Disney World - Trip #2 for 2007

We're off to see Mickey! We left the Saturday after Thanksgiving and returned the following Friday. Sandy's off to vacation too! How many birthday celebrations will Mia have for her 5th birthday? Countless!!! Here she is on stage at The Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show. They had all the people who were celebrating their birthday to go on stage. We sang "Happy Birthday" to everyone.
The wet rat.....she played at the resorts water area where the water shoots back and forth through spouts in the ground. We came back to the room and what did she find?

Balloons and a Happy Birthday card from Cinderella!Here she is at The Rainforest Cafe. This was a neat place to eat.
Here she is celebrating at The Crystal Palace where Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet were.

And again at Planet Hollywood.

Autographs! Autographs! Autographs! She was on a mission to get autographs. The only problem was that if the character wasn't a princess she didn't want to go get the autograph by herself. She hesitated. We ended up with 2 autograph books filled with different characters.

Snow White and Dopey....she didn't care for Dopey.

Jimmney Cricket! Of all the years that I've been to Disney, I don't recall seeing him.
I love this picture.....We were by the hidden story area where Belle re-tells her tale of Beauty and The Beast. As you can see, we weren't paying much attention to the story!

The castle at night....another favorite!! I'd never been to Disney when it was decorated for Christmas. All the decorations and Christmas trees were awesome.


How many times can you be a part of a Disney show while celebrating your Birthday? LOTS!

Here we are at Playhouse Disney. Mia was picked to go by the stage and make a gorilla sound while beating her chest. I think she looked at the girl like she was crazy......it didn't happen...BUT, Mia did get a Playhouse Disney DVD for participating.

Here she is at Hollywood Dine & Vine with Jo Jo. Not sure what they are dancing to but she had a good time.
Another birthday celebration with a cake!!
The Christmas Parade at MGM.



Cruella looked straight at Mia and with her wicked voice and said "Happy Birthday Mia" (she had her HBday button on so Cruella knew her name). It was funny!

Here comes Santa Claus. She wanted his autograph but didn't want to go see him.
This was cool....MGM had a block of lights show where the entire block was decorated with lights and snow would fall. When music was played the lights would dance to the beat of the music and turn off and on.
Blizzard Beach!!! It was warm enough that one day we spent the day at the water park. Here's Mia on the child waterslide. She loved going down on her innertube and back up again....over and over...we had to convince her that they had other things to do at this park.


Going down another slide.

The BIG CURVY slide.....look how big the innertube is next to her...you can hardly see her!
Here she comes down the slide.......
Ryan followed.......They did this at least 10 times before moving to something else.
At the wave pool.



This was at Downtown Disney. The closest she will probably ever get to the characters that are not princesses.....statutes!

This was really neat looking.
Happy Holidays!!!
The Bibbidi Bobbiti Boutique transformed Mia from this to...........


THIS! in about an hour.

Front
Back
Once she got her hair done, nails polished and make-up on, we were off the lunch with the princesses at Epcot.

Here she is with Ariel.
Sleeping Beauty.


Pocohontas

Jasmine
Alice
And then she turned into a Vicking with her dad at Norway.
This was at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. We stayed in the park until after midnight at the party.


Mia being a part of The Lion King at the Animal Kingdom. She was chosen to have our part of the audience make the noise of a giraffe.

The Crystal Palace breakfast.


Mia and Ryan on Thunder Mountain Railroad. She wanted to ride this over and over....it was a fast roller coaster. I thought she'd be scared but she wasn't......she even went to the Haunted House...said she didn't like it but she didn't cry or say she was scared. Click the picture to enlarge it.....Ryan has his arm sticking up and you can see Mia next to him.

Jerusalem Shriners Circus

The day after Thanksgiving we've been going to the circus since the year Mia turned 1 year old. We've had the same seats for the past 3 years, row 2, center ring. This year was no different.

Here's Mia with one of the Shriners hats. Lots of dancers
Tigers did a lot of tricks. One jumped through a loop of fire.

The lady did all sorts of tricks with hula hoops. She probably had about 7 going at one time here.
A full body hula-hoop-athon.
The elephants.....boy did they stink!
Mia and Kaitlin at the end of the show.

