Day 4 & 5

We spent the next two days at Disneyland.
Monday was mine and Hayden's birthday...is there a better way to celebrate your birthday??
Also on Monday Mindy, Tony and girls joined us. So now all of Colin's family was there except Audrey & fam and Lee & Leah! It was really nice having so many people there; Colin and I were able to sneak away and ride some of the bigger rides.
We had a early morning pass to Toon Town, which was really fun because a lot of the characters are out & about and it is not as crowded!All the characters put on a little show. It was really cute.
Eating brunch at Minnie's house.Taking a snooze on Minnie's bed.Carson just wanted to attack every character.Monday was Hayden's actual birthday, so we had to take a picture by the cake & balloons.Crawling around on Pluto's bed. Colin and I were off riding "Sorin and Scream'n" when they met Minnie the Pilot. I was sad, she is so cute!!
Hayden's ketchup covered face and her $18 mouse ears!!
These guys look like statues but they were real. The army guy was hilarious!!
Trying on a Woody hat and showing off his chompers!

This is the Toy Story ride, it was a lot of fun!!
These two took SO many naps in the strollers, they were such troopers!!
Waiting for the Aladin show to start. This was one of my favorite things. They put on an amazing show. They tell the whole story in about 45 minutes. It really was an impressive as a Broadway show.
They are making a huge new Cars attraction that is opening in 2012, I bet it will be really cool!! Good thing we have another trip planned for 2013!We were wondering around New Orleans square when Tiana and her Jazz band came marching past us. We followed them and eventually they stopped so we could get a picture.
I know all the princesses are paid to be nice, but "Tiana" was really sweet and friendly! I will never forget how Hayden looked at her, like she had never seen anything as beautiful as her. Hayden also told her that she saw her movie, I think Tiana was very flattered! :)That night we saw the World of Color show, which is amazing. But we didn't really like how they do it. They cram a million people into a small area and make you stand for 30 minutes or however long it is...we left early because we were too tuckered out. Plus kids really cant see unless you are holding them, so that made it even harder.
Tuesday
Good ol' Tuesday!! It basically rained the whole day, so I don't have many pictures. We were able to see the princesses and Tinkerbell.
Waiting in her beautiful Belle dress to meet the Princesses...Belle wasn't even there. :(
Hayden asked all of them where the Prince was?
I was not very impressed with Snow White. She wouldn't even bend down to talk to her or take a picture.
Cinderella was super sweet. I think she and Tiana were our favorites.

Visiting Tinkerbell at Pixie Hollow. There was also a boy fairy, I am not sure who is he was, but Hayden did not want anything to do with him.
Outside of the Indiana Jones ride...definitely our favorite ride!! I could go on that one over and over again!!
The second half of the the day we were supposed to go trick-or-treating and see some of the villians in the Halloween special they had going on, but we got rained out! So we went back to the hotel got warm and then Colin took the kids and met up with everybody to eat at Rain Forest Cafe. I was not feeling too well so I stayed at the hotel by myself(which was a much needed break), I found out on this trip that caffeine makes me nauseous.

Overall Disneyland was amazing!!!!! We dealt with Crowds and rain, but it was still so much fun!! Now we have a much better idea what to do and not not do next time...2013!!!

Halloween Interuption

I am interrupting my California post to tell about our Halloween. Tradition is to go up to Colin's parents and trick-or-treat in their neighborhood. Colin's mom always makes tasty soup and rolls for the family and then hands out donuts and hot chocolate/cider to the trick-or-treaters.
It was pretty cold and rainy this year so we only went to a couple of houses, but Hayden really didn't care because all she could think about was sleeping over at Grandma and Grandpa's!!
I did feel bad for Leah because at one point she was the only outside passing out donuts and the rest of us (9 grown) adults were inside watching 'PeeWee's Playhouse'.:) Pretty sad huh?
After that we came home put the little monkey to bed and Colin and I watched 'The Burbs.'
This was the day before, I took her to my mom's work. While she was dressed up she insisted I call her Dorothy, not Hayden!!
Little monkey boy!

California-Day 3

*Woke up again at 4:30 thanks to the little man, but luckily Colin is very thoughtful and took him out for a drive so Hayden and I could sleep.
*Ate breakfast at Denny's with Dean and Megan
*Made our way to Disneyland and saw that it was going to be incredibly crowded!!!
*Spent the first half of the day in Fantasy Land. We did Snow Whites scary ride, Pinocchio ride, tea cups, met Rapunzel and her prince promoting their new movie "Tangled."
*Spent some time in Toon Town. I think that day we only got to meet Goofy and Eeyor.
*It was really crowded, but luckily it was our first day so we just wanted to do the smaller/less popular rides with Hayden anyway, so it wasn't too bad for us.
*It was great because we could take Carson on almost every ride Hayden went on. He loved them all and he really loved all the characters too. He just wanted to grab them, he wasn't scared at all!!
*That evening for dinner we ate at The Blue Bayou. It is the restaurant you can see when you are just starting Pirates of the Caribbean. It was really cool to eat there, the atmosphere is awesome!!!! The food was great too. We all really liked it except Hayden who said her macaroni and cheese tasted like "poop!"
*Probably my favorite part of Disneyland was seeing all the characters. I really didn't think we were going to see that many, but we saw A TON!!!! It was so fun watching Hayden look at them and talk to them, especially the Princesses. In her mind they were the real deal!!
Eating breakfast at Denny's. See that "awesome" look on her face...that is what we had to deal with during family pictures!! :) But luckily I just got them back and that look didn't make it into any of our pictures.
Already shopping for souvenirs and we had only made to Denny's!

