We took the Wildlife Express Train to do some more exploring. We met Doc McStuffins.

Annie wasn’t impressed.

And Rafiki – he’s one of my favorite Disney characters.

Dave got his help recreating this famous scene:

A few more of my favorites, King Louie and Baloo. Annie was crazy about King Louie.

We took a safari ride to find some real animals.

We saw their new baby hippo, Augustus. He is sharing the water with the bigger hippo here. He looks a bit like a rock, but I promise, he’s there.

And of course, Luke’s favorites, the giraffes.

The last Disney Park we visited on our vacation was Animal Kingdom. This is one of my favorite Maggie pictures from the whole trip. That girl has some serious sass.

Yes, more matching shirts. I won’t apologize. I had fun making them and the kids loved them.

The Pandora area of Animal Kingdom is really beautiful!

A bit of a magic picture fail here. The photographer just told us all to look up and point. I am not sure what we were all supposed to be pointing at, it certainly wasn’t that dino-bird thing above our heads.

I found this glitter butterfly face sticker set for $1 a couple of weeks before our trip. I wasn’t sure how it would work, but while we were waiting for one of our rides I gave it a shot. It was easy to apply (a little crooked, but that’s okay) and Maggie LOVED it. We had several people stop us to ask where in the park she had it done. She ended up peeling it off while we were on our safari that afternoon, but Maggie definitely got a dollar’s worth of enjoyment out of it.

The kids really liked visiting the wilderness explorer stations, learning about animals, and earning sticker badges.

We stopped to apply sunscreen around 10:30 and found ourselves first in line to meet Timon.

As we finished up with Timon, Flik walked by, so we followed him and got some pictures with him too. Two characters in less than ten minutes – not too shabby.

Flik was really a fun character to visit with. The kids had just seen his movie a few nights before at Dave’s parents’ house and so it was an especially neat meeting for them.

Last week Maggie had her dance recital. She’s right in the center of the group. Just look for the girl that keeps waving.

She was so excited to wear her rainbow tutu on the stage.

And now that the recital is over, she can wear it as much as she wants.

The last two characters we met at the Magic Kingdom were Stitch and Buzz Lightyear.

Stitch is one of Adam’s favorites because of the Elvis music they play in his movie.

I was feeding Annie, so the two of us missed out on meeting Buzz.

Dave was all about getting a picture with the space ranger though.

And each of the kids wanted individual shots with him as well.

They also all wanted more ice cream.

So that’s what they got.

Aladdin and Peter Pan were two of the “must see” characters on Adam’s list. So that’s exactly what we did.

Peter Pan was pretty funny. Maggie went right up to him and said, “I’m a little bit sassy, just like Tinker Bell.”

He really liked that the autograph card had his picture on it.

We almost didn’t stop in to see Ariel. The wait times were really long all day. We finally had come to terms with spending 35 minutes in line and as we were going in, one of the employees said that the sign was wrong. It was only a ten minute wait.

This is one of my favorite photos from our trip. I am so glad Dave had us stop for this photographer for another shot with the castle.

Adam asked the photographer if she could do any fun photos and this is the result.

I love it.

I took Maggie to get her pictures done yesterday. Can you believe this little lady will be five next week? I can’t.

She did such a good job working with the photographer. I love all of the photos we got. I think one of my favorites from yesterday though, was the one I took against the side of the building as we were leaving.

Adam had a soccer game tonight. I debated on just sending Dave and staying home with the other three kids, but we toughed it out and I’m so glad we did.

We camped out in the back of the van. It kept us mostly dry and gave us front row seats for Adam’s two goals!! Adam was the goalie during the first two quarters and did an incredible job. That kid was on fire. He had a really fantastic game. I managed to catch his first goal on video (barely), but here it is!

His second goal was even more impressive, I wish I’d been recording for that one.

Another thing on our “must do” list was meeting Mickey at Magic Kingdom.

Of course Adam wanted a picture of just him with his main mouse.

Adam has been Mickey’s number one fan ever since he was a baby. He still has the Mickey he got when he was one, and sleeps with him every night. He even made the trip to Florida with us.

We told Adam, Luke, and Maggie they could each get a hat or pair of ears while we were at Disney World.

Luke knew right away that he wanted a Goofy hat and so we got it for him that morning before we even went into the park.

It was one of the best decisions that we made that trip. Luke wore it the rest of the trip and it’s even been to school as his show-and-tell already.

It took Adam and Maggie a bit longer to decide. Adam knew he wanted a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, but couldn’t decide between sorcerer Mickey or a pair that looked like Spiderman. He went with the sorcerer ones and they were perfect for him.

Maggie wanted a hat that looked like Pluto, then a Minnie Mouse baseball hat, but then she saw these pink glittery, princess, butterfly ears. It’s like they were made for her.

They each picked the perfect hat/ears for themselves and they were so excited to wear them around the parks.

After breakfast, and in between rides, we met with some of the princesses.

Annie really turned on the charm for the photographers. I love this picture of her with Cinderella.

The boys were good sports about the time we spent in line to see them. The princesses did a great job interacting with the kids and so I know they enjoyed meeting them too.

Rapunzel was one of my favorites, she was pretty funny. Maggie showed off her long braid.