30

Well between Christmas and Disneyland and lots of other little things in between I have gotten really behind in my blog. So I'm going to be back tracking just a little.





January 21st Josh turned the big 30. Josh was so funny, the day of his birthday was a little crazy we had lots of stuff that had to be done. Including Josh, going out with the missionaries. The day had been so crazy that he hadn't even had time to open his presents or blow out any candles, and you know with kids you can't have a birthday unless those things are done. Well he was only suppose to be gone for about an hour with the missionaries, but I got a call from him saying they needed to go by and visit a few more people and that he would be later then he thought. I could tell he was disappointed when we talked about just putting the kids to bed and having a redo on his birthday the next day. So I let the kids stay up and wait for Dad, so we could sing to him and let him open his presents.



Josh got a much needed new set of cook ware. For those who might not now Josh does the cooking in our family! He is an amazing chef! So new cook ware was something he really wanted!

Although we did let the kids stay up to help Dad open his presents we waited till the next day to have cake and ice cream. Mint chip ice cream, and chocolate cake at 10pm would not have been a good idea!

I think she enjoyed her cake the most!

I'm so lucky to have Josh, and look forward to many more birthdays with him!!!!!!!

She's 3 going on 16

Rylenn is definitely the personality in this house.

She has been able to talk with an adult vocabulary for quite some time now. She can even talk her friend into putting on a princess dress and playing dress up with her! I don't know how she did it, the boys were having a blast and playing swords together. The next thing I know she has convinced him that a pink dress, high heals and a tiara would be more fun! Lets just hope that in the future her spunk and "leadership" abilities serve her well!

This morning Haydenn and Rylenn were sitting on the floor and Haydenn was brushing Rylenns hair. It sounded like they were arguing and so I said "hey what's going on?" Rylenns responded "it's ok Mom, Haydenn is just giving me a make over!" Someone please tell me how my 3 year knows what a makeover is!

If your ever bored just come over to my house and play princesses with Rylenn. She will keep you entertained for hours! Oh we love our Rylenn!

Don't get Wet!

That was the one thing I had told the kids. They, well we, were all begging Josh to take us to the beach before we headed home. Of course he said yes, and so we headed down to Newport beach. We were just going to spend an hour or so, let the kids look around, collect a few sea shells and have some lunch. I love going to the beach but the sand kind of gets to me! There is a time and place for the sand, and if your not prepared to deal with it then it is no fun! So the one thing I told the kids was please don't get wet. I reminded them that we have a long trip home and that would not be fun to ride in the car for that many hours all sandy and wet.



We started out on the pier letting the kids take pics with their disposable cameras. But if you look you can see that huge gap at the bottom of the railing. I know I'm just a paranoid mom but I knew with Tuckers luck he would be the one to fall through. And we were really high up. I was a nervous wreck the whole time!

This was how it started out digging a little in the sand looking for sea shells and other cool things!
I was a little surprised when it was Josh leading them out to wade in the water and then letting the tide chase them back up to the shore


Then of course the tide came in to fast and they were up to their waist in water. I was standing there thinking did I really think I could bring them to the beach and expect them not to get wet! The water was freezing cold but they didn't care they were having a blast!

All soaking wet, and so proud to be!
Goof balls!

I love how Emmys blue eyes match the ocean!


This is Tuckers, I'm trying to hold still and smile while you take that picture but I really don't want to, face

We had such a good time in California and am so grateful we got to go and spend that time with Emmy and Tucker! Thanks to all the family who helped with our little girls! I know they were not the easiest especially since they weren't feeling well! We told our kids to start saving there money we will be planning another trip back to Disneyland in 3 years. That way Haydenn will be 5 and Rylenn 6, both perfect ages to be able to go and enjoy!

The perfect ending!

Day 4

I woke up at about 5:30am to a very loud rain storm. I looked out the window to see it pouring raining. We knew that it was suppose to rain on Saturday but they said just a slight rain. I laid awake the rest of the night trying to figure out what we would do if Disneyland was out of the question. I was told that this would be the best day to go to California Adventure since the major crowds are usually at Disneyland, so we hadn't gone over there at all, we were waiting till today. I was worried they would be so sad if we got rained out!

We got up, got ready and went to breakfast in no hurry, hoping that it would let up a little. Thankfully it had. We set out for California Adventure. I guess the rain kept everyone else away cause we were practically the only ones at the whole park. Our kids were the only ones on some of the rides. The workers would tell them if you want to go again just stay in your seat! It was crazy! My kids were loving it!

We started California Adventure at A Bugs Land. The kids got to ride this one a couple of times.

