Dustin and Erin Watson

Disney Day 2

We woke up early this day hoping to take advantage of our early admission tickets. Even with rushing, we still only got to the park about 8 minutes before it opened to the general public. Oh well. It did get us in line for Peter Pan though, so that was the first ride we rode that day.

We also took Kate on the carousel, Mr Toads Wild Ride, and Dumbo. That's when it started to drizzle a little bit. We found a place to take cover for awhile then when the rain stopped I decided to take Kate to Pixie Hollow again.

Let me tell you something about the line for Pixie Hollow. It looks short, but you are there FOREVER. They let every little girl go in by themselves and talk to the fairies, and that's the way it should be, but it makes the line move so slow. Dustin was able to take Max on the Buzz Lightyear Blasters before we had even moved 5 feet. Then when we were finally about halfway through the line, it started POURING on us!

I asked Kate if she wanted to go find Daddy, but she was very stubborn about going to "pixin howow". And frankly, I didn't want to lose our place in line either. So, we got soaked! Dustin saw us standing there in the pouring rain and ran to get ponchos. But the line for the ponchos was so long we actually got out of Pixie Hollow before he returned with them! So Disney day 2 definitely started out as an adventure, but it was fun. I mean, how often do you get to play in the rain at Disneyland?

We decided then to find an indoor activity, so we headed over to California Adventure to go to the Disney Junior show. This was just the cutest thing ever and the kids just loved it. Kate fell asleep on the way, but we woke her up when it was time for the show. Did I mention how hard it is to have two kids asleep in this stroller?

After the show we rode the Monsters Inc ride (another one of Kate's faves) and then went to the Animation studio to catch a showing of Turtle Talk with Crush. Have you ever seen that? I still can't figure out how they do this so well. Anyway about 5 minutes into the show Kate decided that she wanted to spin around (it's dark in there) and she smacked her face on one of the arms of the chair, started crying, so Dustin had to take her out. Then about 2 minutes after that, Max started crying and I had to take him out, so we didn't get to see much of that show.

The rest of the day was also spent in California Adventure. We rode the Toy Story ride again, and the Little Mermaid ride again. I think this was the ride we ended up riding the most. The girls just could not get enough of it!

Where's Max you ask?

Oh yes there he is. He was SO good on this whole trip. He basically slept the entire time. That's why the ratio of pictures of Kate to pictures of Max is about 50 to 1.

We also played in Bugs Land where Kate was only a 1/2 inch too short to do the bumper cars.

Then we tried to take pictures of all the kids in their matching Halloween outfits.

These were the best we got. Have you ever tried to get 5 kids 4 and under to stand still, look at the camera and smile? Yeah...it's impossible. These are pretty cute anyway.

When dinnertime rolled around we were all pretty exhausted so we decided to go back to our hotel and eat. We ate at our hotel restaurant the PCH Grille. I was surprised to find that it was actually decently priced. The character breakfast in the morning, however, was not. There will be more on that tomorrow! Congratulations if you made it to the bottom of this post :)

Disney Day 1

I slept pretty good that night considering how excited I was. I did wake up multiple times to check and see what time it was, and when I checked the clock at 6:00 I looked over at Dustin only to see that he was wide awake too! So we hopped out of bed and started to get ready. It was a good thing too, it takes a long time to get everybody ready.

We all got dressed in our Mickey shirts, loaded up the stroller and started on the walk to Disneyland. We enter the gates and I took out my camera to get a picture in front of the Mickey flowers. It was then I realized that I left my camera battery charging in the hotel! I'm not going to lie, I died a little inside. I may have cried as well. Even though our hotel is close to the park, it's still about a 15 minute walk so I didn't have time to go grab it before the rest of the family got there. So all the pictures in this post are taken by the PhotoPass people, taken with Dustin's iphone, grabbed off Lacie's facebook page, or taken by Bethany.

After a while we got impatient waiting for everyone else so we entered the park. Kate was loving it, but it wasn't Disneyland until she saw the castle!

The first thing we did was tour Sleeping Beauty's castle. It's really neat in there. They have animated pictures depicting the story of Sleeping Beauty all throughout the castle. After that we decided to ride a ride and the first thing we went on was Snow White. I had forgotten that that one is actually quite scary! So Kate's first impression of Disneyland was not the best. She got over it fast though.

Kate loved riding the rides, a few of her favorites were the "boats" (Jungle Cruise)...

"Umbo"...

...the teacups and the mermaid ride. But her favorite place of all was "Pixin Howow"! Kate loves Tinkerbell and all the fairies. We watch the Tinkerbell movies so much at our house that even I have an extensive knowledge of each and every fairy.

About halfway through the day all the kids (except Jaylee) crashed. I love my stroller but it is not built for two kids to sleep in! We came up with a few different riggs to allow her to sleep, this is just one.

That night Disneyland closed early for trick or treating so we headed on over to California Adventure. We rode Toy Story Mania and the new Little Mermaid ride (so cute!) and then got in our spots for World of Color.

