A Magical Birthday

...at Magic Kingdom.  We spent Friday, May 20th of our trip at this park celebrating our little man's 2nd birthday.  We're pretty hot and sweaty looking in most pictures because we were-it was nearly 100 and not a cloud in the sky!



The Birthday Boy with his celebration button!

First thing we did was head off to meet some characters.

Meeting Buzz Lightyear. Spencer was completely star struck!


He kept pushing Buzz's buttons-I'm assuming that he was trying to play with him like his Buzz toy:)


Woody and Jessie. Spencer was still star struck meeting his "idols" from Toy Story-Avery was pretty darn excited too!


We waited in line for over an hour to meet Ariel-Avery's favorite Disney princess. She was excited in the line and talking to the little girl in front of us about their shared love of all things Ariel and the Little Mermaid. Then, it was Avery's turn to meet her and she turned to Artie and I with a frightened look on her face and asked to leave!! The same thing happened on our trip last year. She was perfectly fine with the characters, but the real people dressed as princesses/princes and such she is for some reason terrified of! So, daddy took her to meet them so she didn't totally miss out.


She got a little brave after Ariel asked so sweetly if Avery would take a picture with her. By the way, Avery was ecstatic after this encounter and thought it was the coolest thing-no mention of her last minute terror!


Prince Eric took a second to come over and chat with Spencer and wish him a happy birthday:)

After having to socialize all morning, Spencer completely crashed out. I don't know how he did it with how hot it was but he slept forever! So, in the meantime we took Avery on a few rides.

Such a sleepy boy-keeping his Mickey stickers close by.


Riding Aladdin's magic carpets. Everything we went on that had something pink, Avery had to ride in it. We weren't assigned this particular carpet, but Artie negotiated with the people in front of us to switch carpets so Avery could have the pink one:)


Tea Cups! Avery loves spinning it:) Spencer did get to ride this once he woke up!!
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Then, we had a little accident. The kind that is mommy and daddy's fault for playing around. Artie and I were enjoying our one-on-one time with Avery while Spencer napped and after a ride we were swinging her (you know, she's in the middle and Artie and I each have one of her hands). She loves to do this and we've done it before. However, like I mentioned, it was really hot. Artie's hands were sweaty and somehow he and Avery lost their grips on each other. She went flying through the air and landed on her head. The people around us gasped in displeasure of our parenting (though not one of them came to Avery's aid) and the sound of her head hitting the concrete is not something I'll soon forget. Luckily, we knew where first aid was located (remember last year when I had just been stung by a sting ray?? I had to visit that very first aid station to get help for a painful, seeping wound). We rushed her to first aid and she got checked for a concussion-no signs of that, but she had a massive purple egg on her forehead and huge bruises on her knees. After a quick dose of advil and some band aids, the nurse tells us if she's up to it we can continue our day. Phew.


This is what Avery looked like for about 20 minutes while we had to keep ice on her head. Thank goodness we were able to get her to keep it there that long because it helped so much! She was acting like her usual self in no time, especially when she got candy as a reward for being so good at first aid and spotted the Mickey performance at Cinderella's castle!


One quick family photo in front of the castle before heading out for the day. These are such great memories for me (minus cracking my daughter's head on the ground) and I hope one day the kids will look back and be happy that we spent this time as family celebrating our little miracle(s).

Almost there!

Animal Kingdom

On the second day of our trip, we headed to Animal Kingdom.  Artie and I hadn't been to this park since 2005 when we went with my brother and sister.  It's such a relaxing park compared to the other three and we were glad to get back and share all the fun with the kids!

First stop at this park is always the Lion King show. No matter how many times I've seen it (I think this was the third) it is always awesome! I'm sure it's just a taste of what's on Broadway, but it's a pretty amazing show and there isn't a bad seat in the house. The kids sat still for the whole thing and since they're really into the Lion King movie right now, they loved it!

The next several pictures are from our safari. This is probably the next best thing to an actual African safari and Avery is still talking about all of the animals we got to see up close on this adventure!

Rhinos.

Ostrich eggs.

Elephants.

Termite mounds.

Giraffe-it was right next to our truck!

Hippos. Up until a few nights ago I thought these animals were so cute and harmless. Then, I watched a show about them on the Nat Geo Wild channel. Did you know that there are more human deaths per year by hippos than any other animal? I'm fairly frightened of hippos after that show, but when this picture was taken I was still naive!

Grandpa with the kiddos in front of the tree of life. This is a 14-story tree with 325 animals carved into it, it's an amazing piece of artwork.

A view of Expedition Everest. When we were last at the park in 2005, this roller coaster was being built and torturing us because we couldn't go on it. This year Artie and I made the most of being able to ride it and went on it 3 times in a row-very fun!!

My little drummer boy:)

...and girl, of course!

We had a blast at this park.  The only thing to watch out for if you're visiting Animal Kingdom is that it has shorter hours than all the other parks.  Because of this, it is absolutely jam packed in the morning hours, but relatively clears out in the afternoon.  There's also a dinosaur area in this park, but I didn't get any pictures of it:(

If you're still hanging with me, I'm half way there.  Three down and three to go of our Spencer Birthday Celebration in Florida!

