Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Golden Hair

"She did, and then the prince climbed up."  That's how I remember the story, this doesn't exactly happen in the Disney movie. But, the Disney Rapunzel has a beautiful dress!

This dress is adorable, lovely colors and has lots of pretty ribbons and frills.  Plus, it's comfortable and Rapunzel proves that it is perfect for playing hard in this dress. She does all sorts of things while wearing it: swinging from trees, running, jumping, swimming, what doesn't she do in this dress?

She doesn't scratch and itch, so this dress has to be itch free in accordance with the wishes of the princesses in this house. They help with design. Libby likes to make sure she can put on her dress by herself, and take it off independently too. She is a do-it-by-myself kinda girl. Gracie was more interested in making sure lots of just the right ribbons and lace were on the dress. She came shopping with me to choose the appropriate Rapunzel trims.

I've been wanting to make a Rapunzel dress for quite some time, but had other projects. Finally got to it! And it was worth the wait! So pretty! I'm amazed at how well it turned out. I am making five Rapunzel dresses, and have three done. All a little bit different so far.

The first dress, I finished it twice so maybe it counts as two? I love it and I hope the little girl who gets to wear it will love it too. I made it for a sweet little girl named Leah. She's three and had a rough year. I wanted to give her a gift and help keep her smiling. Her mom does a great job of keeping her happy, so she didn't really need my help, but it made me feel good to make a dress for her. I can't wait to see pictures of her wearing her dress!

I made this dress with a peasant style top (a pull-over with an elastic neckline). I opted not to add the neckline lace to avoid the itch-factor. I lined this skirt with an eyelet cotton underskirt with a scalloped hem. It peeks out from under the purple skirt. It looks just like Rapunzel's dress in the movie in that regard. She has a petticoat that peeks out too.

There isn't a waist sash to tie, so there isn't any room to grow in width, but it seems to be a pretty forgiving style so it should fit. I topstitched the ribbon lace-up on the front of the dress so that it wouldn't be a problem with coming undone every few minutes. After I stitched the lacing down, I wasn't sure if I liked that idea or not. It will be better than lacing and relacing it repeatedly though.

I made her dress and finished it before Christmas. It was ready to ship and I laid it on the side table stacked on top of some things, where nobody would notice, and it was handy for me to take to the post office. It wasn't in a box yet, but it was folded and out of the way for the day. I took the girls to Disneyland and when I came home, I found the dress in a wad under the dining table and smudged with ketchup! This is what I get for leaving it out, but I honestly thought it was out of sight and wouldn't be bothered. I live and I learn, every day.

The ketchup was isolated to the outer skirt, the rest of the dress was still in perfect condition as far as I could see, so I took the dress apart and made a new skirt for it. I didn't want to wash it and lose the newness of the fabric. There is always a sheen when it's new that is gone after the first washing. I will laundry test the dresses I made for my girls, but this one was done and I just wanted to finish it again and not have to worry about the detail work on the bodice falling apart in the wash. It can fall apart after Leah wears it to DisneyWorld and spills chocolate ice cream on it, falls down and puts a hole in it, or gets marker on it when she's getting an autograph, after the fun! Just like Libby does. I'm fairly confident that it'll be fine in the laundry on a regular wash and dry, the other dresses I make go through the laundry without incident, but since it is for someone else, I wanted it to be nice, very nice.

You heard me right, the dress is going to Disney World in Florida! Super Fun!

The next dress, I made exactly the same way with the peasant style top. Libby loves this style since there are no buttons nor zippers to challenge her independence. I made the bodice and used the washed skirt from the first dress. It fit perfectly and you cannot tell the difference between the laundered skirt fabric and the new bodice fabric. Score!

I didn't have enough eyelet lace for the underskirt and so I added a white lace trim to the purple skirt for that petticoat look without the lining. It looks pretty good. And now that I study the Disneyland Rapunzel character dress, I think her white petticoat is actually a lace trim sewn to the purple skirt. This time I didn't sew down the lace-up ribbon, I just laced it through some ribbon loops and tied it.

I topstiched all of the bodice ribbons. I want them to stay in place, plus that's what they look like in the movie. If you pause the movie and really take a good look, Rapunzel's sleeve has topstitched pink ribbons, but the front of her dress has eyelets, with grommets, and laced up with pink ribbon. I don't do grommets. I used a ribbon to make little loops and topstitched a pink ribbon over the top to make the edges of the bodice vest look.

