Disney World 2013

Two weeks ago we arrived home after a super fun week long family trip to 

Disney World!  

Well, most of the family was there. Reese had a vacation of her own 
 with the Stewart family. 

We are SO thankful to Lacey, Stew and their four children for taking wonderful 

care of Reese all week long!

(Avery and Aspen join in a dance party at the Animal Kingdom)

We stayed at the new Art of Animation resort. 

On the first night the girls took a mini drawing lesson from a Disney artist.

After this picture was taken the artist gave his sketch to Avery
 and that was super exciting gift for our budding artist.

We spent 2 days at the Magic Kingdom,

1/2 day at Epcot,

1.5 days at Hollywood Studios and

1 day at the Animal Kingdom.

At our resort there were four themed sections:

Lion King  (we stayed in a Lion King suite)

Finding Nemo

Little Mermaid

Cars

 Avery and Aspen created sketches and submitted them to the hotel staff to be entered into an

"Artist of the Day" contest.

Favorite rides:

Hollywood Tower of Terror (Aspen even rode it although it was not her favorite)

Space Mountain ( all the girls loved this and wanted to ride it again and again and again)

Test Track

Rockin' Roller coaster

Toy Story

Tea Cups

Expedition Everest 

Splash Mountain

Dear Disney:

Thank you so much for putting TWO Dumbo rides in the new Fantsyland

so that we didn't have to wait forever to ride this very short iconic ride.

Every time we came into the room at the end of the day the maids 

had positioned the girls stuffed animals in a new spot. 

Here you can see the awards the girls received for their artwork.

 On the night we had planned to attend the firework show and light parade the temp. dipped way low and we were all freezing, so we decided to head back to the hotel earlier than anticipated.

Every day was planned out in advance, I know that may be hard to believe with two parents who have type A tendencies, wink wink.

Between our fast passes and timing the more crowded rides properly,
we didn't stand in one line the entire time and were able to see all the shows we wanted to at

Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

Aspen loved driving crazy on the Race Track.

 We enjoyed two character meals this time, which was just perfectly enough. 
The other sit down meals went much quicker without rotating characters coming to our table.

Aside from the rides I believe the girls most special memory will be  

cotton candy, ice cream and massive jawbreakers. 

For the parents it was  

observing the children experience the excitement of Disney!

Timeline of Leaf Play

Ah, these are the precious moments in life!

 

The leaves have now all vanished and the freezing temperatures have arrived.

Family Pictures

A couple of weeks ago my friend Amy took these great pictures of the girls!

We had family shots taken as well, but we will wait for Christmas time to debut those ones.

I may be bias, but I think these girls are beauties from the inside out.

 

Halloween 2013

Here at the Young household we rarely save dress up play just for Halloween time.

Any average day may turn in to a dress up day!

A week before Halloween we had a fun ward activity that they kids were able to dress up for.

Cody met us there from work, so no, he is not "dressed up" as a doctor.

 Pumkin carving is a tradition.

This year we simply did not have one evening that would work to go to the pumpkin patch and pick out our pumpkins, like we typically do, 

so store bought pumpkins worked out just dandy.

Aspen sawed away at her pumpkin with all her might determined to do it BY HERSELF!

 

From left to right, Avery, Aspen, Mommy, Brinley.

 Daddy was the helper, Reese was the onlooker.

Brinley and Cody had fun at a Daddy/Daughter Halloween church activity.

Reese loved the big red squeaky nose that Daddy was wearing.

 

Alas the much anticipated Halloween day arrived with pouring rain...and the rain did not stop. It rained and rained and rained right through trick or treat.  

This is why I snapped just this one photo before we raced from house to house with the double jogging stroller, ponchos and umbrellas.

 

My only hope was that they rain would encourage an early return home. 

Nope, I think it added fuel to the girls fire, at least the older two, and they 

ended up with MORE candy then ever before.

We let them keep 75 pieces each. SERIOUSLY way beyond an appropriate amount, and they were STILL bummed out, even though we are sending the extra to the soldiers.

It was then I realized that no matter how much we let them keep it will NEVER be the right amount to them unless they are able to devour every single piece. 

Reese thought the entire set up was just awesome. 

Go for a walk, people give me candy, I eat candy, I am happy!