This was an incredibly special afternoon that the girls have been looking forward to for a long time!  It was the afternoon of the makeover at the Bibbiddi Bobbidi Boutique, located inside Cinderella’s castle!!!  Noelle is in her zone and Anna Kate was taking it all in with her fairy godmother!  They don’t allow little girls under 3 to get make-overs, so Rose had a special makeover with Mommy!  It worked out great though, because Rose took a good nap in the stroller with Rara while the big girls were at the BBB before our royal dinner in a few hours!

My blonde bombshell knew what was coming next!  This child!

 

Anna Kate’s fairy godmother was telling her story after story (Anna Kate’s favorite; she LOVES a good story), and she was mesmerized.  Noelle was totally into the royal treatment!

Anna Kate looked so little sitting in that big girl chair!

 

I have seen pictures of friends at the BBB, but in my mind, I couldn’t picture what the room looked like.  So, I took pictures so you guys could see, and we could remember.  Isn’t it beautiful!?!  Mike photobombed the picture I was taking of the princesses domed crowns in the middle of the room.  So fancy and magical!

On to make-up!

I took a picture from where the girls were sitting looking up.  I wanted them to remember what their view looked like.  I mean, a makeover in Cinderella’s castle is definitely one of the coolest things a little girl could ever do!  I wanted them to remember every moment! 

 

Sprinkling fairy dust and making wishes!  And then, her fairy godmother turned her chair around for the grand reveal!  Beautiful!

 

Princess Noelle with her biggest fan! (and her Daddy, of course!)

 

Next up, was Anna Kate’s turn for fairy dust and wishes from her fairy godmother, still with her back to the mirror!

 

One quick picture and then her fairy godmother asked if she was ready to see herself in the mirror, and she got ready.  Her little hands on top of each other melt my heart!

 

And there she is!  Princess Anna Kate!  Yay!  Beautiful sweetheart!

Pure bliss.

 

Priceless expressions!  Truly magical!

Noelle, Anna Kate, Rose, Carlee and Caroline had fun picking out their favorite princesses for these cute matching silhouette shirts over the summer!  The girls were so excited to see each other before Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique! 

But first things first, on Rose’s must-do list, was the carousel ride that goes “round and round!”

 

Noelle picked out a pony that fit her personality just right!  This beautiful carousel is the first thing you see when you leave the back of the castle.  See the castle in the background?  So cool!

   

Morning fun!

Then, we headed to Fantasyland for the tea cups and Dumbo!

The girls loved the tea cups floating in the bushes and Alice and her buddies pruned from ivy!

 

Rose thought she was getting away with something sneaky getting to walk on the bricks, can you tell, lol!?!  Noelle is my little model!  She loves for me to take pictures wherever we go, and I do too, so that’s how we roll!

Another Pond fam must-do; Mad Tea Party!  The tea cups were fun…

until the littles were in charge!

This was an in action shot that Mike took and is exactly how I felt and exactly how Rose felt, ha!

 

We were so excited to meet Alice and White Rabbit!  Alice was telling Anna Kate that she had a skirt that spins too!

Time for autographs!

 

I love how Rose was smiling and acting all shy and cute with White Rabbit.  Check out Anna Kate holding White Rabbit’s hand in the second picture!  All of the girls were so cute and excited!  So sweet!

   

We know Rose won’t remember much, but in the moment, she had such a blast!  This was a truly magical experience for her, and she loved being doted over, even though she had no clue who Alice was, lol!  She knew she looked nice and pretty, so she liked her!

 

I love this picture of Rose holding on for dear life; she is so dramatic!  Anna Kate was flying high!  My usually reserved kid was all about this ride!

These are my girls!  All them noticed the peanuts on the ground and started touching them and picking at them to figure out what was going on after the Dumbo ride!  Noelle was the one to notice how thematic even the trash bins were every where around the park!

While Rose was having her first melt-down (pre-nap), the big girls posed for one more group shot with Marion Clare, the Boyd girls’ friend from Arkansas!  Next up, nap time for Rose and Rara and BBB for the rest of us!

