Gingerbread Cookie Dresses

I picked up the cutest Christmas fabric! It is a busy glitter infused gingerbread cookie print, and I got a trim fabric that also has tiny gingerbread cookies on it. I think I got it in October at Joann Fabrics, but I'm not entirely sure any more. October was a long time ago.

For Halloween, actually for a school project right before Halloween, I made a pretty black and white dress for Gracie. I thought at the time that I would just make one like it for Libby and that could be their Christmas dresses. But, then December came along and I remembered that I purchased some adorable gingerbread print and I wanted to be sure to use it. The black and white dress could easily be used as a special occasion dress on any occasion, but gingerbread cookies are Christmassy.

I used a pattern I have never used before: Simplicity 4647.  As soon as I cut it out, I decided I didn't like it. But, now that the dresses are finished, I've changed my mind again. It's a cute dress, but the part of it that I liked until I actually cut it out was the bodice. I was having trouble loving the length of the bodice for an older child. On a toddler, a short bodice is adorable, but on a child who is over 4 ft tall, the short bodice might look too childish. Well, once it's cut, it's cut! No turning back, so I went ahead and scolded myself for not thinking about that earlier and sewed it up.

I made a few little mistakes. I didn't measure my 4 yr old correctly and her dress is too long. The bodice fits her well though. And I have the size 6 sleeves on the size 4 dress and vice versa. Whoops.

The sleeves are a flounce cap sleeve. In the picture on the pattern they are flouncier than in real life. On the dresses, the sleeves tend to stick straight out giving the girls wings rather than sleeves, but the girls didn't seem to even notice. This may be due to the type of fabric I chose, or the fact that I lined the sleeve flounce with trim fabric (since I figured you would often see the underside if it were bouncy and flouncy), I don't know, but the flounce sleeves turned out to be pointy wings. Guess what, these are the most  adorable sewing mistakes I've ever made! Every time I see the sleeves pointing straight out, I can't help but laugh!

The girls are leaving a trail of glitter in their wake. Glitter infused fabric is fun to wear the first time, but it falls like pixie dust. The term "infused" is very misleading. The fabric is more or less "sprinkled" with glitter rather than infused. That's ok, there is glitter all over my sewing area, in my car, in the stroller, and everywhere in between.

The girls wore their Christmas dresses twice, both times to Disneyland. I wanted Gracie to wear it to her school winter program, but the kids were instructed to wear red or white tops and dark bottoms, so much for gingerbread cookie print. I also wanted to have the girls wear their dresses on Christmas day, but when that day came, I completely forgot and they were happy to wear their new things that Santa brought for them.

When I took the girls to Disneyland  in these dresses, we heard lots of comments about the dresses! Even from men! They were a hit and people complimented us all day long. It's amazing to walk through a crowd of strangers and hear wonderful words. The girls really feel special when they hear people exclaim that their dresses are so very wonderful! I feel pretty special too when I hear compliments all day long. Amazing experience! The best was Mrs. Claus, she was so animated with her expression and her compliments were genuine. Of course, she loved the gingerbread cookie  print! She is a cookie loving woman after all.

The dresses must have been comfortable, there sure wasn't any complaining about seams being itchy, armpits too tight, zipper touching their backs, neckline too high, or any of the other usual commentary. It's funny how they'll complain to me about their things I make for them, but they complain even worse about store-bought clothing! They always want me to fix something or another.  Neither one of them complained one bit about these dresses, so I guess the pattern was a good choice after all. The skirts were long enough to keep their legs warm and they had enough volume for a good twirl.

Behind on Blogging

I'm behind with blogging! Actually, I am behind on everything right now. Christmas is coming whether I am ready or not, and this year, I am not.

We've been very very busy in December! I'll just give you a quick recap.

We went to Disneyland twice this month. It was tons of fun both times! We also went to see a play, Sea World and the Safari Park. We didn't go to Universal Studios like I wanted to, but that's ok. We have passes to Universal Studios and I wanted to go one more time to  make the tickets more worthwhile, but we didn't get there and they expire at the end of the month. Oh well, we had a ton of fun the day we went!

Gracie's schoolwork was hard to get done but we mucked through it and finished in the nick of time. She had a community service project due and this month's math topic was subraction. Ugh, that was hard. We'll have to keep working on it as we go to make it easier.

We've been out shopping a number of times, but it's hard to do when I have the kids along. So it takes me several trips to get a few things. I need one good shopping day without a crowd at the checkout, maybe tomorrow?

Keith and I planned a roadtrip. We are going to South Dakota to visit, go sledding, meet up with friends and family, and introduce the girls to the concept of winter. They'll love it! I hope the roads are good, we'll probably be gone for a week or so, we don't have a specific plan. School doesn't start up again until the 14th so we have plenty of time.

The girls saw Santa. Libby asked for a Nutcracker, a train and chocolate. Gracie asked for batteries. We're sure hoping Santa can accomodate both of them and their Chrismas wishes.

I baked a bunch of cookies and went to a Christmas party and cookie exchange. I think I gained ten pounds.

I've been sewing too. I made the girls some holiday dresses and they wore them to Disneyland. I also am in the process of making a dress for a friend's little girl, and I made one to mail to another friend's daughter. I have a big quilt for Gracie in the sewing machine right now and one waiting in the wings for Libby. There are two whole days until Christmas, I can do this, right?

I've been babysitting a lot lately too. Not getting paid, even better, doing the babysitting swap! I babysat Adam, Emily, Sabrina and Mallory last week and I had Henry for a couple of days the week before. Then, Lexie asked me to babysit Charlie for a bit and I was so worn out, I told her no! Poor girl waited her turn for some relief and then I turned her down. I topped that trick off with asking her to watch the girls while Keith and I went out to dinner one night. Good thing she loves me.

Lexie and I were asked to be on a reality show. We said, sure, why not. Keith's cousin was chosen to be a reality show contestant, maybe, and she asked us to be part of her family support team. If she gets on the show and has to call in her team to compete, then we'll be there for her. Hope they don't want us to eat bugs, bungee jump or sing in key, she'll lose the competition for sure!

Katie and Henry came up for  Gracie's Winter concert performance at school. The kids sang four winter songs: Let is snow, Winter Wonderland, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells. It was a lot of fun and Gracie sang beautifully.

Gracie lost two teeth this month. Her top front teeth. She looks so cute with her new toothless grin!

Have a great Christmas everyone!  Glad we all survived the end of the world. 2013 is sure to be a good one!

Kiss the Mini-van Goodbye!

