Happy Halloween!

From our little farmer and John Deere tractor!

Trick or Treating the businesses on main street in Libertyville!

And guess which big eared favorite showed up?? Mickey Mouse!

Dane got to pick a piece of candy to eat after lunch and also one piece this afternoon. This afternoon he chose a tootsie roll and after eating half of it said "Dis sticks to my teef....dis is sticky chocolate!" 

Disney Part 2

Gosh, this is really making me think!! I have to actually remember what we did on the 2nd full day at Disney...let me just admit that I am mentally and physically drained from moving over the course of the last week and a half but I will do my best! 

On day 2 we got up, had breakfast in our room and jumped on the bus to Hollywood Studios. There is not all that much at this park that is good for little kiddos, but we did sneak in some fun. The highlight for the boys was the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" play area. It is obviously based off the movie but it is done really well...a huge dog nose that makes sniffing noises, oversize ants, random things that could get lost in a kids yard such as huge play doh cans or a battery. There are tunnels and hills and slides and a huge cargo net obstacle course that the boys went through a bunch of times!

Kale trying to drink the water from the leaves...

And here comes Kale through the cargo net obstacle course with Daddy right behind!!

Dane's turn!

Once we got out of the play area, we grabbed lunch at a diner. It was set up like an old kitchen with black and white episodes of "I Love Lucy" or "The Andy Griffith Show" playing. The wait staff was supposed to be rude to their tables but they took it pretty easy on us because we had little ones. It was the only restaurant we could get in quickly that had air conditioning...it was definitely necessary to have air at that point. We hit up a few of the rides like Toy Story and also got to see a puppet rendition of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that had Handy Manny and Jake & the Neverland Pirates. The boys loved it! We made it back to the hotel for Kale's nap and Dane & Cameron hit up the pool or the arcade that day...can't remember which one!

Before Disney Part 2...

I thought I should share about the small snafu we had at the airport before taking off....

See that guy in the yellow shirt on the other side of the glass panel?? Yep, that's Cameron. Apparently he was trying to sneak some bad stuff on the airplane!

We can't take that guy anywhere! Just kidding...our stroller (of all things) didn't pass through security so Cameron had to get searched. Thankfully he bypassed a full body cavity search!

Disney Part 1

I figured that I would break down our Disney trip into parts. Easier for me to blog all the events if I separate them. So...we flew out on Sunday, September 30. Flight was pretty ordinary. Boys did pretty well once the plane started moving. We landed, grabbed our luggage and jumped on the Disney shuttle to our hotel. We jumped in the pool as soon as we arrived at the hotel and then grabbed dinner. Stopped to check out another hotel on the way back to ours and then watched the fireworks over Magic Kingdom before putting the kids to bed.

Looking for lizards at the Wilderness Lodge

The boys checking out the view from our patio

Our first full day was set up for breakfast at Chef Mickey's with all the characters from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald & Daisy). That went pretty well except for Kale being really upset when the characters were not physically at our table. He barely ate anything and just whined for them to come back, but the boys loved all the characters. Our plan was then to go to Epcot and catch some of the rides the boys would be interested in and also stroll through the food & wine fest in the countries of Epcot. We had to go get our tickets reissued because ours were in storage. What was supposed to be a really easy, quick process took about an hour. Cameron was at Customer Relations trying to take care of the ticket problem and I was with the boys. Kale kept rubbing his eyes more and more and I finally figured out that he had sunscreen in them. He was very upset, kind of crying, snotting everywhere and nothing was helping. Once we finally got our tickets and got into the park, Kale was in a full blown crying fit and I was about to pull my hair out. Forgot to mention that prior to getting to Epcot, Dane was throwing a major fit on the monorail saying he wanted to go back to the room. So...the first morning of our vacation wasn't getting off to a good start. I think gouging out my eyes with a fork would have been more fun than the most magical place on earth. BUT I powered through and we finally got Kale's eyes flushed out and stayed out of the sun so he could recover and things started going much better. Cameron was a trooper through dealing with 2 whiney kiddos and a cranky wife. After a few rides and lunch, both boys fell asleep in the stroller. HALLELUJAH!! After the boys woke up, things went MUCH better and the rest of the day was actually fun!

This is what Kale looked like while waiting for the next character...

I LOVE this picture...look how giddy Dane was over Minnie!

And FINALLY after a very rough morning!! 2 sleeping boys means....

that mom and dad can enjoy a little taste of the Epcot food & wine fest!

Stay tuned for Disney part 2!! 

Closing on Monday!!!

I know I am behind on my posts...I need to post about our trip to Disney but right now, I am too tired and that one will take a while! :) So instead I am posting about our impending move. Not like you all sit around waiting for a new post on the Hatten blog, but I do hate to go too long without a new post so here goes. We close on Monday - hooray!! We aren't going to be sleeping there until the 24th. Why?!?! Because we are slowly going to move all the little stuff in on our own and just use movers on the 24th for all the big, heavy stuff. Everything is going pretty well, but tonight we hit a snag. Not a big snag, but a 3 year old snag that will hopefully soon be in the past. For the last 5 nights, Dane has bum rushed our bedroom door at around 3am. Scaring the poo out of me in the process. It takes a long time to get him settled back down to sleep. Very unlike our eldest. He's also been very melty...crying for no reason or just being totally unreasonable. Once again, very unlike Dane. Tonight bedtime was a disaster and ended with him crying over the fact that his foam pumpkin wasn't wearing his mickey mouse hat in the right manner (truly, I couldn't make this up). So after a little prompting from me he finally told me what is bothering him. And let me just add that he has NEVER mentioned being upset about moving. Ever. But tonight he said "I don't want to move to the new house, I want to move back to our old house." Heart BROKEN mom. He has been so excited all along, but maybe it has taken him a couple months to realize we're not going back. So that makes me sad, to say the least. Anyway, 2 days ago Dane and I made a paper chain to countdown the days until we move. We tear off a link on the chain every night before bed and then we're one day closer to sleeping in the new house. Maybe we should rethink the paper chain based on tonight's revelation, but as of tonight we are 13 links away from sleeping in the new house!

Baby Hamlett Shower

Last Saturday was the baby shower for my old college roomie Jackie and her hubby Denis. They are expecting their first baby (a surprise) on December 1st. Obviously a huge congratulations to them and we cannot wait to meet the little babe in a couple short months. Love you guys!