 

Since this is “The happiest cruise that ever sailed,” Noelle wanted to share it with you!  During our two and 1/2 days at Magic Kingdom, I think we rode “It’s A Small World” boat cruise through all of the countries in the world 4 times!  It was definitely the girls favorite ride, hands down.  Haunted Mansion and Soarin’ at Epcot were close seconds.  Noelle sat by me and told me what to take pictures of during our first cruise.  She said, “I want you to put all of these pictures on the blog when we get home so that I can remember everything and everyone can see how beautiful this is!”  So… that is what we did.  These pictures were carefully selected for you by Noelle and go in chronological order.  This was all her idea, and since it was our favorite ride, why not?  Enjoy Noelle’s favorite things from “It’s A Small World!”

 

  

 

 

It really is a small world after all! 

  

Here it is!  The day finally came for our girlies to see Cinderella’s castle at Magic Kingdom!  Noelle (7 1/2), Anna Kate (4 1/2), Rose (2 1/2)

Heck yes!  There is a moat!  I’ve always wondered and was hoping it wouldn’t be just park and concrete.  YAY!

 

I was surprised the balcony had fabric curtains on the outside of the castle! 

 

And then… to my surprise, my favorite part of the castle!  I was so excited it all just wasn’t a façade (I mean, I’m sure it is to some extent), but there are tons of little details to make it perfect, which, if you know me, is my dream world!  I love details!  When you walk into the main entrance (left picture), you walk through multiple groin ceilings that connect all the way through to the back of the castle.  OMG!  I’ve always wanted to see multiple groin ceilings in a row (weird wish, huh?  There’s a back story).  I’ve seen pictures of cathedrals and castles in Europe that have them but have never seen them in person.  It was a super big deal (the biggest deal of our house) to have a groin ceiling in the entryway.  One groin ceiling.  I love them!  The symbolism for us to have a groin ceiling in the entryway of our house is to represent our house being our place of worship as well/our dwelling place, where everyone who walks in can feel warm and welcome, the way we are supposed to feel about walking into a church too.  A little piece of history of the church, of detail, that was important to me to incorporate into our home.  Bringing beauty back into architecture.  So, to have this grand surprise today (that I’ve only seen in pictures) was a very huge deal.  This was my WOW moment!  And if you understood how hard it was to get this in our house, and what a feat it is to have multiple ones in a row, you would understand my excitement.  Maybe you do.  It’s incredible!

 

Below each archway, there are stain glass mosaics that tell the Cinderella story; icing on the cake!  To walk through, and tell the girls the fairy tale, with the mosaics as the medium, was amazing!  Their little minds were so busy putting it all together!  The story went in order from Cinderella cleaning for her stepmother all the way through to her riding off with the prince, and these were in line below the groin ceilings.  All the while we were walking, I was also explaining to them that before people could read and write, they passed down stories to their children through pictures, drawings.  As we were in Cinderella’s castle!  I thought this trip was going to be cute, but corny.  I’m sorry to you Disney lovers, but I thought it was just going to be super fun, but surface-level pretend stuff, and here we were walking through a history lesson with the best visuals for that lesson we could ever imagine!  And now they will never forget the art medium of mosaic tiles either.  Art and history, all wrapped up into a little girl’s fairy tale, on the walls of the most visited castle in the world! 

This is the second mosaic.  The picture on the right above, is the third.  And check out the columns… the little mice are carved out with buttons and bows!  I see this stuff in my world, and it’s usually not a good thing.  Normally, it’s a crack in the ceiling or litter on the side of the road, and the extra clutter drives my brain crazy, but today, it was absolutely beautiful! 

 

I guess since Disney was never an option in the past, I never looked up pictures about Disney online because one day, I knew I’d see it for myself; or hoped I would!  This is the back of the castle and the beautiful mosaic breezeway; I didn’t know what the back of the castle looked like.  It’s just as pretty as the front!  To the right of the breezeway, is the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and to the left, is the entrance to Cinderella’s restaurant (the stained glass windows above are where the tables are located for the character dining).  We would be there soon… but for now, on to Fantasyland!

