The last of the Disney pics

Epcot

Alyssa loved the Nemo ride. She rode it 3 times.



Soarin' was another one of Alyssa's favorites. She flapped her arms the whole ride, so cute. Epcot was a great day for Alyssa. She had this little passport thing that she had stamped at every country, she liked that.

9 months

Mason is growing up into a little man. He is crawling on all fours now and can pull up on almost anything. I think he may be an early walker. He is so smiley and so much fun!



He is a great eater, but still pretty small for his age. He is attempting to drink from a sippy cup and bottle which gives me a glimmer of hope for a night away soon :)



Mason is not a sleeper. At night anyway. He still hasn't been sleeping through the night, so we have resorted to some "drastic" measures to get him to sleep. We are kind of in the middle of it so I'll let you know if it works. I feel like I've been trying to 'fix' his sleep for months and I'm realizing that I may not be able to fix it. He has been napping great though so thats good.




Love that smile:)




I saw this on a friends blog and thought it was a cute. And it just so happened that we were approaching the 'he's been out as long as he was in' mark. It also happened to be right on his 9 month birthday. So....



39 weeks 2 days in



39 weeks 2 days out

Animal Kingdom

We spent the second day at Animal Kingdom. It was our shortest day and we tried to fit in a lot. The park was really neat and we did a lot of walking. We rode the Everest rollercoater a couple times, did the safari, and saw The Lion King show. Alyssa freaked out again on the Dinosuar ride (actually really scary) and at A Bug's Life show ( a 4D show where they squirted us with water, had "bugs" run across our seats, and spiders come down from the ceiling. So we struck out again on those two. She enjoyed The Lion King show though and thats how we ended the day.





Everest!




The safari was really cool. We saw a lot of animals and the jeep ride was pretty fun too.




The Lion King




Mason with his 3D bug's life glasses. He didn't seem to mind the show :)

Disney World Day 1

Our first day at Disney World. We got a late start the first day because Alyssa was up for about 2 hours in the middle of the night with an earache. Luckily it was just pressure from the plane trip and not an ear infection. We started at Hollywood Studios and Alyssa's first ride was the Tower of Terror. That was a mistake. We thought she would like the ride part since she's been pretty brave in the past. I knew it was a little scary (dark, old, creepy etc.) but it had been a while and if I would have gone on it first I wouldn't have taken Alyssa. She was so freaked out of the dark, and all the scary stuff. She really never mentioned the ride part, she just couldn't stop talking about everything else. We redeemed ourselves by taking her to The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast shows. They were pretty good. We headed to Magic Kingdom at lunch time. Our original plan was to take a break every afternoon and go back to the condo. It never happened. It just took too much time and ended up not being worth it. So our kiddos had to tough it out. Mason did great, but Alyssa got really tired at times. So we got Magic Kingdom just in time for the last Christmas parade of the season. It was the best! Probably one of the highlights. Alyssa loved it so much and waved the whole time. We did a couple rides that day including Splash Mountain, which Alyssa also hated. I was feeling pretty bad for her since she didn't like most of the rides we took her on the first day. So, note to self, don't take a 4 year old on all the scary rides, especially the first day, just because she's tall enough. Alyssa met some princesses and we ended the night with the Christmas fireworks. The castle is absolutely beautiful all lit up for Christmas! I'm so glad we got to see it. It was a busy first day but so much fun!








They invited the kids up to dance during a performance and Alyssa ran out to join in. She's so funny!



Beauty and the Beast. The costumes were amazing. I actually enjoyed it more than the Broadway version we saw last month.

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Me and Nate outside Rockin' Rollercoaster. Best ride at Disney.




The Christmas parade



One of my favs. She put her arms up when they threw the confetti.





Alyssa with Sleeping Beauty. She saw Sleeping Beauty again another day and said "Sleeping Beauty didn't remember me".



Cinderella



Belle.

Meeting the characters was a highlight for Alyssa. We didn't wait more than 20 minutes for a ride (thanks to Nate for running all over the parks for fastpasses) but we waited in line 20-30 minutes to see most of the characters. That was something I didn't expect.



The castle lit up for Chritmas. Beautiful.





Fireworks. or pops as Alyssa used to say.




Alyssa and Addison. We had the chance to see both of our friends that have just recently moved to Florida. Nate, Tessa, Addison and Jake met up with us that day. The girls really enjoyed seeing each other.

We also got to see the Haag's the day we left. Logan and the kids came to our hotel for a swim and then we got to see their new house and hang out a bit before they took us to the airport. Thanks guys!




I wish this turned out better, but I still like it.