This post was written by Mary's husband, Keith, aka: Daddy.

In 1996 (or was it 1995?), we got a cheap minivan, used, from a State of South Dakota auction.  Light blue, with essentially no features beyond a radio and some AC.  You could remove the seats, and those damn things weighed a ton, but we had room!  We ran the hell out of it.

In 2000, we bought another used van, but this one was wrecked. 

'97 Dodge Grand Caravan...

  My brother Ward did most of the work while I stood around looking pretty much useless.  All in all, the red Dodge Grand Caravan was really an excellent vehicle for us.   We put about 190,000 miles on that thing... and it just chugged along.  Here it is on a trip to Wyoming, camping south of Jackson Hole...

A wonderful family camping trip to Wyoming. This was in 2005-- Mary was pregnant and didn't know it. :)

Heh... that picture almost looks like it could be from a Dodge advertising campaign.  The Grand finale for that van came in 2007.  We sold it to a television producer, and it got used in a lame "reality" tv show.  Couples had to drive it through an obstacle course-- with the driver blindfolded.  The last time we saw it was on TV... :)

So that brings us to 2007.  That was the year, in July, that we bought a Brand New Van.  That Dodge had run so well for us, and had held up so beautifully, that we bought a Chrysler Town & Country.  Wow... stepping up in the world! Right after we bought that, of course, we road-tripped to Grandma's house in Wyoming...

Little Gracie after a long trip. Meeteetse Wyoming in July of 2007

Where the Dodge was great, the Chrysler was not.  But it was NEW and we would not realize how poorly engineered this vehicle was for a few years.  There were minor "annoyances", like map lights that stopped working even though they had good bulbs and fuses.  There were larger annoyances, like the power sliding door mechanism that died 3 times because the design of the wiring cable that feeds power to the door was just horribly done.  There were Major "annoyances", like transmission work and oil leaks from nearly every gasket in that engine.  What the hell?  Chrysler probably should have just gone bankrupt and shut their doors.  That van has to go.... but what do we buy now?  We've had minivans for 16 or 17 years.

Well, 2 years prior to buying that brand new van, I bought a truck.  My awesome little Nissan Frontier.  We bought that truck in August of 2005.

My '05 Frontier. Shot taken in June of 2012.

Here it is in June of 2012, still lookin' great.  In fact, it IS a really great truck-- best vehicle I have EVER owned.  Over 101,000 miles on it now, and I have not had to do ONE single thing.  The only "annoyance" thing was my own fault-- I froze the windshield washer tank when I took it hunting-- so it leaks now.  But consider this.  That truck went 92,000 miles on TWO of the original tires.  I STILL have not changed brake pads on it!  When I had tires put on-- I asked them to evaluate the pads, and they said I probably have another 10 to 15 thousand miles of wear on them.  They couldn't believe I had NEVER serviced the brakes....and I still haven't

So... the search for a van replacement began, and it was heavily influenced by my experience with my truck, as well as the fact that my daughter Katie bought a Prius and gets incredible gas mileage.  Mary was tired of filling the 20 gallon tank after only driving 320~350 miles.  Yeah... 17 mpg running around town.  Booooo.  Perhaps it was time for a CAR instead of a van...

and that's what we did.  We looked at Hyundai Sonata, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, VW Passat (TDi), and the new Nissan Altima.  The Altima has the same 2.5 liter - 4 cylinder engine as my truck.  It is paired to a newly-engineered CVT transmission, and the whole package is rated at 38mpg highway and 27 city.

Just before driving off the lot, December 1, 2012.

So... we bought a 2013 Nissan Altima. :)  If it is only half as good as the Frontier, we will have made an excellent purchase!

Playing Pranks on the Sub

Substitute teaching isn't easy. I did it a few times in good ol' Milbank, South Dakota (where no college degree was required to be a sub). Right now, Gracie's class has a sub while her teacher is out on maternity leave.

The sub is actually a staff member at the school, she's an aid for two of the lower elementary classrooms. And, now she's the teacher while the classroom teacher is out. I don't know if they brought in a sub for her aid position or not.

The four lower elementary teachers are a a tight knit group of professional friends. The aids are also a part of the comradery, so the sub is being pranked with love.

The sub is Miss Tiffany. The classroom next door is Miss Julia's. Miss Julia is the class clown in her class and Miss Tiffany is trying her best to fill the big shoes of the teacher who is out on leave, she's working so hard to make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed. It's been a couple of weeks now and Miss Tiffany has things running smoothly and she's got a good groove going on.

Miss Julia must have been waiting for her to get comfortable, and then she couldn't resist any longer. The pranks began. Miss Julia whispered to the kids to bark like dogs in class, just random barking. The kids from Miss Julia's class were knocking on the windows. There were little jokes like this going on, small disruptions but apparently there have been lots of funny little things instigated by Miss Julia.

Miss Tiffany is no fool. Today, she had her class run through Miss Julia's class while screaming. Disruption matched and trumped! She has plans tomorrow to have the kids make lots of white chads (the cut out paper holes from a hole-puncher) and scatter them all over Miss Julia's classroom. It'll be a blizzard! The kids are looking forward to it already. Wonder how excited the custodians will be?

The classroom teacher should be back in mid-February. I sure hope the hazing of Miss Tiffany ends sooner than that, but for now it's fun to hear my first grader come home and laugh while she tells of the teachers' antics. She says they crack her up!

Disneyland - Second trip this month!

Monday, November 19th, 2012

I really didn't feel like going today; I woke up feeling like a head-cold was ready to rear its ugly head inside of my sinuses. I tried to talk the girls into waiting a day and letting me be lazy instead, but they weren't having any of that nonsense! I told them we would make it a short day and only stay for four hours tops. We all agreed to only go for half of a day but we were going. I had a little bit of a temp, a headache, snuffy nose and I didn't have enough energy to argue. They were right, it was a wonderful day at Disneyland! And I forgot all about not feeling well as soon as we got there.

Today, the girls coordinated their outfits. Gracie wore her Cinderelly dress that I made for her for Halloween and Libby wore her new Cinderella ball gown that I just finished sewing. She didn't want it though, I was thinking of giving it as a Christmas gift to someone else because she really didn't like it. She prefers a tattered and torn (nearly to shreds) old cheap store-bought Cinderella dress. I asked her "What is your favorite part of this old dress?" She said it was the button, so I asked her, "Would you like it if I move the button from this dress to the new dress?" Yes! Before we left, I was able to move the button from dress to dress and she no longer wanted to wear that old ripped up costume. Whew! Two Cinderellas ready to go.

