KariAnn0613
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2011
- Messages
- 37
I should probably start with an introduction!
ME!
My name is Kari, I'm 23 year old mom of 3 awesome children and expecting another lil' bundle of joy this July. I'm also the proud "step-mom" to 4 amazing children. Long story short, I'm not legally married but I take my committment to my significant other (S/O) just as seriously if we were married. I know a lot of people won't/don't understand this, but we have our reasonings for not being married in the eye of the courts. For your sake, feel free to consider us husband and wife.....everyone that knows us considers us that way. In addition to being a full time mom, I also work full time as a dispatcher. Apparently I lost my mind somewhere along the way because I also own 3 dogs and 2 cats.
I can recall visiting Disney once, maybe twice as a kid but they were one day visit(s) and I was pretty young so not much stands out to me. I can say, that when I think of Disney my first memory is of Character Autographs. Almost 3 years ago, we tagged along with my mom & step dad to Flordia for a mini-vacation during my maternity leave of my (current) middle child. While in Flordia we were given a free 1 day Disney Pass & a free 1 Day SeaWorld Pass since my parents looked into and bought a timeshare. I had the time of my life! It was at that point, my true love of Disney began! It was that trip that I vowed to take my children to Disney as often as I possibly could.
Significant Other!
Rick is the love of my life. Don't get me wrong, we have our moments where we can't stand each other, but in the end we love each other dearly! He is 41 years old, and works full time as a carpenter/contractor. Yes, 41 is correct, that is not a typo! In addition to working full time, he is also working on getting a part time side business going. Rick has 4 children from his previous marriage, plus the 3 we have together and the one that we're expecting. That's a grand total of 8 children. We have the oldest 4 children as often as we possibly can and have joint custody of the oldest boy. Unfortunately we live in different school districts. This trip, we are not going to be able to take the oldest 4 with us due to school start date differences and the expected arrival date of our newest little one. We need the youngest to be at least 6 weeks or really close to that age to join us on this trip, and if we scheduled our trip any earlier there's a chance the baby would only be 2-3 weeks of age. Our hope is to take another trip in 1-3 years and take the entire family!
Rick had never been to Disney until 3 years ago when we were on our mini-vacation. The look in his eye, was the same you'd expect of a child! He was in the happiest place on earth! Rick grew up in a poor family with lots of children. He is 1 of 5, but also has several half & step siblings. Vacation was not something he experienced as a child, unless it was visiting family, but even then I don't think he ever left the state. I say this because he is always skeptical of family vacations. It's new territory for him. He loved every second that we were inside Disney World! He even made the comment that he wanted to come back as often as possible with our children. This made me happy!!!!!
My Mom!
For this trip we recruited my mom, Debbie, to join us. We figure we will need/want an extra set of hands & eyes. We're paying her way (I owe her some money, so she's deducting the trip cost from what I owe her). She'd hurt me if I listed her age, so we'll just say she's a loving grandma to all 7 (soon to be 8) of our children. She works part time and also has rental houses. We'd love for her husband (AKA P-Pa) to join us, but they live in another school district and he's a bus driver. School will be in session (for their district) when we go, so he's staying home. My mom has been to Disney the same amount as me. She loves it there, but isn't hooked. This will be her first time staying on property though, and she's pretty excited to say the least!
Joseph "Joe"!
He's my oldest! He will be turning 5 this summer and starting Kindergarten this coming school year! He first went to Disney at the age of 2 during our mini-vacation. He still remembers certain parts of the trip, but his favorite thing to talk about is "when Grandma kissed Mickey!" LOL My mom will NEVER live that one down! He saw me looking at the Dis Boards 'Food Porn' pictures and that's when I revealed to him we were going to Disney this summer! He talks about it all the time! Just the other day, I saw a a project at school where they had to fill in the blank......"If I found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I'd ________________" His answer was "stay in a cabin at Disney World" This melted my heart! He's already a huge Disney fan at the age of 4!!!!!! Joe began swimming lessons last summer and was halfway to graduation. Our goal for Joe is to be swimming independently by our trip. We just registered him for swim lessons starting in a month. The instructor said he should be good to go by our trip!!!!
Johnathan "Nate"!
Nate is currently my middle child. He will be 3 this summer and starting preschool! Boy does time fly!!!! For Nate's first Disney experience he was roughly 7 weeks old! Yeah, he doesn't remember Disney at all! I will say though, he is just as excited for our trip!!! He talks with Joe at length about Disney and Nate has "caught" the joy & excitement from Joe! Our biggest obstable right now with Nate is potty training! I want to say he's potty trained, and for the most part he is. HOWEVER, he still will have accident first thing in the morning and if he gets really busy doing something. My goal is to have him 100% accident free potty trained by our trip! He also has this weird obsession with taking all clothes excpet his shirt off to go potty. Talk about hard during winter months! UGH. Joys of potty training!
