Still swollen

Saturday morning




Saturday night (bribed with candy corn to get a picture, so mouth full)




Sunday morning--a little better than last night. Now he had a little bit of bruising under his eye.




Yesterday morning after talking with Dr E we had to give him a decadron shot. And another one this morning. Yesterday my mom had to hold him down and I gave it to him as he was screaming and fighting. This morning he picked out his own bandaid and held it while he sat on the stool and got his shot as he watched. He halfway laughed and said owww! As I was giving it and then put his bandaid on. So proud!! Big boy!!




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Peanut allergy

This is real.
Last night at the football game I got boiled peanuts. Porter does not like peanuts, but he was very proud of the fact that he could peel them all by himself and give them to me. He has had limited exposure to peanuts in the past because he would not eat any peanut products. Never has. In just a few minutes I noticed he was rubbing his eyes a lot and he told me his eyes were itching. I looked at them and they looked fine. He kept doing it. I looked at them and he had tiny little whelps all around his eyes. And he was scratching his entire head with both hands. I had gone to the game to see the band perform and they were about to take the field, so I told him we would leave after they played. About halfway through Andalusia's 2nd song I looked at him and his face was red and swollen, right eye was almost swollen shut and his nose was stopped up and running clear stuff. It had gotten much worse quickly. I would say it had only been about 10 minutes total.
We flew to rite aid and got some Benadryl and went straight home. This is what he looked like when we got home.



I have him 25 mg of Benadryl and sat up with him for a long time after he fell asleep. The redness improved and the swelling went down some bit he was still swollen a good bit this morning. Here is what he looked like this morning.



So now we are a peanut free home! And we are on steroids and getting epi pens to keep with us.
If you are around him, please do not try to feed my child any peanut products or have them around him. He didn't even eat a peanut last night. He just had it on his hands. I'm not sure if he rubbed his eye or what set it off, but it was just on his skin. So not letting him eat it isn't good enough. He can't be around it.


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Go bulldogs!!

It's bad when porter is my child that is sitting still... They were all dressed up in their Andalusia attire this morning and I tried to get a picture. This is the best we could do. The only way I'm going to get a picture of the bulldog on Stella's onesie is if she's not in it. This girl is WILD!!!






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Last Disney post--I promise...

Ok, so I am constantly broadening my Disney horizons and trying new things every time we go. This time we stayed in a different hotel and tried some new restaurants.
Comparing the resorts we've stayed in, I still think I like wilderness lodge the best and animal kingdom lodge comes in 2nd. The reason would be that magic kingdom is easier to get to from wilderness lodge. Also I think wilderness lodge has a better pool area, but animal kingdom definitely has a major plus with the animals everywhere. Wilderness lodge comes out ahead in cost because it is least expensive of the deluxe resorts. The other resorts we have stayed at are the contemporary and the Polynesian. Polynesian has a great pool area too, and is equivalent to the pool at wilderness lodge. It is also in magic kingdom area and on the monorail. I would say that the monorail and boat to magic kingdom from wilderness lodge are about equal. The contemporary is close enough to walk to magic kingdom and the rooms seemed to be bigger, but we didn't really like the atmosphere of contemporary. So all the resorts have their pros and cons, but my favorite is wilderness lodge still. Jared doesn't get to vote in that one until he stays at animal kingdom.
We tried two different signature restaurants--jiko and flying fish cafe. Jiko is at animal kingdom lodge and flying fish cafe is at the boardwalk inn. They were both good, but certainly not my favorites. I think my favorite so far is still California grill at the top of the contemporary, followed closely by artist point at wilderness lodge and portobello at downtown Disney. I think I even prefer le cellier at Epcot to either jiko or flying fish cafe. They are all excellent, but I have such high expectations for Disney signature restaurants now, and I have visited some of the best.
My favorite table service restaurant that is not signature is definitely liberty tree tavern in magic kingdom. Food is served family style and they always have a variety of meats (roast beef, turkey, and pork tenderloin), starches (mashed potatoes, stuffing, and macaroni and cheese), and vegetables. It is pretty much an all you can eat type set up, as we have asked for a second serving of certain things and it was never an added cost. Also Tony's town square is always good, though didn't seem quite as good this trip as it has been in the past.
We did the deluxe dining plan and I tallied the cost a little better this time to get an idea of the value of it. We certainly came out ahead this trip. It costs $89 per adult per day. Here is a rough rundown of our days--breakfast buffet $25, snacks totaling about $20 per day, and supper being about $55 per person. So we easily came out ahead, and that was being conservative on our dinner estimate. One night my entree was $35, and another it was $42. Each meal covers appetizer, entree, and dessert, so $55 for supper is easily on the low side. So it saves at least $10 per day, and I really like not having to worry about how much money to budget for food. It's included in the package and paid for ahead of time. The only thing we were responsible for was tip and alcohol.
I did read that the cost of the dining plan is going to increase to $99 per adult per day next year, so that might require me to really re-evaluate it in the future.
The parks seemed a little busier than I had expected. We have even going at the end of October, which has been great. Very little wait time at any ride. We had to wait a fair amount, especially at Winnie the Pooh. I have never waited to pirates of the Caribbean, and we waited about 15 min for it. We got fast passes for Peter Pan's flight, or otherwise we wouldn't have gotten to ride it. The wait was about 45 min every time we went by. I am anxious to see how the waits are when we go in January since we haven't been that time of year yet.
I really expected the not so scary party to be less busy, but I really couldn't tell much difference in the night we went and Halloween night when we have gone the last 2 years. And it even rained the night we went until about 9:00 or so.
So, another trip and more information gathered. A fun little weekend.

