Great Country Farms

Saturday was basically a perfect day. The weather was fabulous, sunny and 75 all day and we got to spend lots of time together as a family, enjoying our beautiful surroundings. After breakfast, we drove about 30 minutes to Great Country Farms for strawberry picking and lots more. Above, Aubrey had a blast on the giant jumping pillow called the "Pumpkin Bounce".

Will "driving" a real tractor.

Loving the rope swing...

...but his favorite was climbing the tire mountain, he stayed up there forever!

Aubrey couldn't get enough of the rope swing either.

Picking wildflowers together on the tire mountain.

Strawberry picking -- we all had a great time! This weekend was the peak for picking and there were plenty of ripe, juicy strawberries everywhere we looked.

Riding on the hay ride to the strawberry field.

At first, Will was all about helping pick the berries, but once he tasted one he decided that eating them was even better.

Yummy!

We also got to see farm animals, Robert & I tasted some strawberry wine from Bluemont Vineyard, we had lunch, and got the kids some homemade ice cream. Then we all came home for much needed naps. That evening Robert and the kids ate dinner, played outside and watched a movie while I went to dinner with my good friend, Emiley. Today I baked some pound cake and we had that with our fresh strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. Looking forward to going back for more fruit later this summer!

Mischief Makers

Aubrey decided to paint her face once again while watercoloring. She even managed to get her eyelids purple!

I walked into the kitchen to find that Will had pulled two bananas off the counter, peeled them and was in the process of the lining up each piece of peel and eating the bananas off the floor!

...The lined up banana peels

Spilling my water glass all over himself!

We have been enjoying some beautiful spring weather and have been taking full advantage of it. Aubrey LOVES her pink princess bike and we go out everyday to take a ride.

On rainy days, we've been riding in the garage -- on this day, Aubrey's friend, Annemarie, and her little sister, Lily, were over to play.

We've also been taking some rides on the Washington & Old Dominion (W & OD) trail -- it's a nice, paved trail that runs 45 miles from D.C. out west to the country. We only biked about 10 miles since the kids wouldn't last much longer. They had a great time though and were singing and chanting the whole way. We also stopped off at a park to play and got to see few people riding horses. Will & Aubrey call the bike trailer "the chariot" and Will cried when we got back to the car saying, "chariot again, chariot again". We are going to try and make biking the trail part of our Saturday morning routine.

One more shot of the girls from the other day -- Aubrey is super excited that her good buddy will be our neighbor for a while this summer. They sold their house and have not found one to buy yet. Their grandparents live a couple streets away from us and so they will stay there until they find a house. Yay for another good friend close by!

Last day of preschool!

Wow, it's hard to believe Aubrey is already all done with her first year of preschool... She had a great year and loved every minute of it! Her class was supposed to have a picnic outside today, but it was rainy so we stayed inside for lunch.

Aubrey with her teacher, Mrs. Hardy

Aubrey and her other teacher, Mrs. Devenish

Aubrey & best school bud, Annemarie.

Silly ABCs

Day 6: Last day at Magic Kingdom

On our last day at Magic Kingdom, we got a surprise visit from Aunt Susan & Uncle Kevin! We had no idea they were even in Orlando, but once we figured it out, they came and met us at the park. They helped chase Will around while we waited in line to meet Ariel. Then we caught the afternoon street dance party, walked over to see Mickey & Minnie's houses and rode on a little roller coaster called the Barnstormer. We also rode on Aladdin's flying carpets, the Jungle Cruise, & toured the Swiss Family Robinson's Tree house in Adventureland. We also got to go back and go on some of our favorite rides a second, third or fourth time. And we couldn't leave magic Kingdom with out meeting Cinderella, so we went to the princess tent to meet her and also met Belle again -- Aubrey was excited to see her in her fancy yellow dress this time! Since the kids napped today, we watched the fireworks one last time right before leaving the park. We had such a great time and both kids mention something about our trip everyday. I knew Aubrey would love it, but I have been surprised at how much Will talks about it on his own. We hope to go back in a couple years when they'll remember even more...

Spring Dance Recital

Dress rehearsal on Friday.

Climbing on the dining table to check out her bun and fancy outfit in the mirror.Getting ready to do the tap dance.
The little ballerinas dancing away on the big stage (Aubrey's the tall one).

All the girls got a rose from their teacher at the end.
Will ran to give her a hug and a picture after her performance.

Will loved watching Aubrey and kept repeating, "Aubrey's recital again" after each dance.

Aubrey got to pick where we went to celebrate after her recital. She picked Fuddruckers for a cheeseburger and a milkshake!

