Snow Days x5

Tom and I were laughing (in a little bit of a horrified manner) because we realized that
excluding this past week Elizabeth had gone to school for 2 days in 3 weeks! First we were gone for a week in Disney World. The second week Elizabeth went to school on Monday and by Tuesday morning Elizabeth had woken up with a fever, it turns out she had the flu! She was out of school the rest of the week. The third week we went to school on Monday and by Tuesday there was a major ice storm, we were out the rest of the week. Craziness!!! So, here are some of our pictures from our 5 snow/ice days.
We were looking for things to do to keep us occupied. I saw the activity that Ben is doing on a blog. He had to bite the mini marshmallow in half and push it down on the outline of the heart. Super easy but fun! Then we had to go play in the snow! Ben kept falling down because under the 3 or so inches of snow was about 2 inches of ice! It was so slippery!

That's our street behind the kids. I felt badly for Tom that he had to drive in that to work!

All the snow throughout our street.

The kids had a blast just running around, going crazy! The snow wasn't great for packing so we couldn't get a snowman going or anything.

We went sledding one afternoon after Tom got home from work. Ben was at the end of a virus so the cold really affected him - all of his face that wasn't covered by his hat and coat turned bright red!

Check out the unbrushed hair - we really didn't get dressed or anything for 3 or 4 days!! Elizabeth is working on her 100 day project for school.

Ben got a bike for his birthday so one afternoon Tom put it together. It turned out to not be as easy as we (he) thought it would be! :)

Elizabeth was sick with the flu for a week, then Ben got a virus the second week. Poor kid was layed out on the couch for a lot of our snow days.

E's finished 100 day project.

This was one of the other snow days. It was absolutely FREEZING! We only lasted for 5 minutes.

Elizabeth got an easy bake oven for Christmas. She made us all cookies during our "shut in".

Doesn't that look appetizing? Mom forgot to Pam the pan!

Elizabeth got a turn to make a heart.

I'll end with a beautiful shot of Ben's rash! I was worried about that boy - I thought for sure he had his sister's flu, but that came back negative. Then I thought strep, maybe this was some strange version of strep rash (it turned pretty itchy and hivey), but all of that came negative. So, it was just a virus! We're glad we are all finally healthy!

Last Day at Disney World

We woke up this morning to more rain! We started at the hotel slowly, eating breakfast and watching old school Disney cartoons. The rain started to let up at around 9am so we made our way to Magic Kingdom.

First we headed to the comical Jungle Cruise. We rode in a boat and went on a very silly safari. The kids didn't really laugh at the jokes, it was way over their heads, but the adults thought it was pretty funny!

After the cruise the kids got to drive their own boats.

We then went to the Magic Carpets of Aladdin. It's a lot like Dumbo or the Triceratop Spin, the kids control the up and down movements of the carpet. There was hardly anyone there so we rode it over and over again.

I just loved this picture, we are in the middle of the ride and they're watching Cooper and Jackson's carpet go up!

After the carpet ride we headed to Thunder Railroad again- our favorite! We did it twice!

We started walking to Dumbo when it started pouring. We ran over to Mickey's Toontown and hopped onto the Brainstormer - a kiddie roller coaster. The kids really wanted to ride it so we rode it in the pouring rain, twice! I hated it!!! We got soaked! After we ran across the street to a big shop and hung out until the rain slowed down. My mom and dad gave the kids some money to buy a present while they were in the shop, it killed some time for us! After the rain slowed down we explored Mickey's Toontown for a while and then went to ride the teacups. I don't have many pictures from this time because everything was so wet, I couldn't get my camera out without risking ruining it.

Then it was the boys all time favorite ride, Buzz Lightyear Space Shooter.

They're ready to fight Zurg!

For the first time we let the boys go on the ride by themselves.

Oh no - they're in jail with Zurg!

Next we went on Astro Orbiter. This was during the ride, I just stuck my camera out without looking through it (they were behind me) and snapped. It came out pretty well!

