Some Favorite Pictures of Disneyland

I can't quite figure out the picture layout here.....so, here are some of the pictures in relatively random order.  I'll work on providing some narrative to tomorrow's post!

 

 

Short-Term Memory

Remember my recent "Tale of Two Sundays" posting?  My son certainly did because we had a replay last night between the hours of midnight and 2:00 a.m.  It is certainly not my preference to do laundry in the middle of the night, but last night was my one exception. 

I am thankful for a laundry machine and Lysol disinfectant spray. 

Now, onto decorating for Christmas!

Today, We Are Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!  We hope that each of you will have a very special day today, reflecting on what we have to be thankful for.

Each year, we ask our daughter what she is thankful for and her list always cracks us up.  Here is her 2009 rendition which was put into our "Grateful Book"

"I am thankful for God because he made everything, our family and my teacher.  He gave us a house, made the Bible, made friends for us to play with, and made the flowers.  I'm thankful for people who make and give us toys.  I'm thankful that we got to go to Disneyland for 6 days, and that we have birthdays, and can visit people's houses.  I'm thankful for visiting Mommy's work because sometimes I get M&M's and I like that."

I'm pretty sure my son is thankful for his crib....since he slept until 8:30 a.m. this morning without waking up through the night like he did on vacation.  Mommy is definitely thankful for the extra sleep.

I am certainly thankful for our special family.  God has richly blessed me with a wonderful husband, 2 great kids, fabulous parents, gracious grandparents, and brothers & a sister-in-law who enrich our lives.  We are so thankful on this day to count these many blessings.

Visiting the Princesses

Today, we had lunch with the Disney Princesses at Ariel's Grotto.  And, like every other sit-down meal so far, my son began crying as soon as we checked in for our 1:00 p.m. reservation. 

Unlike every other sit-down meal, however, my son seemed to rather enjoy the princesses.  The restaurant was loud and the more he seemed to smile, the more these beautiful ladies would smile back at him.  This, by far, was the best meal of our trip.  He quite enjoyed the meatball on a stick, 2 pieces of watermelon, cheese and spaghetti that he got with this infant meal!  He even seemed sad to leave.   

And, of course, his sister enjoyed herself immensely.  Although we cracked up when she didn't tell Sleeping Beauty about losing her tooth (because everyone near her has been told whenever she encounters someone) and I asked her why she didn't show Aurora her missing tooth.  She looked back at me with a toothy grin and said "Mom, she ALREADY KNOWS because I told her 3 days ago!" 

Oh yeah, silly me!  

I'm sure you've figured out by now that I'll go back and edit all of these posts to add in pictures.  Unfortunately, we're limited to the hotel computer presently.

Well, we're finishing one final nap and one final load of laundry, checking our flights and preparing for our return home.

It has been a fun vacation, albeit a little bit of work at times, but overall, we are thankful for such fabulous time with our kids.  I think they both had fun.....although baby boy is definitely looking forward to getting both his crib and his sleep patterns back on schedule very soon!

The "Travel-Sized" Nightmare

Here is a slightly older story from Saturday evening.....

My husband was changing our son's diaper when I overheard him ask my daughter to go into the bathroom to get the diaper rash creme.  She returned, handed him the blue tube and he proceeded to lather up the baby's bottom.

About 15 seconds later, shrieking could be heard from the living room and I hear my husband say, "Honey, can you grab the diaper rash creme?" which perplexed me since I could swear that my daughter had already retrieved it for him.

As I hand him the blue tube of diaper rash creme, it became evident that my daughter had grabbed the blue tube of TOOTHPASTE!

I'm not sure what was redder at that point.....my son's face or his bum.  At least his bum smelled minty fresh.  He did calm down pretty quickly and I now have a good comeback for every time my husband chides me about being "mother of the year" for doing something silly.  "Well, at least I didn't......yeah, you know the rest of that sentence!"