The sign on Ball Road said to turn left on Harbor for Theme  park parking. I learned my lesson last week (again), so I didn't try to park in the Mickey and Friends parking structure, I went straight to the Toy Story lots. They were packed! We parked in the Jessie lot and the line to get on the bus was long! Luckily, there were several buses lined up and loading, but this was a pretty good indicator that our day in the park was going to be one of squeezing through crowds and waiting in long lines.  Libby was fast asleep so I figured the long line to board the bus might be in our favor, she could finish her nap in the stroller while we wait. Yay for a long line! Wait, did I just say that?

We didn't get that lucky, the super long line was gone in no time. They lined up the buses and filled them up pretty fast. Libby had to wake up to board because I had to fold up the stroller. I've carried her asleep while also carrying the bag and stroller before, but she's a lot bigger than she was before and so I just made her walk. Being  four comes with a lot of responsibilities. Guess which bus we got? Yup! The plain white one! Darn the luck! Even the girls laughed about it.

When we got past the gate keeper and the girls were giving me their passes for safe keeping, a Disney survey taker approached me. She asked if I would answer her questions so I said sure. The girls were busy soaking up the entryway excitement anyway. She only asked me a few things: What kind of pass did I have? Where do I live? How long do I plan to stay today? Thank you and here is a photopass for my trouble. Score! A real photopass costs $60. They always give you a photopass card but if you want the pictures off of it then you have to pay for them. I've always been very happy with the thumbnails, but this one is a real photopass! How lucky is that!  I'm pretty happy about it because I'm not much of a photographer with my little sand-filled Panasonic.

We went up Main Street to the hub and said hello to Walt and Mickey. Then into the castle. Today we didn't go through the Sleeping Beauty story walkthrough, but we headed east to the Snow White wishing well. This little area is so pretty. The girls made wishes and peered into the well. It was a nice little stopping spot. While we were there, The Fairy Godmother and Cinderella approached from the other side of the walkway (with a following) and stopped in the path. We decided to get in line behind their following and see them. Good thing we remembered to bring our book!

 
Libby really wanted to see them, especially in her Cinderella dress but she suddenly got an attack of shyness. Poor kid, this happens to her when she sees the characters and then she is disappointed because she couldn't greet them like she wants to. Gracie has never had a problem with being shy.

When it was our turn to see Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother, they recognized the girls' dresses right away! They just loved Gracie's Cinderelly rag dress. I was thrilled! I was afraid nobody would know why she was dressed that way, it is a bit of an obscure costume. If nobody else recognizes her dress all day long, it doesn't matter. Cinderella knew! 

We wandered over to admire the ducks and the Disneyland shrubbery that grew in the shape of swans - so much magic! Libby was chattering away to the ducks and Gracie wanted the map. She saw on the map that Wreck-It-Ralph was in Tomorrow Land! We must go see him! Sounded good to me so off we went.

Tomorrow Land was super crowded! It is awful trying to get through such a thick crowd of people. I wasn't exactly sure where to go because the icon on the map didn't seem to match up with the actual layout of the land. Gracie was excited, so we had to find it! After wandering through the thick crowd, I finally asked a Disney cast member (worker) and he pointed me the other direction.  Got to where I thought he said and I asked another cast member. She pointed me back to where I was and then around the corner.  Back through the billions of people. We finally found it, and the wait was 15 minutes. Not bad.

Gracie got to meet Wreck-It-Ralph and Sugar Rush. They both had photopass photographers and they were in a dark arcade type of place, so I didn't bother trying to get photos with my camera. I should have, but I didn't. Their movie just came out in November; I am kind of surprised the girls knew who they were. Guess we'll have to see the movie now that we met the stars. They don't sign autographs, nor do they talk. Only "face-characters" talk. The characters whose faces are covered with a costume face never talk. But a lot of the covered face characters sign autographs, such as Minnie Mouse. I can totally see why Ralph doesn't try writing his name though. Look at those hands!

We had to wiggle our way through the over crowded Tomorrow Land again. When we got to where it merges with Fantasy Land again, yay! Right in that spot was the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland. They were walking and talking, but they stopped to say hello to Gracie. She got her book signed too! The Mad Hatter was quite comical. He said Gracie and Alice were in the "Apron Club" and he tried to curtsey his coat like an apron too. He told Gracie to hold hands and "Let's walk" and so they did. Libby remained in her safe space, the stroller. Characters were not going to be her thing today.  Darn.

Libby wanted to go back to the castle. I thought maybe she would feel better and her mood would improve if we followed her lead for a bit, so we did. The girls had a great time just sitting in front of the castle looking at the ducks in the moat, wondering how the trees grow in squares, and they even spotted a different sort of bird and a turtle in the water. I think they could have sat there all day long, just enjoying the sights and being at the castle, but I wanted to go find the hidden bathroom before I burst.

We went to where it should have been, but it was gone! Something new is coming and I hope they put in some nice bathrooms with plenty of stalls.

We decided to head toward the Adventure Land restrooms or the Tiki Room, it has a restroom too. I really have to start wearing depends adult diapers because it seems like our wanderings always hinge on my need to find the nearest bathroom. Upon entering Frontier Land (taking a shortcut, I think) Gracie spotted a sign and wanted to stop to read it. What do you know! A homeschooling opportunity struck right there! We clogged up the gateway in order to read the sign, people just had to walk around us - this was important. The sign talked about different flags and what they stood for. Some were displayed around on the other side of the gateway. We went around the corner to find them, but the breeze had the flags blowing the other direction and they were hard to see.

After this, we got distracted by the wonders of Frontier Land and I missed the turn that takes you into Adventure Land. We ended up at the Rivers of America and they were running both the big ferry aka "Tiana's Boat" and the Columbia, aka "The Big  Pirate Boat". Libby really wanted to ride a boat, so we hopped on board! She just loved it! I'm glad she was having so much fun, Gracie too. Libby was having a great time as long as I wasn't trying to shove her into the arms of a stranger dressed in a character costume. The boat ride was lots of fun.

When we were coming down the stairs off of the boat, the cast member there to assist people said to Libby, "Be careful on the stairs, Cinderella, we don't want  you to lose a shoe!"  I really laughed over that one!

