Coming Soon!

Buying Our Christmas Trees

Today we went and picked out three Christmas trees: one tree for the Living Room, the girls' tree for the Family Room and a tree for the front yard.

The Living Room tree is mine to decorate while the Family Room tree is the girls' to decorate. And the yard tree is a tradition in our community. Most people put a tree in their front yard and decorate it with Charlie Brown lights. It really looks amazing to see a whole street of lit-up trees.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lights. Camera. Action.

We spent the day today at Disney Studios. We saw shows galore -- High School Musical, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid and American Idol -- and met all kinds of interesting characters (Pun intended.)









All the parks are already decorated for Christmas, which is so much fun, and the Osbourne Family Lights are already set up.





The girls loved the parade and also loved interacting with the "Hollywood stars" that are all over the place.





Another great day!

Pin Trading 101

I've received several questions about pin trading so I thought I'd share what we've learned during our trip.

To get started you'll need to purchase a lanyard and some pins. The lanyard and pins can be purchased at nearly every Disney store. You can purchase individual pins or you can purchase a starter set of seven pins, which is what we did. Since you're going to trade these pins away I wouldn't buy expensive pins and the sets are the least expensive way to buy pins at Disney World. If you have time to purchase pins before your trip, there are lots of pins for sale on ebay. You are only allowed to trade real Disney pins in the parks so make sure that's what you buy if you get them somewhere other than Disney World. Once you're at a park, get one of the free buttons they give away to anchor the bottom of the lanyard and keep it from flipping around.

Most Disney cast members have lanyards of pins around their necks. This includes cast members in stores, at rides and even cast members who are sweeping the streets or holding the rope at a parade. Cast members are required to trade with anyone who asks them to. The only exception to this is if a cast member is wearing a blue lanyard they will only trade with kids.

Cast members are given special pins to trade and many of these can't be purchased in a store. It took us four or five days to figure this out! Cast member pins are also called Hidden Mickey pins because they have a small silver Mickey head on the front of the pin. They also have markings on the back that identify the pin as a "Hidden Mickey." Hidden Mickey pins are also part of sets. So, for example, there is a set of pins with different princesses looking in rear view mirrors. There is a set of pins with Mickey heads made out of foods -- lettuce, tomatoes, etc. There is a 26-pin set of letters. The back of the pin tells you how many pins are in the set. You can go to the jewelery store on Main Street to see pictures of the pins in a set or I just looked online.

For the first few days Kenna and Michal traded pins without any plan. They simply picked whatever they liked on a cast member's lanyard and traded away whatever pin on their lanyard they liked the least. They identified pins they definitely would. not. trade. and then turned right around and traded them. They would wax poetically about why one pin or another was "too special" to trade but invariably they ended up trading nearly every pin they received. And it was funny because they would trade away a pin and then choose that same pin on a cast member's lanyard. The one exception was the Tiana pin, which we purchased, and never left their lanyards.

Once we were told about trying to collect Hidden Mickey pins they usually chose those pins but still just chose whatever struck them at the moment. They did end up with a couple pins in the same set but this was more by chance then anything else. I think an older child would really enjoy trying to collect sets of pins.

In the past the girls have collected character autographs in an autograph book and this was infinitely more fun for them. Kenna and Michal loved, and I mean loved, spotting a cast member with pins and running up to make a trade. It was also fun for me because the cast members went out of their way to engage them -- and me -- and shared all kinds of fun tips about the park while we were talking to them. This is also how we met the cast members who gave us Fast Passes and created other amazing Magical Moments for the girls.

Magical Moments.

Today the girls had a tea party with Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter. When I made the reservation I knew that the tea party was for "children only" but what I didn't realize is that "for children only" meant "parents may come in for a few minutes at the beginning of the tea party and then may return one hour later to fetch their children at the end of the party."

Once I figured out we were not invited to stay I looked at Eric and said, "Do you realize we're turning our children over to the Mad Hatter?" He just laughed.

(I'll just add here that the tea party was in a poorly-lit dining room and the pictures are not the greatest.)

