it up.

7. Raglan Road. Also a first time for us!! V and I are both really really looking forward to this one!!!

8. Via Napoli. Another first!! Aren't we adventurous?!! I'm looking forward to the prosciutto and melon pizza here.

9. Liberty Tree. Our favorite from last trip and great way to end the trip!!

I also have our QS and a lot of our snack credits figured out all ready, but that's for another time.

 

[momminnie]

Jumping on your PTR journey. You have a beautiful family,

 

[SuperNEMOfan]

Im here! Im also going in september and staying at POR!

 

[waltsgrl]

Jumping on your PTR journey. You have a beautiful family,

Thank you so much!! I am pretty partial to them

Im here! Im also going in september and staying at POR!

Yay for POR!! We were planning on staying there for our last trip and ended up switching resorts at the last minute. I've regretted that decision for the last 18 months. We did have a chance to stop by and check out POR and I thought it was absolutely beautiful!! I'm really looking forward to some down time relaxing at the resort!

 

[waltsgrl]

I made this count down chain for myself, I mean Lo!! We started it with a little over 100 days and slowly but surely it is getting shorter and shorter! By the end of this month we will have less than 45 days left! EEEEEEEEEE!

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I had a bunch of fun drawing Cinderella's castle with little stick figure Lo & Reese waiting on the inside

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You can't see it in the photos but I also have a little star on the castle that measures exactly 40". We are hoping that with some growth and high top sneakers Lo will reach that mark. She is wild. She would LOVE to go on the big kid rides. Here's hopin' for a growth spurt.

Last night I was having trouble falling asleep. Instead of counting sheep I went through our dining plans day by day. I think I made it to day 3 or 4 before I passed out. Best way to go to sleep EVER!!!

 

[waltsgrl]

For some crazy reason I can not sleep. I might as well enjoy this quiet time and list out all the snack credits I'm looking forward to using!!! If you have any other suggestions PLEASE PLEASE jump right on in and share

*beignets from POFQ
*mickey premium bars (notice: plural)
*dole whips (also PLURAL)
*make your own rice crispy @ goofy's candy co.
*the american dream @ epcot's american adventure, fife & drum
*treats from the caramel shop in the german pavilion

Gosh, I thought I had more in mind!! That's a pretty wimpy list. Our favorite from last trip was the ever popular dole whip and I was shocked to discover I wasn't a huge fan of school bread. Hmm, I am going to need to work on that list!

 

[waltsgrl]

Lo watched 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' today. Every single time I watch that movie I think of Ben. If you've never read the blog posts or the book his father wrote about him, I highly highly recommend doing so. It's an incredibly story. Fair warning: you will need 10 boxes of Kleenex. Minimum.

I've been reading up a lot on Port Orleans lately and I am starting to jump out of my skin with excitement! There are so many activities I hope we have a chance to participate in while we are there. I really want to catch one of YeeHa Bob's shows, watch a movie out on the lawn, roast marshmallows (lots of marshmallows), grab beignets from French Quarter and go cane pole fishing. I am also really looking forward to the boat rides to and from DTD. Oh, and the beer. My family is from New Orleans and we take every opportunity when visiting to enjoy Abita Beer. Well... guess what POR has!?!?! That's right!! ABITA BEER!! Not only do they have Abita, they have an Abita beer flight. Be still my heart.

We've been getting Lo hyped for this trip (mostly because it's all I can talk about lately) and we've convinced her that we are staying at Princess Tiana's castle while we are there. It actually didn't take a lot of convincing. She's three. So as a little surprise (I LOVE surprises!!!!) I got her these sweet friends and got my friend Tiana to write her a nice little message. I'll sneak them into the room on our arrival day!!

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I know she will just love it! If things go according to plan we will get an Alligator Bayou room and these will be sitting on the ever so adorable Louis the alligator trundle bed.

I've also begun getting some special little outfits going for the trip!! Like I said before I am a horrible flyer. I'm talking sweating, white knuckle arm rest gripping, shaking crazy person. So I thought this shirt would be fun to wear on our travel day I had it made up from a shop on Etsy and I am really happy with how it turned out.

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I also found this ADORABLE necklace on Etsy!! I (like every other human in creation) just adore the love story of Ellie and Carl, I had to get this for myself.

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And finally, I have one day's outfits figured out for Lo & Reese. I'm not huge on character t-shirts and I didn't want something with their names written all over them because I want the girls to wear them outside of our vacation too (I've seen too many dateline specials about kids getting snatched up!!) so I went with a yellow theme! I think the color will photograph really well with both the classic characters and the Princesses. Lo's is just a simple peasant dress and Reese's is a really cute ruffle butt onesie with a matching hair bow. I plan on making a bow for Lo as well. They are both from different Etsy sellers. Basically I've been spending too much free time on Etsy

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Sounds like Lo is giving up on this whole 'nap' business. I better go bust her out.