(Tom, Elizabeth, and my dad)

Ben and I rode together. Right after this he somehow turned and smacked his mouth on the side of the ride. Nothing like a bloody lip to ruin the fun!

A picture of Space Mountain from the ride. The adults (minus my mom and Ryan) rode this next.

We got the kids popsicles to help with Ben's lip and to keep them busy when we were on the ride. We ate a lot of snacks while we were in Disney World!

We went to back to dinner with the Pooh characters and to celebrate Ben's birthday!

A special cake in a pirate's treasure box came for Ben, he was so excited!

Happy Birthday, Ben!

Eeyore came and surprised Ryan and Tom (Tom looks really comfy, huh?!)

He even played with Jackson!

After dinner we watched the show that happens in the evenings (and is Elizabeth's favorite!)

We rode Buzz Lightyear one more time (I told you it was the favorite!),

And had a quick photo op before the park closed.

We woke up at 3 am to drive home - I wish I looked so cute at 3am!!

We had a pretty good drive home, just long.

We were so sad for our trip to end, it was truly the trip of a lifetime. The kids are still saying they wished they were still at Disney.

Thank you mom and dad, we had such a wonderful time! The memories will be with us forever!

Animal Kingdom

(I don't know what's going on with my blogger but it's not letting me rearrange my pictures!!! So...sorry...there is a chunk of pictures out of order!)

We woke up bright and early to get to Animal Kingdom right when it opened. The first place we headed to was Dino Land. The Triceratop Spin was a favorite of the kids. You could make your dinosaur go up or down, and tilt up and down.
Ben's ready to take off, I sat on the front of his Dino.

Tom and Elizabeth ready to go.

Elizabeth and Jackson were loving this gigantic dinosaur at the beginning of Dino Land.

This is right when we entered the park, Ben had gotten hurt right after we got here so he was trying to ignore the camera (not in the best mood!:)

This is the big Tree of Life that the whole park is centered around.

We saw Pooh on our quick walk to the Dino Land...Ben was still recovering from his injury so he didn't want to get up to see Pooh.

After Dino Land we went to Kilimanjaro Safari - it was a giant jeep that we all rode in on a safari throughout Africa. We got so close to all of the animals, that was the best part.

We were all loving watch the giraffe eat, we could have reached out and touched him!

After the safari we went to Pangani Forest Exploration Trail to see other animals up close - it was kind of like a zoo. After this we saw the show "It's Good to be a Bug", which was a 3D movie. We had heard that it was a little scary for kids because it's very realistic so it makes it feel like the bugs are on you at one point. The only one who got really scared was Ben, at one point I almost took him out of the show, but it was pretty short so we powered through and made it to the end! :)

After lunch the adults (minus Grandma) went to ride Expedition Everest, this big roller coaster. We loved it!

Next we walked back to Dino Land to the Boneyard - it didn't open until later in the morning. This was the kids favorite part. There was a huge jungle gym, things to climb under and over, water trickling, we played here for an hour and they could have stayed all day!

These foot prints are fun! Once you jump on them a dinosaur growls!

There's part of the jungle gym behind the kids.

There's Tom and the kids heading up to the top of the jungle gym structure.

Jackson and Ben in the Boneyard.

Last we went to Finding Nemo, the musical. It was fabulous! It went through the whole movie with people holding elaborate puppets, the whole thing in song. They were so talented, we loved it!

We went back to the hotel to hang out on the beach at our hotel. The sand was so beautiful and white, we just wished it wasn't too cold to get into the water!

At this point it was about dinner time. Ben wanted to stay on the beach (Cooper and Jackson were both playing here, too) and Elizabeth was ready to go back to Magic Kingdom. So Ben and I stayed at the hotel, ate dinner, and went to bed early. Tom and Elizabeth went back to Magic Kingdom until it closed. They rode a ton of rides and I think Elizabeth really liked having some one on one time with her daddy.

Tomorrow we head back to Magic Kingdom!