We came back an hour later to pick them up and they all had their heads on the table pretending they were asleep. Once all the parents were back in the tea party room the kids yelled, "Surprise!"

The girls loved their tea party with Alice. And by using my very best interrogation skills I learned that they decorated cupcakes with frosting and Mickey sprinkles, were offered apple juice tea but asked for water instead, played hide-and-seek with -- I'm quoting here -- THE REAL Alice in Wonderland and the very, very silly Mad Hatter, did a craft, took pictures and sang "A Very Merry Unbirthday."











After the tea party, we headed to the Magic Kingdom where we again saw Tiana's Jubilee and were again gifted Fast Passes by a generous cast member. Then the girls' had a real Magical Moment. They were asked to stand in the front of the Bear Country Jamboree and make all the announcements over the microphone before the show and then "wake up the bears." They got to say "Good Bye" to everyone at the end and then, for no other reason than they're Michal and Kenna, they curtsied.

It was really sweet especially because they were just so excited. They also were given a "Magical Moment" certificate and a pin that says "Happily Ever After." For the rest of the day they told anyone who would listen that they had "a real magical moment."

Truly, priceless.

Peter Pan's Magic Flight remains the unanimous favorite and we rode it a couple more times today. The girls also met Peter Pan and had a hilarious conversation with him. The girls told Peter Pan that they thought it was great that he could fly. He responded by telling them that they too could fly if they had a little pixie dust.

Michal politely explained that they couldn't fly because of something called "gravity."

Hilarious.

Princesses . . . and a magical flight.

With Kenna dressed in her Cinderella dress and Michal dressed in her Belle gown, we began our day today at Epcot. The unanimous request was for "princesses" and there were princesses throughout the World Showcase just waiting to be met. It is blissfully uncrowded here and not only were there princesses but there were princesses without a line.

The girls saw Aurora and Belle and Mulan. They played "Ring Around the Rosie" with Belle and compared hair color and country of birth with Mulan.




They also discovered the joys of pin trading and now go running up to any unsuspecting cast member with a lanyard of pins around their neck. Kenna enthusiastically says, "Hi!" and then they invariably both want to trade for the same pin. We started them each with three pins and those three have been swapped and traded and traded again. I can see we're going to need to get them more pins since they now have pins that are "too special to trade."




After lunch at Epcot, we took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. The girls got to be in the pre-parade parade with a group of other kids and we then watched the real parade.




It was then time for Tiana's Showboat Jubilee. Tiana -- cue happy music -- is the new Disney princess who stars in "The Princess and the Frog." Michal and Kenna are completely smitten with her. The show starts with a parade through Liberty Square and then continues on the Liberty Belle steamboat. The show is really fun and colorful and the music is great. And Tiana is positively lovely.






After the Tiana show, the girls found another cast member to trade pins with and she graciously gave them each four Fast Passes good on any ride in the entire park. We headed straight to Fantasyland to use those passes and went to the front of the line at Peter Pan's Magic Flight -- twice! In Michal and Kenna's opinion there is simply not a better ride.




We then headed to Storytime with Belle and Kenna was pulled out of the audience to play the part of Lumiere. She loved every minute of being on stage with Belle and enthusiastically held up her "candle arms" for the entire show.








Princesses, parades, Lumiere and a magical flight. Today was truly a great day.

I can't wait for tomorrow.

Where Dreams Come True.

"The Place Where Dreams Come True."

That's what the sign said as we drove under the arch being held on one side by Mickey Mouse and on the other side by Minnie Mouse.

Two voices from the backseat alternated asking, "Can we go swimming?" "Can we see princesses?" "Can we go swimming?" "Can we see princesses?"

They then declared that they could see pixie dust in the air because, you know, this IS the place where dreams come true.

Once in our hotel room, they stood on the balcony and told anyone who happened to walk below that they were in "The Most Magical Hotel Room Ever." This particular hotel room received that designation because it just happened to look out at swan boats, a lake, a waterfall and two swimming pools.

This is what I love about Disney. Where else can you see magic in the air? Plus, where else does your grilled cheese come on a slide-shaped plate and do ducks swim in the swimming pool?

Dreams really do come true here. Even if you're just a duck.