Finally, we went to Adventure Land! Ahhh! After our potty stop, we saw Aladdin at his little meet-and-greet station. Jasmine wasn't with him, but we saw her last week. We were able to step right over to meet him and there wasn't even a line. Love it when we don't have to wait in line! He was more than happy to sign the book, and it had a page for him too. After he signed it, Gracie said, "I got my first Prince!"  This autograph book is really fun. When the girls were younger I thought the autograph books were annoying because they took up so much of the character's time and we were waiting in line and waiting for them to sign all of those books. But, now, I can see that it means so much to the kid who can read to  have the character sign his name. It really doesn't take long if you have the  page and pen ready and it's a great souvenir. Gracie just loves her book and the autographs make it extra special! It's very fun for her to have them sign their names and she gets to take it home and admire it.

We decided to skip the Tiki Room this trip (actually, I was outvoted), and we went toward Main Street. It was parade time! And it was very crowded. I sure didn't time that very well, on a busy day like this, we should have found a place to see the parade a lot earlier than right when it's starting.  I parked the stroller and we found a place in the back of the crowd. We might be able to see it from here, we'll be able to see the tall floats and that'll be good enough today. The girls were too excited to care about sitting down anyway, so they stood so that they could see over the four rows of people in front of us and there was a double stroller in front of the girls too. Another row of people fell in behind us. I took this golden opportunity to sit on the sidewalk and rest my feet.

A lady behind me tapped and asked me to tell my girls to sit down.  I told her, "No. I won't. They need to stand in order to see, there are people and a stroller right in front of them, but you are up against a wall, you can stand and you won't block anyone's view." Smile. She didn't smile back and she didn't stand up.  This is how my kids watched the parade, standing, pointing, shouting and waving the whole entire time! My arm would fall off if I did that much enthusiastic waving.

I know they didn't have a great view of the parade, but they loved it! Glad we were able to see it. After the parade, the crowd filled Main Street and so I took the girls through the Main Street stores. They are all connected and  you can pass hundreds of people by going that route.  That is, if you just walk right through. If you stop to admire all of the merchandise for sale, then you really don't gain any time. But it is a lot more fun and exciting to walk through the stores!

We saw a cartoonist drawing a picture, artwork, clothing and toys, and then we went into the Magic Shop. Gracie's favorite! The cast members in the shop do magic tricks (which  you can buy and go home to amaze your friends). The girls just love to see them do the magic tricks, they are good!

 One thing we've never done, and we really need to, is to stop in and see the memorabilia and the show called about President Lincoln. We decided to just peek in and see the memorabilia and we can see the show another day. Seeing the museum portion of it was great! We got to see a replica of the castle at Disneyland in Paris. Of course, that made us all think of Fenna and wish we could have her with us today. Someday, we'll have to go to Paris and meet up with Fenna at Disneyland there.

Just like last week, we spent the last half of our day in California Adventure. Gracie and Libby both wanted to go into the Imagination Theater on Hollywood Street and see Turtle Talk with Crush. I promised we would do that if Crush was there. They were hopping up and down, smiling and saying please with so much hope. Sure hope Crush is there!

First thing we saw was the Newsies singing with Mickey Mouse in the Street. Mickey had a suitcase and a dream, what a cute show!

We took a left and went down Hollywood Street toward the Imagination Theater. I'm not even sure if that is what it's called, but it's something like that. It is one of our favorite places. What a great place to take a break. There is a big room with movie screens all the way around and they musical clips from movies while you rest and enjoy on the carpet.

Turtle Talk with Crush is in this building. You enter a little theater with plenty of floor space for the kids to sit right up in front of the big screen. This area is called the "seafloor". The screen is a "window to the Pacific Ocean" and has a hydro-mic so that Crush can talk to the crowd. The turtle is a digitized puppet and there is an actor that talks for him. Somehow, the turtle can see the audience and interact really well with people. He has a seafloor assistant running around with a microphone for the audience members to talk to the turtle. Of course, Gracie and Libby ran right in and grabbed spots on the floor right in front of the screen. I'm sure Crush could see them very well. They both raised their hands to try to be chosen to talk to Crush, but they weren't chosen today. I was wondering what Libby would do if the man stuck the microphone in her face to talk to the turtle!

When the show was over, we watched the movies in the main room for a bit and then I realized that Libby's jacket was missing. She was wearing it in the turtle show and now she wasn't, so it wasn't lost for long. I went to the Turtle show door attendant and told her that I thought we left her jacket in the theater. She called someone and next thing you know, here comes a guy with Libby's jacket! Whew!

This is a new jacket that I just bought in October. I got each of the girls one, so they match. Plus, they are Cinderella jackets! I've lost Libby's jacket three times including this time in the Turtle show, and currently, I have no idea where Gracie's jacket is. These jackets are jinxed! They are wanderers! Anyway, I was glad to see Libby's jacket returned and it was so fast - nice!

We adventured into another area of this building, the Sorcerer's Workshop. I didn't realize there was anything there, the entrance is a long ramp along the back wall and from the floor it really doesn't look like there is anything there. I saw someone go down the ramp and never come back, so I wondered, hmmm, could there be a nice restroom down in there or what?

Or what! We found such a cool place!  There were three areas to the Sorcerer's Workshop. The first area was an animation exhibit. It was pretty cool, but I didn't really look at the spinning things too much since I get dizzy so easily when I look at spinning things.

We did see the Evil Queen's magic mirror. Scary! I might have to make them some new Snow White dresses so they can have their pictures taken here. That would look pretty cool. Better yet, Evil Queen costumes! Wonder if they'd go for that? Probably not.

We entered the next area. We came around the corner and my jaw dropped in awe! We were in the Beast's library! Whoa! Amazing! This place was fabulous! The beast's library had little kiosk stations where you could answer questions and discover which Disney character is most like you. Gracie got Sally from Cars and so did Libby! I am most like Lilo from Lilo and Stitch. I just loved being in the Beast's library. It was like being in the movie!

From here, we entered Ursula's Grotto. It was very dark and had a cave-like feel to it. There were several stations here too, I don't know if they all did the same thing, but they looked different. We entered one alcove and Gracie operated the kiosk and followed the instructions. Ursula told her to choose to sing or act and she chose to sing a song. There were four song choices, karaoke style. Gracie sang "Heigh Ho" from the Snow White movie, and then Ursula played a recording of Gracie's singing back to us. She stole Gracie's voice! Libby had enough of Ursula and her dirty tricks, so we left her grotto and found ourselves right back in the big room of movie screens.

Outside, it was dark now. It sure gets dark early these days. And chilly too! I knew there was a Christmas movie in the Muppet theater, and even though we just saw the Turtle show and got to sit down for 20 minutes, I wanted another opportunity to sit and relax. I suggested to the girls that we go to the Muppet theater and they were really excited to go. Off we went!  They didn't realize there would be a Christmas movie, so they were pleasantly surprised. We saw "Prep and Landing" in 3D about two elves who team up to turn a naughty kid into a nice kid. I sat between the girls and heard the best laughter in stereo! This is Disneyland magic!

