PTR for the planning obsessed....Updated 11/5 We're home now.

[willwriteforears]

Liam is absolutely adorable!

I love your garden. I would love to have a yard one day so I can grow a few of my own veggies. Pumpkins are definitely on the list. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake--YUM! The one problem is that I've read jack o' lantern pumpkins don't make the greatest cooking pumpkins, so I'd probably have to pick one or the other. Sigh.

And hurray for unexpected Disney mail!

 

[Sarilas]

There are still so many books I haven't checked out!

And I love your pumpking patch - I didn't get anything more than cucumbers planted this year. But how FUN would it be to have a Mickey form for you next year?!

 

[MRYPPNS]

Hurray for unexpected Disney mail -- I am surprised also since lately it seems like all their stuff comes through email.

Your sunflowers and pumpkins are great! I pumpkins!

Liam is precious as always!!! What a cutie!

Disney Travel Co. wants money so that's probably why!

I forgot about the one he wrote for Disneyland. I will have to put that on the library list for when I get back.

I really need to get a library card.

Liam is absolutely adorable!

I love your garden. I would love to have a yard one day so I can grow a few of my own veggies. Pumpkins are definitely on the list. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake--YUM! The one problem is that I've read jack o' lantern pumpkins don't make the greatest cooking pumpkins, so I'd probably have to pick one or the other. Sigh.

And hurray for unexpected Disney mail!

I think all of our pumpkins are sugar pumpkins. The ones in the front of the house were self seeded from a pumpkin I had out last fall on my traditional New England rock wall. The squirrels got into it and the seeds got dried out, planted themselves and now I have the cutest little pumpkin out there.

There are still so many books I haven't checked out!

And I love your pumpkin patch - I didn't get anything more than cucumbers planted this year. But how FUN would it be to have a Mickey form for you next year?!

We want to do tomatoes next year. I know DH will totally be studying the forms when we go past them this year.

 

[mrsksomeday]

Great pictures!! Liam is adorable. I might have to get that "Realityland" book. It looks interesting.

 

[MRYPPNS]

Great pictures!! Liam is adorable. I might have to get that "Realityland" book. It looks interesting.

It's really good....behind the scenes stuff and I find it's very well balanced.

 

[Charleston Princess]

It's really good....behind the scenes stuff and I find it's very well balanced.

I keep meaning to get it -- after LL mentioned it awhile back and now that you like it, well, I just need to get it!

 

[mousescrapper]

Hi,

excellent on the sunflowers...I would love to grow those! I have such fond memories as a kid growing them w/ my Dad in his garden I even won a blue ribbion for the biggest head at a church garden show

Can't wait to see how your DH makes the MM shapes for growing that is fabulous. 2 yrs ago we went to a picking pumpkin patch and I got a "Cinderella Pumpkin" (thought I had a picture but couldn't find one...)

It lasted quite sometime, it was so pretty, you could just imagine yourself being transformed into a princess w/ that pumpkin turning into a coach

So sorry about TL being closed...I know that bummer feeling, that's how we felt when PoC was closed for our trip, but this is a whole park closed.

We went to both WPs w/ the kids back in 05 and then Mae my youngest was 2 1/2 she wasn't very eager for much...we liked both for different reasons. But here are a few pic's of the kids at BB then:

(Mae)

I think your thought of maybe hanging by the resort pool isn't that bad of an idea, plus you have the beach area to play in...

Now just some tempermental 18 mo child been there advice....Ok so Margaret loves bath time, going in the baby blow up pool outside, but HATED being at the WP last winter in the Dells, and didn't go in the water or play spout area at the POLY at all this trip...plus when we were in MI at the lake/beach, the sand annoyed her, we never would have suspected that...I hope Liam has (and you) fun no matter what you choose!

Scrappie

 

[MRYPPNS]

Thanks for the pictures Scrappie-Do. I love the shoes the kids are wearing...too cute. I'm thinking that we'll play the whole water park day by ear. It's our first full day so we'll all still be adjusting. The good thing is that DH and I have so many waterpark tickets to use that if we do decided to go to BB and only stay an hour or two it really isn't a big loss.

 

[mousescrapper]

Thanks for the pictures Scrappie-Do. I love the shoes the kids are wearing...too cute. I'm thinking that we'll play the whole water park day by ear. It's our first full day so we'll all still be adjusting. The good thing is that DH and I have so many waterpark tickets to use that if we do decided to go to BB and only stay an hour or two it really isn't a big loss.

your welcome....

The shoes were water sneakers from Lands End, I'm pretty sure the still have them...The were so much nicer and sturdier than those swim socks, Aldine had arch issues when she was young and needed to wear plastic braces, so I thought those shoes would some give better support & protection.... but now I'm all about the Crocs!!!!!

good to have the play by ear...and no worries you'd waste a ticket or anything...

 

[MRYPPNS]

I wanted to do a tiny mini TR report about our day trip to Santa's Village in Jefferson NH. This report will be more about what I learned from it then the actual park itself. Please see DisMomAmy's PTR for her mini Santa's Village TR with tons of pictures if you want more info.

SV is an hour and a half drive for us. I'll be glad to be ditching that in WDW because Liam is wake the whole time because it was 8 am when we left the house. He's a very good traveler by the way. I think he will be fine in the plane because he'll be in his car seat. We got to SV about 15 minutes before opening. And the first thing we did was the carousel.
Liam took a couple minutes to warm up to it.

The one problem I've been having with these little theme parks is I don't know my way around and I have no touring plans to go by. Yes we were those people standing around reading the map....but I did have us pull off to the side....

This park had way less that Liam could ride then Storyland and we never made it to a show. I didn't know how long they would be or it they would be engaging enough to hold Liam's attention so we skipped them.