Carolann "Ellie"
Currently, Ellie is my baby! She turns 1 year old in a week and half! I'm sure most of you are wondering how she got the nickname Ellie from Carolann! She is named after my grandma Carol Ann. Instead of causing confusion at family gatherings we chose to have her go by a variation of her middle name. So Ellie she is! It doesn't seem like she should be 1 year old yet. She has never experience Disney World! She will be 1.5 at the time of our trip. I doubt she'll remember much of the trip as she gets older, but we're laying the foundation for many more trips & many more fond memories!!!! Our biggest goal for Ellie is to have her walking before our trip. She's ready to walk, she just hasn't discovered she can do it yet!
Baby!
Honestly, I'm not even sure if we are having a boy or girl yet. As you can imagine my schedule is quite complicated. I simply haven't had the chance to get into the doctor for an ultrasound appointment. For those of you that are wondering my due date (EDD) is July 16th. I've yet to make it past 38 weeks, so we're expecting this bundle of Joy at beginning of July if not sooner! I've seen my doctor on schedule and she's not worried since I've had 3 healthy babies & pregnancies so far! I go April 1st for my Ultrasound appointment and will be sure to update as soon as we know. Our goal for baby is simple...to be healthy and really close or older than 6 weeks of age!!!
There you have it! That's the crew! If you haven't figured this out yet, I'm a talker! I'm also OCD about planning! Having said that, I'm good at going with the flow and abandoning plans when need be. I just can't go into something without a plan. Make Sense? I hope you'll join in and give me your input, thoughts, suggestions, concerns, & questions!!!! Let me know you're here and reading! One last thought. I'm still fairly new to Dis Boards. I'm working on making my profile and adding pictures. As I get the hang of things, you'll see more color to this boring black & white PTR!
TO MAKE THINGS EASIER...HERE ARE LINKS TO THE DIFFERENT SECTIONS
Where?!?!?
ADR's.....I'd love feedback!
Tour Guides, Websites, & Other Resources I'm Using
Sunday - Magic Kingdom Morning Plans - 1st Draft
Change of Plans
ME!
My name is Kari, I'm 23 year old mom of 3 awesome children and expecting another lil' bundle of joy this July. I'm also the proud "step-mom" to 4 amazing children. Long story short, I'm not legally married but I take my committment to my significant other (S/O) just as seriously if we were married. I know a lot of people won't/don't understand this, but we have our reasonings for not being married in the eye of the courts. For your sake, feel free to consider us husband and wife.....everyone that knows us considers us that way. In addition to being a full time mom, I also work full time as a dispatcher. Apparently I lost my mind somewhere along the way because I also own 3 dogs and 2 cats.
I can recall visiting Disney once, maybe twice as a kid but they were one day visit(s) and I was pretty young so not much stands out to me. I can say, that when I think of Disney my first memory is of Character Autographs. Almost 3 years ago, we tagged along with my mom & step dad to Flordia for a mini-vacation during my maternity leave of my (current) middle child. While in Flordia we were given a free 1 day Disney Pass & a free 1 Day SeaWorld Pass since my parents looked into and bought a timeshare. I had the time of my life! It was at that point, my true love of Disney began! It was that trip that I vowed to take my children to Disney as often as I possibly could.
Significant Other!
Rick is the love of my life. Don't get me wrong, we have our moments where we can't stand each other, but in the end we love each other dearly! He is 41 years old, and works full time as a carpenter/contractor. Yes, 41 is correct, that is not a typo! In addition to working full time, he is also working on getting a part time side business going. Rick has 4 children from his previous marriage, plus the 3 we have together and the one that we're expecting. That's a grand total of 8 children. We have the oldest 4 children as often as we possibly can and have joint custody of the oldest boy. Unfortunately we live in different school districts. This trip, we are not going to be able to take the oldest 4 with us due to school start date differences and the expected arrival date of our newest little one. We need the youngest to be at least 6 weeks or really close to that age to join us on this trip, and if we scheduled our trip any earlier there's a chance the baby would only be 2-3 weeks of age. Our hope is to take another trip in 1-3 years and take the entire family!