Monsters Inc. was one of the other rides that my kids loved! When Emmy was little we use to watch this movie over and over and over. She loved "Boo"! And now we have a "Boo" of our own, everyone always tells me Haydenn looks like Boo!

This is one of the things that was on our "to do" list for the day. Emmy had to see "High School Musical 3 Live". I was a little worried that they would cancel it because of the rain, and the first show they did. But we went back for the 2nd showing and were so glad we did. Emmy got picked out of the audience to come up and dance with them. She was so excited and did a really good job of just jumping right in and having a good time.

Emmy dancing in "HSM 3 live"! So much fun!!!

Probably the best thing about California Adventure for my kids was the shows. This was a show we went to called "In the Magic". It was really good and at the end Woody and Sleeping Beauty and Mickey Mouse came out to talk to and say hi to the kids! Tucker was so excited Woody is one of Tuckers hero's! We were sitting on the front row and when Woody came out he waved right at Tucker. Tucker thought that was so cool! He was so excited to go and see him afterwards! I love the look on Tuckers face. Pure joy!

Mulan is me and Emmy's favorite princess. We never saw her, but we did find this cool drawing of her on the wall!

We also got to see, Play House Disney Live and Muppet's 3D and a couple of other little shows like that. Another one of our favorite rides was the Soaring over California ride. That was really cool my kids would have done that one over and over, but it made Josh sick so he really didn't want to do it again. I really thought he was going to throw up in the hall on our way out of the ride. Thankfully he didn't! He said that his upset stomach was thanks to the bugs life ride that they went on over and over.
Tucker and Emmy couldn't get enough of the fact that everything was decorated in Disney even the benches!

Taking a break on the Mickey head bench!

We enjoyed California Adventure but there wasn't a whole lot for the kids to do, they really just wanted to go back over to Disneyland. We shopped around at the shops at C.A. and got our Disney Mr. Potato head parts and then decided to head back over. Well about this time it really started to rain hard. And I thought this is not fun! I was done! I was ready to call it a day and maybe take the kids to a movie or something, Josh and the kids agreed. We went over to Disneyland to let the kids spend their money. While we were shopping the rain stopped and the sun came back out and Tucker was begging Josh to just take him on Space Mt. one more time. We decided that the girls would finish the shopping and let the boys get in a few more rides. So they went one way and we went the other. Us girls had sooooo much fun! We went from store to store just looking and shopping. I knew the boys were having so much fun to, cause they kept calling to see if it was ok if they kept riding. Josh said Tucker was like a kid in a candy store just running from ride to ride trying to get in everything he could!

Remember how much Tinker Bell had been Emmys hero when we had seen her the day before. Well while the boys were riding we decided to take another trip back to Pixie Hollow and see if we could catch any of the other fairies. When we got in line we were told that the fairies that we would be visiting were Iradesa and of course Tink. Em was so excited to see Iradesa, well right when we got to the front of the line they told us that Iradesa had to go get ready for the sun to come down (she is the fairy in charge of the light). Silvermist would be taking her place. We were so bummed we had see Silvermist yesterday. But then the cast member told us that we were lucky cause we were going to get to see an extra fairy. Terrance! Ok I thought Emmy was excited to see Iradesa you should have seen her when she found out she was getting to meat Terrance! She quickly was telling me how Terrance was her favorite fairy and how him and Tinker Bell were best friends and on and on and on. She was so excited she couldn't quite talking! Well Terrance and Tink did not disappoint! As the last group was walking away and we were walking up, Terrance said to Tink, "Tink I'm glad were best friends!" and Tink said "Ya me to Terrance!" Then Terrance looked at Emmy and said "Hey look do you think that little girl wants to be best friends to?" Then he ran over to Emmy and gave her this huge hug! Once again Emmy couldn't stop smiling! She talked to both Terrance and Tink for a long time and it was as magical as the day before. I think Emmy would have spent a couple of hours there if she could and then gone back the next day and done it all again!

We ended up staying the rest of the day at Disneyland and it never really rained hard again. A couple of little drizzles here and there and that was about it.

Emmy and I were just leaving Disneyland getting ready to meat the boys in Downtown Disney and Emmy was saying how she had so much fun at Disneyland. More fun then she could have ever imagined! But the one thing she was a little disappointed in was that after that first day we never found Mickey and Minnie again to have her shirt signed. I was a little sad to it would have been so fun for both Emmy and Tucker to have gotten their shirts signed. Well right at the very end of Main st. right before you leave the gates there was Mickey and Minnie, it was like they were waiting especially for Emmy! She ran over there and got her shirt signed. I couldn't believe it, I was starting to really believe that this was a magical place! What a perfect ending to a perfect week!