I didn't add the lower section of the sleeves because the girls would get too hot and the sheer fabric on the lower sleeve would fail the itch test for sure!

Now that I really look at the bodice and the lace-up detail in the front, I think I put it upside down on the first dress and then sewed it in place that way. OMG! I Did!!! Ugh, why did I do that! It ties at the top of the bodice, not at the waist!  Ooops! Hopefully the three-year old won't notice my big blunder, but she probably will.

Libby loves her dress but it looks a bit short in the bodice. I'll have to remember that my kid is growing and make the bodice longer next time. She now has three princess dresses in this same bodice size and style: Belle, Cinderella and Rapunzel.

Gracie's dress is the third one I made. Her bodice is completely different in that it isn't a peasant style. It has a zipper down the back.  She insisted on having the lace around the neckline, I was hesitant for fear of her complaining that it would itch (the anti-itch factor is very important, can you tell?) so I finished the neckline first and then added the lace just in case she wants me to remove it, I can keep the neckline in tact. Nice to have the option to change your mind, right? If/when she asks me to remove the lace, I can take out one row of stitching and the second row will keep it finished and neat. I won't have to sew it again. Ta-da! Much to my surprise, she really does like the neckline lace. Bonus.

I made her bodice a size 7 since she's been growing so much and the last dress I made was a size 6. Wrong. She grew a lot! And she's grown round the middle much more than she's grown toward the sky. I had to add a piece to each side of the bodice to accommodate her chub. I just guessed at this, there is not technique involved, just took a couple of scraps and made long triangles out of them and stuck them between the bodice front and back all the way up through the armpit. The sleeve hems still meet where they were originally planned. The length of the bodice is just right, at least I didn't mess that up like I did with her holiday dress (she never noticed).

Just like Libby's dress, I added a white lace trim to the purple skirt to simulate the look of a petticoat peeking out from under the dress. I used the leftover eyelet lace from the quilt I made for her for Christmas.  It totally rocks. She isn't complaining about the waistband itching so I guess she's ok with no skirt lining. I did her lace-up the same as Libby's with the loops and the ribbon laced loosely. So far, it's only come untied a few times. I'm debating whether to stitch it in place or not. I'll have to compare notes with Leah's mom and see what she thinks of the topstitched ties.

Gracie's skirt has a different  floral ribbon going down the front of the skirt. Disney's Rapunzel has an embroidered floral motif along the edges of her skirt in the front along her center pleat. I duplicated that look by running two lines of flower ribbon down the front of the skirt where a pleat would be. The first two dresses have a more colorful ribbon of little flowers, this dress has pink flowers. I ran out of the rainbow flower ribbon and the store did not have the same ribbon in stock when I went back for more. That's ok, this ribbon is pretty too and they don't need to be identical in every way.

I think the dresses are authentic enough to the movie costume and yet simplified just enough for little girls who play hard. Gacie and Libby are testing the durability of the dresses as I type this out. For the past two days, they've both covered their dresses in food and juice drippings, a bit of dirt, and twirled a million times. They are thrilled! And, they figured out that if they wear their super poofy skirts underneath that Santa brought them, the dresses look even better. Cool!

I have enough fabric and ribbon to make two more dresses for our favorite local friends. They have spring birthdays and I think these will make very nice birthday gifts. These little girls love to play dress-up just as much as my little girls so I know they will be a big hit. That will be five Rapunzel dresses by the time I'm done! Unless of course, someone else wants one.  Hint!

The Chocolate Covered Cherry Incident

I accidentally backward snorted a chocolate covered cherry. I popped one in my mouth and bit down on it, letting that yummy sugary goodness ooze out and then I forgot all laws of gravity.

I bent over, way over, and ducked my head inside the kids' fort made of blankets where my littlest one was giggling her head off. Daddy was in the tent with her and he was tickling her ribs and her feet making her squeal. With my head upside down, I sort of laughed and inhaled my chocolate covered cherry UP my nasal cavity!

I whipped back upright, but it was too late. The chcocolate covered cherry had gone all the way up my nose from the back and now I felt the urge to sneeze, so I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose before the sneeze could happen. 

Yup, I blew out the chocolate covered cherry candy into the tissue; it was a big sugary booger! It went in, now it's out. Full circle. Through my nasal cavity! That's not how it is supposed to work!

It stung. It still stings actually, and it's been a few hours. I drank some water, but that didn't go the same route so it didn't help matters any. 

I think I'm done eating Christmas candy now.

 

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!