Rick had never been to Disney until 3 years ago when we were on our mini-vacation. The look in his eye, was the same you'd expect of a child! He was in the happiest place on earth! Rick grew up in a poor family with lots of children. He is 1 of 5, but also has several half & step siblings. Vacation was not something he experienced as a child, unless it was visiting family, but even then I don't think he ever left the state. I say this because he is always skeptical of family vacations. It's new territory for him. He loved every second that we were inside Disney World! He even made the comment that he wanted to come back as often as possible with our children. This made me happy!!!!!
My Mom!
For this trip we recruited my mom, Debbie, to join us. We figure we will need/want an extra set of hands & eyes. We're paying her way (I owe her some money, so she's deducting the trip cost from what I owe her). She'd hurt me if I listed her age, so we'll just say she's a loving grandma to all 7 (soon to be 8) of our children. She works part time and also has rental houses. We'd love for her husband (AKA P-Pa) to join us, but they live in another school district and he's a bus driver. School will be in session (for their district) when we go, so he's staying home. My mom has been to Disney the same amount as me. She loves it there, but isn't hooked. This will be her first time staying on property though, and she's pretty excited to say the least!
Joseph "Joe"!
He's my oldest! He will be turning 5 this summer and starting Kindergarten this coming school year! He first went to Disney at the age of 2 during our mini-vacation. He still remembers certain parts of the trip, but his favorite thing to talk about is "when Grandma kissed Mickey!" LOL My mom will NEVER live that one down! He saw me looking at the Dis Boards 'Food Porn' pictures and that's when I revealed to him we were going to Disney this summer! He talks about it all the time! Just the other day, I saw a a project at school where they had to fill in the blank......"If I found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I'd ________________" His answer was "stay in a cabin at Disney World" This melted my heart! He's already a huge Disney fan at the age of 4!!!!!! Joe began swimming lessons last summer and was halfway to graduation. Our goal for Joe is to be swimming independently by our trip. We just registered him for swim lessons starting in a month. The instructor said he should be good to go by our trip!!!!
Johnathan "Nate"!
Nate is currently my middle child. He will be 3 this summer and starting preschool! Boy does time fly!!!! For Nate's first Disney experience he was roughly 7 weeks old! Yeah, he doesn't remember Disney at all! I will say though, he is just as excited for our trip!!! He talks with Joe at length about Disney and Nate has "caught" the joy & excitement from Joe! Our biggest obstable right now with Nate is potty training! I want to say he's potty trained, and for the most part he is. HOWEVER, he still will have accident first thing in the morning and if he gets really busy doing something. My goal is to have him 100% accident free potty trained by our trip! He also has this weird obsession with taking all clothes excpet his shirt off to go potty. Talk about hard during winter months! UGH. Joys of potty training!
Carolann "Ellie"
Currently, Ellie is my baby! She turns 1 year old in a week and half! I'm sure most of you are wondering how she got the nickname Ellie from Carolann! She is named after my grandma Carol Ann. Instead of causing confusion at family gatherings we chose to have her go by a variation of her middle name. So Ellie she is! It doesn't seem like she should be 1 year old yet. She has never experience Disney World! She will be 1.5 at the time of our trip. I doubt she'll remember much of the trip as she gets older, but we're laying the foundation for many more trips & many more fond memories!!!! Our biggest goal for Ellie is to have her walking before our trip. She's ready to walk, she just hasn't discovered she can do it yet!
Baby!
Honestly, I'm not even sure if we are having a boy or girl yet. As you can imagine my schedule is quite complicated. I simply haven't had the chance to get into the doctor for an ultrasound appointment. For those of you that are wondering my due date (EDD) is July 16th. I've yet to make it past 38 weeks, so we're expecting this bundle of Joy at beginning of July if not sooner! I've seen my doctor on schedule and she's not worried since I've had 3 healthy babies & pregnancies so far! I go April 1st for my Ultrasound appointment and will be sure to update as soon as we know. Our goal for baby is simple...to be healthy and really close or older than 6 weeks of age!!!
There you have it! That's the crew! If you haven't figured this out yet, I'm a talker! I'm also OCD about planning! Having said that, I'm good at going with the flow and abandoning plans when need be. I just can't go into something without a plan. Make Sense? I hope you'll join in and give me your input, thoughts, suggestions, concerns, & questions!!!! Let me know you're here and reading! One last thought. I'm still fairly new to Dis Boards. I'm working on making my profile and adding pictures. As I get the hang of things, you'll see more color to this boring black & white PTR!
TO MAKE THINGS EASIER...HERE ARE LINKS TO THE DIFFERENT SECTIONS
Where?!?!?
ADR's.....I'd love feedback!
Tour Guides, Websites, & Other Resources I'm Using
Sunday - Magic Kingdom Morning Plans - 1st Draft
Change of Plans
