Aubrey's and Cooper's Adventures

Aubrey's Birthday at School

I'm still a little behind, but this should be my last post from things that happened in 2009. Aubrey celebrated her 2nd birthday at school the Friday before we left for Disney World. Thanks to my new much closer to home job, I was able to go for the celebration and spend some time in her class. We brought juice and muffins for the kids and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to Aubrey.

After she finished her snack, she raced around the room to show me all of her different "work". Aubrey goes to a Montessori School, where they emphasize individual work. Each child gets a mat or goes to a station and does their own activity (which they call their work) at their own pace. In Aubrey's class the work consist of lots of matching and sorting work (shapes, colors, the same object in different sizes) and also various activities that helps develop their motor skills (using tongs and spoons to move small objects or threading pipe cleaners through holes). It was so fun to see Aubrey in her school environement. Her teacher referred to her as her "Student Teacher". She always seemed to be listening to what was going on around her as she was doing her own work and assisted Ms. Dixie with correcting the other children in the room. (I wonder where she gets that from...)

Disney Day Four

The highlight of our last day at Disney World was meeting the princesses at Epcot. Aubrey was not scared of them like she was the other characters and walked right up to Sleeping Beauty and Belle on her own.

Here she is waiting in line to meet Snow White.

Waiting for Sleeping Beauty to come back from her break.

Aubrey loved Sleeping Beauty.

Aubrey is still talking about how Sleeping Beauty kissed her on her forehead.

We also met Marie from the Aristocats. She was as pretty as a princess.

As we were waiting in line to meet Belle, I asked Aubrey if she wanted to take a picture with the Beast, too, and she said, "Beast, walk away!" (That is what she's taught at school to say when someone is bothering her.) She kept repeating it over and over in line. I'm pretty sure when we walked up and I asked Belle if it was ok for just her to be in the picture, Aubrey told the Beast to walk away.

We had such a fun trip. Aubrey may not remember everything she did or saw, but she will see the pictures and know about it through our stories and her own. We watched Snow White this weekend, and she said "I saw Snow White at Disney World". There was so much we didn't do, but there was also so much we did do and saw in our short 4 days there. It definitely won't be our last visist there, and we can't wait to go back again one day!

Disney Day Three - Part 2

That afternoon, we met up with Daddy at the hotel, took a short nap, and headed back to Magic Kingdom to see the castle light up and the parade and fireworks. Since Matt missed It's a Small World in the morning, we took him on it again that evening. Aubrey kept pointing and saying "Look, Daddy!", and last week I heard her singing the song.

Stay tuned for Day 4 - Aubrey meets the princesses!

Disney Day Three - Part 1

On our 3rd day at Disney World, we finally made it to the Magic Kingdom! We woke up to a pretty foggy morning. We couldn't even see Cinderella's castle from Main Street. Matt and Pops enjoyed a round of golf.

Aubrey got some Minnie ears.

Then, Aubrey, Nana, and I had breakfast with our friends from Winnie the Pooh. Aubrey enjoyed the Mickey shaped waffles and her birthday cupcake (especially the sprinkles), but wasn't too excited when the characters got close. That's ok, Nana and I were excited to see them!

The rest of the morning at Magic Kingdom, we went on some rides (It's a Small World, Winnie the Pooh), rode the train around the whole park, explored Mickey's house and Minnie's house, and even found Pooh's honey tree.

Disney Day Two - Part 2

The rest of Day 2 we rode on a safari, took a train ride, saw lots of animals, and met some more friends at Animal Kingdom. Then we headed to Epcot for the evening to ride a few rides.

On our way to the Safari, we saw the Vine Lady...