SoCal Trip...Disneyland Day 1!

Okay so I told you I was going to break it down and this is only the second post of pics. Man you guys are going to be soo tired of us.

So Saturday night we went to Disneyland and took a TON of pics and here are some of the best ones. BUT first let me recap how the day played out. We were all soo excited to get to Disney that we were up nice and early and as though the minivan joojoo had rubbed off onto my kids they were all still pleasantly getting along. We got up at 6am, got dressed and were down at the shuttle bus at 7:30am. We wanted to get there right when they opened! We got on the shuttle, which was shockingly empty and off we went. We got a sweet deal on tickets through Laurens work so we had them at will call and lucky for us had no outta pocket cost for that first day. THANK YOU LAUREN! We got in and the excitement began. We took pics at the First Mickey flower thingy-mabobber and we also made sure that we had a course of action. First ride of the day was Pirates of the Carribean and it was awesome. The little kids even did great, and Rian was excited but also got scared at some of the darker parts. However as soon as the music would start up (yo ho yo ho a pirates life for me) he would be happy again.

We rode as many rides as possible before it becaming scorching hot and some of the faves of the day were "Mr Toads wild Ride", Teacups and well...some other ones but I will let the pics speak for themselves. We also headed home this day to take a breather, we were all still trying to play catch up on rest and sleep from the day before and Lauren and I took the girls out to the pool while our hotel made our sweet roomservice dinner. After dinner and swimming, we headed back out to the park and we finished up on some rides, and watched the fireworks show. It was awesome. We didn't have the best spot in the park but ya know, standing out there with my family and one of my closest friends brought tears to my eyes. Its soo awesome that we can all make these memories together. So awesome.

Note. RC had about 6 churros by this time. Just sayin'.

So now before I bore you with more stories I just want to point out a few things we learned.

1. Your kid needs to be at least 40 inches tall to enjoy EVERY Ride they have. Well...I take that back. Indiana Jones they have to be 46. Either way...40 inches is min for nearly everything that isn't a complete lame-o ride, including Star Tours and Space Mountain. If you are 40 inches you are good.

2. Go to the park early and leave late. Most rides stay open from open to close and from 8-12 in the morning and from 8-12 in the evening is the best time to ride. During the middle of the day, ANY ride in Fantasy Land is ridiculous to wait in (at least 40-60 minutes)and since its the kids nap times you might be best off just going back to your hotel and resting.

3. Get fast passes for only the good rides, because otherwise you will waste your fast pass ability on a lame ride and be shut out from getting any more fast passes until you use that one.

4. If you go with multiple adults, always try to ask for a family pass right before you get on the ride when you are asked "how many people in your party". They will give you a pass at certain rides that you take to any folks waiting (two people max) and those people take that pass and get in the fast pass lane right after you are done. No need to wait for some scheduled time. Pretty sweet!

5. Make sure you see the World of Color show at CA Adventures. Get a fast pass for this early in the day, it guarantees you a better spot. It is an amazing show and should not be missed.

6. See one parade a day, and whatever one you dont see on either day, make sure you go to the rides that normally have the longest lines because no one will be there. 70% of people go to watch the parades and that leaves 30% of the people walking around hunting for rides. Which means. You will most likely not have a wait at all.

7. Take snacks and water in and try not to waste your money or time waiting in the silly vendor lines.

8. We took two full days in Disney. We still didnt get to see and do all we wanted. I highly recommend no less than 3 days.

There you go. Those are my tips. Now here are my pics :)

SoCal Part 1...Hollywood!

Just before our trip was going to start we knew we wanted to head down Friday but were shooting more for late morning to arrive in the evening and then we realized. HEY ,lets make the most of it, after all who needs sleep and rest on a vacation. Haha. So at 4am we loaded all the kids in the car...and wait...pause. Let me tell you about our sweet car.

So we were going to take my friends mom's car which would have fit all of us, it was an SUV and it would have made it so we coudl all cram and split gas and the whole nine yards. Well she took her moms car to the shop and found out it had a fuel pump problem. SO we had to make a decision and quickly as this all went down Thursday, the day before our trip.

We could...

A. Take her moms car and pray it didnt explode (which was a good option but if we broke her moms car I would have felt terrible)

B. Take two cars (ugh more gas money)

C. Use someones car (we only knew Carina's nana who had one and it was a quad cab Silverado, would have fit us but we would have been cramped)

D. Rent a car. Our options. Dodge Durango. Dodge Minivan.

I was floored. They were soo expensive to rent but last minute this was the option we chose and off we went to rent a car. We looked at both and guess what. In a matter of minutes BAM we were renting a minivan. Gasp. Ugh. I made it very clear to everyone I did not want ANYTHING to do with a minivan. They didn't care or listen. It had more trunk space and seating space. Done. So I took the minivan home...in horror...ashamed that this momma was driving a mini van and we packed up. Now let me just stop here for a second. I learned to drive in a minivan. My first wreck was a minivan. My first embarrassing moment was a minivan and many other countless teenage moments all started in a minivan (some good, some bad) and the last thing I wanted was to ever step foot or sit my butt in a minivan again. Okay. So. I got home, packed up and to my surprise we had 3 bags, 2 blankets, a double stroller, a bathroom bag, juice boxes (4 boxes to be exact) a case of water, a bag of toys and I could still see out the back window. In fact. There was TONS of room! That was my first selling point. Well then we go get Lauren, and we get her in the minivan and STILL we were all comfy. Then we drive all the way to hollywood, countless stops, in car eating, movies to be watched and lots of jabbering but guess what. NO arguing! No "you are to close" no "quit touching me" no "She is drooling on me while she sleeps". IN fact, everyone got along and we got to our first destination...HAPPY!!!! Now when we got out of the car it was chaos again but in the car. Calm. Peaceful. Joyous.

