Friday's Letter

Dear Ryan, Thank you so much for cleaning the house today! It really is going to make my weekend so much more enjoyable. I do think it's funny how when I leave you a list you literally take it step by step. Never adding to it or taking away from it. I don't know why but this makes me SMILE. Dear Weekend, Even though we only had a 4 day work week it still seems like it took forever for you to get here. Dear Aunt Velvet and Mom, Thank you so much for keeping the kids this weekend! I hope they are good! Dear weekend at the beach with all of our friends, I'm really looking forward to you so hurry up 6:00!! Dear Diet, you will resume again on Monday so get ready! Dear Whitney, Running resumes on Monday so be ready. Dear Tanner, I am SO SO SO proud of you sleeping in your bed all this week. You love your new room and I'm so excited for you! Dear Ryleigh, I hope your umbrella parade at school today is everything you hoped it would be. You have been so excited for it all week! Dear Ryan, a husband who baths the kids every night, cleans the kitchen every night, packs the kids lunches AND is cleaning the whole house from top to bottom for me today is a wonderful husband in my book! I love you more than a clean house on a fall Saturday morning!

Why I Blog

Believe it or not, I don't love to blog. Sometimes I don't even like to do it but I'm so glad I do. I love to go and look back at different post and what we were doing this time last year.

I just scanned through a lot of old post and came across these:

Remember this night at Nana and Paw Paw's? It was so fun!
http://stokleyfamily.blogspot.com/2009/07/if-we-would-of-know-yall-were-coming-we.html

I love looking at different things the kids said. Like when Tanner talked about Jesus.
http://stokleyfamily.blogspot.com/2009/08/tanner-cole.html


I know you guys remember the ugliest lunch box ever!
http://stokleyfamily.blogspot.com/2009/07/ugliest-lunch-box-ever.html

One of my all time favorite post was on mine and Ryan's 5 year anniversary.
http://stokleyfamily.blogspot.com/2009/12/5-years.html


Remember when Tanner punched Ryleigh in the face?
http://stokleyfamily.blogspot.com/2009/10/stop-looking-at-me.html

I have a ton more that I love but these are the ones I came across today! You can click on the link to read each one.

I just have to remind myself that even when I don't want to do it, I'll be so happy I did in the long run!

Hollywood Studios-Day 2

If I had to pick our least favorite park it would probably be Hollywood Studios. We had a lot of fun there but there were quite a few things that didn't interest the kids. Since we planned our vacation solely for them if they couldn't ride it we did either. Disney has a rider swap program where you can ride the ride then swap with your partner so they can ride without having to wait in line twice. But what's the fun in riding alone??

As soon as the parked opened we knew we wanted to head to Toy Story Mania. This was hands down one of our favorite rides in all of Disney and without a doubt Tanner's absolute favorite! The boys headed straight to get in line and Ryleigh and I hung back and met a few characters.

She loved getting to meet Stich! I don't think she's ever seen the real movie but she like their TV show.
We then met up with them just as they were going in the door. Tanner really thought the Army men were cool!

The wait for the ride was only like 15 minutes so it went by pretty fast.

We had learned from the day before that as soon as we got off of it to go get FastPasses to ride it again later in the day.

After Toy Story Mania we hit up The Little Mermaid show and Playhouse Disney. Playhouse Disney was a huge hit with them! They liked getting to interact with the show and they love "Oh Toodles!" We also went to this bakery called Starring Hills Cafe. It was SOOOO good!!! I got a Butterfinger cupcake that was as big as my head. It was literally the best cupcake I've ever had! We tried to go to a bakery in every park because Ryan, the kids and I all LOVE bakeries!! I wish we had more in Mobile!

We then headed to the Indiana Jones Show. Tanner kept calling it the Indian show. He loved it! He didn't like the breaks the took when they would explain the behind the scenes type stuff but as far as the show he really liked it!

For lunch we went to Toy Story Pizza Planet. It's a pizza place that's set up like the Pizza Planet in the Toy Story movie. The kids LOVED it and the pizza was actually pretty good! They have an arcade inside so we hung out in there for a little while and cooled off. On the way out they saw this snowman at one of the shops and wanted to take a picture with it!

After lunch we went to The Muppet 3D show. I felt so bad for this show because it's so old and so sad! It really was terrible. The highlight though was when we came out we got to see these guys!!