 

So, after our first fun-filled day at Animal Kingdom, we hopped on a bus and headed to the Polynesian resort for our next super awesome dinner and show, The Spirit of Aloha!  We didn’t get to go back to our resort to change because it would have taken about 2 hours on the buses, so we brought our dinner clothes and changed once we got to the Polynesian.  The littles were really tired but once they gave us pretty leis and the dinner and show started, they got their second wind!

My mom’s favorite parts of the trip were walking through all of the countries at Epcot (more on that to come), and the beautiful gardens, flowers and landscaping everywhere we went.  She said that’s one of her favorite things wherever she goes.  I totally get that from her!  Mom and I like to get our hands dirty outside, so we appreciate the labor that goes into all of the beauty.  Our Rara (Rose Mary) is a part of that beauty too, even in her name!  I love you, sweet Mommy!!!

 

Our fam bam waiting in line for dinner to start! (we need dinner quick over here guys, lol)

And then, while we were in line outside of the outdoor theater, Noelle spotted Cinderella’s castle for the first time in her life, and she was sooo giddy! 

 

She spontaneously started running around all over the field with excitement!  I’ll never forget that special moment for her.  After one more sleep, we would see the castle from inside Magic Kingdom! 

 

We rented a double stroller from Orlando Stroller Rentals, and they delivered it to our resort the first day.  It made traveling a lot lighter and easier and was a life-saver while we were there! 

 

Excited little girls right here!

Hey there, cutie pie!

 

I love these sweet pictures with Cutie Kate!

Dinner time!  Check out these wonderful appetizer salads and fresh pineapple!  It was served family-style, and all you can eat.  So delicious!  There was no menu, and I love it when you don’t have to think about what you want and can just start eating!

Pineapple Princesses!

 

Before the big show got started, the Boyd and Pond girls wanted say hi!

The main entrée included pulled pork, ribs, rotisserie chicken, and a vegetable medley.  Everything was so soft and tender; I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!  This was probably my favorite entrée of our trip!

As everyone was finishing up dessert, the kids got to learn a little Hawaiian dance on the stage!

Rose is on the far left corner.  Can you spot her?  She was actually doing the little motions and dancing along!  So fun!

Then it was time for the big show!  It had a cute little narrative throughout the dance numbers and really great hula dancing!

The white balls the girls are holding were little jump rope type things they spun all around them.  It was cool!

 

Of course, the man eating fire was the grand finale!  He danced with fire for about 5 minutes and at the very end, he put out one side of his fire baton, lit his tongue with the other side (the fire was burning on his tongue) and then relit the other side with the fire from his tongue!  It was crazy!  He had everyone’s undivided attention!  After the show, we walked along a little beach to get back inside the resort.  Anytime there is a sandy beach near, kids are going to play in it!  Off to a little more late night shopping, pin trading and then showers!

 

Here’s Carlee taking care of our littles and helping them find the restroom.  So sweet!  I thought it was so funny that our girls ended up all lined up shopping in a row!  Again, check out the lady behind the counter.  Part of the magic here is that everyone is so nice and friendly and happy to be a part of Disney!

 

What a fun night!  I would’ve never thought we could have a night in Hawaii at Disney World, but that’s exactly what it felt like!  From Africa to Hawaii, all in one day… and the best is yet to come!

 

We were so excited when we walked into Animal Kingdom and saw the 14 story Tree of Life for the first time!  Wow!  What an adventure we were on, and it was just getting started!

Noelle’s cheer friend, Kinsley, and her brother, Crew, were at Disney the same time we were!  Their mom, Amy, and I were talking about having to miss the Halloween pep rally for cheerleading a few weeks prior, and I said, we’ll be at Disney, and she said they would be too!  As it turns out, we had planned to be at Animal Kingdom the same day, so we met up to do the Kilimanjaro Safaris together!  It was an awesome “play date” as the girls kept calling it!  Best play date ever!

Noelle and Kinsley having fun with African instruments.

Sometimes you’ve just gotta ROAR!  We look tough, huh?  Lol!

We loaded up in our decked out, really cute tourist bus and headed out on our adventure into the safari!

Yikes!

Rose was 100% focused on the animals!