The Tale of Two Sundays

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day in our family, but if you asked my daughter and I what happened, there would easily be 2 different versions of the day.  Here is what I think they would say:

My 5-year old's version:

• We woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel
• Then, we went back to our room and colored for a while
• After that, we took the bus to Disneyland where we had lunch at Goofy's Kitchen and saw lots of characters like Chip, Sleeping Beauty, Goofy and Aladdin.  I told Mommy that I thought Aladdin was cute and when he came to my table, I was pretty coy and blushing when he asked to take my picture with him. 
• After lunch, Mommy & I rode the Autopia ride and I got to drive.  I'm a good driver....and I asked Mommy not to tell Daddy about my mad skills until AFTER I conned him into letting me drive him around the racetrack.
• Then, we waited for Daddy until he and my brother finished the Halls of Innovention.
• Next, Mommy and I went on Pinocchio and Snow White's Scary Adventures
• Then, Daddy and I rode on the racetrack while Mommy and brother went to get us seats to see the Aladdin play.
• I liked the Aladdin play because I got to see my favorite character again.  I'm pretty sure he waved at me several times. 
• When the play ended, we got a frozen lemonade and watched the Pixar Parade with all of my favorite people from Toy Story and Monster's Inc.
• After that parade, we headed over to Disneyland to catch the Holiday Parade. After taking a long time to find a place to watch the parade, my brother choked. 
• Then, Daddy and I watched the parade.
• After the Christmas parade, I had to go potty.  Then, Daddy left with my brother while Mommy and went on It's a Small World, Peter Pan and Finding Nemo.
• When we got back to the hotel, I ate a piece of pizza and went to bed.  My eyes were pretty bloodshot and I was tired....but it was a SUPER FUN day.

Mommy's Version

• Sunday started at 4 a.m. for me with the horrible choking sounds I heard coming from the kids' room.  When I went into their room, I found that my baby boy had vomited milk everywhere. 
• After cleaning him up, scrambling to get some new blankets and comforting him back to sleep, I crawled back into bed about 5 a.m.
• At 5:15 a.m., he vomited again.....same routine....harder time finding fresh blankets.
• At 5:45 a.m., he woke up and wanted to be held.  I comforted him and at 6:15 a.m., he vomited all over both of us. 
• We did make it to the hotel breakfast, but our little boy looked so tired that we thought giving him the chance to take a nap before we returned to Disneyland was a good idea.  Plus, we had to complete another load of laundry in order to have some clean blankets!  
• Our daughter did a great job coloring while the remaining 3 of us caught a little sleep before lunch.
• Lunch at Goofy's Kitchen got off to a rocky start as baby boy decided to scream his way through the first 10 minutes.  He did settle down and lunch ended up being pretty decent.  Unfortunately, we were sitting in a dark corner, so we didn't have as much interaction with the characters as we did last time. 
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• After lunch, we did had a fairly fun time at the park.  
  
• Just before the holiday parade started, however, at 6:30 p.m., baby boy returned to his morning routine and vomited 3 times in pretty quick succession.  Drowning himself and the stroller in a rather phenomenal way. 
• After Daddy & I cleaned him up and the stroller, Daddy and our daughter caught the remaining bits of the Holiday Parade while I held my baby boy and gave him a little watered down gatorade.
• Just as we headed to It's a Small World, I stopped in the bathroom with my daughter and returned to find that baby boy was not done puking his guts out. 
• So, Daddy and our son returned to the hotel to take a bath and head to bed. 
• My daughter and I returned too late from the park to pick up some desired italian fare...so, we got stuck with hotel pizza which made both Daddy and our daughter's tummy feel a little queasy.

And if you're wondering how last night went, my "Mommy Alarm" went off at 2 a.m. and I was up eight times with the boy before 8 a.m. this morning.  The good news is that he has stopped vomited, is in good spirits and is eating well.  He was a bit flushed this morning, but it appears he's on the mend. 

At least if a person has to be miserable, it's a little less miserable at Disneyland!

Greetings from Disneyland

Since we don't have active internet from our hotel room, we'll write more stories when we return.  But just wanted to let you all know that we're having a GREAT time in the sunny, yet mild weather here in California. 

The plane ride went as well as could be expected with a 14-month old.  He was super-squirmy, but at least he wasn't screaming in the aisles like the 2-year old in front of us.  It made our kids look super-behaved.

Day 1 in Disneyland ended early for us after the 5:30 p.m. parade as the kids were completely wiped out and we all went to bed pretty early after catching some dinner at one of our Italian favorites down here.  This picture below is just the castle, all decked out for the holidays!
 

On Day 2 in Disneyland, we had a memorable lunch at the Blue Bayou on the Pirates of the Carribean ride when baby boy screamed his way through lunch, falling asleep in my lap just before the check came.  It almost made me want to get dessert.  The evening was fun after the kids took a 3-hour rest back at the hotel and we were able to catch the holiday fireworks show. 

Now, we're starting Day 3 and looking forward to seeing more sun!  I have many more stories to tell, but we've gotta catch a shuttle to the park now!