Since we were so close, we went to ride the Monsters, Inc ride. We've been watching this movie a lot with Charlie lately. Such a fun ride! I don't know why, but the ride attendant put me and the girls all in one row of the monster taxi and left the row behind us empty. We were so squished! I wish I could have climbed over the seat and sat in the back. Oh well, next time we'll ask for two rows.

When we came off the ride, we were told to walk around because there was a show ready to happen right there in that spot. So we were lead around the show set and we ended up right in front of this little staging area. Next thing you know, cool mist was being sprayed (really? do we need to be sprayed with cool mist? it's freezing outside! probably a frigid 60 degrees!) then Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum came out and introduced the Mad T Party. After they did their little act the crowd, which was behind us and now on both sides as well, was herded through the mist archway and into the Mad T Party area. We found ourselves right in front of a big stage filled with crazy colorful lights  and a rock n roll band. Honestly, they reminded me of Keith's band back in Pierre when he played with his music friends. The song they sang was one of the same ones that Keith's band played often, oddly enough, Keith's band was named "Mad Hatter".

Tweedle Dum bent down and looked right at Libby in her stroller and gave her a wink, smile and cute little wave. She ignored him, but giggled about it the next day. She was so tired at this point, and I was too. We were done for the day, Gracie of course could party all night long. She's a firecracker!

While strolling through California Adventure, I nearly flipped out! I saw a little girl wearing the cutest retro waitress dress and she had a little V8 hat, somewhere on her she had embroidery that said "Flo's V8 Cafe", I think on the apron. Anyway, I just caught a glimpse of her and I was dying to see her little outfit better, but I suddenly felt like a creep, so I just controlled myself and said, "Love her outfit" to her mom and moved on. Now I want to make a Flo's V8 Cafe waitress dress for Gracie, I think she'd enjoy that. But I didn't get a good enough look at that little girl (she had a jacket on too) to copy it, but I can copy the idea.

We were done for the day, but we needed to eat. I was thinking we could hit up an In-n-Out on the way home, but I could see that Libby was way too tired to stay awake long enough to get some hamburgers. I decided that she would need to eat before she fell asleep for the night, so we had to eat there. We went to the Taste Pilot's Grill where they have delicious hamburgers. I had the Wild Blue Yonder burger, which is covered in blue cheese crumbles - yum! and I got the girls a plain hamburger and fries, not from the kids' menu though. They actually get a better burger and more food if they split an adult meal instead of each getting a kids' burger. Plus, it's cheaper that way. The Taste Pilot's Grill has a condiment bar, so you can dress up your burger any way you like. I got Libby a little dish of ketchup and Gracie a little dish filled with pickles. They were both very happy. Me too!

On our way to the exit, we saw Goofy. Gracie wanted to see him because he looks like her daddy. What? Yeah, he looks like Daddy, that's why she likes him so much. He's really tall, like Dad. And today he was wearing a tie, like Daddy. Ahh, well, if it was necktie that won her heart then by all means, let's go see him! She didn't want him to sign her book; I have no idea why. She just wanted to see him. Libby didn't. That didn't surprise me, she hasn't been interested in getting up close to any of the characters today.

Gracie had a great time visiting with Goofy, but he wasn't satisfied with just one Cinderella he came up to Libby who was half laying down in the stroller and played with her a bit. He took her Hello Kitty hat and stuffed it in his mouth and then he dropped it, ate it again, took it and wiped his armpits with it, tossed it around and then gave it back to her. She was laughing her head off!  Goofy was great!

We made our way to the Toy Story buses and we finally got a blue Toy Story bus! It was 8:30 when we got to the van. We just spent 9.5 hours at Disneyland! And I said I didn't feel well and wouldn't stay longer than 4 hours! Ha! I forgot all about not feeling well. More of that Disneyland magic! It's great medicine.

The day was a great one! We had tons of fun, more than I can describe in this really long blog post! More than I can express with my plentiful use of exclamation points!!! But before I'm done, I have to brag a little bit about the girls' dresses. I heard a lot of comments about their dresses, especially Gracie's Cinderelly dress. People recognized it and I received so many compliments on the girls' dresses, not just from cast members and Cinderella, but from passers by and all sorts of people. I loved that! Makes me feel so good when the girls are complimented and made to feel special because of something I made for them. Someday, that will be a special memory for them that will be one of the great things their mama did for them. I hope they always know that their costumes are made with love. And so are these fun filled days at Disneyland.

Can't wait to go back again!

Disneyland Day - First Trip this year!

Sunday, November 11th, 2012

We had such a fun day! I'm going to write about all of our Disneyland trips in as much detail as I can because they are very special days and I am not trying to flaunt and embellish, just trying to record great memories and reflect on our magical lucky days. Warning: this is going to be a long post!

Since we are beyond the diaper and nap stage of life now, I can pack lighter for days out.  I brought our ears, Libby's blankey, and a few snacks. Plus, I brought our Princess Encyclopedia. It's a big picture book of princesses and it has pretty pictures of each of them. It's a lot to lug around, but we keep it in the basket of the stroller so it really isn't a big deal. And, I kept a sharpie marker in my purse. We got the book at the Scholastic Book Fair last year and took it one other time. That time we got only one autograph, but it was Dr. Faciler from The Princess and the Frog, an unusual character so it was pretty cool!

I decided to ignore the electronic sign on Ball Ave that says (and probably always does) to turn left on Harbor Blvd for Theme Park Parking. I prefer the Mickey and Friends parking structure since it is a lot closer and takes less time to get to and from the vehicle to the park. Bad idea. The M&F structure had cones in front of it and the traffic was routed around to the Toy Story parking lots just off of Harbor Blvd. This took an hour! I should have obeyed the sign and saved myself 45 minutes at the very least.  Live and learn, this included parking. I don't know why I can never manage to get in there. I have parked in there just enough times to know it's where I'd prefer to park. Oh well, we parked in the Woody lot and rode the bus to the park. We didn't get a blue Toy Story bus though, they tossed in an extra bus since it was a busy day and we ended up on that one. It was fine, plenty of room and easy enough to board and hop off with the kids, bag and stroller, but it wasn't blue with Toy Story characters painted on it. So, the bus got a big "awww" from the kids, but they were happy to hop on instead of wait for a blue bus; guess it wasn't that big of a deal after all.