This seems so much better than a zoo because they have so much space to move around, and it really does feel like they’re in their natural habitat.  While I was on that bus, I felt like we were driving through Africa.  They even had African music playing on the bus, like the beautiful kind with djembe drum beats from the Lion King.  Cool!

Flamingos!

Rose leaned over Rara and said, “Bye Mingos!” and waved goodbye to them.  She loves flamingos!

These guys were a little too close for comfort!  You can see how cute the little bus up ahead is and how they decked it out to look like it’s going on a safari adventure through Africa (we were on one just like it)!  There were many times during our tour the bus would go through water and over dips to give the ride the feel like we were on a road in Africa.  I mean, it really did feel like we were on a different continent! We all loved it!  This is a must-do if you go to Disney World.  We were so excited for the days to come but enjoyed every minute of our day at Animal Kingdom!

 

After some more instrument playing and posing in front of the Tree of Life, we got snacks and headed to our afternoon of shows!

It was so wonderful sharing all of these experiences with my mom!  With my health situation, when she comes to town back home, she is always watching the girls so that I can go to doctors.  It was so nice to have this time to just play with her!  Those of you that know my mom, know that she never sits still, so Disney was the perfect place for her to stay busy but not get into any productive projects like she’s good at doing!

 

Noelle posing with a cane the African woodcarver behind her carved and painted himself, and Rose kissing the lion carving from the Tree of Life Garden entrance.  I wish I lived in Rose’s head sometimes; No telling what she was thinking about this guy!

Isn’t this tree so cool!  You can see the life cycle of these gourd looking things that are hanging form the tree’s branches.  To the right bottom corner there are blooms, then a tiny gourd (don’t know what it’s called), and then mature ones all over the tree attached by these strings!  We got distracted by all of the cool detail in nature at this park.  We were touching everything to see if it was real and just admiring it all!  And this tree was no big deal, just tucked away behind the wood carver you saw above.  Amazing!  There’s no way you can ever see everything!  If you stand in one spot all day, you still can’t see everything they’ve put into that one spot.  It’s unbelievable!

 

Although everyone was getting sleepy, we made the most of it humoring ourselves, lol!

Sweet girl pulled me aside and asked for a picture right here in this spot because the letters behind her match her purple dress.  Precious!

Thankfully, my friend Keri took this picture during their show of The Lion King!  I’m so glad she did because I was so into the show, it didn’t even dawn on me to take a picture (weird, I know).  This is a must-see at Animal Kingdom as well!  The Safari and The Lion King and even Tusker House were all a huge hit!  Lots of people skip Animal Kingdom while they are at Disney World, but I would say, go for it!  It was a relaxing, super fun day!

This is what all the walking trails look like throughout Animal Kingdom.  It’s a tiny bit humid and cool because of the tall trees that cascade over one another to canopy the walkways.  This wasn’t in my mind at all what Disney World would look like before we got here.  I imagined a lot less foliage.  It seriously felt like a rain forest here too!  It is awesome these types of plants and trees will grow in Florida.

We met up with the Boyd family for a quick wardrobe change (haha) before our Hawaiian dinner at the Polynesian resort!  Here’s Noelle and Caroline talking and drawing about their day!

I love it when little girl friends hold hands!  It’s just the sweetest thing!  They don’t have a care in the world and are just enjoying their day together!  I wouldn’t be able to tell if this was Caroline or Carlee from behind, except that they had different colored bows and shoes on today, lol.  They are slow twins and look so much alike!  Anna Kate kept getting them confused at first.  It was so cute!  We were so excited to get to spend time with our Arkansas buddies!

 

Carlee was resting with her Daddy, while Anna Kate, Caroline, and Noelle posed for a quick picture before getting ready for dinner!  Rose got a good little nap in Sassy’s arms (Caroline and Carlee’s grandmother) on the bus ride over, but she’s about to have to wake up, because it’s luau time!

We planned our Disney trip with the Boyd family, and Keri and I put our heads together to plan some special times for the girls to meet up and have fun playing at Disney together!  Here are the girls posing with Donald Duck all together before our action-packed day at Animal Kingdom!  It was so great because we divided up during our days at the parks so that each family could go at our own pace (their girls are a little older than ours), but we met up at special times, and the girls loved chatting it up about their days!

