Characters!

Monday night was our character dining night! Kissie, me, Cora and Violet went to Ariel's Grotto to meet up with the princesses. 

 

 The princesses were lovely and sweet, and although expensive, the food was pretty good too. I felt a little bad, the girls in the tables next to us were all dolled up in princess gowns and fancy hair and jewelry. Cora and Violet were still a little damp and bedraggled from riding Grizzly River Run five times just an hour before! 

   

      

 Pata, Kevin, Luke, and Evelyn went to Goofy's Kitchen for dinner. I thought Evelyn would love seeing Mickey and Minnie, and I knew Luke would like it better than the princesses. They said it was great! Kevin said the kids were too wired to eat much, and loved seeing the characters. He said Evelyn loved Minnie and tried to be by her and snuggle with her as much as she could! 

 It's too bad this one is fuzzy, you can see the look of adoration on Evelyn's face!

 

 

 We didn't spend much time waiting in line to see characters in the rest of the park. Lucky for me, Cora and Violet usually wanted to ride more rides instead (the big benefit of the character meals!!). The great thing about going in the off-season is that sometimes there wasn't much of a line at all, so we did get a few more character pictures. 

Evelyn was a bit more shell-shocked in these pictures 

 

but wanted to give Minnie a kiss on the nose here!

  

 

 

Disneyland!

I really wanted to go to Disneyland this year. Even though Evelyn is still pretty young, I thought it might be one of the last times the princesses and other characters are really magical for Cora-- she's getting so big! And Luke was so little last time we went, he didn't remember a thing. Lucky for us, Kissie and Pata were able to meet us there and join in the fun (and help us so much with trading off kids for the big rides). 

Cora and Violet were tall enough for all the rides, but a little too scared for the big ones too. I told them they had to try everything once, and that sometimes being a little bit scared is fun. I think they had a great time, and found some new favorites, and well, some they'll just have to try again next time we go! 

At 39.8 inches, Luke was tall enough to go on quite a few rides, with a stack of napkins stuffed in his shoes for some extra elevation. Honestly, the height signs are kind of messed up, when for some he was hitting his head other others he was way under. Oh well. He had a great time and especially loved the little roller coaster he could ride. 

Evelyn was the big surprise of the trip. Although there were only two rides that had height requirements that she could ride, there are tons of other rides at Disneyland with no height requirement, and she just loved it! If she was hanging out in her stroller and I asked her if she wanted to go on a ride, she popped right up and started climbing out. Lots of rides she hung on tight when it was done and didn't want to get off. She had a great time, and napped in the stroller when she got tired. 

We spent our first day at California Adventure, our second day at Disneyland, and our third day starting off in Disneyland and finishing up at California Adventure. I thought it was perfect, and could have even spent one more day there (Kevin thinks otherwise :)). 

Our days started out looking like this: (we got a tip to take pictures of your kids each day to show exactly what they look like if they got lost)

 

and unfortunately like this too: 

 Miss Evelyn decided that hotels rooms were so fun, she should get up at 4:00am every single morning! Luckily we had a two room suite, so she didn't wake up the other kids, just her worn-out parents. Here she is relaxing to some Bubble Guppies on my phone while Kevin and I got ready for the day. 

And our days ended like this:

 We got in early one morning and stayed late for World of Color one night, so our days were full of fun from 9 or 10 am to 8 or 9 pm (and earlier starts than that to wait in line for opening!). We got a stellar deal on a hotel through groupon, so we were a good 15-20 minute walk away from the park. Cora was a rockstar and walked all the way there and back each day with no complaining. Violet, well, not so much. They were big days! Bedtimes routines were fast and Kevin and I had lights out by 9:30 too. 

Seal Beach

We drove from Salt Lake to Ontario, CA on Saturday. It was a long day, but the kids actually did really well and it went smoothly. Sunday morning we went to Sacrament meeting at a really friendly local ward, it was wonderful! Then we headed off to the coast for a Sunday walk on the beach and pier at Seal Beach. 

How funny that the Southern California beach and water were the same temperature in December as the beach we went to in Oregon in August! The kids had a great time running from the waves, collecting shells, and playing in the sand. They didn't even get too wet, well, except for Luke! He was short enough to get more wave action, but not getting rescued from splashes like Evelyn was. 

We even got to see a pelican on the pier. I'm sure he was fishing like some of the people were there!

When Luke wasn't running from waves, he was busy casting spells on the ocean with this stick he found.

It was a great way to spend our down day. We love visiting the ocean! 

January Videos

Obviously, there is a lot of coordination skills yet to be learned. He still had a lot of fun though!

Sometimes you've just got to bust out the dance moves-- oh, yeah!

Happy Birthday Luke! 

January Roundup

We went to the Ice Castles in Midway! It was quite a drive, and quite crowded, but it was beautiful. Luke and Evelyn weren't impressed and had to leave early. It was pretty amazing though! 

 

  

 Here's our finished project for our Christmas advent activities. We had strips of paper with each activity written on it, and made them into a chain as we did each activity. 

 For Luke's birthday activity, he picked going to Thanksgiving Point, to the dinosaur museum. This is the first time Evelyn was at a place like this with no stroller. She loved it! It was a little trickier for me to keep an eye on everyone, but since not to many people were there, it worked out ok. It was also her first time playing in the sand. She was thrilled! 

 

  

 The kids all had a bit of birthday and Christmas money they were dying to spend, so we looked in the museum gift shop for the first time. Of course they all found things they couldn't live without. Luke claimed this mammoth-- so cute!

 Evelyn loves to try on shoes now-- and it so pleased with herself when she can get them on and shuffled around the house. 

 We were lucky to see Grandma and Grandpa DeGiulio at Kissie and Pata's house. It's a good chance to catch up! 

 Here's Evelyn at our own drive-in movie theater.

 Luke loves preschool! He's been working so hard to get his letter star-- which means he knows the names and sounds of all the letters. He's wanted it so badly! So Miss Angie sent home the list of the last few he needed to memorize. We worked on them a bit and he got it! He is so excited to begin bringing home reading books now! Luke also loved space week at preschool, and this fun astronaut hat he made there.  

 

 

After a few months of break, Luke did soccer month at preschool sports. The teachers are great there, and it's a good introduction to each sport, even though they are all still pretty young.