First stop: Ticket booth. Tickets are available online which would save time, but I decided to buy our passes at the park for two reasons: 1. We were going on a SoCal Select Blockout day and buying online would have blocked us out that day, but buying tickets at the gate you can get in that day and buy the same pass that would have blocked you out but you don't have to buy a blockout ticket ($70 each) on that day. So, buying at the gate you can go any day you want to and still get the SoCal Select pass and get in the park too.  2. It's more exciting and fun this way!

We waited in line for 15 - 20 minutes, it probably would have taken me longer to navigate the website and print out my e-ticket if I had done it at home. Time saved = none. We bought three SoCal Select Annual Passes and a parking pass. Since I already paid $15 to park, that price was refunded to me. Walt sure does charge a premium to visit his park, but we will make the most of it!

We entered Disneyland first (as opposed to California Adventure) and since our passes were brand spanking new, we had to get our photos taken. The photos are no longer on the pass, but on the computer. When the gate keeper scans your pass, your photo pops up on his screen.  There were lots of photopass photographers right there in the entryway, but they were in training, so it was actually difficult to get anyone to take our pictures even though it looked like a swarm of Disney photographers were ready. They weren't. We got it done though, and had a group photo taken in front of the Mickey Mouse flowers too.

We entered Main Street and were struck by the magical "awe" that is Disneyland! Being there in person is amazing! It was all decorated for the Christmas Holidays! So pretty!  Mickey and Minnie were both on Main Street doing "meet and greet".  The girls wanted to see Minnie and I wanted to see Mickey, but I was persuaded by their big eyes and happy smiles so we visited Minnie Mouse.  The characters don't always stay long and you are never guaranteed that you can see one or another, and the girls really seem to understand the hit and miss way of the Main Street characters. It's been a whole year since there were here and they have amazing memories for being such young things.

Minnie was great!  I had Gracie  hand her the book and I opened it to the front cover. This is the moment where I notice that Gracie had written her name on the front cover as well. That's fine, but the book should be for both of them, so after Minnie signed it I had Libby sign her name there as well. Minnie even wrote "To Gracie"!

We went up Main Street and the wonderful sugary smells were strong today. I love the way Disneyland smells! It's one of my favorite things about the parks. Can  you say that about Six Flags? Nope!

Our first stop was "the hub" to admire the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey. Gracie and Libby know him as "Mickey's Daddy" and they like to stop and see the statue and see what color flowers are planted around him. The flowers are different at different times of the year, always fun to see them.

Onward to the castle!  Passing under the castle archway is a thrill! First we stopped in the handicap accessible room which is a very nice little room filled with royal trinkets. It's a small little space with a video playing of the castle walk-through that goes over the castle which is mostly stairs. But of course, it is done up Disney style and it's very beautiful. Then we went into the Sleeping Beauty walk-through up over the castle arch and down the other side. As expected, Libby was brave as long as she held my hand and Gracie was afraid of the section where Malificent's shadow appears and her evil laughter comes out of the speaker. We watched Sleeping Beauty's dress turn from blue to pink and back again before we left. We left when it was pink, of course.

The aptly named by my daughter, "Mary Poppins Band" was playing in front of the Bibbidti Boppity Boo shop and we listened for a bit. The next song they played was from Beauty and the Beast, which Libby recognized right away. Since she was dressed as Belle, she caught the reference and beamed! She was thrilled that they played a song for her! Along came Mary and Bert, they were walking with a little girl who was wearing a Mary Poppins dress and she was just adorable. The band played a show tune from that movie for them. They didn't perform but they did dance with the children who were there and Gracie asked Mary to sign her book. We didn't get a signature from Bert, maybe next time.

Next Gracie tried to pull the sword from the stone and become the ruler of Disneyland. She tried her best, but that sword wouldn't budge from the anvil. I recently read somewhere that there is an ipad app that will unlock the sword and  you can pull it up from the stone, but not completely out and go running off with it. I do not have an iphone so I don't know if this is true, but it's always worth a try!

Finally, we can make our way to the restroom! That's my only complaint about Disneyland: I wish there were bathrooms as you enter the center of the resort, before you go into the gate and enter Disneyland or California Adventure. After a long car ride and then the shuttle to the park, a restroom would be handy dandy before the excitement of entering Disneyland! There are two bathrooms right as you enter Main Street, but who wants to stop right when you first enter the magical land of enchantment? My favorite bathroom, "the hidden bathroom" on the left side of the castle was gone! It was behind a construction wall, looks like they are improving that area so we went to the right and used the Queen of Hearts restroom.

The Princess line-up has been moved to the stage area where the villians have their meet-and-greet in October. Hmmm, are they improving the Princess Fantasy Faire? That line is always long and it's a hard one to stand in without much for distracting entertainment. Hopefully, they are at least improving the queue! We wanted to visit princesses of course, so we hopped in line to see them. One nice thing about having them in this new location is that the kids can see the princesses visiting with everyone while waiting your turn. More fun while you wait. The line wasn't extremely long, but plenty long enough. Ready to greet us were Ariel, Cinderella and Tiana. We found the right pages in our princess book for them to sign autographs. About halfway there, the princesses all left the stage and there was a bit of a break in the action. Two new princesses came to replace the three that left. We met Jasmine and Belle. Not sure why the third space wasn't filled, but the girls were happy to meet two of them anyway. We were able to get them to sign their pages in the book. This book is going to be fun!

Small World had an unbelievably long line, so we decided to skip that and come to it another day. We were all too excited to do anything that had a line that long! Right across from Small World was Merida! The new movie "Brave" just might end up under our Christmas tree this year. We saw the movie in June at the theater with Fenna as one of the last things we did together. It's no surprise that the girls were super excited to meet the princess Merida. She didn't have a page in our book since we bought it before her movie came out, but she signed a spot on the back page. The page has each princess with her prince and she commented that she doesn't have a prince, but she'd sign there at the top anyway. I think we should get a Brave storybook and have her sign it. We could start a collection of books if we keep going back! Why not! Merida was magical! She took her time with the girls and gave them the special attention that one can only hope for. I was wishing that the weather was a bit warmer because she was wearing her cloak over her dress and I was dying to see that costume! Maybe next time.

I love being able to say that! "Next time!"

While we were in line to visit Merida, we decided to call the Grandmas to tell them Thank you and let them know we were having a fun day at Disneyland. We got to talk to Great Grandma and we told her that we were there and having fun. It was hard to hear anything with all of the noise surrounding us, but we said our Thanks into the phone and the little girls had a lot of excitement in their voices, so I think that worked out well.

