Celebrating 7 years

 favorite animal- horse, not horst!

  a year in the life!

 CC had 3 friends (and one of Emory's friend to keep her occupied and away from the big girls) come over for a spend the night party to celebrate her 7th bday! 

 We had a big night planned of eating pizza and cake, decorating pillow cases, and watching movies. 

This might be the first picture where I think we look a little bit alike. 

 After cake and presents we did confetti poppers! Are we crazy?!! 

I found this adorable photobooth kit at Walmart for $5, so we decided to add this to the party at the last minute. It was so funny and made for some great pictures!

Emory and Elise

ha!

My favorite one!

 Decorating pillow cases.
I had no idea they would love this so much. They spent 2 full hours on making their pillow cases. Had I known it would be such a hit, I would have started it earlier than 8:00. 

Finally, around 10:15 we settled down for popcorn and a movie. Horrible picture, but I found glow in the dark balloons and glow necklaces. The balloons were perfect as their nightlight for the night. 

   Elise left around 8:30 and poor Emory wanted to hang with the big girls. But CC wanted just her friends to sleep in the room. AFter a few tears and drama, we settled on E watching the movie and moving her when she fell asleep.  

 They finally fell asleep around midnight but were pretty calm while watching the movie. I actually fell asleep before them! I just couldn't stay up anymore. They woke up about 6:15 ready to PLAY! We had Krispy Kreme donuts and pancakes. Emory slept until 8:00 and the big girls could not understand why she was still asleep!!!!

 After breakfast they played balloon babies! Sophia is having a baby soon, so she was acting like her mom. Ava just had a brand new 3 day old baby sister, so she didn't need a balloon baby. And CC wants twins so she had 2 balloons in her belly- ha!

Everyone left around 9:30 this morning. CC had the best time celebrating turning 7. Can you believe it?! Gosh, I feel like I just had her. Time really does go by fast. I do love this seven year old so much- she is the sweetest, kindest, smartest girl. She definitely makes us proud and we couldn't love her more. 

Back home:(

The car ride back seemed a little bit longer and there were a lot more "are we there yet? asked. But overall it wasn't too bad. We were all sad to leave- really sad. But we can't wait to go back.

 The only thing we would change would be staying one extra day, so that we could have time to swim and relax. Our hotel, Wyndham Grand at Bonnet Creek,  was awesome with 3 different pools and other stuff to do- definitely will go back! 

 We stopped at Gran and Pawpaw's house on the way back home. We stayed longer this time and told them all about our trip. Finally, after our visit they fell asleep. 

1,119.2 miles later we made it home! The moment we walked in the door, Bryan and I realized how EXHAUSTED we were. But the girls had the completely opposite reaction. They were bouncing off the walls and wanted to play play play. 

We bought Pirate stuff b/c 'we don't have any boy dress up stuff"! 

And now I am realizing why! They have hurt themselves with the swords and Emory came in with this surprise pirate look! Honestly- I'm not even sure what it is!

Now, I need a vacation!!!

Back to Magic Kingdom

Day 3 we started early again and headed back to Magic Kingdom to do all the stuff we didn't do the first day. The pictures aren't the best- either taken with a cell phone or no flash allowed. 

They loved riding the monorail and kept calling it the 'bullet train' from Choo Choo Soul ('If I were a train, I'd be a bullet train"!) CC thought she was so cool b/c she got to stand up

 We went straight to the new Storytime with Belle b/c the line is long all the time. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long this time. Emory was picked to play the part of the Beast!!!! 

 CC played the part of the horse.

 Below is a video of Emory's speaking part and her dancing with Belle. It was incredible!

Emory playing the Beast.... 

Belle and Emory dancing (doesn't this just make you smile? You can only imagine how this made her day. You can even see her trying to bow like a man instead of a curtsy!!)

 Buzz Light Year ride

We went to our favorite parade- the Celebrate it Dance party parade where they stop the cars and the characters come down and dance with everyone in the street. This was CC's favorite when we were there last time, and E loved it just as much. 

Aladdin's magic carpet ride

 Thunder Mountain! These girls aren't scared of anything and LOVE roller coasters. We had Fast Passes to go on Splash Mountain but it shut down right when we got there :(

We were planning to head back at 5:00 to swim and pack up, but Emory was dying to see Rapunzel since she was dressed up as her for the day. She had already changed into regular clothes, but we had to make a quick costume change back into our dress and Rapunzel hat (making sure her hair was just perfect!). Sooooo, we were there until the next shuttle at 7:00. We spent FOREVER for CC to spend her last $18.09- finally picked a journal. They both wanted these Donald Duck quackers, so we surprised them- put them in our mouth and peeked around into the stroller while quacking! They loved it (but they might mysteriously disappear now that we are home- ha!)

  Emory loved meeting Rapunzel! Look at her pose!

CC and Cinderella

 Here is Emory's face after we turned the corner from seeing Rapunzel! 

Can't believe it!

So sad our trip is over! It was the most fun we have had in a long time! 

Epcot

We slept in a little and headed to Epcot around 10:00 on Wednesday. As soon as we got on the shuttle it started pouring down rain.

Luckily, I brought ponchos with me (out of fear that I might have to wear a trash bag like my dad would make us do when I was little!!!) Christian was miserable and hated EVERY.SINGLE.SECOND of the poncho wearing. She was so embarrassed and wanted to go back home- NOPE!

Luckily it only rained a short amount of time! We got to meet more characters. The girls loved how Pluto signed their book on his nose:)

Bryan getting onto me for using flash photography during the Nemo ride- ha!

The left is CC when she was four in front of Nemo. The right is her at seven! A little different, but just as cute

Emory at four

We had a fast past for Soarin' so we visited a few countries. They LOVED the phone booths and wanted to play forever in them. And they didn't really understand what a pay phone was!!

Soarin' was awesome- still my favorite ride at Epcot. 

Bryan catching a ride for a few minutes. 

We went to the Turtle Talk with Crush and they called on CC to speak to Crush. She is really good at talking turtle... Duuuuude

We met Alice. EMory wanted to know where the cat was. She told us the Cheshire cat often made him invisible but would show himself throughout the park and we should be on the lookout for him in trees and bushes. 

So Emory took us on a hunt throughout the park for the cheshire cat! Here she is looking in the flowers. 

It was a fun day and a little more low key, which was perfect after the busy day we had before. We got home around 9:00 and all crashed. 

 Then at about 2:00 am the fire alarm went off- UGH! Bryan jumped out of bed yelling for us to put on our tennis shoes, not flip flops (Thanks Mimi for training him well!!). And to make things even more exciting, it started to rain!!! 

Bed head Bryan in his "I LOVE MALLORY" shirt! Wonder if people were wondering who Mallory was! 

Finally got to go back to our room around 3:00- never heard what the problem was.