A truly amazing show. I highly recommend it! After that concluded we went back to our hotel to sleep and be energized for the next day!!

Paradise Pier Hotel

We just returned from our amazing Disneyland vacation yesterday. Be sure to stay tuned for many many posts about fairies, princesses, mermaids, pirates, the beach, and even sharks. We had such a blast and last week just FLEW by. So here is the first post in the Disneyland saga.

For this trip we decided to do something both of us had never done before and that was to stay in one of the Disneyland hotels. We counted it as our birthday presents and we do not regret it! It was so nice to be so close to the park, I think it might have spoiled us a little because I don't think I'll want to do it any other way. We stayed in the Paradise Pier Hotel which overlooks California Adventure.

(Not the view from our room, but from the windows down the hall)

The room was really cute and Kate just loved it. She said, and this is a direct quote,

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe it! A mickey mouse room! And it's all mine!" She even twirled for emphasis when she said "mine!" That girl just cracks me up.

Our room was very Mickey, from the lamps down to the shampoo bottles. The hotel also had a very cool rooftop pool (which we never swam in), and a restaurant on the ground floor that had character breakfasts (which we DID do, there will be a post about that later).

On that first day, after relaxing in our room for a bit, we got the kids in the stroller and headed on over to Downtown Disney. We ate at a yummy mexican food place and did a little window shopping. Then we headed back to our hotel to attempt to get a good nights sleep, but we were all a little too excited...

My Silly Kids

Kate is just so silly! Here are some stories and quirks about her that I wanted written down.

Kate refuses to sleep in her bed. She used to be so good about sleeping, but ever since we brought Max home she's been so stubborn about it. We've finally got her to at least go to sleep in her room, but she's on the floor! I don't know what is wrong with her bed, or what is so special about the floor but that's where she chooses to sleep! She's also gotten super quiet about coming into our room at night. I don't even hear her come in any more! When I wake up to feed Max, she's always there, either on the floor or in the chair. So ridiculous!

She's started to quote movies and it's just hilarious. The other day she picked up the book I was reading and said, "How can you read this? There's no pictures!" I also hear her saying, "Gaston, can I have my book please?" when she's reading. She also loves to run around the house screaming, "Best day EVER! Woo hoo!" (Tangled).

During a particularly difficult day (one of those won't-obey-spend-a-lot-of-time-in-time-out-days), I asked Kate to do something and she replied, "Yes Mother." At first I was like, "All right! That's what your supposed to say!" But then I thought about it and I realized that not once has Kate ever called me Mother. So I said, "Yes Mother?" and Kate replied by singing "mooooother knows BEST". Yep. She was calling me Mother Gothel. I was too mad to laugh right then, but we had a good laugh about it when I told Dustin later.

She refers to poop as "yucky snakes", and farts as "ghosts".

Her tea party set is her "birthday" (from Alice in Wonderland, in case you didn't make that connection), and any tube that you can look through is a "pirate".

The other day she found some fake flowers of mine, and she carried them all around the house. When I said,"What do you have Kate?" she said "Jeremy gave me flowers." (Jeremy is a character from Phineas and Ferb.)

She is so excited to go to "Disneywand!" and has not stopped talking about it. But to be fair, neither have we. We leave on Sunday! I'm so so SO excited!

Of course I couldn't leave Max out of this post, even though I don't have any funny stories about him just yet. He's just too cute!

I love my kids! They definitely keep me laughing!

I feel like I forgot to post about something...

Oh yes...

Our new car!!!

We've been living with just one car for 4 years now. Which wasn't too bad since I just stay home, but it has been so nice to have a second! It definitely brings a peace of mind too. I was always worried that some emergency would happen and I wouldn't have a way of getting to the hospital fast enough or something. Our new car is a Hyundai Tucson and it's brand new! It's a 2012 model and it's like a bronze-ish color. It has a gray combo leather/material interior, and is equipped with XM radio and bluetooth capabilities. We feel pretty fancy! But then again anything is fancy next to our Aveo :) We love it!

All about Max

Little Max is 2 months old today. Time flew with our first kid, but it feels like it's flying even faster with our second. I can't believe two months have already gone by!

We just LOVE our baby boy!

His current stats are:
Height-- 23 3/4 inches 75%
Weight-- 13 pounds 75%
Head Circumference: 14 inches 50%

He is sleeping MUCH better at night now. I'm so grateful for that! His stretches of sleep are about 4-6 hours now, and sometimes he only wakes up once a night! I'm feeling like a different person :)

He is so cute and cuddly that I just want to hold him all the time....and I do.

Having two kids was hard at first, but I feel like I've got it figured out now. Max has been a lot happier ever since I figured out that he hates it when I eat ice cream. Pizza and soda used to be on that list, but I caved on Saturday and ate both and he seemed fine with it...it's still something I'll avoid though.