Disneyland part 3....

Dont look at the princess, oh man she waved to us...now we have cooties.

Eeyore is so cute!

I love these little snowmen.

watching the parade

we requested the front of the monorail and got to sit with the driver, lucky boys.

The boys cheesing it up for the camera holding the ever so cool sour dough mickey head..yum yum

Do we really have to take a picture outside of IHOP at 11pm Mommy? We're exhausted and have full tummies and just want to go to bed.

Zachs IHOP dinner creation.

Riding Heimlich from a Bugs Life, such a cute ride...and smells YUMMY!

Zach and Julia busting a move to the music durring the Pixar parade.

Yes I did Screamin'....and yes I screamed like a little girl and thought I would pass out when I got off. One time was enough for me, Eli could have done it all day long. Yep, I was outbeat by a 7 year old on a roller coaster. Im ok with that.

This is so cute, all our little fish.

Tourists...I tell ya.

could they be any cuter?

Zach's 2nd wiggly tooth was very wiggly on our trip. I worried so much that he would lose it at Disney walking around and he'd freak out not finding it. Luckily, he lost it in the hotel room one night getting ready for bed. It was pretty amazing, the tooth fairy found it even though we were not home! Crazy how magic works. (dont mind our soaking wet shoes drying on the heater next to him, record breaking rains and one pair of shoes per person meant lots of heater time for the shoes)

Silly faces in front of Captain E-O

Disneyland part 2 (yes there will be part 3..maybe even 4)

Now he believes us!

Eli in front of Its a Small World, all lit up for Christmas.

Look at how beautiful Cinderellas castle is! Love it.

Disneyland is exhausting! We spent 6 very long full days at Disneyland and California Adventures, and the boys kept up for most of the time. Occasionally, they dozed off in random places...like the train ride here for Zach.

Its Mickey Mouse!

Yes it rained...lots of rain...almost the entire week we were there. Record rainfall, and flooding to be exact. Luckily we are from Oregon, and came equipped with ponchos...and walked away from a great time at Disneyland where the lines were short for this time of year. And we are totally OK with the fact that the majority of our pictures we have poncho's plastered to the side of our faces. Its all a part of the experience right?

Toontown Christmas tree.

Strong muscles!

This picture is my FAVORITE of the trip. It makes me giggle. Yep, I made them see the Princesses. Little did I know they'd react this strongly. We all but had to force them to look at the camera, gosh forbid if her dress had accidentally touched them. I guess Princesses have cooties?

The boys were so fascinated by the Goofy water.

Throughout the week Santa delivered gifts to our hotel rooms. One night us parents gave all the kids a gift from us as well. Kristi and Juan gave all of the kids Disney blankets with their names embroidered on them and we gave them all Disney PJ's.

Self portrait on Dumbo

Juan and Josep on Dumbo

Zach and Daddy on Dumbo

This picture is adorable. This was on one of the first rides we went on when we got to the park. Zach and Julia, not too sure yet if they liked these dark scary rides at Disney. They quickly became experts.

The castle...and Juan (in yellow) on our first day.

Claudia, Eli, Zach, Josep and Julia.

DIsneyland part 1

On the plane to California!

Yep, Zachs reading up on the safety brochure and Eli's still a little unsure that we are REALLY going to Disneyland.

They knew that we were going to Disneyland, but they didnt know until we got to California that we'd get to see lots of very special family too! Mike and JJ and their two boys who live in California and Kristi and Juan and their three kids came up from New Mexico. Vacations are so much better with cousins around!

We spent the first day at Mike and JJ's, playing and visiting with them and their two boys. We went to a local bowling alley and bowled and lazer tagged the day away, followed with pizza and more playtime at their house and finished off the night with a drive around the neighborhood to see some beautiful Christmas lights. The kids all really enjoyed eachothers company, and us adults got in quite a bit of visiting time. We only wish we all lived closer to eachother so we could play more often.

Eli, Josep, Sam and Will playing with a car track.

Mike playing Cranium Jr with Julia, Claudia and Zach.

Juan playing cards with Sam and Will.