We did do a couple rides and I found that if I spoke to DH first about who would hold Liam and where we were going to sit ahead of time it worked out well.

Next we found a playground so I suggested that DH take Liam to play while I used the restroom. That way we weren't waiting for each other doing nothing. When I returned I sat a picnic table and got DS's juice ready. Then I just sat there while the boys played. I was actually very happy with myself that I wasn't trying to rush on to the next thing.

Sometime around 11am we went to feed these guys.

Except I didn't know it was 11am because I wasn't wearing a watch. Guess who's nap time is usually 11 am???? And No, it's not me. So that was a lesson learned because Liam wanted nothing to do with the reindeer and had a meltdown. DH took him outside to try to get him to sleep. It was too busy in the area that we were in so we found a spot and got Liam to sleep in his stroller. I had a receiving blanket and a binder clip so I attached that to the stroller canopy to create a bit more of a tent around him.

I went to get lunch and bring it back, so while Liam slept we ate which I think was a good use of time. But since we weren't taking a break outside the park for a few hours like we will in Disney we had to repeat the whole lunch thing again with Liam. I think we would just head out at that point if we were at a Disney park.

You all know that I want tons of pictures of Liam with the characters. Well hopefully we have learned our lesson here with Santa.

You don't just hand off your child to a character or you get those reactions. He was fine 30 seconds before waving and saying "hi".......from the safety of his daddy's arms. At Disney his first interaction with characters will be at Chef Mickey's....he should be able to watch from afar and I'm more confident that they will know if he wants to interact with them or not.

I tried to take Liam on a Dumbo-like ride but they were so slow to load the ride he got to antsy so we just got off. I don't think this will be an issued at WDW as they are much quicker and most of the rides we will go on are continuously loading rides. I found that just a long as we keep moving along Liam is OK. Or I have to pull a toy from my magic carpet bag.

We were playing with a little stuffed monkey in this line for the sleigh ride. The sleigh ride is on like a monorail track up in the air but each family has it's own sleigh. This was taken from that ride....see anything familiar in that picture?

What's the worst ride to break down on with a small child???? If you said any ride up in the air then you would be correct. Wiggly worm children don't like when the ride stops for 5 minutes and this is your view.

All in all we had a good day. Santa's Village is a nice little park, clean and the employees are friendly. We do prefer Storyland and will make that park an annual trip. I did get to test out my new diaper bag set up and it worked well. And we streamlined things we hauled with us from when we went to Storyland. And the stroller was better organized too. Not to mention my new Crocs bag worked like a charm!!!!

 

[Lady Lallie]

It sounds like you learned a lot of valuable things at Santa's Village. I am really excited to read about how your Disney Trip goes with Liam.

 

[Sarilas]

Great idea for a trial run! And that picture of Liam on the playground... PRICELESS!

 

[DisMomAmy]

This was taken from that ride....see anything familiar in that picture?

Could it be... ... standing on his head? Good catch!

 

[MRYPPNS]

Sorry about the picture size....photobucket is not my friend today!

It sounds like you learned a lot of valuable things at Santa's Village. I am really excited to read about how your Disney Trip goes with Liam.

I did learn a lot, and the meltdown with Santa was a good reality check.

Great idea for a trial run! And that picture of Liam on the playground... PRICELESS!

We'll probably have one more day trip before Disney.

Could it be... ... standing on his head? Good catch!

I was so excited when I saw it there. By the way, we didn't bother with the Humbug ride after your review!

 

[willwriteforears]

It does sound like you learned quite a bit at Santa's Village--particularly how Liam is liable to react to the characters. I do hope that he'll be able to get used to some and be willing to interact with them (if from the safety of Mom or Dad's arms)!

 

[MRYPPNS]

It does sound like you learned quite a bit at Santa's Village--particularly how Liam is liable to react to the characters. I do hope that he'll be able to get used to some and be willing to interact with them (if from the safety of Mom or Dad's arms)!

I think he'll be fine with the face characters....at least I hope he will be.

 

[mousescrapper]

we had some of those same meeting the character meltdowns too....not to give too much away in my TR, but I have a few (I emphasize a few) good shots of her [Margaret] sorta w/ a character....You'll see.

But yeah the hand off or try to place and then walk away, didn't work for us. But it's OK, we know were going again. She'll be older and hopefully more eager.

If he won't do it alone, you'll get some good family shots

J-

 

[Charleston Princess]

Okay, I might be about to sound like the BIGGEST idiot ever, but are those real antlers on the reindeer? I can't decide if they look real or not!

 

[MRYPPNS]

Okay, I might be about to sound like the BIGGEST idiot ever, but are those real antlers on the reindeer? I can't decide if they look real or not!

Yes they are real. They have the velvet on them so that's probably why it looks fake to you. The velvet was just starting to molt off. Reindeers have very tiny teeth, like baby teeth. You can buy them "reindeer" cookies....3 for a dollar. Of course I bought $5 bucks worth. So I'm walking around with this big stack of cookies and this woman asks me for one.... I think she figured out that I probably paid for them when she saw the look on my face. I pointed her in the right direction to the cashier.
The reindeer are not stuck in those pens....they can move between all the shalls and they can go outside anytime they want.

 

[TarzansKat]

First of all, Liam is soooooooo cute.

I love seeing pictures of him, it reminds me of when my DS was that little.

Glad you got to test run some ideas and see how thing worked. Also, keep in mind that a man with lots of facial hair (Santa ) may be much scarier than any Disney characters. You just never know, some kids don't like the full on beard. I remember when my cousins were little, my dad has a mustache, and he used to keep cheerios in his pocket, so they wouldn't be afraid of him. Then, as babies of course, they ended up falling asleep on him because he's a big old teddy bear. But I digress. My long convoluted point is, he could be fine with Mickey, you never know.