As soon as we hung up, I got a text from my friend. When I talked to her the day before, I told her about our exciting gift of passes and that I was planning to bring the girls this weekend. Their family also has passes, but one step up from the passes we have which allows them to go on Sundays. Her text message said she was at California Adventure and wondered if we made it to Disneyland today or not. I replied and we decided to try to meet up in front of the Ariel ride, which is a long way from where we were presently.

Secretly, I did not want to try to plan to meet up with anyone on our first day back. I knew I would be too excited and I didn't want to be watching the time and trying to steer the girls toward a designated meeting spot, and keeping all of this on the back of my mind on our first day back. I just wanted to be sucked up in the Disney excitement and forget the rest of the world. Which is pretty much what happened! But since this was not really planned and there was no pressure to actually meet up, we were just going to try to find each other but if we didn't then we would just laugh about it later, there wasn't any of that planning or pressure that I was avoiding. Actually, since we were on opposite ends of the Disneyland Resort, it was going to be hard to time it right anyway. Luckily, I have great friends and there was no real pressure to make this happen. We can plan to do a Disney day another time together. My friend was just saying that she was thinking of us and happy for us, and for that I only felt more loved than I already felt  that day. Magic! 

After we visited with Merida, we boarded the train which goes all the way around Disneyland with several stops in between. The train took us through the facade of The Small World and on to Tomorrow Land, then Main Street. We got off at Main Street.

While on Main Street we saw the Disneyland Fire Fighters play a couple of songs and then we went to the entry where the Mickey Mouse flowers are. What! Princesses! There was Snow White, Ariel and Cinderella! We were able to meet with two of them, but then the lines grew way too long. They must have just come out when we did because we didn't wait long at all to see Ariel and Snow White. Gracie was really happy to get more autographs in her book.

When we entered California Adventure, I handed over our passes to the gate keeper and she asked, "did you just buy these today?" For a moment, I thought we weren't going to be able to get in since it was a blocked out day for those passes, and now we were in between parks!  Maybe you can only get in once and our day was done! oh no! I should have stayed in Disneyland! I told her "Yes, today." And she said, "Have fun!" and let us through. Whew! I told the girls I really want to ride the Ariel ride before we go to Cars Land. They were dying to see Cars Land! But they can't say no to Ariel, and it's not far from the entrance.

But wait! A street show! Mickey Mouse and maybe it's the Newsies? Whoever they were, it was a great show. We stopped to watch them sing and dance. It was a back-in-time sort of performance and Mickey Mouse was heading to California to build Disneyland with just a suitcase and a dream. Very cute!

Onward. Where were we going? Oh yes, the Ariel ride. The girls' favorite!

Guess who we saw in front of the Ariel ride? The girls' best friends! It was awesome that worked out so well! We couldn't have planned it if we tried. The tiny amount of planning that went into meeting up was insignificant to the amount of planning it should have taken for this to actually happen. Funny how things work out. They told me they actually hadn't planned on being at Disneyland in the afternoon, they wanted to come in the morning and leave by 1pm so their girls would nap on the way home, but they changed their plans last minute and decided to spend the afternoon and evening at Disneyland instead of the morning. Since they knew we might be there, they took a shot in the dark and sent a text wondering if we were there. Actually finding one another was amazing too, it was a very busy day in the park. As soon as we approached the Ariel ride, they did too! Timing was great!

We rode the Ariel ride all together. There wasn't a line at all, we walked right on! How exciting!

When we came out of the ride, Phineas and Ferb were singing and dancing right in front of us! Gracie, Jillian and Mallory danced with the Fireside Girls and Libby watched. She was wearing down.

After that, as promised, we went to Cars Land. Our friends wanted to go there too, so we all went together. It was much more fun to be together! Cars Land is amazing! It looks and feels like you are walking in the movie, right there in Radiator Springs. We loved it!  It was crowded though and lines were long. The lines for the rides were way too long. One ride had a 120 minute wait!

Libby was getting tired and hungry at this point. Gracie didn't care if she was hungry, she was too excited. We decided to ride one ride, after all, we were there! We chose the ride with the short line, only 35 minute wait time and hopped in line. Gracie was through the roof excited! This kid knew the entire dialog of the movie when she was still in diapers. However, Libby found her melting point. Gracie rode Luigi's Tires with our friends and I took Libby for a stroll. 

Gracie had such a great time on the ride. It was like bumper cars. Libby enjoyed the stroll. Libby and I wandered all around Cars Land. We both loved the canyon scenery. So beautiful! Even though it is just a facade, it looked so real!

We also saw Mater, Lightning McQueen and DJ.  DJ did a little dance show with the waitresses from Flo's V8 Cafe. Gracie and our friends were off of the ride at this point and we found them easily. Time to eat! The kids were starving. I brought little snacks, but nothing with sustenance. We walked over to the Food Court near Paradise Pier.

Libby wanted a $12 bowl of macaroni and cheese from Flo's V8 Cafe. Luckily, I talked her into a $6 Asian kids meal instead. Gracie wanted an Asian bowl too. I got that for both of them, but they didn't eat it. It was too spicy and had rice instead of noodles. Aaah, well, we tried!  I had a burrito from the Mexican counter. It was delicious! Gracie ate half of it and I ate part of her Asian bowl. Libby nibbled at things and the kids all talked and chattered away. It was so much fun to sit and eat with our friends in the middle of California Adventure!

Something horribly embarrassing, but really funny happened while we were eating. I was having a conversation with Brian (J&M's daddy) and eating at the same time. Not especially polite, but I had to shovel it in to keep up with the kids and actually get something to eat too.  I was replying to him and a surprise loud burp came out of me! Sneak Attack! Oh it was a big one! We laughed so hard, I couldn't believe it! This is what friends are for, to laugh at and with us. 

I decided our day was going to have to be over. I wanted to stay all evening and into the night, but I didn't think the kids were going to be able to last that long (well, one of 'em anyway).

The night show I really wanted to see is Fantasmic. I've never seen it! It was at 9pm, and probably lasts a half an hour or so, then there would be the crowd of people leaving at the same time; I'm sure it would be awfully late by the time we got home if we stay to watch it. They only have that show on weekends though, so I was hoping to see it today. Since we were all pretty tired and Libby didn't eat well, I gave up the idea. It didn't start for another three hours! We had enough fun for one day already. When the girls are several years older we can come back to Disneyland and see all the night shows. Our friends were done for the day too.

