Tuesday

We went back to Disneyland for our last day. Baileigh wanted at least one more ride on Space Mountain and Mckenna wanted to go on the elephant ride (Dumbo) and "the roller coaster for 3 year olds!

We decided to stay for one more parade on our last night since the girl's enjoyed it so much our first night. This time we camped out for a curb side seat. During the parade a float vehicle temporarly broke down in the area where we were sitting. The funniest thing was that the parade members behind the vehicle had no idea why the parade wasn't moving. The music continued and all the parade participants did their act over, and over, and over. These poor snowmen were in front of us when it happened and they had to dance their routine for about 10 minutes non-stop instead of the normal 2 minutes followed by walking and waving. Brad and I were laughing so hard imagining the poor people dripping with sweat inside those costumes trying to see out the little peep wholes for eyes wondering why they aren't going anywhere.
It was a long day of a lot of fun. We have a tired but happy little girl!

Monday

Today we headed to Disney California Adventure Park. The girls had fun at a Disney TV stage show. Brooke clapped through the entire thing and bounced up and down. We were disappointed that the largest roller coaster in the park was closed for maintenance. Big bummer. We spent the day exploring and ended the evening by attending another parade...this one with more of the Pixar characters from movies like Toy Story, Monsters Inc. etc.
Mickey celebrating Christmas with California style!
I don't think I'm ready for drivers ed.
Waiting for the parade. The girls were pulled into the parade and got to dance with Bo-Peep from the Toy Story. They thought that was pretty cool. It wasn't until the entire evening was over that I noticed Baileigh was wearing her sunglasses in the dark. She said it helped with all the bright Christmas lights.

Sunday

We drove down to San Diego to enjoy our complimentary day at Seaworld...just join the military and you can enter any Anheuser Bush amusement park free in 2006! Truthfully though, we were surprised and touched by not only their appreciation of the military with their "Saluting Our Heros" campaign throughout the park...but also the short tribute video shown before the Shamu show and the trainers acknowledgement of the military families and the round of applause as they had all military members and their families stand! We were appreciative.

The day was really spent watching the different shows which the girls enjoyed. It was a little cooler that day since we were on the coast and I think we all started to get a little chilly by the time the sun was setting.
I know you're impressed with the timing of my photography...admit it!
Mckenna wanted to take a Starfish home.

A humerous highlight of the day was as we approached a Flamingo exhibit. For whatever reason, Baileigh was excited to see Flamingos. I don't have anything against the awkward looking bird, but I could go either way. She ran towards the pond filled with over 100 pink birds. "Daddy, can I feed the Flamingos?" Brad noticed the feed machines where you put a quarter in, turn the handle and out comes a hanful of food. Brad said, "Sure Baileigh, just let me find a quarter." Baileigh's surprised response was, "Flamingo's eat quarters?" That comment had the strangers around us laughing out loud, too.
We grabbed some dinner at CPK (CA Pizza Kitchen...one of our favorites!) and headed back to our home sweet home...room 252!

Saturday

Brad's goal was to avoid the park on the weekend. Not a bad plan. We rented a car and drove to San Pedro to meet our friends the Wilkersons. Brandon played football with Brad at the Academy and stood up for us in our wedding. We enjoyed a day at the beach in Hermosa. It was a nice change of pace.

Grabbing a bite of pizza before we head to the beach. It's so nice to be able to eat outside!Attempting a family photo for the Christmas card.The girls were excited to build a castle...Cinderella's of course and enjoyed chasing the waves with Daddy.

Brooke spent some time on the beach hanging out with her new friend, Anne.
The surf was pretty impressive and the girls loved to run from the waves as they crashed on the beach.
We drove home via a stop in Hollywood for some site seeing. We drove by the Kodak theater and stopped to look at the walk of stars. No celebrity sightings. No major disappointment there but it was fun to see some of the places I've only seen on TV.
Nothing special about this star...not that we don't like Ron Howard...in fact as a boy I think that Brad resembled him during his Opie years...hope that doesn't say anything about the future of his hair! We just happened to stop for our photo at his star and thus the picture.