We then headed to the Lights, Motor, Action stunt show. By this time we were hot and tired and I was feeding into the kids attitude problems. It was just such a long walk and anyone that knows us knows that Ryleigh and I hate 2 things...being outside and being hot. We had a quick attitude adjustment and really enjoyed the show. Thankfully this was the only hot day we had. The rest of the week it was fairly nice out.

Our second favorite thing about Hollywood was the Block Party Bash! We LOVED it!! Someone had told me that they don't try to catch the parades when they go, they just do if they do. Well I would HIGHLY recommend trying to catch them. They are so fun!! We got the kids an ice cream and sat down while we waited for it to start. It was a great opportunity for them to rest for about 20 minutes.

The parade was so cool!! They stop and get down and dance with everyone. It really was a lot of fun. Very entertaining and very high energy.

After the parade we went and rode Toy Story Mania again. With our fastpasses we only waited like 15 minutes when the regular wait time was 180 minutes!!

We then met Buzz and Woody together! Tanner was so excited about that!

That afternoon we went and rode the Tower of Terror. Yes, you read that right. Ryan put my sweet babies on that ride!! They did ok the whole way to the ride when we were talking about it but once we got on and they buckled them in and turned out the lights they got a little freaked out. The whole ride they didn't cry but I could tell they wanted to. As soon as it was over they said "Is it over?" I said yes and Tanner started balling his eyes out. He was so mad at Ryan for making him ride it. He wouldn't speak to him for a while! Later though they were really proud of themselves for riding it and kept telling everyone!

That night we had dinner at Sci Fi. It came recommend to us by a few people but we both thought it was terrible. It was our least favorite restaurant in all of Disney. That night was the show Fantasmic. We headed in about 7 and sat on the very front row so the kids would have plenty of room to run around while we waited for the show to start. The thing about the front row is you get wet during the show!! The kids thought that was really cool.

Waiting on the show to start. Who's kids are these??

Fantasmic is such a cool show. It combines everything Disney into one show. Fireworks, water and all the characters. We loved it!

The only thing I didn't like about the show was getting out of the theater after the show! It was chaos!

Ryan took this picture during the show. Looks like Tanner and I were excited about something!

It was a really fun day and the kids did so well with not going back and taking a nap. I have mixed feelings about taking time out of the day to go back and rest. We did it like twice but most days we just stayed and played all day!

I now present to you...

Mr & Mrs. Brandon Johnson!

Way more pictures to come.

I hope you guys have a wonderful Honeymoon in Mexico!!

Friday's Letter

Dear Scuba Steve (aka Ryan), Last night when you pretended there were bugs in our bed and then laughed your head off at me when I freaked out...not cool, not cool at all! Dear Lindsey, you are getting married, TOMORROW!!! TOMORROW!!! Like as in the day after today!! I'm so excited!! Dear Aunt Melissa, you are such a trooper!! Surgery on Wednesday, rehearsal dinner on Thursday wedding on Saturday...check! Dear Whitney, thank you for the text yesterday reminding me that I was officially 24 1/2...also not cool, not cool at all. Dear Mom, Thursday night through Sunday being spent in Wilmer...it's a RECORD!!! I'm so excited that anytime I look out my window I will be able to see your car. This makes me smile. Dear Jordan, have I told you lately how much I love you?? Well I do!! I think you are hands down my favorite cousin and if you every need anything you can call me! :) (Now remember this when you become a star football player!!) Dear Columbus, Thank you for discovery of America that in turn leads to me being off on Monday! Dear Ryan, I enjoyed our lunch date on Wednesday and our Grey's Anatomy date on Thursday. Although this may be hard to believe, I love you more than Mexican food and McDreamy!

4 1/2

Ryleigh,
Today you are officially 4 1/2. I have no idea why but you have been so excited for this day ever since I mentioned it to you a few weeks ago. I think it just adds to the excitement you have about turning 5. Why you are so excited about turning 5? I have no idea. But you talk about it all the time. You talk about your 5 year old school, you talk about your 5 year old birthday party and your 5 year old dance class. You are so excited!! I am not. When you turn 5 that means the next day I turn 25...not excited about that. When you turn 5 you'll never be four again and that breaks my heart. Last night we were talking about you turning 4 1/2 and being that much closer to 5 and you said "Don't worry mom if I'm 5 or 45 I'll always be your baby!"

Happy 4 1/2 Birthday baby girl! I love you!!