Since we were deep inside the California Adventure park, we had to wander through other areas to exit. The shortest route was through Bugs Land. Such a cute little place! The kids had all kinds of fun just walking through there. We decided to ride 'Heimlich's Chew Chew Train". It is a cute little train ride on the back of a caterpillar who eats and burps his way around the track. Brian called me Heimlich after this. Too funny!

We made our way toward the entrance but before leaving, we stopped to enjoy the fountain and the pretty Christmas tree. We took several pictures together and separately. It was so much fun! We were all very happy that we spent the last part of our day with our good friends.  This was where we parted and went our separate ways to our vehicles. They parked in the Mickey & Friends structure. How did they do that? We were at Disneyland before they were and we couldn't get in there! Someday, I'll have to figure out the trick to getting into the parking structure.

When we boarded the bus (we got the plain white one again), it was after 8pm. The day went so fast! We arrived at 11am, got in the Disneyland gate a little after noon. We put in a long day, but there was just no way we could put in three more hours to see the Fantasmic show. My legs were tired! Gracie had a blister too and Libby wasn't going to make it much longer.

We left the parking lot at 8:30 and Libby was fast asleep at 8:34. I'm surprised she lasted that long! I thought Gracie would sleep too, but she was too busy talking and reflecting on her day. She chattered all the way home. I was glad she did because she kept me awake and alert too. We put in a long day! A long, magical, wonderful day!

The Gift of Magic

We're Disneyland pass holders again!

A year ago, November 22nd, 2011 to be exact, was our last trip to Disneyland. After that trip, our passes expired and we made the decision not to renew at the current prices. Walt Disney just wanted way too much for a little family of three to get in the gates. I really wanted to keep taking the girls to Disneyland, in the worst way! But, couldn't justify the expense. The worst part of that was disappointing Fenna. She still had several months left on her pass, but I figured she would go with friends a few times in the spring. I tried to go one last time with just her and I, but that proved to be nearly impossible and then my pass expired.

Libby was able to get into Disneyland and everywhere else because she was under the age of three, but once she turned three years old, it was time to start paying to get her in the gate too. Since she is small for her age, I was able to easily fib "she's almost three" for the two months after she actually turned three. She doesn't take up any extra seats on the big rides or cause anyone else to miss out on some fun, so I figured there wasn't much harm in saying she was still under age three. She still acted like a two year old!

So, it's been a year now since we've been to our favorite place. The girls have been saving their birthday and Christmas money in hopes of going to Disneyland again in a few years when they are much taller and can ride the bigger thrill rides. I told them we could get a hotel and stay for three or four days and make a good fun vacation out of it, but it won't be until they are at least 8 and 10 years old.

One Saturday morning, I was chit-chatting on the phone with my mom and she asked me how much Disneyland passes are now. I told her they raised the prices again and now they are a ridiculous amount. $269 each plus $129 for parking! And that is for the cheap pass that blocks you out on weekends and holidays. Later in the conversation she said she sent some mail and I should watch for it in my snail mail. I didn't think much of it since she is a good one for sending fun mail, and sometimes she sends newspaper articles or comic strips.

A few days later, I checked the mail and sure enough there was a card from Mom and Grandma. Inside was a BIG surprise! A check and a note of instructions for me. The money was to be used to buy Disneyland passes for me and the girls. I was also instructed to take Charlie and Henry for a day at Disneyland (since they are both under age 3 they don't need tickets), and to take lots of pictures.  Amazing! I nearly had a heart attack from excitement!  I wanted to scream and shout and show the girls, but I had to contain myself and make giving them the news a very special moment.

I called my mom to tell her that I got it and that I was blown away. I thanked her kindly and she informed me that it was my grandma's doing. Grandma insisted that the girls get to go back to Disneyland for more magic and fun. I will certainly take them!

I decided to tell the girls the next weekend, Veteran's Day weekend. I figured out that if I buy the tickets online, we would be blocked out over the weekend but if I buy them at the gate, we could go on any day and get in that day plus get our passes. I decided to take the girls on Sunday for our debut trip.

Now, how to tell the girls... This will be fun!

The Setup:  On Saturday afternoon, I told the girls that their Grandma and Great-Grandma sent some special mail to our mailbox. Libby perked right up and said, "I wonder which Disney character she sent!" She knows that her grandmas like to send her nice cards and even the stamps have Disney characters on them. Gracie wanted to run right out and check the mail (I knew she would) and so we all went to the mailbox and found it empty. Awww, darn. Maybe tomorrow. The anticipation sets in.

Sunday morning, I went out and stuck three greeting cards in our mailbox. I made sure to put a Disney character sticker where the stamp would go and address each one as if it had arrived in the mail. I also loaded the van for our fun day.

As the kids woke up, I told them I was bored and wanted to go for an outing. Did they want to do the same? Where do you want to go? Libby said she wanted to play with friends and Gracie said she wanted to go to a museum. Good ideas! They went to get dressed and I packed a picnic lunch and some water bottles.

Libby came out of her room wearing a Princess Belle dress with tights. She was trying to decide between her cowgirl boots or her Doc McStuffin shoes (pink glitter Mary-Janes). Little does she know just how appropriate her outfit is today! Gracie decided to wear a Hello Kitty shirt, leggings and Hello Kitty shoes. Clean and matchy. Good!

The girls remembered that they wanted to check the mail again because it's a new day and they were waiting for mail from the Grandmas. Yes, by all means, go check the mail!

They were super excited to find a card for each of them and one for me too! We all opened our cards and read them outloud. Their eyes were huge with excitement! I told them it was true! The Grandmas sent us Disneyland passes! Let's go!

We hopped into the van and hit the road! They were super excited! Gracie had so much excited energy, but she was strapped down in the van so it all came out of her mouth. She couldn't stop talking and she was putting a lot of words out very quickly. Her brain must have been in hyper mode. Libby was speechless. Just big gasps and squeals. They loved the ride, trying to spot Disneyland from 30 miles away. "I think I see it!" So funny!  Gotta admit, I was extra excited too!

One more year of Disneyland! We couldn't be happier! And we are going to make the most of these passes and see as much as we can and go as often as we can. We'll have lots of pictures and stories to tell the Grandmas. I'm so glad that the girls are old enough to understand that Disneyland passes are expensive and not everyone is so lucky. They  understand and appreciate the fact that these are gifts from their Grandmas, and extraordinary gifts at that. It's nice to know we are humble enough to maintain our sense of who we are while we are being spoiled rotten.

Thank you so much, Grandmas! We love you even more than we love Disneyland! And that's a LOT!