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Last set of Disney pictures

Disney by iPhone

Here are some pictures that didn't fall into any "category."
Porter rode his first roller coaster, the barnstormer, and loved it. He was doing his signature laugh/noise the whole time and wanted to get right back on.





Wouldn't let me take his picture on the roller coaster.


Fell asleep on the bus ride back to the room.


Dancing at breakfast.





The stuffed bat.





It slept with us... How strange.


Got pumpkin ears but didn't want his picture taken.


Tigger was quite the active character....





Playing with the honey screens in the line at Winnie the Pooh.





Fell asleep on the ride back to the room again. Pirate tattoo and buzz lightyear car....


Easily the best pic of the trip. We went to the boardwalk inn for dinner out last night and they had a photo booth outside. For a little boy that hates to have his picture taken, he was certainly interested in this little contraption. He wanted to do it again. Loved it.


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Crystal Palace breakfast

Porter wanted nothing to do with Piglet, but was very excited to see the rest of the winnie the pooh characters.  Hollice just enjoyed them all from a distance the whole trip.

 These are some of my favorite pics from the whole trip...

Animal Kingdom Lodge

I have always wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge, but a few things didn't make that possible until this trip.  First, it is not at Magic Kingdom, and until this trip, we were always trying to make a mad dash back to the room for nap time, and all parks are only accessible by bus.  Second, it is quite expensive.  This trip we were lucky enough that they (Disney) was running a very nice discount, so it made it the same price as a moderate priced resort, and that made it an easy decision to try it out.  I will say that I would stay there again, though it does have it's pros and cons.

Pros:

We were able to stay in a savannah view room and always had a variety of animals roaming right outside our room--even at night.

Since it is a deluxe resort, the bus routes are very nice, usually only making one stop at the destination. The less expensive resorts have longer bus routes, with more stops, making for a long ride back to your room at times.

Interesting food in the on site restaurants.  It is an African themed resort, and there are African foods offered in all of the restaurants, which is a nice change and something interesting to try.

It is very close to the edge of the Disney property, which made getting out and back on the road home very quick and easy.

Cons:

The resort itself is kinda spread out, and the walk to our room was long.

It is not close to Magic Kingdom.

The rooms were probably the smallest we have stayed in at Disney--possibly the same size as Wilderness Lodge, but definitely smaller than the Contemporary.

The quick service restaurant was outside by the pool, so you had to go outside and back inside to get to it.  Not terrible, but just a little different.

Here are a few pics from our balcony.

Some funny looking birds that made a lot of noise....

 The boys loved being out on the balcony.  They were out there "reading."