Souvenir

Here is the silhouette picture of my kids I was talking about. One of my favorite souvenirs from our trip to Disneyland!

I was so surprised that it really did look so much like Emmy and Tucker!

Disneyland

Day 2

Knowing how tired the kids were I let them sleep in the next morning. While at breakfast we were trying to decide on what to do about that long walk to Disneyland. We knew our kids weren't going to be able to do it again. We had just decided we were going to have to pay to park at the Disney parking garage, which was so frustrating since it was literally across the street from our motel. As we were checking out at breakfast I just happened to ask the girl if she could tell us the best place to park for Disneyland. She was so nice and told us we could just park in their parking lot as long as we parked in the back and didn't leave it overnight. I was so grateful! Now we were literally across the street. My kids were so relieved! And the best part was we didn't have to pay to park!

Our kids had been saving money and counting change to go to Disneyland for like a year and a half. So we told our kids that they could split all the change that was left to roll and use it for their spending money at Disneyland. It worked out to be that they both had $50 that was theirs they could spend it on what ever they wanted. Every shop we went to on the first day Emmy was looking at things and making notes, but she wanted to wait till the last day to buy anything so she could make sure she saw everything and made the best choice (such a shopper!)! Tucker didn't really care. I could tell he would just find something in any of the shops and be totally thrilled with it! Well one of the things that they both really wanted was a hat. We talked about it and decided they would go ahead and get one so they could wear it for the rest of the trip. So first thing we did that morning was go to the "Mad Hatter" and let both of the kids get hats.

They both turned out to be so cute. Tucker got the read classic Mickey hat with ears and his name on the back. Emmy did the, "build your own hat", which was fun. She got a white base with embroidered Mickey heads on it and red with white polka dot ears. And of course her name embroidered on the back. They were both thrilled with their new hats and wore them the rest of the trip.

While we were in the store tons of characters came out and were signing books and taking pictures right in front of the store. Emmy wanted to take pictures with them all but Tucker wanted was to ride rides. Emmy picked 2 characters she really wanted to see and then we went to ride rides.

Emmy picked Pluto and Mary Poppins to get pictures with. Tucker had already gotten his pic with Pluto while we were in the store. Pluto was really funny, he made my kids laugh!

Emmy loved Mary Poppins and Bert, Tucker just wanted to go ride. We tried to get Emmy to tell Mary Poppins that she was practically perfect, but she wouldn't!

Grandma had requested a picture in an orange tea cup. So this one is for Grandma!

One of our favorite things that day was going to Pixie Hollow! Emmy has all of the Tinker Bell books and loves them all! Every one of Tinks fairies has there own book so she knows them very well, and was excited to see them. This was Silver Mist, she laughed and joked with the kids about making it rain.
But Tinker Bell was truly the hero of the day! She made Emmy feel so special, she even made her an honorary tink! Which to Emmy meant the world! Emmy told her about how she loved to read all her books, so Tinker Bell started quizzing her about all her fairies friends. Of course Emmy knew it all, and was so proud to be able to show Tinker Bell that she did! Emmy had a Tinker Bell autograph book and that thrilled Tinker Bell and she made a big deal about it! She told Emmy that it was her favorite on of them all! Which again made Emmys day! She told Emmy that when she saw her she knew they were going to be great friends! Emmy was beaming! I think Tucker was even a little smitten with Tink! He giggled and laughed the whole time we were with her! I wanted to somehow tell her how she has just made a little girls dreams come true! and to say thank you to her for not just doing her job but for taking the time to make my kids feel so special! Thanks Tink for giving my kids a memory they will cherish for the rest of their life!

Friday we had just a laid back kind of day. We spent some time in Toon Town. This was a picture that I requested that they do. I have a picture of Me and my sister Lexi at this same fountain mimicking this pose when I was younger, so I thought it would be fun to have one of my kids doing the same thing. Emmy thought I was a little crazy and wasn't sure she wanted to do it. But she was a good sport and went for it!

Tucker had no problem being silly!

This was more like the pose that Emmy was use to doing! Emmy in the middle of Toon Town!

It was hard to keep this kid still enough to take a picture, he wanted to just go go go! I think he thought he was going to miss out on something! But when I do get a picture I love seeing his big brown eyes and freckles!!!

Emmy and Tucker thought this car was pretty cool!

Neither Emmy or Tucker really cared for Toon Town to much but one of the things that Emmy did like was Minnie's house. Here she is with Minnie's mail box!

Dads stepping in to help when Emmy and Tuck couldn't make the dynamite explode. They thought it was pretty funny when Dad couldn't make it happen either!