When we walked into the Tusker House, this is what we saw!  It is located in the Africa section of Animal Kingdom, my favorite.  I could live in this section!  The buffet wraps around the entire room and includes literally every breakfast food you can imagine and then some!  They even had Krispy Kreme donuts.

But there was no time to eat; not yet!  Mickey surprised our room right off the bat with a lively instrument parade to start our morning!

 

Noelle and Rose jumped right in!

But Anna Kate wasn’t quite sure about all of the action!  I love this sweet picture of Anna Kate with her Daddy! (and Rara watching Rose and Noelle having fun together while Mickey enjoys the spotlight, ha!)

 

The mini Mickey Mouse waffles were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, all packed into one bite sized piece of heaven!

Anna Kate was starting to warm up to the characters, but once the food arrived, Rose was totally preoccupied!  If we had gone to Disney when Anna Kate was 2, these meals would’ve been disastrous!  Anna Kate used to have a fear of anything dressed up in a costume when she was Rose’s age, especially the Chick-fil-A cow.  If the cow would come anywhere near our table at CFA, she used to panic and jump into my arms, but they don’t phase Rose.  Not much does!  It’s so interesting to watch their little personalities interact with the world around them, each so special and unique in their own little ways!

The only thing I knew about Disney 6 months ago is that there is a castle with princesses, there’s a big giant ball at Epcot, they have an animal park with a big tree, a Hollywood themed park with a big blue hat, and there is a ride called, “It’s a Small World After All!”  Other than that, I was pretty much clueless.  But, thankfully, lots of friends helped me out during our planning and told me that we had to get autograph books for each of the girls for all of the characters to sign as we meet them throughout our vacation.  I thought that was pretty cool, but once I found out that if you went 30 years ago or if you go 30 years from now, each character’s autograph will be the same, I was like, "Wow!  This is so neat!”  We can take our grandchildren someday, and anticipate the same signature.  Disney has lots of traditions to be/feel a part of; that’s what makes it so special to each generation.  I’m getting it! 

 

Mickey and Rara are so cute together with their matching scarves and khaki!!!  Another super fun tradition and something we really got into is pin trading!  I ordered our Disney pins off of eBay and once we got to Disney, we began trading.  You can trade with anyone, but the staff have to give any pin on their lanyard that a child wants, up to 2 per child.  So, we were always on the lookout for lanyards with princess pins.  We got a Daisy Duck pin, and that’s what the girls are showing her in this picture.  They were so proud to share that with her.  And this moment will be forever attached to that sweet little colorful pin.  For the rest of our days at Disney, we were constantly trading pins in between rides and shows and of course, dining!  It was like a scavenger hunt for pretty sparkly things.  We loved it and if you go to Disney, I would highly recommend participating!  That was one of my favorite activities!

 

I think Daisy met her match with these girls!

 

Rose was SO excited to see Goofy!  He’s definitely her favorite!  We even traded two goofy pins for Rose she spotted during our trip! 

A match made in heaven, lol!

Goofy’s whiskers made it all better!  Anna Kate was very stand-offish with the characters until Goofy said she could touch his whiskers, and then it was all fun and games!

Heading into the streets of Africa!

Right off the bat, Noelle got picked to do an African dance with the drummers on the streets of Africa!  The djembes were so loud and rhythmic, you couldn’t help but dance to the beats, and Noelle was in her element, of course!

 

After feeling like we were walking down a street in Africa, from street carvers to food stands, next stop, Kilimanjaro Safaris!

 

1900 Park Fare was one of our favorite meals, for sure!  Most of the pictures speak for themselves, but there are a few cute stories I’ll chime in along the way.

Anna Kate was sliding over the chairs to get to the other side of the table to meet Cinderella’s step mother.  When the step mother saw her climbing over the chairs, she said, “You must walk around.  We musn’t hit our heads!”  Anna Kate was so confused, so she grabbed her by the hand and led her around all of the tables back to her chair.  It was so cute!  Anna Kate told me today that she almost started crying.  She said I was smiling so she wouldn’t be mean to me anymore!  Aww, the stepmother was just doing a cute little bit, but Anna Kate wasn’t quite old enough to see the humor in it.  I just told Anna Kate, she was chosen for a skit and it was all in fun! 