The Big Golfball

We left Wednesday, May 18th, and had an early 7am flight. Sounds simple, but we actually drove from Cincinnati to Dayton to take a nonstop flight to Orlando. The nonstop part was nice, but, as always, there is some drama when the Belschners attempt to fly:) Apparently, airports are VERY busy in the early hours of the morning and we literally got through security just as they were making the last boarding call for our flight. We made it to the gate just in time, but the car seats we brought for the kids caused some drama (i.e. at baggage check they said they were airline approved, on the plane they were telling us they weren't). So, we ended up just gate checking them with our strollers-not really a big deal we were just nervous for Spencer to fly without a car seat. He did pretty well, though he kept unbuckling his seat belt!

Relaxing to a movie-what else but Toy Story 2!

Avery chose Toy Story 3-she was absolutely perfect on the plane!

"It's the big golfball!" This is what we heard from a very excited Avery every time she saw the Epcot ball:) Since our flight was so early in the morning, we loaded up our rental van, checked in at our hotel (pics of that to come later) and took off to Epcot for the rest of the day!

Beth, you would have loved all of the beautiful flowers!

We waited patiently to meet some characters-snacks helped keep the kids occupied in long lines:)

Gotta start with Mickey!

Pluto:)

Big hugs for Minnie!

Donald-the whole Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gang was here (except Daisy).

Goofy. Spencer was like this most of the time meeting characters. He was in complete awe and it was so cute. He would blow them all kisses, he was very star struck:)

I was disappointed that we missed the topiary festival they had by only 1 week:( But, luckily, they still had some spread throughout the park so here are the few we were able to see.

Grandpa and Avery in front of Minnie, Mickey, and Pluto!

Lighting McQueen and Mater.

Tigger.

Rafiki and Simba.

Pumba.

Timon.

Towards the later part of the day we had one princess getting a bit cranky. Honestly, we all were really. We were tired from being up early, going all day, and trying to adjust to the heat! But, I think this face is precious. She was actually pouting because she wanted ice cream really badly and we weren't finding any for her fast enough!

I don't ever drink, but the heat had me sucking down a berry margarita! It was good and a nice way to end our first day!!

Three more parks and the beach to come!

Someone Around Here Turned 2!

We were lucky enough to spend 6 days in sunny-but very hot!-Florida to celebrate Spencer's 2nd birthday:) Thank goodness we were able to have a break from all of the rain here in the midwest. We pretty much need to get a goat or a cow or something to graze in our yard because it is so long but completely flooded!! Anyway, we headed out very early last Wednesday and nearly missed our flight but made it to Orlando and began the celebration!


A quick gift opening before we left from Aunt Cindy, Uncle Tom and Colten:) Can't go wrong with anything Toy Story-related for this boy!!


Our first afternoon in sunny Florida had us all full of smiles:)


Very worn out from a full first day! These two did awesome sharing a bed and it was Spencer's first time sleeping in something besides his crib or pack-n-play. I think it's time to permanently move out of the crib at home!


Birthday boy! Disney World has buttons for lots of occasions (just in case you're there to celebrate anything: 1st visit, birthday, anniversary, etc.), they like to congratulate you on your celebrations:)


Avery went sans nap the ENTIRE visit-made for one very tired 3 1/2 year old. But, Spencer tried to sneak naps in here and there-his birthday was no exception:)!!


A blue cupcake to celebrate the miracle of my little man.


Very excited to open his gift from mommy and daddy-a talking Woody (a Disney park exclusive that we couldn't wait to get him since we couldn't find anything like it at home)!

Stay tuned for more of our trip to come!

Not Quite Getting It

I've noticed my blog posts are few and far between this year compared to previous years.  I'm not sure what that can be attributed to specifically.  I've been really bad about getting pictures of the kids lately and when I do get them, I'm usually too lazy to upload and edit them:(

Other than that, we have been a houseful of sickies for the last couple months and I don't know if it's been the long winter or something in our house, but we can't seem to get healthy.  I landed in the ER early Easter morning and each of the kids has been close to making their own trips.  Currently, Spencer is fighting something really nasty and I'm not sure if he's the first to get it or the last-that's pretty much the game we've been playing.  Next week, we'll be flying to Orlando for Spencer's 2nd annual birthday celebration at Disney World and right now I'm just trying to get everyone healthy enough to fly. 



The 'terrible twos' have recently been making an appearance at our house and, with Spencer, Artie and I have learned to choose your battles when it comes to things they want.  Here, Spencer desperately wanted to hold this ball in the car and we gave up and let him have it and he snuggled right in and fell asleep with it-pretty precious:)



The weather has finally been getting nice around here and we try to get outside as much as the cold/flu bugs allow.  This park we went to is on the other side of town and the kids never get to go to it, so they were excited when they saw there was a swing big enough to be together in!

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!