Disney-Day 1

So our first day in Disney was Saturday. We decided instead of riding in the car with 2 kids during the day we would rather drive all night and just be tired the next day. So we left Mobile around 11:00 and drove straight thru to Disney. We got there around 7:30. It was thankfully an uneventful drive and the kids slept until around 6 and then fell back to sleep right as we were getting there. I went and checked us in and got our park tickets while the 3 of them slept in the truck. On our first day we made the mistake of driving to the Magic Kingdom. BIG MISTAKE. The Magic Kingdom has 100 different means of transportation you have to take to get to the park once you park the truck. It was not fun.

Once we got in the park we took a quick picture in front of the castle before their clothes were messed up!
They weren't as excited as I thought they would be to see Cinderella's castle. I think maybe because I don't like cartoon characters so we don't focus on them at our house...who knows.

I had read a few guidebooks before we went and I knew to make our first stop in Magic Kingdom Fantasyland. It's the most preschool centric part of the park and gets packed quickly and stays packed all day. Our first ride was Dumbo, then we headed to Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, Snow White, The Carousel and Mickey's Philmagic.

Me and my girl on dumbo

There are 3 types of "rides" at Disney...the amusement park kind, the get in some sort of vehicle and ride through while it tells a story and then theater style rides. We like amusement park rides not really the other 2. Ryan has a 3 second attention span so the other 2 bored him and the kids. I wish in Disney there were more amusement park type rides.

Tanner pulling the sword out of the stone...or trying to at least!

Our next stop after Fantasyland was Tomorrowland.

In Tomorrowland we first rode the Buzz Lightyear ride. That ride was a big hit with Tanner he loved it!!

We then rode the Tomorrowland Speedway which is like go cart racing. The kids got to drive on that ride and they loved that.

We then headed to Toontown which was a lot of fun! The kids loved getting to play in Mickey and Minnie's houses. They also rode Goofy's roller coaster. Ryleigh liked it, Tanner hated it.

We decided to skip the lined to meet Mickey and friends since we were going to have lunch with them. Instead we stood in line to meet the princesses.

And Buzz Lightyear!

By this time it was time for our lunch reservations. We were eating at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. We rode the monorail over to the resort for lunch. Normally I wouldn't want to leave the park for lunch but I had worked it out where we would eat lunch then go back and take a nap in our room since we had been up all night.

(Side note-The Contemporary resort is right beside Magic Kingdom and is suppose to be a moderate resort. I thought it was old and ugly. I'm glad we didn't splurge on staying there)

Chef Mickey's lunch was a huge hit with Ryleigh!!! Tanner at first didn't know what to think about all the characters. My kids know that they aren't real so he didn't know what to think about actual people being in there. He asked me if they would be nice people in there or not! :)

Ryleigh's favorite character...Minnie!!!! She loves her the most out of any Disney character and was so excited to meet her!

The character meals are the way to go. Hands down if there is one thing I had to say saved us the most time and made our dinners/lunches the best it was the character ones. The kids get to meet the characters without us standing in line for an hour and it gives them something to do while Ryan and I eat. The character lunches were our most enjoyable meals.

Ryleigh and Goofy being Goofy!

After lunch we made the hour trek back to the truck and went back to our resort. We stayed at Pop Century which is considered a value resort but we loved it! Maybe it was the price, maybe it was our room location but we loved this resort! It was perfect for our family. Especially for the amount of time we stayed in it. Which was just to sleep at night!

The kids had fell asleep on the way back to the truck so they didn't really want to take a nap. I managed to get them to lay down for about 45 minutes and then the 3 of us went to explore our resort while Ryan slept a little longer.

That night our plan was to head to downtown Disney but we made a last minute (like standing in line for the bus last minute) decision to go to Hollywood studios instead.

They LOVED the Honey I Shrunk The Kids Playground. LOVED it!!

We just walked around there and looked. We were planning on going to Hollywood Studios the next day so we were just scoping it out. I feel like we rode something else but I can't remember what.

We went back to our resort and had dinner there and the kids and Ryan played in the arcade while I went to play Santa Clause!!

Their favorite character are Buzz Lightyear and Minnie and thankfully we got to meet both our first day! So I went and bought them both something from the gift shop that they had been asking for all day long. Seriously every ride we went on or store we visited this is what they wanted. I got Ryleigh a baby Minnie and Tanner the Buzz lightyear gun.

The were so surprised when they got back to the room!! I wrote a letter from Minnie and Buzz to each of them. They seriously thought that they came to their room when we were at dinner.

They were so excited!!

The next day they were just telling random people all about the letters they got from Buzz and Minnie and how they came to our room when we weren't there!!

We had a fun first day but we were EXHAUSTED!!!

Next up: Hollywood Studios