Cindy Sue’s wish come true!

My mother has never been to a Disney theme park. At least she hadn’t until Monday. She’s always wanted to go, but there just never seemed to be time or money or opportunity. So Cami and I (because we’re the favorite daughters) decided to remedy that this year. On her birthday (Christmas Eve, she got a call from Mickey Mouse, informing her that she’d be going to Disney World. On Monday, still tired and sore from the race, we got up at 4:30am and headed for the Magic Kingdom.

Gideon had been asking to go see Mickey Mouse since we arrived in Florida, but mom was really the most excited. All the way up to Orlando she’d randomly shout out, “I’m going to Disney World.” And all day long she wore a goofy grin on her face. She was just so tickled with everything about being there. It was so funny!

Lily, Grandpa & Ransom on the tram ride from the parking lot.

Me & babies. Cami’s friend Barbara had made each of the boys a monogrammed Mickey Mouse shirt and each of the girls a Minnie Mouse dress.

On the ferry ride over to the park.

The Christmas decorations were still up, so that was kind of fun to see.

See, I told you my mom was giddy. We weren’t 10 steps into the park before she saw the barbershop quartet & had to have a picture with them.

Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. Parker and I waited out by the strollers so she could have a bottle.

Cami and Ransom!

Poor Parker was so fidgety, her dress just would not stay down!. But she was still stinking cute!

That’s me and Gideon on Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride. (Gideon’s actually to the inside of me, so you can barely see his little head. He loved it though.)

My favorite ride was the Pirates! I was so excited to see it since they re-vamped it. It was awesome!

And when we came out of the ride there was a pirate show going on, complete with a Johnny Depp impersonator. Okay he didn’t really look like Johnny, but he had the voice and accent down pretty well. We didn’t stick around for the show though, instead we took the jungle cruise.

The jungle cruise was fun, but after having gone on the safari at Animal Kingdom last year, the mechanical animals seemed a little hokey.

I did, however, like the playful elephants. They were fun.

After the safari, it was lunch time, so we borrowed the pirate stage and broke out our sandwich stuff. It was funny because all these people kept walking by us saying, “That’s a great idea, we should have done that.”

Our sweet kiddos, Parker, Gideon, Ransom & Lily.

Okay this photo is a little out of order but later in the day Gideon crashed hard! He looks so big in this stroller!

Seriously, my mom cracks me up! She grinned and giggled at everything!

My sweet sleeping babies!

Gideon had the most serene, happy expression I’ve ever seen while on the Merry-Go-Round. He loved riding the horse. The only thing he like better was the Peter Pan ride, which we literally had to drag him away from kicking & screaming.

Dumbo was the longest line we waited in all day, but it was a MUST DO since we were with little kids. And really we only waited about a half an hour so it could have been much, much worse.

Grandma decided she and grandpa needed to get Gideon and Lily some mouse ears. They were a big hit!

Gideon enjoyed getting to run and play in Minnie’s house.

Grinning grandma & her kiddos.

Handsome Ransom was Grandpa’s boy!

Lily & her daddy switch hats!

We took turns going through the Haunted Mansion. Mom & Daddy went first, then held the babies so we could go. At least they found a relaxing place to pass the time.

Parker slept better on top of the stroller than anyplace else.

Waiting for the Electrical Light Parade to begin. (The kids LOVED the parade, but no pictures. I had Gideon on my shoulders and had to hang on tight to keep him from jumping down and running into the parade.

Have you ever seen two more different reactions? Mom was still laughing and grinning with a “This was the best day ever!” And Gideon was…well…devastated is probably putting it mildly. Still, it was a great day and Gideon has asked to wear his Mickey Mouse shirt everyday since then. We definitely will be making trips back to the Magic Kingdom.