Whenever people ask if they should bring their baby or preschooler to Walt Disney World, I usually see a mixed bag of answers. Usually the people that love Disney, want their kids to experience Disney and have actually brought small children to Walt Disney World will answer with a resounding, “YES, DO IT!”. Then I see some “No, wait till they’re older so they will remember it” answers from people who didn’t want to “waste a trip” on a too small child. Of course there’s no wrong answers, because in the end, you have to do what you feel comfortable with and there are pros and cons on both sides of the question.

I will say that although I can see the good and bad, I will always be the one who thinks you should if you can. We have taken 4 of our 5 kids (my poor, sweet – yet deprived tiniest villager has yet to make it to WDW) to Disney World at various ages. We have basically been at Disney with kids who have been from 3 months old to 18 years old at the time and many ages/stages in between. As a mom who’s been there – done that, I will be honest and say that bringing small children does add a lot of work to a family vacation, but if the downside is not going, then I think the work is worth it.

Disney does a fantastic job of making sure every guest has a memorable time, even if the memory will be a short-lived one. For example, my then 19 month old had many fun toddler-appropriate experiences while on vacation a few years ago, BUT as far as I can tell, now at 4 he has no memory of anything that happened during those 10 days. Although as a coping method, there are two plane trips and a few restaurant meals, I’d like to wipe out the memory of as well! Should I consider it a waste that we spent all that (and I do mean ALL that) money on a family vacation because he can’t remember meeting Mickey and Minnie for the first time (he kicked Minnie) or doesn’t remember the 1/2 hour we waited in line (in 95 degrees with 95% humidity) for a 2.7 second Dumbo ride? Of course not, because not only did he have an absolute blast at the time, but we have the memories of having experienced it with him. Plus, when you are a family of more than 2 or 3, there may be older kids to think about as well – we can’t deprive them of fun vacation memories (and yes, Disney is my only vacation destination) because of the little brothers & sisters.

Don’t let all my bring-the-newborn-to-Disney talk fool you into thinking that I don’t look longingly at the blissfully, kid-free couples I see on the monorail, boats and busses, heading off to a stunningly relaxing dinner, dressed nice and looking calm and refreshed, because I certainly do! Imagine me across the aisle of the bus, probably standing, while I balance a baby on my hip so the other kids can sit and not get thrown around the bus. It’s been a long day (although it may only be noon). I’m hot and sweaty and probably a little crazed looking. In addition to the baby, I’m probably straddling a stroller, while holding onto 17 Disney gift bags with a a 15 pound camera dangling from my neck (don’t want to miss the toddler giving Minnie the stink-eye, right?).

All in all, I still think Disney with babies, toddlers and preschoolers is a great idea. In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you some of my strategies for dealing with the smalls at WDW as well as the best attractions, rides and restaurants to take them!

As my head hits the Disney pillow each night of our stay, I’ll dream longingly of the day Kevin and I can enjoy our diaper bag-free days someday when enjoying them today.

Have you or are you planning to take the tots to WDW? Did you enjoy it? Worth the work our do you wish you would have waited?

If you are already on Instagram, come follow me and I’ll follow you back – I love checking out photos. I’m tracyeauclairephotography – so let’s connect!

Here are some I’ve snapped recently.

The glorious day my new Pottery Barn desk arrived. Pretty sure I could hear angels singing as I snapped.

My sweet Kev who took us out for a fun day at Goldfield Ghost Town. I always love stopping by Goldfield for some Old West vibes. Now that we live just down the street I can stop by all the time! When in the Wild, Wild West one must have a Sarsparilla! Yeehaw!

A few blocks away from our house, there was this adorable sign. It’s like we moved to the land that time forgot! If you could see how slow my internet download speeds are, you would know just how sadly truthful that is.

One of the 485 trips to Home Depot we make each week!

We found a fun little park just down the street.

I found a neat site for printing Instagram prints. As soon as they arrive, I’ll do a review on how they came out.

What have you captured lately?

Please Stop.

I don’t know how much clearer we can make it, but we do not want you to contact us by phone, by mail, through my ex-husband, by email and now by handing our children notes when they are at school.

As you are doing much of your harassing activity during work hours, I will soon have no choice but to ask for your employer’s help in stopping your ongoing harassment of my family.

Just Stop.

Your correspondence, attention, and harassment are not wanted.

You are not people we want to associate with and therefore, you are not people we want our children to associate with. As their mother that is my decision to make.