Tucker was getting so sad that he couldn't be seen in any of the pictures from the rides. So his goal this time was to just sit up as high as he could so he could be seen! He was so proud of himself when he saw this picture and you could actually see him! It's funny whats important to kids, cause all Emmy cared about was not getting to wet, so she was ducking in all the pictures trying to prepare for the water!

Friday was a very good and relaxing day. We had already done almost everything so we just spent the day going again on our most favorite rides. We had lunch at Disneyland but decided to leave for dinner. Disneyland was going to be open late that night so we knew after diner we could come back if we wanted.

After diner we were pretty tired but we really wanted to see the fire works. By the time we got back to Disneyland the streets were packed with people laying in the middle of the road waiting to see the fireworks. We asked around and found the perfect spot for fireworks. We waited and waited until they finally announced that they were canceling them do to high winds. We were bummed but decided to walk around to the different shops on main st.

I had read online that one of the best souvenirs to get was in a little shop on Main st. where they do your kids silhouettes. We weren't totally sure we really wanted it, but decided to go ahead and do it anyway. The girls online were right it was really cool! I thought it was going to be some computerized thing where they scan the profile of your kids and then have a computer cut it out, NO! It took a lady about 30 seconds to hand cut out my kids silhouette. It was so amazing to watch, and it looks just like my kids! She even did the flower that was in Emmy's hair. Anybody going to Disneyland I would say go have it done its really cool!

Emmy had come home from school the day we had left and had played this fun game with multiplication. Emmy loved the game so much that her teacher had let her bring home the stuff so we could play in our hotel room while we were gone. We were pretty tired after spending the day at Disneyland but Emmy was so excited to play. So that night we played a couple of rounds of multiplication and then the kids wrote out their postcards to themselves.

Tucker was so funny! Every night he would ask me to tell him the schedule for the next day so he could wright it down for us. It had to be in detail! No skipping anything! He gets so excited and is so proud of himself when he sees that he can wright a sentence! It makes me a little sad, I can't believe he is reading and writing sentences they are growing up way to fast! After he was done he would rip out the page and have me put it in the back pack so we would be sure to have it with us the next day!

We had so much fun! It was nice to have had such a good day and to have done so many things but to not be so totally exhausted!

Another picture!

I forgot to put this picture in with my post about day 1.

Our Splash Mt. Picture. I made the kids wait till the end of the day to do splash mountain. I didn't want to walk around Disneyland all day soaking wet. Josh tried to get us all to do that funny pose but Tucker was the only one up for it. He was really disappointed that he was to little to be seen in the picture. All you can see is his arm sticking out the side. Me and Emmy were just trying not to get to wet. The kids loved this ride and we went on it several times!

Magical

Magical is the best word I can use to describe our trip to Disneyland. It was everything I had hoped and planned for. We had a great time!

Emmy and Tucker in front of Walt Disney himself and Mickey Mouse!

You know me I love to tell a story and take a lot of pictures. So I'm going to post about our trip one day at a time.

Day 1

We drove over the night before and got to CA at about 11:30pm. We got a good night sleep and were up early ready to start our first day at Disneyland. We wanted to get there early cause we needed to exchange our vouchers for tickets and I knew this was going to be our best day there since it was a Thursday. When I booked the motel I was told that it was .3 miles from Disneyland. Well come to find out it is .3 miles from Disneyland, but on the back side. It was a pretty good walk to get to the front gate, and I was a little worried about the kids being able to walk that every day.

I've never seen 2 kids jump out of bed and get ready faster then they did that first morning! Here they are outside the motel patiently waiting to go to Disneyland! I love these two!



We had a little more time then we thought when we got to the gates. I'm not the type of person that wanted to be the first one through the gates and run to be the first in line. So after getting our tickets we let the kids explore for awhile. They were so funny, they kept looking around and saying how much Rylenn would love to see all the stuff. Just hanging out in Downtown Disney is fun in itself! I was glad we had the extra time to just let them look around and enjoy! Our first ride! I know its not the best pic but hey you have to have one of their very 1st ride. I had done my homework and knew to head straight to Nemo. Emmy and Tucker were in aww through out the whole ride. This ended up being one of their most favorite ride and it was a very good way to start the day!

We had decided to stick with Tomorrow land and so we headed over to Autotopia. They loved that they got their own drivers license and that they could drive the cars them selves. Tucker had no idea that there was a track at the bottom that the cars followed, he told me he always knew he was a good driver! Crazy kid!



