Birthday celebrations and Disney World!

Well...Audrey is now 6 years old!! I can't believe it! Where does the time go? We had planned on renting a bounce house for her birthday (we've done this a few years in a row) but, the weather forced us inside. I think we've had about 6 weekends of rain here in the Atlanta area! Why can't it rain during the week? We had about 28 people total at the party...and despite being indoors, it was a lot of fun! The kids took turns playing the Wii and then Audrey opened gifts and we had lots of cake and ice cream. Audrey had a great day finished off by getting to spend the night at Angaw & Nanaw's house all be herself!

As part of Audrey's birthday celebration, we decided to take the kids to Disney World. As you may know, Disney is offering free park admission on your birthday. We had originally planned to take the kids for Spring Break, but when we realized that Audrey's birthday was a few days before spring break started, we decided to let the kids miss a couple of days of school. We checked them out the day before Audrey's birthday and headed down to Orlando. We arrived around 6:30 and got checked in to our hotel. We stayed at The Port Orleans Riverside Resort. They offered a free ferry boat ride to Downtown Disney! We took the Ferry over for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and strolled Downtown Disney before heading to the hotel for bed. The kids were great on the ride down (thanks to a couple of blockbuster rentals!!) and were anxious to check out the parks!

We got up bright and early on Thursday (April 2 -- Audrey's b-day) and headed over to the Magic Kingdom. Audrey was surprised at how many people wished her a Happy Birthday! We had a blast that morning...the girls loved riding the "coffee cups" (That's what Amy called them!) and loved the Dumbo ride and Cinderella's Carousel. Afternoon led us to Epcot for our Princess Storybook Lunch. We ate at Arkeshus Castle in Norway and got to meet 5 princesses!! We had our portrait made with Belle and then Aurora, Ariel, Snow White, and Cinderella came by our table for pictures. It was extra special to meet Cinderella as she is not guaranteed to be at the Storybook Lunches! We were happy to see her! After lunch we headed back to the hotel for Audrey to have a little more birthday fun.....SWIMMING! It was the first time she got to swim ON her birthday! She loved it...even though it was a little chilly by then! After that, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. By then, the days activities had worn the kids out....as a matter of fact, when the cast members came around to sing "Zip a Dee Doo Dah" to Audrey, she had no expression on her face!! She didn't even smile. When they told her to blow out the candles, she just pushed the plate away! It was hilarious. I must admit, there was a lot of excitement packed in to one day!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were park hoppers! We visited Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom and also went back to the Magic Kingdom. The kids had tons of fun (and we did too!) We got to see several characters and had pictures made with Donald, Goofy, and Mickey & Minnie! Saturday we spent the morning/afternoon at the pool and went to Magic Kingdom for the nightly fireworks show Wishes. On Monday, our last day, we went back to the Magic Kingdom to ride the coffee cups and Dumbo again. We had lots of fun and were so glad that we had several days of spring break left to recover from the trip!

Girls just wanna have fun....

...and a TON of fun was had this weekend!! Emma had 3 little girls come over friday night for a sleepover as part of her birthday party. The girls watched movies, played dress-up, sang songs, danced, made cookies, and stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG!!! I went to bed around 11:45 and woke-up around 2:45 and thought I should check on the girls. When I went to Emma's room, I found Emma asleep and the other girls playing a game. They said Emma had just fallen asleep. I told them they could keep playing...as long as the played quietly. I didn't need Audrey & Amy waking up in the middle of the night! A couple of hours later (I think!) I awoke to loud laughter from ALL the girls (Emma must have just taken a short nap!) and the sound of footsteps all through the house. I'm not sure what the girls were up to, but I quickly got up and asked them to keep it down!! Then....around 5 o'clock, I was gently brought out of my slumber by one of the girls tapping me on the shoulder. This time, they wanted to know if they could go swimming!!! At 5 o'clock in the morning!!!! Of course I said no but told them they were more than welcome to watch a movie or play a game. The next time they woke me up was around 7 asking for a snack. I finally pulled myself out of bed around 7:45 and helped them make some muffins around 8:30. One of the little girls finally crashed on the couch around 8 o'clock and got a 2 hour nap. The girls all had a blast and I never knew so much laughter could come from one group of girls! I really enjoyed it (even though I didn't get much sleep) because I got to see how sweet Emma and her friends are to each other. Saturday afternoon a few more girls came over for the pool party. The pool temperature was around 83 degrees, but from all the swimming the kids did, you would have thought it was much warmer! It took a good bit of convincing to get them to come into the house when it was time for presents and cake! Emma got lots of Hannah Montana things and I think she ended up with 6 new Webkinz!! Her guitar cakes were a hit and after cake & ice cream the party was pretty much over. Some kids went home, some stayed and swam a little longer. Audrey and Amy decided to go home with Angaw & Nanaw to spend the night. Emma invited 2 of her friends (from church) to spend the night that night but only one decided to stay. Sara and Emma played for hours doing crafts and singing together. Emma's fun from the night before finally caught up to her around 10 and she started dozing off!! It was right about that time that Sara started getting a "tummy-ache" and wanted to call her daddy. Sara isn't much for sleepovers and I was really surprised she lasted as long as she did! Her poor Dad drove all the way from McDonough to Newnan to pick her up!! (It took him about an hour to get here!) As luck would have it Sara fell asleep about 15 minutes before he arrived!!! It was a bit difficult to get her up this morning. I think it will take her a few days to fully recover. Sadly, I think it might take me about 2 weeks!!! But what can I say?? Girls just wanna have fun!!! :)