Matt Anderson’s abuse of power, lies about my performance and unethical behavior as my supervisor at 3D Systems was so great he had to be removed from his position. Unfortunately at that point, 3D Systems felt there was no longer a place for Kevin and I to be employed with them. This is a direct result from Matt’s misuse of power, lack of ethics and daily harassment of both Kevin and I at work. We have dozens of emails that show daily harassment.

Matt Anderson has committed Federal Tax Fraud by lying and misrepresenting my income on a 1099 he issued to me. This lie has made it so that it appears I owe $40,000 in back taxes, when in fact I do not owe any back taxes. I hope that because of this lie, the full punishment available is handed down to Matt. There is no excuse for this illegal, immoral and unethical behavior.

Matt Anderson has stolen my trademarked domain name, causing me to lose my legal trademark and all future income that went along with the ownership of the domain and trademark. Matt Anderson has hacked and deleted my personal email account as well as domain name. His unethical behavior knows no bounds.

Beth Anderson is harassing my children at school by handing them notes when she knows I have asked for zero contact from all of you. To write in a note to my daughter that you could not give her a present for her birthday because you knew that I would take it as my own is despicable at best. Actually Katie’s father is the only person I’ve ever know to take gifts away from his children and use them for his own benefit – gifts you gave to the kids, but you are happy to overlook that so you can all be friends with him.

Lisa Anderson has gone against my direct orders several times when I told her to stay away from my children when they are not in my presence. She has flat out told me I will not give her an order and she will see them when and how she wants. After going behind my back and against my wishes to access my children, she then tells them that I am not a good parent and shared several other inappropriate thoughts with them in an effort to undermine my parenting.

Lisa has stuck her head in the proverbial sand where her son Matt’s unethical behavior is concerned. If it’s not happening to her then it’s not happening, I guess. It’s almost comical that he was once ready to turn on her for her poor work ethic and weak job performance, but I talked him out of it. I have the email string to show this detailed conversation. She has no idea how close she can to losing her job as he as caused me to lose mine. I guess that one works both ways, because if only Matt and Beth knew all Lisa had ever said about their horrendous lack of parenting skills they might rethink allowing their own children to be alone with her. To think that just last year, Lisa could barely stand to be in the same room with two of her grandchildren because of their behavior.

Lisa has done the same thing with my oldest daughter who is now totally and completely brainwashed by Matt, Lisa and Beth. From conversations I have had with her, I have proof that she is being manipulated and lied to. How sad that you have put her in a position to have to choose. I will not make her choose, but hope that when she is ready to hear the truth she will come to me. Hopefully someday she will see the complete truth and realize some of the lies she has been told. Unfortunately Lisa needs to have complete and total control over people for her to function.

Lisa (she has said that Russ would participate in this as well) has also recently threatened to illegally take over the title of our house she has no financial interest in. We brought the house papers to Lisa to sign and because she “felt” that she was somehow being taken advantage of, she refused to sign the papers. Unfortunately Kevin had to have several months of surgeries at this same time. Not only were we having to deal with the stress of serious health issues, we now also had to deal with Lisa and her control issues. The bank insisted the papers we were asking Lisa to sign were the only correct papers to sign and that she was not being taken advantage of. Unfortunately Lisa has to control each and every interaction she is involved in so it put the signing of the papers off. She finally did sign the papers – the exact same papers that she was given several months prior. Months of difficulty could have been avoided had she signed the original papers in a timely manner.

Lisa, Matt and Beth have invited themselves into my ex-husband’s life. They have shared information with him that he believes he can use to receive full custody of my children. The information he has been given has no truth to it, so the only real value your new-found friendship with this parasite has is that it has caused my children undue stress and health issues when their father then tells them he is “going to take them away from mommy to live with him all the time and that they will never be allowed to see mommy again.” His out of control binge drinking combined with his inability to co-parent have caused his children to want nothing to do with him. In addition to already being worried that a visit with him will end in his blacking out and not being able to care for them, they now are also afraid that a visit with him will cause a forced visit with you.

Unfortunately Russ Anderson has decided to join your circus of misfortune. From the moment he came to my house to harass me with lies and misinformation given to him by Matt Anderson he chose the path he wanted to take. Kevin tried to tell him he was misinformed, but he couldn’t believe that. It is unfortunate that the children cannot see him, but again, for him to stand by while Matt, Lisa and Beth lie, hide the truth, go against a mother’s direct orders concerning the welfare of her children and commit Felony fraud speaks volumes.