Noelle was chatting it up with Cinderella’s prince, and the whole time they were talking, he had his arm around Rose.  So sweet!

There was so much going on, I almost missed this moment!  My mom quickly said, “Melissa, look at this!” and I spun around and saw Rose hugging the Prince.  So sweet!

My tip for this table service meal happened by accident for us as well.  We didn’t account for having to change buses twice to get to the Grand Floridian, so we were late to our already late reservation.  Disney is very understanding about not being perfectly punctual to meals because it’s a theme park and things happen.  I wish I wouldn’t have stressed out about that.  Anyway, we were one of the last families of the night to be seated, so we got lots of special attention because the restaurant wasn’t packed out with people.  It was awesome!  So, if you guys are night owls, I’d recommend making late night dinner reservations for character dining.  It worked out really great for us!

I think it’s funny all of the girls want to hold Cinderella’s hand to dance, but she’s got her eyes on that cute little boy in front of her!

 

Noelle was SO excited to meet the Prince!  She wanted to dance with him so badly!  That was one of her Disney wishes that came true!  I love how the buffet hostess in the back left-hand side of the picture to the right has her hands clasped and is enjoying the magical moment with us!  All of the Disney staff (cast members) are wrapped up in the beauty of dreams and family time.  That was one of my favorite parts; everyone around us was for us, ya know?  It’s like they were cheering for our family to have as much fun together as we possibly could.  That’s neat and helped me relax and take in all of the special moments, like this one!

 

Noelle started getting into all of the acting!  For the rest of the week, she wanted to do whatever the characters were doing!  So fun!

Noelle told Anastasia Rara was her grandmother and Anastasia said, “Cinderella has a fairy godmother!  Will you be my fairy godmother?” 

When my mom said, “Of course!” she announced to the restaurant she finally found a fairy godmother! 

 

Posing with Drizella!

Special Cinderella moment with Anna Kate.  Precious!

 

  

Noelle and Rose danced their little hearts out! 

And they rode home happily ever after in their horse-drawn carriage (although it almost turned into a pumpkin)!

I’d call our first full day at Disney a huge success!

 

After a day of swimming and resting, we got all dressed up to go have dinner with Cinderella, her Prince, stepmother, and stepsisters!

Beautiful Anna Kate!

 

Beautiful, sweet baby Rose!  She was so wound up and crazy while we were getting dressed, I did her hair to fit her personality.  It made us all laugh because it was so perfectly Rose!  She loved it too!

 

My beautiful Mom was ready for whatever our week would hold!  She’s so amazing and strong; I’m so proud she’s my mommy!  She and I were posing at the bus stop that we would call home this week, ha (are we home yet, we’d say when looking for our stop)!  I had no idea how much time we would spend on the Disney buses getting to and from the parks and other resorts.  It was a lot!  No one had ever mentioned the Disney bus system to me, so I didn’t really get it until we got there how much riding around we’d be doing.  It’s just part of it!

 

The girls were so excited to be at Disney with their Daddy; their hero!  Noelle said the thing she loved the most about Disney was, “All our family time and the love that we share!”  That was the first thing she said that was her favorite Disney memory.  Spending time together, 24/7 playing and just taking in all the beauty was awesome! 

Florida is so lush and green!  At our resort, there was greenery everywhere!  It looked like we were walking along paths in a rain forest to get to the bus.  We loved all the nature walks to and from the bus!  The girls were so excited to spot this squirrel on our walk to the bus tonight!  Anna Kate thought it was either “Chip” or “Dale.”  He looks very different from our Texas squirrels.  His face is much cuter, and he looks so friendly, like a little character himself!  I’m telling you, there are little surprises around every corner at Disney, and the kids’ imaginations were our guide the entire time! 

My beautiful Cinderella wedding princess!

  

The Pond princesses showed up in style to take Disney by a storm of bling and sparkles!