Disney Magic!!!

It was 130 days away when Madelyn asked for a countdown calendar!

And it finally came!!!!

I have to admit that I was just as excited (if not more) than the girls for this trip!

It was a 'little girls' trip only.

The big kids have had their 'own' fun, and it was their turn!

They faithfully crossed off a day each morning for 130 days counting down!

Here's some of what I did in preparation for the trip...

My cousin tipped me off to this awesome site, missmorgandesigns.com 
that had these cute Disney iron ons! Fun, and inexpensive!

Speaking of inexpensive...

I had a blast finding these Disney toys at a 2nd hand store, washing them and surprising the girls at Disney World with them!

I actually ended up with a ton of them!

The girls got 2 'souvenirs' each day we were there....and I bought them all for only $14!

I love finding ways to do things cheaper!  

To add a bit more magic, I printed this up and had it 'arrive' the day before we left...

I tell you they screamed louder than Christmas morning when they saw that Mickey Mouse had sent them a letter! SO. MUCH. FUN.

Finally, the Magical Day arrived!

(And wouldn't you know it...I didn't sleep a wink. Not a single minute of sleep came my way! Not really because of the excitement, just Murphy's Law--many forces fighting against me at once!)

We got the girls up at 6:00am, and headed to the airport!

These two were so exited and cute!

And they were angels on the flight...letting Brian and I sleep. Thank you!

 

Madelyn loved the towel creation..."Take my picture with the Mickey towel!"

We dropped our bags off at the hotel and hopped on a bus to head over to the parks!

All the excitement wore poor Ashlyn out!

EPCOT!

My little cuties.

We had lunch at the German Biergarten.  

As soon as the band started playing, Madelyn jumped up- "Daddy, lets dance!"

They had a good time.

We saw a princess while at Epcot.

Sleeping beauty.

And spotted Mary Poppins in England!

Such a fun time with these two girls!

Mickey and Minnie were a hit!

Minnie liked the girls shirts, and the bows in their hair.

After we played at Epcot, we hopped on the Monorail and headed over to the Polynesian Resort for The Spirit of Aloha luau.

Aloha!

Somehow we lucked out and got front row seats! The girls thought that was awesome!

We enjoyed the food, the company, and the show!

The girls were captivated by all the different dances.

And then there's this little girl...

She loves to dance, sing, or perform in any way. They asked all the children celebrating their birthdays in September to come up to the stage. Her birthday is in June, but she saw a chance to get up on stage and she ran for it!

And in between performances she gave us her own show.

The fire dancer was the highlight for the show!

As Ashlyn said, "He is SO Awesome!"

 

"Look mom! We are picking his nose!"

Originally we had planned to head back to Epcot and watch the light show. But after the early morning, myself having not slept at all the night before, and the excitement of the day, we made the right choice of heading back to the hotel. To rest up for another day of magic tomorrow!

School Started

School has been in a month now.... wow, I'm behind.

 Hayden is our only child going to Public School this year!

He is in 10th grade and enjoying the High School life.

He is on the Yearbook staff, and excited to have input into this years book (Although we still haven't seen last years yet!).

Everyone else is enjoying Homeschool!

My original plan was to start school after Labor Day. BUT, after Hayden and the whole neighborhood went off to school-we felt a little bored. So, we started two days later!

 My dinning room has turned into our 'school room'.

 We have 'school stations' set up, and things are going pretty smoothly.

 I pull these plates out sometimes for the kids 'school lunch'.

Here's some of what we've been doing this past month:

 Built models of shelters a nomad might of lived in.

 Duncan had a blast with his 'mud shelter'!

 We took a field trip to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in D.C.

(D.C. is great for free museums!)

We made a model of the 'Nile River Delta'. Although their delta was pretty narrow, it worked!

 We threw in some grass seed, and it gets 'flooded' every Monday.

The grass is flourishing right now!

(They've enjoyed this.)

 We've taken walks around the lake by our house, gone fishing, fed ducks, and just enjoyed the beautiful fall weather!

Archeology dig:

 

We learned about the different earth layers, how archeologists put close together to tell the story of how people lived, and then did some digging ourselves.

 The kids recorded their findings in their 'Archeology Journals'.

This face is saying "History was a lot more fun today than I thought it would be!"

 We studied Mesopotamia and Cuneiform writing. Then did some of our own writing on clay tablets.

It was a hit!

 This little pre-schooler has been working on writing her letters, and reading. We are doing How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons, and she is loving it and doing great!

I think Morgan's favorite part of homeschooling is staying in her pajamas!

 We've had a few laid back mornings where school looked like this.

And then there is Duncan....

 Who is up at 6:00am every morning and ready to get started!

I found him in this spot when I sleepily came downstairs one morning.

Studying Egypt and making sugar cube Pyramids. 

They were upset with me because we used GLUE and NOT frosting to stick the cubes together! 

I told them I planned it that way....so they wouldn't come back and EAT their Pyramids later!

(Like we NEED to add that much sugar to our diets!)

This is one of my favorite parts of homeschooling though....

 The time they get to spend together!

School is done before lunch each day (sometimes even earlier), and they have time to hang out, play board/card games together, or just enjoy the beautiful weather outside!

I sent them all outside to play last week at 11:45 while I made lunch. It was so beautiful out, and they were all having such a great time together, that I didn't call them in. They finally got hungry at 2:00 and found their way back inside. I just loved watching them out there!

So far so good....hopefully the rest of the school year goes as well as our first month!