Disney - Day #1

For Christmas this year, Matt and I decided to forgo buying a ton of toys for the kids and to instead spend our Christmas money on something better - time together as a family.  No technology, no outside friends or family, no distractions - just us.  That being said, for Christmas we gave the kids a weekend trip to Disney World!  When we last year for LL's 6th birthday and Cooper's first trip, it was literally one of the best vacations of my life.  While we gave this to the kids for Christmas, we didn't actually go to the park over Christmas.  Christmas is a super busy time of the year for Disney World.  We looked at the crowd calendar and decided to go in early January when the crowds were supposed to be much less.  We actually ended up going over the same weekend that we did last year.  Our plan was: leave Saturday, do park on Sunday, come home on Monday.  This way we go the least crowds possible with missing only one day of school/work.

On the road and Disney bound!

We're here!!

We got to the resort a little early for check-in (we stayed at the All-Star Movies this time), so we took the kids to play on the playground while we waited for our room to get ready.  Honestly, this was the best thing ever.  After being cooped up in the car for 4 hours, giving the kids time to run and play was perfect.  The kids got to play for about 40 minutes before we got the text that our room was ready!

I absolutely love this of them.

We left the playground and headed to our room.  We stayed in they Toy Story section!  Running to R.C....

Matt left to go get our stuff out of the car, and the kids and I walked around and explored the Toy Story area.  They loved all the huge Woody and Buzz stuff!

While I was taking pictures of the kids, a worker from the hotel stopped and asked if I wanted to be in a picture with them.  This is why I love staying on property!

They loved the big Buzz because they could actually get up close and touch him.

Our room.  It was much smaller that the suite that we were used to at Art of Animation, but we decided not to spend the extra money for that since we were going to be spending such a small amount of time in our room.

We changed clothes and got ready for our big dinner adventure - dinner reservations at the T-Rex cafe!

Last year we took the kids to the Rainforest Cafe.  This year we decided to do the T-Rex Cafe.  It was even more exciting as Cooper has started to really fall in love with dinosaurs over the past few months!  We got seated in the "underwater" section and we were right next to a huge fish tank.  It was awesome!

LL is getting really good at taking pictures!

Cooper was a tad overwhelmed.  There was a lot to look at!  He spent quite a few minutes just like this soaking it all in.

LL was showing us the face that Cooper was making - haha.

Cooper got shrimp for dinner (his fav!) and LL got awesome dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets!

Inside the T-Rex gift shop, they have this Build-A-Bear that's all dinosaurs.  For Christmas, the kids got some money from lots of different family members specifically for this trip.  It was dubbed "Mickey Money" and each kid knew that once they spent their money, the toys were done.  They both wanted to spend some of their "Mickey Money" to make their own dinosaur!  

LL picked a mammoth and Cooper picked a T-Rex.

They both loved putting the hearts inside and then watching them get stuffed!

Loving on his T-Rex.

This picture absolutely melts my heart.  Cooper picked out some clothes for his T-Rex, and instead of just putting them on really quickly, Matt took the time to take Cooper over to the "dressing room" and do it over there.  It was just innocent and sweet and just melted my heart.  My kids have the best Daddy.

Ready for bed!

I got a fit-bit for Christmas and I was interested in seeing how much we walked over the weekend.  On our first day, after 4+ hours in the car, we still managed to walk 3 miles!  And the kids did all of that, too!  We didn't take the stroller into Disney Springs, so they were troopers and walked just as much as we did!

Sleeping sweetly with dreams of Disney World!

Up Next: A fun-filled super packed day at the Magic Kingdom!