My children want to do what is right. They do not feel the way you are manipulating them is right. They see what you are doing. They hear the snickering comments you’ve made when you were with them. They know you have taken them when I’ve told you not to. They see your eye-rolling when speaking ill of me when you don’t think they are listening. They feel better when they share your stories and un-wanted letters with me. They feel ashamed of you when you write them letters that paint me in a bad light. Katie does not want to read your letters that tell her to call you if she ever needs “help”. Katie and Kyle do not like being told they live in a “jail” with us. They do not feel that way and do not appreciate you talking about our home that way. They love our family and our home. They have a wonderful life full of love and fun. They should not have to be put in a position to defend this, so stop forcing them into this position.

Is this really the legacy you all want to leave for yourselves?

Please respect our wishes and stop the harassment of us and our children.

Ok, I admit I love seeing farm animals traipsing thru the yard, but after my last encounter – you know the one – where the bull looked at me all mean? Yea, I think I’ll just keep my distance for a while. So I run in the house, grab the camera, only cause this time there was a black and white cow and it just seemed friendlier because of the friendly cow-like colors. I hang back while the whole family goes rightuptothefreakingfence. I’m doing the mental math of how much weight a fence/gate can take when rushed by a bull and then the mental math of how fast I can go grab the small villager (who apparently has no fear) and then still have time to outrun the bull. Yeah. Right.

Back to my ever-so-brave, Scouty Boy or now… Plays With Bull. He has (DUH) never seen a cow or any farm animal for that matter. He has seen a cat and he has seen dogs at the dog park. He is friendly to a fault, but clearly has no concept of being out-weighed in the friend department. He kept creeping closer and closer to the barbed-wire fence. He then hops thru like it’s no biggie. He walks over to the bull cause Scout is all about common sense. Or at least all about making new friends. Or annoying any other living thing he encounters. So the bull now sees that the dumb dog is a few feet away from where he’s trying to eat a tree (which by the way he can snap apart with his horns quite effortlessly).

Bull stops eating to walk over to dog. I’m checking for my exit route because to see the dog, he has to walk towards us and see us! The Bull and Dog meet for a stare down. Scout is smart enough to look ever so slightly away from direct eye to eye contact. Then he looks back. This is the same dog who we have to take out in the yard for him to go to the bathroom. He is too afraid to go in our new yard by himself. He will not leave the patio without a human bathroom-companion, yet he thinks staring down a bull is a good idea? Reason #67 why he’s getting neutered this week. He is obviously not breeding material!

They look deep into each other’s eyes for another moment, bull decides he can take dog, bull does a little dodge and weave, dog does same. Do you see the snot flying out of that Bull’s nose? He was not happy.

Buuuuut, then Bull backs down and hoofs it outta there! We made Scout come in with us after that because you only get so lucky when trying to play with bulls, but all he wanted to do was get back in there to solidify that new friendship.

Maybe next time, Scout!

Anyway, after hearing the noise, he stands in the shadow of the house to wait for it to move so he can see what’s out there. As he’s telling me this story, all I’m thinking is “holy-mother-of-shit are you effing kidding me? you stood there to see what it was? you did not run like a school girl into the house?????” Oops – turns out I said it out loud. Again, more eye-rolling. I’m so happy I’m married to someone much braver than I am. So then he sees (in hindsight what he thought were) four deer.

Fast forward to this morning. I take the dog outside, I walk back in and he uncharacteristically stays outside, looking off into the distance. I thought it seemed weird, but a lot of what my spaz dog does is weird. I’ve been in for about two minutes now. Kevin is looking out our kitchen window, which looks out into the back yard. I’m about to walk over to the sliding glass door to let the dog in and I hear Kevin saying, “ohmyGOD, ohmyGOD, ohmyGOD, come here, come here, come here”.

As I walk over to the window I’m positive I’m about to see a mountain lion at which point I remember the dog is still out and then I remember that two of the villagers are out in the front yard by themselves. Ahhhhh, who do I save first? The dog is closer, but of course I like the children more. Then Kevin tells me where to look to see what he sees. I see movement, and a LARGE animal. So now I’m convinced we’re all breakfast for the giant mountain lion. I’m now a stammering mess of outloud thinking about who to save first. Then for a brief moment we think it’s a deer, like he saw last night, so at least the kids are safe from the man-eater. But then it moves it head and we see horns – it’s a BULL! Who gets bulls in their backyard? In all the backyards I’ve ever had (10 others) I’ve never, ever had a bull walk through one of them before. Kevin tells me to go get the camera. I figure they’ll be long gone by the time I do, but I can quickly get this el-lame-o shot of a faaaar away creature. (below the bent saguaro cactus).