 

[spiritsim]

Cute outfits for cute girls..... Also doing POR but not for over a year yet oct 2014 So will have to live Disney vicariously......lol

 

[waltsgrl]

Cute outfits for cute girls..... Also doing POR but not for over a year yet oct 2014 So will have to live Disney vicariously......lol

Thanks!! I absolutely plan on doing a trip report when we get back so that ought to get you through a bit

 

[momminnie]

You are going to love POR. I have stayed there twice. Once in the mansions and once in Alligator Bayou. They were both really nice. Love seeing the things that you have bought for the girls. Ready to see more outfits.

 

[courtneybelle]

So excited to see this, because we just spontaneously decided to do thanksgiving at Disney and we are staying at POR! I will definitely be following along in the meantime

 

[DannysMom]

I just wanted to jump on here. You know, so you don't feel like you are talking to yourself too much.

My kids are all preemies. ODS was 3 months early & my twins came 2 months early. ODS has been to WDW 7x (at 10 years old) & the twins just turned 4 have already been 3x.

 

[waltsgrl]

You are going to love POR. I have stayed there twice. Once in the mansions and once in Alligator Bayou. They were both really nice. Love seeing the things that you have bought for the girls. Ready to see more outfits.

Oh hang in there, there WILL be more outfit pictures!! Girls are big big trouble when it comes to cute clothes!

So excited to see this, because we just spontaneously decided to do thanksgiving at Disney and we are staying at POR! I will definitely be following along in the meantime

Welcome!! Yay for spontaneous vacations!! Growing up we would either go during Thanksgiving or Spring Break. I always enjoyed Thanksgiving the most with the holiday decorations! Also, I mean really, how can you beat a yummy meal cooked for you with no dishes to clean @ the happiest place on earth? There is a lot to be thankful for there

I just wanted to jump on here. You know, so you don't feel like you are talking to yourself too much.

My kids are all preemies. ODS was 3 months early & my twins came 2 months early. ODS has been to WDW 7x (at 10 years old) & the twins just turned 4 have already been 3x.

Welcome! And big huge gigantic hugs to another preemie momma! Glad you're here, since we are NICU warrior sisters and all

 

[disneygirl520]

Just wanted to say I'm here and reading along! Your kids are adorable, and I love love love the note from Tiana how cute! Here's hoping for a growth spurt!

 

[waltsgrl]

Just wanted to say I'm here and reading along! Your kids are adorable, and I love love love the note from Tiana how cute! Here's hoping for a growth spurt!

Welcome!! I had a lot of fun writing her little card! I also plan on making something for our ADR @ CRT, a formal invitation from Cinderella I actually made a bunch of little notes and a welcome note from Mickey for our last trip in 2012. I'll have to post those too, just to share!! I love little details!

 

[disneygirl520]

Welcome!! I had a lot of fun writing her little card! I also plan on making something for our ADR @ CRT, a formal invitation from Cinderella I actually made a bunch of little notes and a welcome note from Mickey for our last trip in 2012. I'll have to post those too, just to share!! I love little details!

With all of the time I spend on the DIS getting ideas my future children are going to have all sorts of extra pixie dust!

 

[Marsheliz]

I am totally in!!!

First off, the girls are absolutely beautiful princesses!!!! We have two boys but are going to try for our third in the fall and we hope so bad to have a princess!! My DH LOVES the name Logan on a girl and we have a Lawson and a Landen so it would flow nicely.

Love those outfits you picked. I love Chevron print on little girls! I also love that Keep Calm shirt.. I am going to look for one like that. I spend too much time on Etsy as it is!

 

[waltsgrl]

Ahh a short little trip down memory lane...

Like I said before we drove from central Texas to central Florida for our last trip. 18 hours. Yikes. In order to keep Lo happy I had a bag filled with little surprises from our friends at Disney World. Each surprise had a personal message for Lo:

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Once we arrived I snuck into the room and set up a surprise from the big cheese himself!!

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She was so happy and surprised by everything, but honestly I think I had more fun making everything for her!! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from 2012. I can't believe how little Logan was...

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That was a fun little trip down memory lane!! Gives you some more ideas, Heather !! Yesterday was crazy, Reese had a bad allergic reaction to those baby yogurt melts. She got a rash all over her face, her eyes got all puffy and she was coughing a lot. It was terrifying!! Thank God she is all better today, I think she might have a dairy allergy. I needed a little dose of Disney memories to make things 100% better!

 

[waltsgrl]

I am totally in!!!

First off, the girls are absolutely beautiful princesses!!!! We have two boys but are going to try for our third in the fall and we hope so bad to have a princess!! My DH LOVES the name Logan on a girl and we have a Lawson and a Landen so it would flow nicely.

Love those outfits you picked. I love Chevron print on little girls! I also love that Keep Calm shirt.. I am going to look for one like that. I spend too much time on Etsy as it is!

Welcome, welcome!! My husband named both of our girls... I guess if we couldn't have boys he could at least give them unisex names The funniest thing is we have a Hispanic last name and so I have these little blue eyed, fair skinned, can't speak a word of Spanish little girls with boyish names. Their poor Kindergarten teachers are going to be so confused on the first day of school, hahahaha!!