Friday

We headed for the park early for our reservation for breakfast with Minnie and Friends. I highly recommend splurging for at least one of the overpriced character meals...spending the money saved us a ton of time since all the characters come to your table to meet and greet. The girls filled their autograph books and they were thrilled to see everyone...especially Cinderella's fairy godmother and Minnie Mouse. Tigger played peek-a-boo with Brooke to try to win her affection.


Brooke with Cinderella's Fairy Godmother...this is one of the people she warmed up to right away. Probably because Fairy Godmother was a little less intimidating then Tigger!The park was busier this day as it was heading into the weekend and we discovered the beauty of the Fast Pass...essentially the HOV lane for roller coasters. We learned that Baileigh is a roller coaster junkie. She went on space mountain 4 times! Mckenna never turned down a ride either and was disappointed she wasn't taller so she could ride space mountain, too.

That evening we went to Ariel's Grotto for a character dinner. You pay too much for average food but during the meal all the princesses make the rounds and visit you at your table and sign your autograph book. I think this was the highlight of the trip for the girls. They got to meet Ariel, Cinderella, Bell, Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty), and Snow White. Baileigh noticed and commented several times that Jasmin wasn't there. Does anything get past her?
I will hear about this moment frequently in the months to come!
We spent a full day at the park and stumbled back to our hotel room exhausted. Vacation? Not sure about that, but we're having fun!

Thursday

If we only had today at the park it would have all been worth it. We had a blast. The girls were so excited, we all were actually. The park is beautifully decorated and its impossible to not be sucked in to the Christmas spirit. We spent the day in Disneyland. The weather was beautiful and the park wasn't too crowded. The girls were game to go on any and every ride. Brooke was a trooper and we did our best to keep her out of the stroller. If she was awake we took her on rides with us when possible.

Baileigh thought we should decorate our Christmas tree to the extent of the ones we saw at Disney. No pressure there! Their first autograph came from Pluto. Brooke wasn't sure what to think of the characters.
Meeting Mickey for the first time. After meeting a few characters Baileigh asked, "Mommy, why don't the characters talk to me?" Hmmmm...I had no answer to this insightful question! I'm sure glad we brought her when she was 5, she may have this all figured out soon.
Waiting for our rocket to launch!
We caught the end of a princess show. The girls begged to return tomorrow to see the entire thing...so we'll be back.
That night we stayed for the evening parade down Main Street. After the parade they have a fireworks show complete with falling snow during the grand finale. Now that is impressive! The girls eyes were huge..."SNOW!" On the walk back to our hotel Baileigh said, "I think this is the best day of my life. Thank you Mommy and Daddy for taking me to Disneyland." The comment was sincere and had us a little choked up. Then to top it off she says, "Actually, the best day of my life is when I asked Jesus into my heart. This is the next best day!" Are you kiddin me? Who is paying this kid to say this stuff!? I felt like I was on candid camera or that someone was feeding her lines. Could I be more proud as a Mom at that moment? Good thing we were already out of the park or I may have been compelled to by the extremely inflated princess outfit she commented about wanting a few hours earlier. Could she have possibly learned to manipulate to a degree this impressive at such a young age? Well I know she can...but truthfully I think her comments were completely genuine...making me all the more proud.

1st Day of Vacation - Wednesday

The flight to CA went smoothly. It was so nice to have just one relatively short flight with no layover! We were greeted by sunny skies and temperatures in the low seventies. We made it to our hotel without any problems. The girls were excited that our hotel looked like a castle...nice. The room was great though...the girls had their own room with 2 queen beds, a table for breakfast, a TV, and a sink. It was so nice at night to put them to bed and close their door and not have to tip toe around the room and whisper. We ventured out to downtown Disney and explored. If the beautiful Christmas decorations were any sign of how the park itself was going to look we were all pretty excited for tomorrow.
The first night in our room went rough as Brooke was a little constipated from our travels and didn't seem fond of the hotel crib. We were a little concerned that this was going to be a long week!