We were a little worried this same week we were there they reopened Captain EO, as a tribute to Michael Jackson. It was made in, I think they said in 1986 and is kind of like a 3d music video. I had seen it before when I was a kid but wanted to see it again. My kids really enjoyed it and Emmy was glad to finally see a face to Michael Jackson. She has heard so much about him on the news and at school, she really got the idea of what a good entertainer he was. It didn't really seem to effect the amount of people that were there either. The park seemed dead no lines at all!

We had so much fun, a lot of people told us to take certain pictures while we were there. It was almost like a treasure hunt trying to find all the places people wanted us to take pics, my kids loved it. My mom wanted one in front of Sleeping Beauties Castle. There you go Mom, sorry the sun was so bright I couldn't get the kids to put their hands down!
This picture was especially for Rylenn! Who truly believes her and Sleeping Beauty are sisters!

We were so lucky and saw tons of characters, and most of them we didn't even have to wait in line for. Emmy loved Cinderella's fairy godmother, I think mostly because she told Emmy that she looked just like Cinderella did when she was 7. That made Emmy's day and she talked about it all day long!

That afternoon we did the Character lunch at Ariel's Grotto with all the Disney princesses! That was one of our most favorite things we did all weekend! A cast member escorts you down a spiral stair case and at the bottom waiting for you is Ariel! My kids loved her! She took lots of time talking, taking pictures and making them feel welcome. She told Emmy that she especially loved her flower, and told Tucker that she loved his freckles! Emmy wanted to wear her flower everyday just in case we ran into Ariel! The next trip we take to Disneyland will definitely include a character lunch!
Snow White, such a classic!

Now one of Emmy's favorites, Cinderella!

This picture was another one especially for Ry! My kids told Aurora all about Rylenn and how she loved her and thought they were sisters! She signed a special crown and let us take a special picture just for Rylenn! Thanks Aurora you are truly loved at our house!

We saw many of the other princesses and took pictures and enjoyed them all!

Along with the princesses the food was so good! We ate a late lunch hoping to avoid the rush at lunch time and so we were really hungry! They started by bringing us this tower of fruit and jello and salad and cheeses. Tucker was in heaven, he could have ended his meal there and been happy. Then we each got to choose an entree, and then they brought out a platter of desserts all for us to enjoy. This is a white chocolate sea shell that my kids thought was so fun that it was eatable!

Of course Mickey and Minnie were also favorites of my kids! We had this really good idea to have them sign there T-shirts since Tuck had a Mickey shirt and Emmy had a Minnie shirt. Well Minnie told us that she would do it but the kids couldn't be wearing the shirt. We told the kids we would bring their shirts back the next day and find Mickey and Minnie. We ended up finding Mickey later that night and just had Tucker slip of his shirt while waiting in line. Wish we would have thought of that when we were with Minnie the first time. Emmy had an under shirt on so it would have been so easy. We later found out Minnie isn't the easiest to find! My favorite flowers are Tulips. So me and Emmy had to take a picture in front of all those beautiful Tulips!

Our first day at Disneyland was simply magical! The park was so empty that my kids never waited in line. Not for one ride! I warned them that this wasn't how Disneyland normally was and to prepare to wait in lines tomorrow. We were able to get so much done that day but still have fun while doing it. We were able to see so many of the characters and never waited in line to get any of their autographs.

We had eaten a late lunch and since the park was closing early that night we decided to wait till after the park closed to go some where and eat diner. When it was finally time to go Tucker was starting to complain that he was tired of walking. This is exactly what I was afraid of! I knew we still had that long walk back to our hotel and wondered if they was going to make it.

At one point we thought that we could take the tram to the parking garage and walk from there since our motel was across the street. So we told the kids the plan and got in the biggest line we'd seen all day to get on the tram. As we were waiting, and waiting, I think both me and Josh had a feeling this was a bad idea. I just kept thinking what if we get there and for some reason it doesn't work and we're stuck and have to walk even further. I told the kids we were just going to have to walk back to the motel. Both kids started to cry and said they didn't think they would make it. My heart broke! I felt so bad for them, I was so tired and I knew that they were exhausted!

Well Josh took turns caring them on his shoulders while I carried the back packs. Both kids did make it back to the motel, and I was glad we hadn't taken the tram. Our motel was across the street from the parking garage but the street was an on ramp to a free way. There would have been no way for us to cross. Both kids did such a good job of hanging in there, but I knew that we were going to have to think of another way to get back and forth.

We went to IHOP for dinner which is normally my kids favorite place to go but Tucker was so tired I don't know if he even tasted his food. It was so funny cause all over the restaurant little kids were asleep! And before we even left Tucker was out. He never even woke up when I was putting his pj's on. He was out! Emmy was tired but was having a blast writing her post cards that we got for them to send to them selves and their friends! We were exhausted but it was a very good day!