Disney...Day 1

Sunday morning, we got up early.  We had breakfast, then waited for the Anaheim Transit to pick us up.  Harley loved riding the bus! She was so excited! (Although you can't tell from the picture).

This is one of my favorite pictures!  I love the way she is looking up at him!

After our short, but fun bus ride, we arrived at Disneyland!  Since this was the day that it would be open late, we decided to go to Disneyland for a bit, then head over to California Adventure.

I love Disneyland at Christmas time!  The decorations, the people!  It's so much fun! 

A kind lady took this picture of all of us together.  I'm wearing my favorite coat, which is stolen on day 3...

Our vacation package gave us some perks, and one of those was our lanyards.  So, we headed over to Frontierland for our free lanyards and pins.  I hadn't been to Disneyland since Sophie was Harley's age, but I love how I know where everything is and it just feels like you never left.

Of course, my gun happy family had to try out the shooting range. 

Then we decided to head to New Orleans Square because Pirates rules!!  Sophie still talks about going on that ride. It was by far her favorite, and I think we went on in 10 times in 3 days.

Outside Pirates we paused to talk a pic with our favorite guy...

Then it was time for California Adventure to open, so we headed over to the other park.  The girls wanted to go to Bugs Land. 

Goofy is James' favorite.  Our next door neighbors have been calling James "Goofy" for years (actually since he was a kid)

Over to Bugs Land we headed.  We have some shots of us on the rides.

Harley hated this one!  They wouldn't let me hold her on my lap, so she freaked out.

Next we headed over towards Paradise Pier and we ran into these guys.....

And this guy.....

We became toys...

And got kisses....

And then, we faced the most annoying part of our trip.  One of my children hates rides...not the 4 year old, oh no, the 8 year old.  And we had to hear the following (which became a joke over the course of the trip).."But it goes down, why does it go down, I'm scared, but it goes down."  Since we are evil parents, and know that she will like it once she's on, we literally spent a ton of time dragging her crying butt on rides...so here is an example of her face (by the way, she went on the same ride another time at her request. 

She was glad she went on the rides she was afraid of (although she didn't do them all) because she had a ton of fun.  To make her happy we tried the new Toy Story ride.  Very fun, similar to the Buzz ride at Disneyland.  James scored the highest of all of us and he did in one handed while holding Harley!

We did more rides and met some of our favorites.  Joey got to ask Crush a question.  He asked him if he liked tacos.  Crush wanted to know what tacos were.  It was a pretty funny conversation.  Another perk of our vacation package was getting preferred seating at the Aladdin show.  We sat right in front of the parade.  The Genie was so funny, we quoted his lines all week!  Here's a few last pics of our first day.  We ended up back at Disneyland and went on some more rides including Space Mountain.

Check out how tall Joey is next to Goofy!

I heart this pic!

Man of steel!

Our California Vacation!

Well this is way late, but if you know me, you know I am a procrastinator.  Probably the Queen of all Procrasitnators.  But, here we go...(by the way, this is going to be pictures and stories that you may be bored with, but I'm documenting for those who care LOL)

In honor of Harley's first birthday, we headed to California and to the Happiest Place on Earth.  We left on Saturday, and after a detour to pick up James' medication refill (grrr) we hit the freeway.

We made it to our hotel, early...but they already had our room ready so it was cool.  We did our vacation package through Disney, and I have to say it was the best thing ever!  They gave me everything I needed and made check-in and everything super easy!

Since we had some time to spare, we hit the Red Robin for some dinner. 

James needs to visit the dentist! 

REd Robin was pretty empty, but at the table across from us was a lady, a grandma, and a little boy.  He was quite taken with Harley.  He kept calling out "baby, baby" trying to get her attention.  When mom walked away I snapped a picture of him.  I thought it was so cute!

On the way back to the hotel, we did a drive by of Disneyland (we were only a block away, but it made the kids super happy).

My kids thoroughly enjoy hotel rooms.  They go a little crazy!  Since we were on the 8th floor I had to keep telling them to stop jumping.  We probably drove the people below us nuts!  After everyone got into their PJs (aren't) Harley's cute?  Dia de los Muertos jammies...yeah we like skeletons LOL.  We had some milk and cookies and then watched out the window for the fireworks.



I was a male cheerleader..

Well Joey was!  Joey tried out for the school mascot this year.  But, the school decided not to invest in a mascot outfit (most likely because no one else would be able to wear it), so he was asked to be on the cheer squad.  He enjoyed getting the crowd excited.  He also enjoyed hanging out with the girls.  He liked that the most I think.

Here's a picture of Joey with the squad at a game..

And here he is with his trophy and medal for Most Valuable Player!!  Yeah Joe for doing the unexpected!





Cookies

I like to participate in the Fruit and Veggie Co-op. Around the holidays they like to offer decorate your own sugar cookies. I like these alot. First, I don't have to bake. Less mess equals happy me. Second they taste great! Joey decided he was too big to help decorate, so the girls had a great time.

Here's a couple shots of our Halloween cookies!

Most wonderful time of the year

For those of you that don't know, our family is big on Halloween.  We talk about it all year.  Our home always has some sort of skull or 6 foot zombie cowboy hanging around.  I have several pictures that I gleaned from others Facebook accounts and from my phone because Sophie has done something with my camera.  As you know she is the queen of taking my camera.  I also found that I don't have any pictures of Joey this year.  He was a Ghostbuster.  He looked great...trust me.

First picture is everyone at my mom's house for Trick or Treating.  Abby is the Queen of Hearts (Trunk or Treat winner for Best Kid's Costume!) I modified a vampire dress with hearts and tulle, since the store bought Queen costumes were a bit skanky.  Sophie is Alice (at the Trunk or treat she had a blonde wig, it was cute but annoying for her).  Emmalee is a panda, Cate is a cow.  Harley is the Cheshire Cat.  Johnathen is Harry Potter and I'm Bellatrix Lestrange.

Loving my kitty

My 90lbs lighter hottie!  He's the Angel of Death.