day 3 - magic kingdom!

we got up bright and early with the hopes of getting to the magic kingdom before they opened at 8 o'clock. but traveling with a group of 11 (8 kids!) is slooooow moving and we didn't make it there until 9. we hiked into the park because one of the workers told us our strollers wouldn't fit on the tram (!!) and then took the ferry over.

waiting for the ferry. (i think?) this is kind of how my pictures turned out that day. so much to see!

gooooooofy.

yay! we finally made it!

my 1st princess. :)

addie (crazy hair) was amazed by the castle.

cosmic ray's!

taking his chances climbing on the sign. luckily it was busy and no one said anything.

finally, after taking pictures with a couple characters, buying autograph books, and all the dilly-dallying that goes along with traveling in a large group, we got in line for our first ride! the girls were so ready!

addie rode with daddy in the pink dumbo.

franks and i were right behind them. frankie was a little bit scared, but i think she liked it. :)

we all met back up and decided to go on "it's a small world" together. it was hot and our babies were ti-red.

addie fell asleep pretty quickly.

waiting, and waiting, and...

addie slept through the whole ride. too bad, cause i think she would have liked it. :(

c-c-cute.

frankie liked it!

ps - i don't think they've updated that ride in a long, long time. and that makes me happy. :)

addie woke up in time for lunch. we brought lots of snacks and drinks and water, but planned to eat our meals there at the park. and the food at disney is mediocre at best.

we rode on prince charmings carousel and the girls loved it!

sweet girl!

not everyone loved it. :)

it was so busy. i do not like disney when it's busy. could have been worse, but it was pretty crowded.

at 1, mindy went and got in line to get pictures with rapunzel (of tangled fame). the line was 2 hours (!!) long, but mindy really wanted izzy to get to meet her. so she waited in line, brytana, lex, and sydney took the 3 babies on peter pan because we had only 3 fast passes for it. and then matt and i took ben and jack out to tom sawyers island to burn off some energy. i explained the story to them and they seemed to enjoy it.

then it was off to meet rapunzel! they had a really cute set-up and a couple workers that kept the crowd happy. addie had fun in line, but as soon as we got up to her she wasn't feeling it.

so i got to stand with them. :)

frankie liked everyone better than addie, and izzy loved them!

cute! and sydney was so excited that flynn gave her his arm!

and brytty too!

we all went on pirates of the caribbean (love that ride!) and then we all had fun at the giftshop. addie put this cute hat on herself.

slapping me? who knows.

by 8:30 or 9'ish, the babies were d-o-n-e, done. the park was open until 1 that night and the big girls (and me!) were still rearing to go, especially since there were very few lines. so we brainstormed and decided that matt and mindy would take the babies home in our car and mindy would leave her key under the mat of her old van so we could stay till 1.

brytanna and ben were ready to go too, so i kept alexis, sydney, and jack and we rode all the fun rides that we had missed because of lines and crowds earlier in the day. we rode teacups, winnie the pooh, the haunted mansion, splash mountain, and big thunder mountain railroad. all with no lines. and it was so fun. :) we left the park with blisters and sore feet but so happy. as we were walking out, we each got a free cotton candy too. the monorail was stopped for 20 minutes at the first disney hotel for "maintenance." the kids all fell asleep so it was okay. we finally made it home around 2am and ready to sleep in the next day!