It was then. I yearned for a minivan. Just sayin'. It was glorious.

Anywho, we went to Hollywood and were walking around to some of the stars, and some were great, some were boring and we didn't walk the whole strip but we saw all the cool places and our two major stops. Madame Tassauds Wax Museum (sorry if I spelt it wrong) and Hard Rock Hotel for some lunch. Yum. The kids really were great, we had amazing food, we had a blast hanging on or beating up (you will see) celebrities made of wax and to be honest, it was a great way to start of the vacation. It was also the first place Rian saw people in costume and he LOVED them. Everything about our first stop had me more excited about the rest of the vacation!

Now, enjoy the pics :)

The few hollywood stars that we were able to stop and see given all those crazy tourists stopping and trampling all over us. LOL.



**Note: I had the camera in the wrong settings this first day and didn't even notice...so some of the pics came out sort of blurry. Sorry if it hurts your eyes!**

The wax museum pics...Uhm hello...among these is probably the closest Lauren and I will ever get to taking pics with our wannabe future husbands a.k.a will smith and Johnny Depp. Oh and Hello SCARFACE (Al Pacino)! **Warning, these pics are what made me realize...this mommy needs to get back to counting calories and a bit of excercise. Ugh.**

And in case you can't tell after going through these, Carina is a bit of a picture taking hog. She didn't even know half the people she stood with. Haha.

























Carina made a wax hand that was pretty awesome to watch. It melted a bit on our way home from SoCal but not to worry. This crafty momma fixed it all up and now it sits on our kitchen counter. Kinda creepy. Ha!




Hard Rock cafe...we left with gifts for the kids and full tummies!





This was an amazing way to start our vacation and it only got better from there. We also that very same night. Stopped at Downtown Disney and Neya made a build a bear and we looked around quite a few shops. Super fun and this was only Day 1!

Crafty?!?

I haven't had a whole lot of time to update the SoCal disneyland trip pics, not only because time is of the essence lately but also because I have soo many pics I really need to go through and decide which are good enough to put up, cause in my opinion they all are! haha. Maybe I will just post them all to facebook and add the links here. Who knows. Time can tell but for now here are a few of the items I have worked on over the last week or two.

1. My sisters baby shower invites. I had high hopes for them but they didn't turn out quite as cute as I had hoped (although our other sister reassured me they are perfect).


2. My sisters baby shower diaper cake. I have two baby showers I am throwing in the span of two weeks so I am trying to make each one very unique but boy is it hard. they both are shaped the same but I incorporated different items specific a bit to their personality. My sister is still in that "babys are soo great" phase so I saw it only fit that hers mostly contained toys. That is after all the most fun part about babies! TOYS! hehe. Cause lord knows, midnight feedings, blowout diapers and spit up are not the first things you think of as a first time mommy :)

The baby shower theme is Jungle :)


3. Rian's birthday invites. I was going back and forth and not really committing and he loves cars but I don't really want him to be like Neya (she literally has had princess everything for every birthday since the dawn of time) so I wanted to switch it up while I still have a say. So this year we are doing Mickey Mouse. After our recent Disney trip and his fascination with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse every morning it seemed only fit that we have a Mickey birthday. I ordered the invites and he LOVED them and showed me by repeating "dat my birthday card". Hehe love that kid.


4. Rian's birthday cake. I have had the pleasure of being asked to make my friend Tiffany's twin boys' birthday cakes for their 2nd birthday party. Because of this great honor I didn't want to screw up their cake so I decided to test my skills on Rian's birthday cake. Haha. I have never really made a cake before and I mean decorated it. I mean I did his cake last year but it was pretty easy. Creative, but easy. So this year I want to really see if I have any cake decorating skills. So here is what his cake looked like step by step :) and yes...I totally even made my own frosting and used AND colored Fondant. Yeah. This gal is totally taking it up a notch. Hopefully the twins cakes turn out even better :)






I have more updates from the other baby shower we are throwing but its a surprise of sorts (meaning she isnt to know any of the cool details (Sorry Tiff) but I will post pics after we throw it this weekend :)

In other news I have signed the girls up for Dance (neya to do Tap and Carina to do Hip Hop), we changed dance studios and Laneya gets to be taught by my cousin so hopefully she listens. Carina has taken up quite the 'tude and I think she will be lucky to make it to 6th grade without me possibly selling her to some family in a distant country. I tried to work with Rian again on the potty and I think I have decided he will just need to be trained naked. When he has no clothes covering his junk he goes in the potty no problem. Sorry Neya and Carina..you just gotta deal with it :) Neya has been also doing great, my dad just borrowed a tennis racquet for her so now her, Carina and my dad can all go play tennis on his early days. They like the thought of that.

As far as RC and I go. We are just lucky we are sane. Ugh. Sadly my fave reality show has just ended and this means...more boring nights of having to watch other lame shows. Haha. Oh JP and Ashley...please star in a "this is our life" type of Nick and Jessica Simpson show. I would happily watch it. Haha. Yes. Lame.

Okay, now I guess I better work on working orrrrrrr going through DIsneyland pics...come on...which sounds more appealing to you!

P.S. Please keep our friend Tiff, her family and especially her grammy in your thoughts and prayers, they have been dealt a hand that this amazing family doesn't deserve and needs lots of love and support.****UPDATE****Second opinion shows NO cancer for Tiffs Grandma! WOOHOO for good thoughts and I imagine TONS of prayers!****