The Disney Recap

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats in anticipation of my Disneyland debrief (like the military influence)...so in the next few posts you will find a brief day by day breakdown as well as some pictures...of the few I took (350+...thank goodness for digital cameras). I know this is much more then most of you want to see or know about our vacation but it makes the Grandma's happy!

Black Out

Ya know the silly saying that you would loose your head if it weren't attached to your shoulders...I believe that that would seriously apply to me this week. We arrived home late on Wednesday night. Thursday was an extremely busy day filled with appointments, the girls Christmas program at preschool, working at our store, dinner with some women from MOPS, a MOPS meeting followed by a late movie with a friend. Leaving the theater that night we drove home in the midst of a wind storm that ended up knocking out power to thousands of homes in the Puget Sound area. I later heard on the news that over a million people were without power in western Washington, ourselves included.

Our power went out Thursday night around midnight. Friday we "roughed it" around the house playing games and coloring. Unfortunately the suitcases were never unpacked on Thursday and I had set aside Friday to unpack and clean and get settled back in to reality. We did venture out and bought a Christmas tree, despite the lack of power, and brought it home and decorated it without any knowledge of what exactly the lights would look like until the power returned. At least it killed some time. We went out Friday night (as did thousands of other families w/out power...ahhh) and found a place with power where we ate dinner. We returned home and bundled up for another cold night. Our house got down to about 60, not too bad compared to some friends who told me there house was 52 degrees. We left our gas fireplace running all night (maybe not smart, but warm) and that helped maintain the temperature. Saturday morning we were still without power and I was started to get the computer detox shakes. Around noon on Saturday the power returned. Our excitement was short lived as we soon discovered computer problems. In anticipation of the storm we had shut our computer off but for whatever reason when the power returned our computer had issues. So currently our hard drive is at Best Buy with the Geek Squad for a check up. We've hooked Brad's laptop up and it will have to do for now. Our ice maker on our fridge is now not working since the power outage and we lost a lot of our food inventory at our store that will be a big financial loss. Man, power outages stink!

So my Disneyland posts will have to wait a little longer until I get my life in order. The fact that Christmas is a week from tomorrow has totally caught me off guard...how does that happen? I don't want to feel stressed and anxious...but every day when I go to the mailbox and get the joy of all the Christmas cards the stress level increases in the fact that I just ordered our cards from Shutterfly and I still haven't written the letter. So that said, I should go type our letter and stop blogging!

We're Back!

We survived! We had an awesome time at Disneyland! The girls were amazing troopers and wrapped us both around their fingers with all their comments about this being the most fun they have ever had in their lives and their continued hugs and kisses while expressing their thanks. We were continually surprised and pleased with their joy and gratitude.

I have a few pictures to share (oh, somewhere over 300...after a lot of deleting) that you can check out on flickr if you want to see our entire week. I'll obviously be blogging about our trip in the next day or so when I can find some free time. It was a great week with awesome weather and a lot of laughs. I admit though that I am tired and feel the need for a vacation. This was a fun trip, but not something I would define as a "vacation".

Bon Voyage

Well we're off in just a few hours. Today consisted of packing, packing, and oh yah...packing. In fact, I forgot to go to my appointment for a hair cut because I was busy...yep, packing. The thing that is throwing me off is the fact that it is currently about 75-80 degrees at Disneyland and then around 45 at night. That means I need variety and layers. That also means that I need summer clothes for the kids which are out in Tupperware in the garage. Baileigh is squeezing into her old summer wardrobe that she has outgrown and Brooke is swimming in her size 12-18 month outfits that are appropriate for the season. It's not so bad being the middle child...Mckenna has a lot of things that fit her right now and plenty to choose from.

