Today was a Fairytale

We had great plans to get up early and get into the Magic Kingdom at 8am for their extra magic hours, but when Summie & Cole came bouncing into our bedroom and asked to see the castle we opened the drapes to pouring rain! We staying in bed a bit longer and watched the weather to see that it should clear up by the afternoon.  We waited for Downtown Disney to open at 9:30 and headed to my FAVORITE store in Disney World, Disney's Days of Christmas!  After not finding anything that I have liked at home the past few Christmases, I decided that I wanted to get the kids Disney Christmas stockings with their names embroidered on them.  We also always get a Christmas ornament from every trip that we go on for our tree so that our tree if full of wonderful memories.  The kids were not very happy to part with their stockings to have them embroidered, but the woman traded them stickers to let her "borrow them".  They were ok with this option, so we headed off to a yummy lunch at the Earl of Sandwich.  On our way out, Summie decided that she wanted to get out of the stroller to take a picture with this fountain.  She's finally getting into taking pictures...

While the kids and Jim took a nap in our room, I walked around the resort for some quiet ME time and got myself a nice sweatshirt.  Once everyone was up we started getting ready for the Princess Storybook Dinner in EPCOT.  Summer decided that she did not want to take off her pink Minnie Mouse dress from Aunt Chele to put on her Snow White costume for dinner.  Luckily I was able to bribe her into the dress since I had a matching hairbow for it and her new Cinderella shoes.  Once we arrived at EPCOT Summer received tons of attention from the people that we passed.  She sat with absolute perfect posture with her hands folded looking quite the part of the princess in training.  We went on the Nemo & Friends ride which Cole loved, but Summie did not like that it was so dark.  This is typically one of my favorite times of year to visit EPCOT as it is the Flower & Garden show and they have large topiary displays of characters.  I have to say that I was very disappointed in the opening display that was featuring Toy Story.  All of the press releases stated the display would feature Woody, Buzz & Lotso, but Lotso was no where to be found.  Usually this front display is gigantic and impressive.  In years past it has featured such things as a gigantic pirate ship with Captain Hook & Peter Pan & the crocodile.  Another year was Donald & Daisy in a row boat going down the tunnel of love, so to have 2 little characters at the front with a ball and blocks (that weren't even topiaries) at the back and just some simple planted flowers in between this large bed was rather disappointing.  The expanded Butterfly House with the Bambi character display was a nice new addition however!  We went to Tinkerbell's garden but were too late to get pictures with her.  We were able to get on the Donald Duck boat ride in the Mexico pavillion before dinner and both kids seemed to enjoy it.  Then we were off to the Princess Dinner.  On our way into dinner we had a meet & greet with Belle and got some really great pictures with her. 

Once we got to the table however the meltdowns began.  I actually thought that we might have to leave, but we were able to get everyone situated and happy and the rest was great.  We ordered our food which came very quickly, thankfully and the characters started coming.  We saw Aurora & Cinderella and the kids pretty much decided that they weren't interested in them at all.  I was kind of thinking now that maybe we overdid the character thing.  Then Snow White arrived in her matching dress and declared that she had found her "twin".  That was all it took and Summie followed the lead of the other little girls that she watched and got down from her seat and posed for her royal subjects to take some photos.  Cole was more interested in eating his and Summer's pizza.  Last to come for a visit was Ariel and Summer was an old pro at this picture thing now!  Cole & Jim joined in for their own pictures too.  I decided that this was my favorite meal of the trip.  I had some wonderful mushroom stuffed pasta in a creamy sauce... delcious!  We walked around and took a few more pictures and got Jim the funnel cake he had been craving all week and sat down and shared it with the kids, which they just LOVED.   I was really bummed at the beginning of the day when I saw that the rain had spoiled our plans, but I think it worked out for the better actually because the rest of the day was SO wonderful!