We realize we could get a much better view from our bedroom balcony. We call the kids and all run up the stairs like crazed lunatics. Ok, well not Kevin, he doesn’t do “crazed lunatic” quite like we do. And yes the view was quite amazing. I think there were four scattered around, but I couldn’t get them in the shot all at once. Kevin convinced me to go out onto our roof to get a better shot. He knows all the good tricks!

After Kevin took the kids to school, I stayed up on the roof for another 1/2 hour enjoying the view.

At some point I figured I could get an even better shot (I now realize those are probably the “famous last words” of more than one photographer) if I got off the roof and walked out into the backyard. Awesome, right? Well, the shot from my patio was great, but I knew I could do better. So I walked a little, shot a little. Keep in mind that there is no clear path where I’m walking. It’s rocky, hilly, bushy and filled with cactus. Every step has to be planned. That’s great when you’re walking slowly towards something. So a little closer… Shutter Clicks. Bull stops eating. Bull lifts up his enormous head and looks right. at. me.

The adventurous and curious photographer persona evaporated into thin air and all that was left standing a few yards away from this now super-alert bull was one very freaked out me. In came a flood of memories of every “when animals attack” show that Kevin has ever made us sit through. AHHHHHH. At this point I was very thankful we have no neighbors to witness the vision of gracefulness I wasn’t. I turned around and booked. Unfortunately it was a downhill, rocky, cactus-filled, tripping, stumbling, mess of a get-a-way, but I made it to the back patio, ran into the house and locked the glass door (as if the bull was going to try to get in and get me by politely using the latch, right?). Turns out common sense and logical thinking do not come into play when fight or flight takes over. You just fly.

Here’s what he looked like on that last shutter click… does that face just scream “not happy” or what?

Needless to say, I am never taking the dog out at night.

The other day we all played hooky and went to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix and sure enough, a great time was had by all!

And we also took the kids out for lunch at Chili’s. I think it was the tiny villager’s first meal out! She must want to go out to eat again, because she (as were all the villagers) was perfectly behaved!

So here’s my newly painted office! We are going to get some drawer banks and a new, White Corian counter for the empty spot for scrappin fun. The Pottery Barn Collector’s Desk is on the way (yay!!) and then the shelves waaaay up high will probably have some framed photos and such.

I love it every single second I’m here and every time I pass by it!

If you’re a scrapper, have you been to FotoBella.com? If not, you should check it out. They’ve got a great selection of scrapbook supplies at great prices!

When I saw all the shelves and storage in this little room on the main level of our new house, I could instantly envision what a fantastic combo office & scrapbook room it would make! As consolation for leaving the scrapbook closet I love so much, Kevin promised that he would recreate the parts I loved in this new space. He’s going to buy me a new white countertop for the empty spot under the shelves and put up another peg board too! I can’t wait to fill up the space with colorful scrapbook goodies! There are floor to ceiling cabinets to the left of the window that I’ll use for storing photo props or other assorted goodies.

Desk will go here…

Then, just when I thought I was in scrapbook space heaven, along came office heaven! What better place for my beloved iMac to rest than this Pottery Barn Porter Collector’s desk?

I was resisting hitting submit on the desk because once you add shipping/extra shipping/rush shipping/tax/handling/fondling charges it’s gonna cost me approx. a billion dollars or so. Since I’m currently unemployed, that doesn’t make the most sense, right? Luckily Kevin sees it differently. He thinks that the beautiful new desk will bring the perfect job to me. Hey, who can argue with logic like that? Especially when it gets you this scrumptious desk. And here’s the hilarious part. I was willing to spend that much $ on just an overpriced table, which is originally all I thought it was. I tried to like other desks & writing tables, but none were as pretty and graceful as this. They were small and just not as stinkin cute as this one! Then by accident I find out that the entire front is a freaking drawer. I did wonder why it had “Collector’s” in the name. As soon as I saw all the compartments, I was in office-supply-hoarder love.

Kevin is over there right now painting the walls a lovely shade called Illusion from Valspar. Ceiling will be a half-tone of the walls and the crown molding, trim and shelves will remain white. I am thinking about replacing the boring ceiling fan with a black iron chandelier I have. Is adding some black here a bad idea at this point? I was also thinking about looking for a chair with some sort of black/white damask or paisley pattern and putting some framed something or other on the walls with black frames. So maybe then the black chandelier wouldn’t be too out of place??? Kevin thinks we should paint the chandelier white, but that just sounds wrong to me. Thoughts?

Now I just need to find a sweet chair and I’m all set!