Disney World here we come...

The countdown is on. Only 3 days until we leave for Disney World. All of the excitement and of course a little stress that has been building will culminate on Monday.
Here is a picture of my dining room table at this moment. I have been piling stuff up for a week now just trying to be sure that I don't forget anything. Of course, we will take too much stuff but you never know what you might need. I always like to be prepared.

Of course, like every other Disney crazed family, we will have some personalized T-shirts. Grandma Liz has been busy making us shirts. Emma and Matt have about two shirts for each day that we are there. Of course, Mom and Dad will have a couple as well. It is corny and silly and I love it. Here is a picture of our mother-daughter shirts! They turned out really cute.

When going to Disney World you can't set your expectations too high. I learned this on our last trip two years ago. Yes, it is the happiest place on earth but children do not always understand it. So as overzealous parents, we want our children to be happy, smile for the camera and hug the Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and every other character that comes their way. We want them to have a magical experience and all we end up doing is overwhelming them and causing them to have a meltdown. Yes, I want all of the happy moments and the great pictures but I realize that it is not always perfect. This time I am not setting the bar so high. I am going to go with the flow and take each moment as it comes. I am sure we are going to have some "I want to pull my hair out" moments and we will probably utter the phrase, "What were we thinking?" more than once but surely once and perhaps even twice we are going to have that moment where all of the chaos, stress, and don't forget money is more than worth it. I am not sure what that moment is going to be but I know it will happen. After our last trip, we felt like we had been beat with a stick and we swore that we would not go to D. World again for at least 10 years but here we are. It is funny how time makes the bad memories fade and the good ones stand out. As I look back at my scrapbook, yes I have a Disney scrapbook just like several other people that I know, I feel like the editor of my own reality show. I left out all of the yucky stuff and only included what I wanted to remember. For anyone that looks at the pictures, all you see is happiness not all of the attiitude from a 3 year old that we got.

Here is a look back from our last trip.

This was the ultimate magical moment. Emma meeting Cinderella. It was great.

Another one...She loved Jasmine almost as much as Cinderella.

This moment not so much. Emma is not asleep. She is ignoring poor eeyore and the camera.

And I have to say that, unfortunately, I saw this coming at me on more than a few occasions.

All of this and we are ready to go back for more this time with another little one in tow. Luckily, he is too young to give attitude but he can definitely scream so I am sure he will give that a whirl at some point. Anyway, wish us luck!