Disney Cruise Part 2: Onboard Daytime Fun

Right away Teagan wanted to go see the famous kids club.  He had been talking about the Monster's Inc room forever and was so excited to see it!  They had an open house that first afternoon so Eloise got to go in the 3-11 year old club and play too.

They have a Toy Story room that has life size characters from the movie.  All the pieces for Mr. Potato Head were removable, Eloise thought it was awesome.

Toy Story is one of Teagan's favorite movies so he was loving it!  (In this picture you can see into the main room where they did group activities, they have a floor that is made of a bunch of interactive screens, it was really cool.

Teagan loved the computers in the kids club.  He constantly begged to get dropped off there during the day, which worked out nicely for us.  We had plenty of family time so it was nice that he wanted to get dropped off so we could go to shows or movies periodically in between the family stuff.  

Eloise was not a fan of getting dropped off at the nursery, poor girl would scream when I dropped her off, but usually stopped about 30 seconds later.  After a week of getting dropped off she is SUPER clingy.  She doesn't want me to be out of her sight.  As much as I love the snuggling, it's getting a little difficult to get things done with a baby hanging on my leg.

She did love meeting all of the characters, every time she saw one (which was quite often) she would point at them and run to them, it was so cute.

She even let Goofy hold her.

Teagan refused a picture with Minnie Mouse at first, so we said he didn't have to.  As we were about to leave he burst into tears because he wanted a picture with her, he got really close and personal with her, lol!  Lack of sleep at it's finest.

There were lots of times we just ran into characters and only got a quick blurry picture.

Then there were times when we waited in line for 20 minutes and still got a blury picture...

They had a princess gathering where you could meet 5 princesses.  I did not want to be in these pictures, but the characters whose face were showing really scared Eloise, go figure.  She was not excited about the gathering at all.

The princesses did love her though, they were delighted to see her cute little self.

Teagan's favorite character (at the moment that I was making t-shirts for the trip) was Donald Duck so we had to make sure to meet him.

Donald Duck is #1!!

Zac and Teagan were playing mini golf and Max was too, they had to get a picture.

Mini golf was at the back of the boat on the top deck so it was really windy, not friendly on long hair.  I left the golfing to the men (and Teagan).

The boat was beautiful, we loved just walking around.  They had an onboard detective game.  In the game you had to collect clues from the magic picture frames.  They looked like a normal picture, but when you held a special card in front of it, they came to life and became little interactive games.  We solved the mystery of the missing puppies and one about the muppets.  I didn't get any pictures of Teagan, dang!  He was a super star at it.

They had these tile murals all over the place that were beautiful!!  They have a whole line of bathrooms whose walls are intricate tile designs from top to bottom.  I loved looking at them!

A scene from Finding Nemo completely made out of tiny tiles.  It was amazing!

Walt Disney!  

We had fun at the splash pads, pools, and waterslides, but I never had my camera for those activities so we have no record that they ever happened.

Here are the kids on their way to the pool though.  

Things not pictured; mini golf, Zac playing basketball with a bunch of 10 year olds at the sports court, Ellie's nursery, the view from our verandah, the buffet, the kids eating ice cream (this happened so often, I can't believe I don't have a single picture of it), us at our 3D movie of OZ, and so much more that we got to enjoy on our days at sea.

Our Disney Fantasy Cruise! Part 1: Getting There

We were so lucky to be invited on a Disney Cruise with Grandma and Grandpa Durtschi.  We knew about it for over a year and had a blast looking forward to and planning for it.  It will probably take several posts to get all the fun pictures up.

I was really concerned about the long flights and travel days, but the kids ended up doing great.  There were definitely tantrums and difficult moments, but they never lasted too long.  They each had an iPad to entertain them so I don't know why I was so concerned.  

We stayed at a hotel in Orlando and Teagan was ready to go straight to the pool.  He was swimming by himself because the water was pretty cold and Grandpa jumped in the pool wearing all of his clothes and surprised us all.  Teagan thought it was so hilarious and loved having company in the pool.

Later that night after the Lewis and Kauffman families arrived everyone went swimming again.  Zac was the hero and got into the freezing water with the kids.

Teagan was too cold so he decided to just pull the pool chairs next to the water and watch.

The next morning our group of 29 got on a bus that took us to the Port.  We were all so excited!  It was a blast!

Eloise didn't know what all the fuss was about so she just took a catnap.

Teagan, on the other hand, had watched several you tube videos and knew all about the fun he had coming his way and was about as hyper as I've ever seen him.

She got so excited when she saw Mickey and Minnie and was loving all the action.

This was our beautiful ship that we got to board.  It was so enormous!  This picture was actually taken when we were at our port stop at the Cayman Islands.

The closest we got to a family picture, all in our awesome matching T-shirts.  Each shirt had a number on the back that represented the order that we joined the family.  We were 8, 17, 21, and 30.  

So Grown Up

I was tied up with Eloise so Teagan went ahead and made his own lunch. Peanut butter and jelly pancake and a baby orange. I'm proud of him, he is a go getter!

Teagan logic

Teagan: "Mom, I just wanted to come inside so I made up some essuses (excuses) for my friends. I do it all the time. i just tell them I have to go inside to grab something and then never go back outside. After a while they'll go home."

Me: "Why don't you just tell them you're done playing?"

Teagan: "Well they just whine and stuff, it's so much easier to just make essuses."

He's learned the art of avoiding conflict, can't imagine who he learned that from...

Good ideas gone bad

We are going on a cruise in a few weeks so I broke out the baby leash to try it out...Eloise thought it was fun at first, then it suddenly was absolute torture. I think we'll leave the leash home. :)

Monster

These two are cute. Eloise watches Teagan build and patiently waits. Then he says "oh no! The monster is coming" and then hands it to her to brake. She loves watching him and he loves having a playmate, a match made in heaven, literally. :)

Sweet boy

I'm going to print off my blog for our scrapbook so I'm trying to write less and use more pictures, but this little story needs to be documented.

It's slightly incriminating, but given my track record as a loving mom and my extremely repentant heart I believe it's safe to share.

I was chatting with a friend who was having a rough day and offered to give them dinner, what I made for us was plenty for our two small families. The kids were playing and I didn't want the food to get cold so I figured I'd run the food to her house and just leave the kids home.. She lives just around the corner and Zac was on his way home so I wasn't too concerned.

Teagan is amazing with Eloise, always keeping a watchful eye out for her. He has noticed her chewing on some random something and fished it out of her mouth before I even got there.

Anyway, I gave him all the directions; stay inside, don't answer the phone or door.

I was probably gone for 4-5 minutes and you can imagine my surprise when I pull into the driveway and Teagan is holding Eloise as he walks down the driveway waving to me. She was barefoot in a little dress and he was in a t-shirt and barefoot as well. After I got over the initial shock and said a prayer of thanks thAt they weren't kidnapped or run over I asked Teagan why he didn't stay in the house.

"I wanted to make sure we got out okay in case the house started on fire."

Such a responsible little guy, such a good good boy, maybe not the best idea, but definitely the best intentions.

These pictures were taken before church today, Teagan was really in the mood to model. :)