Thanksgiving Feast

Mia's Thanksgiving Feast was Friday. Some of the class were Pilgrims and others were Indians. As you can see, Mia was an Indian. They made their headbands, necklaces, drums and helped with their pillow case outfits.

They paraded in and out of the K-5th grade classrooms making noise and then had a feast in their classroom afterwards.

Here's Mia....nice background huh? Mia with her drum, Thanksgiving placemat, and hand decorated table cloth.
Here she is following Davis and Samuel is behind her while parading down the hall to another classroom.
Outside walking on the crosswalk to the next building .

Beating her drum.
Cracking up because all the parents and teachers were telling them to make as much noise as they could.
The Feast.
The class of Pilgrims and Indians. She's right in the middle of the tribe.

Egg Shells needed for OLL Confetti Eggs

Confetti eggs are a huge hit during OLL's school fair. If you are an egg eater and have the time to save your egg shells, please do!

How do you prepare the shells?
1. Carefully pierce a tiny hole in the top of the egg with a needle or ice pick. Turn the egg over and using the ice pick or the tip of a steak knife, make another hole about the size of a dime or quarter.
2. Blow gently into the first pierced hole, forcing the raw egg out into your bowl.
3. Gently rinse out the shell and allow to dry. When dry, store them into an empty egg carton and write Mia's name on the carton.

Thanks!!

Dance Preview Day

On Wednesday, parents were able to sit in the dance classes to see what the dancers have learned so far this year. Here's Ms. Ballet practicing her steps. At the bar doing 1st through 5th positions.
Mia with Ms. Jen, her teacher, on her toes doing her twirls.
Ms. Tap...I think she's taking after my dad (Pa) with folding her tongue in her mouth. My dad would stick his tongue out while working on something or doing his wood work. She use to do this when she was little and I guess started it again.

Trick or Treat at the Howards

For the past 3 years we've been invited to Michelle's house for hot dogs and chili before heading out to trick or treat. Here's Michelle and Mia waiting for Kaitlin.

Fred and Wilma a.k.a. Mike and Louise dress up every year for Halloween.

Lynn Meadows Discovery Center - Gulfport, MS

Mia's class had a field trip to Lynn Meadows Discovery Center on Halloween. LMDC is just like the Children's Museum but I think it's even better....everything works, nothing is broken and they have an outside play area with picnic benches to eat lunch.

Here's Mia ready to get on the bus for the long ride to Gulfport, MS.Here are the 3 Pre-K classes that went on the field trip together. Can you see Mia?Waiting for the Pilot to take her seat and taxi us down the run way.Here's Ryan shining Mia's shoes in the Barber section. Mia working the register with Alexis while me and Rachel shop in the grocery store.Frank and Mary Claire....a.k.a. Angelina and Mia doing the news and food segment at LMDC-TV.
Mia working the camera at the TV station.
Kayaking...they had a tv in front of her so she could see herself paddle or look while she was working the rapids.
Here she is trying to touch the button to make the ball go back down. Air was shooting out of the black spout and lifted the ball up into the air.
This was neat. It was a 3 story enclosed area that the kids could walk, jump and hop to teh different platforms that were not alway connected. You couldn't fall out because they had the steel mesh connectors that surrounded the area.

Dressing up for High Tea.The ticket lady giving tickets for the train.
All aboard!! Here we are taking a train ride.
This is the outside area....they had tree houses built around large oak trees, a cabin, train and stream with a flatboat.
Mia and Emberlynn in the flat boat at the end of the stream.
Up in one of the treehouses.

Here's Mia's class with Ms. Parris and Ms. Cheryl at the end of the day.
Mia loved this crane. They all took turns spinning the wheels and making the crane go up and down, back and forth.
Back on the school bus for the ride home. All the parents were praying that they would take a nap and be ready for trick or treating later that night. Sure enough, most fell asleep. They got back to school an hour before dismissal. Here's Mia and Corryn sharing a seat on the bus.

When they got back to school, Belle from Disney World came to read a book to the class before they left for the day. Everyone wanted to hug Belle before she left.