Fall Festival and Pumpkin Carving

Dawson's preschool tries to lay low and make events easy and kid friendly. Instead of dressing up and celebrating Halloween, they have a family Fall Festival. Each family brings a picnic lunch and the children are free to roam around and do the activities provided. There was a beanbag toss, pumpkin decorating, cookie decorating, pin the nose on the pumpkin and the parachute. At the end of the day, the school principal came to read them a pumpkin story and sent each child home with the same book and some pumpkin stickers! It was just perfect for a class of three year olds!

Pumpkin decorating with stickers.

Story time! The festival was in the middle of the day so it combined the morning and afternoon classes. A pumpkin story being read to everyone by the school principal. (Her school is preschool through grade 8)

I didn't know how pumpkin carving was going to go this year? To my surprise, Dawson loved carving her pumpkins! Including the goop!

Look mom...pumpkin guts!

She was helping me cut the face. Dawson kept trying to stick her little knife in the face and saw an eye!

Our finished products! So CUTE!

4-Wheeler

I got this picture on my iPhone today from my dad! What a surprise! Dawson on a 4-wheeler? My niece used to ride this 4 wheeler at least 6 years ago and my parents found it in the extra garage this weekend. They also found the charger and thought they would try and see if the battery was still good. Can you believe the battery still charges after all these years? Well, believe it or not, this old 4-wheeler still goes and they said it goes fast. From the picture, it looks like Dawson is loving it. My only concern is...where is her helmet??? I can't wait to see her ride this in person!

Beautiful Fall Leaves

Papa and Grammy made a HUGE pile of leaves and invited us over to come and jump in them. As you can see, Dawson was having a blast. As for Ella, I'm not sure she had any interest in this activity at all! Today was 75 and sunny. It doesn't get much better than this for a late October day!!

Our Last Morning at Disney

Our last morning, before heading home, consisted of an amazing character breakfast at Chef Mickey's. At this breakfast, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Donald, all stopped by our table for a few pictures. Once again, Dawson was shy but, Breea really loved it! Dawson looked at me and said, "Why are there people inside these costumes?" That's my girl....always thinking and figuring out why things are the way they are! She's such a thinker and problem solver.

Grammy and Breea posing with Mickey!

Please sign my autograph book Donald. Dawson did not pick up on the autograph book thing until the last day and she noticed Breea had one. Then, she was all into it and loved coloring in her own book too! She thought it was cool people wrote their names in the book so she wanted to write her name in the book too. Over and over and over again!

Sign please!

At the Orlando airport these two found a few places to pose. I think they were still in Disney mode and still wanted their picture taken. I guess they are used to the camera always being out!

Disney was a wonderful vacation had by all!!! We love you Mickey Mouse!!!

Day 3 at Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney

I made no plans for day three so we could regroup and figure out as a group what was going to happen on this day. We had seen enough parades at Magic Kingdom so we headed over to Hollywood Studios. We found a lot of great rides, live shows and fun restaurants on. Everyone was happy and the crowds were not bad at all!

We stayed at the Polynesian Hotel which was right on the monorail. It was so convenient to just jump on the monorail and get to the park!

We had lunch at the Sci-Fi Diner today. You get to eat in a car and watch a movie just like the old drive-in movies we used to have around here.

Along with the kids meal came a glow in the dark Tinkerbell. She brought a lot of happiness to my little girl! She still sleeps with her at night!

Dessert anyone???

On the bus and headed to Downtown Disney.

Wonder what's going on here?

There were these cool fountains the kids could run through at Downtown Disney. The cool part was that the kids didn't get wet. They would try to get wet but, the fountains would turn off when they came by. We had a lot of fun trying to get wet with no success!

My favorite picture!

And another ice cream bar before dinner....thanks Tommy!

Disney Day 2

Day 2 was just as busy as night one. As you know, when you are in Disney it is nonstop! Today we entered the park and headed right to our lunch with Cinderella in her castle. Last time we went, Dawson was in love with Cinderella and every princess that walked by our table. This year, she was so excited to see everyone then, became shy and refused to have her picture taken with any of them. She sat on my lap and said hello but, that was it! Not even a picture!!! Don't get me wrong, she took EVERYTHING in and I heard about all day. She still loved every minute of it, just in a different way this year! It must be a "three" thing!

Walking up the spiral staircase to our table in Cinderella's Royal Castle!

Our view from our table. We overlooked Fantasyland.

Yummy dessert!

Part of our lunch involved each child getting a wand, waving it in the air and over a wishing star. Then the children were told to make a wish. Dawson's wish was....A DOG OF HER OWN since Ella apparently has now become my dog and she does not have one! So funny!!!

Tommy working and Dawson taking a little snooze. This happened every day and made them BOTH happy for the rest of the evening!

Next came the parades. I must say Dawson's favorite part of the whole trip was the parades. She would smile and wave the entire time. I have at least 50 pictures of her just waving! I kept trying to get a picture of her face and her hand was always up in the air waving!!!

In love with baby Sleeping Beauty (AKA Princess Aurora).

And a quick late night swim! Two days down, two more to go!

Disney's Not So Scary Halloween Party

Whew...what a weekend! So much to see and do and sooooo much fun! My family, along with my parents and niece spent a long weekend celebrating Halloween at Disney. I can't begin to tell you how amazing it was to be there at this time of year. Much better than summer time! In fact, I will never go again in the summer if I can help it! Our first day we arrived a little late, took a quick rest and got dressed up and ready for the Disney Not So Scary Halloween Party. As soon as we arrived, Dawson fell asleep...go figure! After a catnap, she was up and ready for some trick or treating, parade watching and some ride riding!

On the monorail headed to the park!

Some holiday decorations....

Main Street U.S.A.

Of course papa had to buy her some ice cream to get her prepared for the Halloween parade!

This was by far the best parade I have ever seen! I can't explain how amazing it was at night!

Tommy and Breea riding Dumbo. We were riding too so there's not a picture of us!!!

It's the end of the night and time to go home so we can do this again tomorrow!