Hannah’s 9th Birthday!

Hannah celebrated her 9th birthday late in February!  (No, we are not mentioning or discussing the rumour that she will be in double digits next year!  La la la la la….I can’t hear you!)

The weekend before her birthday was a weekend of celebrations starting with her birthday party with friends at a local pottery painting store.    Hannah truly does have a wonderful group of friends!  So thankful for these girls!

Hannah and her cousin Makenna.  They are the best of friends!

The girls’ creations turned out so well! 

The party hosts at the pottery place helped Hannah create this beautiful keepsake plate. 

It has her handprint in the centre and the fingerprints of each of her friends around the outside.  A treasure for sure!

After we left her birthday party with friends we headed to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a family birthday party.  Mommy totally forgot to take family pictures.  D’oh!!

The following afternoon we celebrated her 9th birthday with Nana and Papa!

My sweet 8 yo who would wake up (lol….earlier than I’d anticipated!!) as a 9yo!

Hannah woke up at 4am and then was too excited to go back to sleep!  What’s one to do when you’re open at 4am on your birthday?  Why, open presents of course!!  Her eyes about popped when I asked her if she wanted to open her presents in the middle of the night! 

Hannah’s final birthday celebration was supper at her favourite restaurant with Grandma and Grandpa on. her birthday

Happy 9th Birthday Hannah!  You are loved by so many and are such a blessing to us all!  WE LOVE YOU!!! xoxoxoxo

Disney Jan 2018 ~ Magic Kingdom, Day 3

We were up bright and early our final day at Disney, wanting to make the most of our remaining time.  We caught a bus to the MK and arrived shortly after rope drop.  Okay, maybe we weren’t up quite as bright and early as I remember if rope drop had already happened!
We started our day in Tomorrowland with a little ride known as Space Mountain.  Okay, we were definitely awake after that!!  I love how adventurous Hannah is!

Calming things down a bit Hannah drove us on Tomorrowland Speedway. 

Her driving has improved greatly and I no longer get whiplash….unless she decides to drive like she did when she was little!

A flight with Dumbo was in order so we took to the skies with the flying elephants.

The Touring Plans website we use to plan our trips (highly recommended!) predicted that today would be a busier day and they were bang on!  We like to finish our trips in the MK so were okay with the crowds but since we’d already spent a good amount of time in this park over the week, we did some of the quieter activities and rides and just took our time.  This is a big difference from the crowd sizes we saw and experienced earlier in the week.
 
A visit to a princess shop offered our traditional opportunity for Hannah to be Pixie Dusted.  Cherishing these moments as I know they won’t last forever.

During our stay at WDW this trip Disney introduced something new allowing guests on the Disney Dining Plan to order via the MyDisneyExperience app an basically skip the line.  We decided to try it out for lunch and it was a great time saver!  We sat outside the restaurant and ordered our meals, clicked to advise that we were here and within a few minutes received a notification that our meals were ready. 

We went inside to pick up and quickly realized mobile ordering is something we’ll use again!  This was the line and all we did was walk up to mobile order pickup location and get our food! 

If you’re visiting Disney I highly recommend using  the Mobile Order option on MyDisneyExperience whether you have the dining plan or not.  It’s an option available to all!
Each trip we try to do at least 1 or 2 new things.  This trip after picking up our lunch a Pecos Bills we walked over to the raft for Tom Sawyer’s Island, took it across and enjoyed our lunch there.  What a beautiful location and a nice break from the crowds.

Unfortunately after lunch Hannah’s tummy was a little off so we took things slower.  I offered to go back to the room but my Disney lovin’ girl  would have nothing to do with that!  LOL – Like mother, like daughter!
We went on the Carousel of Progress thinking a break from the sun would be good for her.  It was but she thought a nap might be in order.  I love how my sweet girl can just fall asleep and rest wherever she is when that’s what her little body needs.  She slept here for almost an hour while I people watched.  Oh yah, and listened to the same piece of audio from the People Mover over and over…and over again!  Did you realize a new car goes by every 40 seconds?  I learned that! ‘Paging Mr. Morrow.  Mr. Tom Morrow!’

When she woke up she was feeling a little better so we wandered but didn’t do any rides.  I’m sure we made some others happy when we released FastPasses for Splash Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, allowing others to take advantage of skipping the lines!
Her tummy must have been feeling a little better as this was what she wanted!

You’ll notice she was wearing a warm coat but in true fashion for our family, it’s never too cold for ice cream!!
After ice cream we played around a little bit with the camera and took pictures in front of Cinderella’s castle.
 

Our final dining reservation is a traditional one for us as we went to the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue and as always, had a great time!  More than anything though I was glad my sweet girl was feeling better.
 
I quickly realized I had a professional corn bread chopper with me.

My sweet, silly girl!

If you haven’t eaten at Hoop-Dee-Doo during a Disney trip, I highly recommend it!  Great food, lots of fun and the crowd interaction is an added bonus.  We’ll be returning next time for sure!

At one point during the evening they celebrated birthdays and since this was an early 9th birthday celebration for Hannah she was included.

In typical Hannah and Mommy style we didn’t want our trip to end so after leaving HDD we took the boat back to the Magic Kingdom and enjoyed some final moments together there!
Even the characters on the ‘it’s a small world’ ride said good-bye to Hannah!

It was hard to believe our trip was already complete but we had created so many new memories that we would relive and chat about over and over again!  Rarely if ever a day goes by that Hannah and I don’t chat about Disney.
Good night Mickey. 

See ya real soon!!  (December 8th to be exact!)  Let the countdown of sleeps begin!

Disney 2018 ~ Magic Kingdom, Day 2, Part 1

We were excited to enjoy a second day in the Magic Kingdom (MK)!  There is so much to do in the MK that one day isn’t near enough for us.

It was a chilly morning but we weren’t wearing winter coats so we were excited.  Hannah decided to use some of her spending money to purchase these cute new ears.  The bows are interchangeable so if she wants to purchase other bows in the future she can.

This left her silver ears up for grabs so mommy was happy to wear those.  Love how Disney offers everyone the opportunity to be a child again!  Yup, works for us!

A trip (or 3) on the People Mover is a must every single trip! 

I’m hoping that once Tron is open in a few years that the People Mover will be rerouted through that attraction!
Hannah has often looked at the personalized parasols that can be created and this time she decided to buy a little one.  So cute!



Hannah’s snack of choice is the dole whip and I decided to try a citrus swirl.  The ice cream was a tangy treat but I wasn’t crazy about it being served with orange soda.  Next time I think I’ll just stick with the ice cream in a cone or dish. 

Each trip there are a few rides that Hannah considers trying.  Most times she decides to pass and that’s just fine with me but this time she was ready to take on a new adventure!  (LOL – I don’t think it hurt that her 5yo cousin rode it last September and she was not going to be outdone! )
Space Mountain, here she comes!!!  Check out that confidence!

And, she never looked back!  I was concerned as this is a roller coaster completely in the dark but she loved it!

Another new thing we tried this time was, ‘A Pirate’s Adventure ~ Treasure of the Seven Seas’.  We picked up a map in Adventureland which led us around the area.  Using our MagicBands we found secret hidden treasure locations where her MagicBand would do cool things like shoot off a canon or cause buried treasure to be revealed.  Lots of fun and another new way for us to enjoy park time!

After our treasure hunt we were off to ‘Ohana to celebrate an early 9th birthday for Hannah.