Riding the Old Steam boat.

Carson and Pirate Mickey.

Locked up in Toon Town jail.


Meagan is the only one who would ride the Tea Cups with her.
One of MANY naps in the stroller.


Outside of Rapunzel's house.
Waiting for the snow white ride.


Drinking her $6 chocolate milk at the Blue Bayou.

California 2010-Day 1

We just got back yesterday from our 10 day vacation. It was amazing and I really want to remember everything, so I am going to try to blog about each day. The thought of writing/editing that much is a little overwhelming for me, so I think I will just do it in bullet format.

Day 1
*We left our house around 1:00 and by the time we got to Santaquin we had already stopped twice for food and bathroom breaks. We thought it was going to be a long trip, but that stretch was the worst of the whole trip. I think our kids are the best travelers. Carson really never cried in the car the entire trip and Hayden just sat back there and played, read books, colored, sang. I think she only watch maybe two movies the whole time!! I was very proud of them!!
*Made it to St. George with no problems!!
*Met up with Chris at Maverick for about an hour. Kids had a great time crawling around in the back of his truck.
*Drove on to Las Vegas where we stayed the La Quinta(horrible hotel, I recommend never staying there)
*Hayden was pretty fascinated with all the lights and big hotels of Vegas.

Day 2
*Carson woke up at 4:30 am and did not want to go back to bed
*Packed up and headed back on the road
*Stopped in Barstow at the train station McDonalds/gift shop. Very dirty and very crowded. Mostly just hung out in the car.
*Got to Long Beach about noon.
*Met up with Tiffany, Greg and Gavin who just happened to be going to Long Beach too!
*Walked around, ate lunch, met a pirate, met up with Dean & Meagan and decided to tour the Queen Mary cruise ship.
*Did the ghost tour on the ship. They took us to the boiler room where a fireman got trapped and killed, to the swimming pool(very cool), and to the front of the ship which at some point hit another boat and killed 300 men. They say their ghosts are still haunting the ship.
*After that tour we just walked around and saw the rest of the ship.
*Saw a celebrity!!! On the way down I told Colin I wanted to see someone famous, so after that he kept tricking me saying he just saw a celebrity pass by and I missed them. He did that about three times and then we were walking on the ship and he turned around and told me there really was a celebrity coming up behind us, so I turned around and sure enough it was the guy from 'Supernatural', and for any of you Days of our Lives fans about eight years ago he played Eric sammies twin brother. I was pretty excited, for some reason I think it is pretty cool to see famous people!!
*After the Queen Mary we checked into our hotel...the Quality Inn right by Disneyland(another hotel I would avoid).
*Walked to Downtown Disney looking for somewhere to eat, but everything was too busy, so we just went across the street and ate at Tony Romas(they have an excellent Asian Salad!!)
*Went back to our hotel and crashed.

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Hayden's 3rd Birthday Party

We had a really fun birthday party for Hayden this year. It was just a family party again this year, but with how fast Colins family is growing there was a pretty big crowd. The theme was Dora the Explorer so we had the kids go on a little adventure. We started off by saying it was time to put the candles, but before we could get them on Swiper the Fox (aka Dean) ran in and swiped the candles. I dont have a picture of this, but I will post a video. Hayden was pretty much terrified of Swiper and was literally shaking. It was kind of sad, but she recovered quickly and now that is one of the main things she talks about!! So after Swiper swiped the candles we handed out little backpacks and a map. There first stop was Crocodile lake (kiddie swimming pool) where they had to save the rubber duckies by throwing rings around them. The next part was crossing the bridge. The Grumpy Old Troll made and appearance and make them solve a riddle and then they had to cut through the net to get to the other side. Finally they got to Sleeping Bear cave where they had to wake up the sleeping bear who was sleeping on the a treasure box full of candy and the candles.
After that we did a pinata and opened presents and ate cake.
I made one of these pom poms and hated it so Colin did the rest. His turned out so much better than mine!!

Aneika, Hayden, Gavin, Jack, Kyle and Drew. All cousins!!We gave her this Belle dress and she got Beauty and the Beast from my parents so here she is watching Belle dressed as Belle...heaven!!!