Day 2: After American Idol...

American Idol took until lunch time, but then I met up with my family again after my performance (they really cheered me on in the show!), and we enjoyed the rest of our time at Hollywood Studios. Here are some highlights:

AWESOME CAR STUNT SHOW

Lots of Shows including Beauty & The Beast (Maddie LOVED it!)
The End of the First Day in the Parks

The NEW American Idol--ME!! (Day 2)

Although i've been to Hollywood Studios many times before, this trip was WAY different because I spent most of my time at their new "American Idol Experience". I had to try out in front of their top producer...which was more rigorous than I thought. I was the third in line and they had turned down the two girls in front of me! But, I made it into the first show along with two other girls. What an experience! Performing in front of that many people--it was incredible! It feels like REALLY being on American Idol, but mostly has taught me that it WAY more nerve wrecking than I thought! But before we went on stage to perform, they interviewed us, did hair and make-up, and even gave us 15 minute voice lessons. Sooo fun! Here's some pictures of my experience:

Downtown Disney--after touchdown

After flying for 4 hours, we finally got to Florida and were greeted by my sister (Kristen) and my mom. Since it was only 4p.m., we decided to spend the rest of the night at Downtown Disney. We ate at a really cool restaurant called T-Rex Cafe--for those of you who have ever been to Rainforest Cafe, it's a lot like that except for animated dinosaurs instead..PLUS way cooler. Here's some pictures from Disney World's Downtown Disney:

Notice how much Maddie and her cousin Seth like eachother! :)Oh, My Pirate!Maddie's Favorite Characters (besides Mickey)At T-Rex Cafe--huge animatronics
The family at T-Rex Cafe

Downtown Disney is such a fun place to go, and the atmosphere is what makes it incredible. Disney goes to great lengths to make their property look beautiful.

Meeting the Characters

We have pictures of our Disney World trip! (Thanks, Mom!) We'll be posting pictures for a while, but these are some of my favorites. On our second day, we went to Epcot. Naturally, our family is always at the front of the line and this time it paid off. While we were waiting for the Disney crew to escort us into the park, the Disney characters came out to greet the crowd. Let me just preface this by saying that Maddie absolutely LOVES "Mickey Mouse Playhouse" on the Disney Channel, so she is well acquainted with these characters. Yet, seeing them in life-size costumes proved to be a bit overwhelming...even for Maddie.

The cutest part of it was that every character came over to see her. Minnie spent the most time and she at one point disappeared. Come to find out---she went to find Mickey so that he could see Maddie too. Mickey and Maddie even shared a "nose bump". ADORABLE!!!


It really seems like our trip was a dream. It went so fast so we're glad mom took such wonderful pictures of our trip. This way, we will always remember our first trip to Disney as a little family.

Disney World, Here We Come!!

We can't believe it's already here!! Tomorrow our little family will board a plane to DISNEY WORLD! We've been counting down for 3 or so months and time has really flown by.

However, there were some hurdles I had to get through before our trip--Fall/Winter checkouts at Liberty Square Apartments. And it is definitely NO picnic. Checking out 800+ residents is definitely hard to keep organized but we did the best we could--and spent 15+ hours a day putting in cleaning/maintenance charges, refunding and then getting ready to send out the refunds. It's been a crazy (and tiring) week, but being at Disney World is definitely a great reward to the hard work i've put in.

The only thing I'm worried about now is Maddie on a plane. She is a VERY good-natured baby, but she DOES like to be able to crawl around and explore her surroundings. Obviously Maddie won't be allowed to crawl around the airplane, so we're hoping that sitting in our laps will be okay. We're definitely praying for a good four hour experience! aaaahh! Our flight is at about 9:30a.m. which means we'll have to leave early to get there with enough time. Translation? Either Maddie will be super tired and sleep most of the way OR she'll be overtired and crying the whole way--we're hoping for the first. :) Either way, wish us luck! We'll be sure to take lots of pictures to post on our blog.

ZIPPIDEE DOO DAH!!

Happy Easter!

Let me just preface this blog post by saying that holidays are much more fun when you're a parent! And what a fun Easter weekend it's been! On Saturday, we went to an Easter Egg Hunt in the morning with some friends. Unfortunately there are no pictures of that since Spencer and I spent the time helping Maddie hunt things down since she's only a crawler and all the other kids were RUNNING to find prizes. However, Maddie seemed to have fun!

This morning we had a Easter basket ready and waiting on the floor so that when Maddie came down she'd find it right away. And she did!! Here's her approach--

Before the Easter basket was attacked....

She spotted it...

...And LOVED it!!

YAY!!

She's so precious and fun! It was fun to see her enjoy her Easter so much (even if she doesn't quite understand it yet! We finished off the night by spending Easter dinner with friends and family! We had a fun time catching up and chatting. It's sad that the weekend had to go so fast, but it was super fun nonetheless. Thanks to all who made this such a special weekend!

Priesthood Blessings

Two weeks a go, Maddie caught the "stomach bug" that I had previously. She was sick for 3-4 days and then she seemed to get better. However, after conference weekend, her symptoms started up again but seemed even worse than before. She was vomiting at least once a day and started having nasty soiled diapers (Sorry to those who aren't parents yet...once you're a parent, you seem to become desensitized to such topics). At first, Spencer and I thought that it might be some type of food allergies, so we took her into the pediatrician who told us that nothing seemed out of sort and that she probably just had a little virus. Thus, we were sent home and told to come back in a week if she wasn't feeling better.

That was Monday--almost every night we are awoken by Maddie who has thrown up all over in her crib, poor baby. And she is more clingy than ever before--she ALWAYS wants to be held by "nana" or Mama--(she hasn't quite mastered the "M" yet). One night especially, Maddie was so distraught and sick feeling that Spencer gave her a priesthood blessing. In the blessing he asked the Lord to calm her little tummy so that she would sleep through the night and also for her body to quickly dismiss the virus. And since then, we've seen remarkable improvements. She's sleeping better through the night and seems to be acting like our little quirky Maddie again. This experience really touched me, and it taught me that even when man may not have the answers and/or cure to common worldly things (like the "stomach flu"), the Lord is all knowing and can help in ANY circumstance if we but allow Him to intervene. I'm grateful for Spencer's willingness AND worthiness to perform such blessings in our families' behalf. Having the Spirit of the Lord in our home makes all the difference in the world to the happiness we feel each day.

Maddie has her normal routine check-up tomorrow with our normal pediatrician, so i'm sure i'll be back on to report her progress in weight, height, etc. etc. And in brighter news, only 19 more days until we go to Disney World!! I've been planning our itinerary for the 5 days we'll be in the parks by deciding what restaurants we'll be going to, what rides to go on first, and so on. Half of the fun is in the planning!!! Its getting me really pumped up for our trip! And although some may think this is a little excessive, I absolutely love planning and organizing. I'll be posting our itinerary once it's finished!

Ciao for now!