Day 5

Monday, we had reservations for another character breakfast at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort. We had a big breakfast, complete with Mickey Mouse shaped waffles and then got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck, Goofy & Pluto! Will got another birthday cupcake and then spent some time hiding under his high chair, silly boy! After a late night the night before, we decided not to go to the park after our late breakfast. The kids needed a nap and then Aubrey really wanted to go swimming again. We swam and relaxed for a while before taking the boat back over to Downtown Disney for dinner. Gigi & Downy treated us to a fun and interactive dinner at a restaurant called T-Rex, which is like a dinosaur version of Rainforest Cafe. There were meteor showers above us through out the meal as well as moving dinosaurs all around us. Aubrey and Will got their drinks in special light-up cups and our dessert came out with dry ice in the center so it looked like smoke was pouring out. After dinner, we said our goodbyes to Gigi & Downy who were flying back to Houston early the next day -- thanks for meeting us at Disney, we had a blast!

Day 4: Back to Magic Kingdom

Sunday morning, we were excited to go back to Magic Kingdom since there is so much to do there, especially for the little ones. We rode a lot of the classic Disney rides this day -- the tea cups, flying Dumbos, It's a Small World, Snow White's Scary Adventure, Cinderella's Golden Carousel, etc. We also said good bye to our friends who were heading back to Baton Rouge, we had so much fun getting to see them! We went home and took naps and came back to the park around 5. We ate dinner, went on some more rides and stayed late again for the night parade and fireworks. The fireworks show isn't just like any other fireworks you'd see on the 4th of July. The whole display is choreographed to music and really spectacular, the kids loved it and were thrilled to get to see it a second time. Will would shout, "WOW" after each firework and got lots of giggles from the people standing around us !

Happy Birthday, Robert!

Yesterday was Robert's birthday! I'm late posting because we've had some post Disney World germs circulating around our house. We didn't do too much to celebrate, but we did have a nice dinner, a few presents, and a yummy cookies & cream ice cream cake for dessert. Thanks, Robert for being such a hard worker and a great husband and father -- We love you!!!

Robert makes the kid's baths way more bubbly and fun than I do.

The big 3-2!

He cooked breakfast for us on Mother's Day and even made some Mickey Mouse pancakes for the kids!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Day 3: Hollywood Studios

Saturday morning, we all went over to check out Hollywood Studios. We started the day with three shows: A Little Mermaid, Playhouse Disney (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny & Tigger & Pooh) and then Beauty & The Beast. They were all great, but Beauty & The Beast was our favorite! Then we ate some lunch, went on a super fun 4-D Toy Story ride, met Prince Caspian and then caught an afternoon parade. We tried to hit the parades in each park because they are all different and very elaborate -- this one had lots of characters from Monsters, Inc., Toy Story and The Incredibles. I'm sure we did some other things, but those are the highlights. After we got back to the hotel, we all went swimming -- Aubrey LOVED the water slides that we just her size and Will spent most of the time throwing and kicking a beach ball around. Then we headed over the meet up with Robert's step-mom (Gigi) and her husband, who had just flown in from TX. We took a little ferry from their hotel to Downtown Disney for some dinner. The kids especially loved the Lego Imagination Center -- there were tons of life-sized Lego creations! This was a packed day with no naps, so we crashed as soon as we got home from dinner.

Day 2: Epcot

Our second day, we headed to Epcot and started the day off with a Storybook Princess breakfast in Norway. I had heard from friends that the character meals were a lot of fun and a good way to meet several characters without having to stand in line. We had a great family style breakfast and Snow White, Aurora, Jasmine, Belle and Mary Poppins stopped by our table to take pictures and sign Aubrey's autograph book. We also met Chip & Dale that day, went on a Nemo ride and saw a Nemo show called Turtle Talk and walked around all the countries in the World Showcase. The kids decorated a mask and got a stamp from each country they visited. We finished off the day with a popsicle and Aubrey ran around in the water with her clothes on before going back to our room. Since we skipped naps this day, A & W went to bed earlier and Robert went back to the park with our friends to ride some grown up rides. Another fun day! (Click on the collage to see larger pictures).

Disney World: Day 1

We just got home last night after a week long vacation at Disney World. We had a great time and hope to go back in a couple years! I took TONS of pictures, but I'll just post a few from each day. We got into Orlando last Thursday around lunch time. We grabbed some Chick-fil-A and headed to the hotel that our good friends from TX (who now live in Baton Rouge) graciously offered to us -- thanks so much, guys! It was a blast to catch up with them, see how much their girls have grown and explore Disney with them. After lunch, we let the kids take naps and then headed to Magic Kingdom...

Right when we arrived, there was a parade/ dance party thing going on. It was fun to see all the characters right off the bat.

Dancing with Goofy in the street!

All of us in front of the castle. Then we headed to the Buzz Lightyear ride and a Monsters Inc. show before dinner.

Aubrey with sweet friends, LL & AG.

We found a spot along the curb on Main Street to sit and watch the night parade and firework show, both of which were fabulous! Here's Aubrey climbing as we waited for the parade to start. Aubrey & Will with their mouse ears on!