A Magical Kingdom Indeed!

Besides having the worst ten minutes of my life right smack dab in the middle of the day, our day at the Magic Kingdom was by far my favorite. Yes, it's expensive (although we managed to get four of us in for free!), but when you have kids the ages ours are, it's worth every single penny. The place definitely lives up to its name!
If you ever plan to go, go the week we did (the one before Thanksgiving). The only thing we waited in line for was to meet the princesses and that was under 10 minutes. Most things we walked up and walked onto the ride. It was unbelievable.

I love this shot because of Aiden's face. I think he had a bit of a crush on this princess.
Part of the magic is that Disney knows kids. It's designed for kids. Both of these princesses spent several minutes chatting with the kids before posing for pictures.

It just so happened that the two princesses available this day are Mackenzie's favorites. And even though, earlier in the year she had told me that she was getting too old for the princesses (ah, peer pressure), she decided while at Disney that she didn't care what her friends think, she still loves them.
Because of the short or no lines, we were able to ride every ride and see every show. Let me tell you, this is no small task. The place is HUGE. Of course this meant that we didn't stop to eat (we brought snacks), stop to meet many characters (except Donald and the princesses), and we skipped the playground type activities.

Besides the rides and the shows, we also took in the two parades as well as the fireworks show - and the park closed at a relatively early 8 p.m.

We didn't stop in any stores, which saved both time and money. And, because the kids didn't stop to look at anything, they didn't ask for anything. It was great. We did break down at the end of the day before the light parade when the boys spotted these light-up swords. At a whopping $4.50 we decided to go ahead and make the splurge.
While we were waiting for the parades to come by, Disney people handed out bubbles, balls and hula hoops and invited the kids into the street to play in front of the big crowds. Mackenzie is really pretty good with this thing.
At night they light up the castle so that it looks amazing. The picture doesn't do it justice, but if you click on it and take a closer look, you'll see what I mean. And of course, the fireworks display was spectacular.

By the end of it all, we were exhausted. We still had two monorail rides and a long run through the parking lot to catch the free shuttle back to our place. Trust me, by the end of day two of hitting it hard, I was NOT running at a good pace. In fact, I told Nelson to run and let me walk quickly with the kids. I figured he could talk the bus driver into waiting for a pregnant woman and three kids. Thanks be to God, he did.

All in all, it was a nearly perfect day, even though at the end of it, Nelson and I cried a few more tears as we tucked our precious children...all three of them...into their beds.