As much as I would love to blog about our trip throughout the week I'm taking a vacation from the computer, too. I'm sure I'll be back next week with more pictures then you care to see and more stories then you care to read. Oh, and the girls each have their own digital cameras to capture their favorite moments so that should be interesting!

Kissing 101

Brooke has learned to kiss. Well, sorta. She sticks out her tongue and licks or sucks and leaves a lot of slobber behind. But it is cute and sweet. If you ask her for a kiss she will frequently just stick out her tongue in the air and continue this until you put your cheek next to her mouth. Today I had the privilege of watching my friends girls for a few hours and Brooke got to practice her kissing on Jalyn.
Brooke's intentions were innocent but in her excitement her attempts to show affection to Jalyn were often misinterpreted as eye poking or scratching.
Brooke not only loves Jalyn but she was pretty smitten with her hair accessories and was trying her hardest to get a hold of them...Jalyn wasn't thrilled with this either but was forgiving and still interested in getting kisses from baby Brooke.
Ahh...finally, the perfect wet, slobbery baby to toddler kiss. Here is an example of the evolution of baby kissing skills. Notice the toddler on the right with the classic "puckered up" facial expression compared to the 8 month old on the left still comprehending the skills of kissing...some would argue that perhaps she has grasped the skill of kissing in her open mouth- tongue technique but I would beg to differ and dismiss such behavior as naivety and innocence.
Finally, a clean kiss...too bad mommy took an overexposed picture that is too bright! You can still see enough to see these two sweet girls.

HO-HO-HO!

Saturday morning Brad's wing sponsored a Christmas breakfast with Santa at the Officer's Club on base. They had a complimentary buffet and craft stations and of course Santa. The thing I appreciated the most is that they didn't have a photographer charging 18.00 for a 5x7 glossy and 2 wallets. What parent doesn't bring their own camera to see Santa? So everyone was free to click away...and guess what...everyone I saw had a camera and no one asked, "where is the photographer?"

Baileigh and Mckenna were excited to see Santa (for the 2nd time) because the first time around at the mall they forgot to ask for jump ropes. I love that they want jump ropes. First of all...cheap. Second, good excercise. Third, the innocence of it...it's not a My Little Pony Dream House (why do horses need a house with bedrooms and baths?)and it's not a Talking Dora the Explorer (69.00 for 5 different phrases!).

Not to make my girls sound ideal...I know the details on those 2 other mentioned toys because they have been oooohed and aahhhed over at the store or on TV.
This picture is the real point of this blog...to show everyone how I tortured Brooke with her first visit to Santa. I've never actually had this experience with one of the girls. Baileigh's first Christmas she was 7 weeks old and slept in Santa's lap. Mckenna was 4 months old at her first Christmas and also too young to protest or object. Brooke, being my spring baby, is almost 9 months old and too young to understand but old enough to know she didn't want anything to do with this man with the big white beard. I've seen other parents insist their kids sit with Santa despite the kicking and screaming and always thought to myself "why are you torturing that poor kid...don't force them to sit with Santa!" But when it was my turn to be in their shoes, what did I do...insist that Brooke stay there 5 seconds more so that I could get a picture of her with Santa for her first Christmas! One more picture, Brooke, then the torture will end. I promise...well, maybe one more with Mommy and it will be less scary. No such luck!
Possible thoughts going thru Brooke's mind..."HELP." "I'm going to need therapy over this someday." "MOMMY." "Don't think I'll forget this just because I'm a baby!" "I wish we were Jewish...dreidels aren't scary!"

Making Some Changes

As you can see I've made a few updates to my blog. Blogger has been prompting me to do this for awhile and I've been dragging my feet in fear of how it may screw up my blog. It took me a long time to figure out how to read some of this computer code and I didn't want to start all over. I'm glad I finally took the leap because this format is much more user friendly. It's still a work in progress so please be patient. Any feedback or comments...I'm open to suggestions, doesn't mean I'll listen, but I'm open.