Vacation Day 4 {Beach Photo Session & Downtown Disney}

I feel I should give fair warning that this post is quite the photo dump. 

Precious beach pics of my kiddies yes.  But a photo dump nonetheless. 

The last day at the beach I wanted to attempt individual and family photos on the beach. So early in the morning the kiddies ran around until Hubby returned from a conference session. Then it was all business.

Peanut, YiaYia & Belle

My Sweet Lil Bear

As a mom of three I am a bit of a seasoned pro when it comes to formal portraits, but apparently I had gotten too much sun and all that knowledge went right out the window. Bear's expression in the photo above says it all. In a rush to take photos between Hubby's meetings, I made the cardinal sin of picture taking:

attempting to photograph children on an empty stomach. 

After we finished this session we fed the kids lunch and immediately they were all smiles. I have always scheduled photos right after a meal, because that is when my kids are most cooperative. As a result, this is the best we could capture.  

And in efforts to use the ocean as our backdrop, we had to position the camera directly beneath the blazing sun. Hence the squinted eyes. Total rookie mistake on my part, this was my first ocean shoot. Next time around we'll be sure to note where the sun is and stage accordingly. Overall though, I am just happy to have captured this moment in time no matter how windblown my hair is or squinty our eyes.

YiaYia and Bopi are such good sports to go along with Peanut's "silly-face" request. Love the baby's expression.

After the official photo shoot was over, I snapped a few impromptu shots of the kiddies down by the water. Some of these have actually turned out to be my favorites.

We bid our goodbyes to resort life, packed up our bags and hit the road again on our way to Orlando!

Belle and Peanut were thrilled to find not only bunk beds in our hotel room, but also a welcome letter and gifts from Mickey. We then headed to downtown Disney for dinner. Our original reservations were for Planet Hollywood, but we opted to cancel those and try our luck at T-Rex . I was unable to get last minute reservations, but the hostess told me that the restaurant holds the majority of its seating for walk up customers. 

The B kiddies do not do well with loud noises. In fact for that exact reason I chose to avoid T-Rex cafe in our initial plans. Every 15 minutes the dinos roar, thunder crashes and a meteor shower occurs in a style that is pure Disney. Belle never warmed up to the noise (note the headphones below), but by the end of our meal Peanut had acclimated.

After we filled our bellies, a stop off at the Lego store was in order. The store features monstrous creations and is located directly across from T-Rex. We browsed the store and tried our hand at building masterpieces of our own. Hubby & Peanut even built a cruiser and entered it in a race contest.

At the kiddies' request, we called it an early night and headed back to the hotel. Hollywood Studios in the morning!!!