Julia making silly faces for the camera.

Can we open it now!?

It was finally the day! December 18th, the day Santa said we could open this gift. The boys were so excited, they had been anticipating this day for weeks. The entire two weeks the gift was under our tree the boys were making guesses as to what was in that present. Eli had bets it was a dog (Santa is magic you know, he can totally make it into a stuffed animal until you open it up so it doesnt die in the box for 2 weeks.), and Zach was convinced it was ONE pillow pet that they could both share or a zhu zhu pet. We are not sure if it was the fact that they woke up so early and were still tired, or they didnt believe us, or were just really bummed that it wasnt a dog....but the reaction they gave when they opened it wasnt at all what I had anticipated. I guess those commercials you see of the children jumping and screaming...well, we'll just say that didnt happen and I wont even bother to post the video and bore you. haha!

Mom can we just open it now? Enough with the pictures already, we've waited two weeks! :)

So when they opened the gift, there was a letter from Santa along with a Mickey for each of them and an airplane candy. The clues were very confusing for them for some reason. It took quite some time to get them to put the two together, that we were flying to DISNEY! Again, not sure if they were tired or just didnt believe us. Zach smiled alot and kept hugging his Mickey while Eli looked very confused asking every once in a while if we were really going. I dont think that he really believed us until we were on the plane that evening.


See his face in this one, that unsure look in his eyes...like we would play a cruel joke like that on him?

Mr Smiles.

Off to the Happiest Place on Earth we go!!!

Holiday randoms

Before Christmas break the 2nd graders were paired up with a 5th grade buddy to make gingerbread houses. It was really adorable to volunteer at, watching the older kids helping their 2nd grader out...and watching how many kids consumed more than they built. Sugary madness full of fun times!
Eli and his 5th grade buddy (he refused to look at the camera, I dont think he liked me much but he was an awesome helper to Eli).

The finished product...ta-da!


The boys waiting on our porch for the fireman parade to come down our street. Its short and sweet, but comes right by our door. What little boy wouldnt enjoy Santa on a Firetruck? It also helps that we are really the only small kids on our street, so theres no competition when it comes to the candy throwing.

We love this parade, but we giggle every year when we think back to our first year in town here. Eli was 6 months old, we had only lived here 10 months and really didnt know too many people in town. We thought we had moved to a great community, but this particular night I breifly questioned that. That night I was making dinner when I heard sirens. I listened outside, and they got louder and louder...and began to sound in random parts of town, for a good 1/2 hour...first to our right....then above us....to our left....getting louder ...and closer to us....until I ran in the house yelling to lock the doors we had moved to the ghetto and there was some sort of police chase going on and coming close to our street, and the crazy neighbors were all out there trying to see the chase!! Then low and behold, came a row of police cars and fire trucks all decked out in Christmas lights and Santa on top waving Merrily. Silly me! Now, we happily sit out on our porch waiting for those sirens to get to our street so we can wave back to Santa and yell Merry Christmas to all of the Fireman.

Crafty time is happy time!

We love crafts in this house. The boys could create all day long. It makes me smile. Its not uncommon to see glitter all over our dining room floor and glue guns cooling off on the counter. And holiday crafts are the best crafts of all.

Even Daddy gets into the crafts occasionally.

Zachs snowflake ornament

Eli's snowflake ornament

I cut out and made 65 of these cute little mice for the boys to give their friends and classmates. Lucky for me, once I had them ALL assembled I volunteered to bring in a craft for their parties and decided that these would make a great craft for the students. So I took them all apart, and the students put them together again.

I always wonder what would be the best gift to give a teacher? Surely they have their share of apple themed items, mugs, and chocolates every year. The last couple years Ive given them soaps/lotions/etc along with a coffee gift card, but this Christmas I wanted the boys to do something a little more special and time consuming to show their teachers how much we appreciate all the time they focus on our children. It took them weeks (I think we started in October), but I was very proud of their cross stitching. I attached a ribbon to them as well and turned them into ornaments (I just forgot to take a final picture of them that way). I hope their teachers loved them and the coffee card as much as we appreciate them as teachers.