Disneyland Birthday

This past Saturday was Neal's birthday, what better way to celebrate than to spend the day at Disneyland! I know that I have been bad at updating the blog lately and I promise that I will go back and post some of the stuff we have been up to over the last month that I haven't gotten up here...until then everyone will just have to see how we celebrate at Disneyland. It was fun to see the park all decked out for the holiday season! We rode tons of rides and the fact that it was so cold out kept most of the crowds away so it was nice. We rode the Pirates ride, Matterhorn, Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear and tons of other rides, we also got to do some definite Christmas fun like meeting Santa Clause and Christmas Minnie Mouse. Enjoy the photos and look for more updates to follow soon!

Neal and the kiddos in front of the Christmas castle

Look! A family shot!

Paige took this one of us, it turned out great!

Paige, Minnie and Austin

Paige and Austin with Santa (he really didn't look very happy to be there)

Another family shot :-)

The birthday boy acting funny for the kids

Its a Small World all lit up for Christmas, it really is a much better ride during the holidays! They totally redo all the displays inside the ride and the best part is that they have 3 other Christmas songs that they rotate with the usually small world song and that makes it very tolerable!!

Castle all lit up

Another shot of the castle

The Main Street tree all lit up, this thing is HUGE!

Austin, Neal and Paige with his cupcakes

The birthday boy acting all goofy with our really good Disneyland birthday cupcakes!!!

Here is definitely the proof that they were really good cupcakes! The kids loved them and I think we will have to find good reasons why we cannot get them again (they were very good, but definitely had a Disneyland price tag on them)!

Our Latest Photo Shoot

Last month I was able to talk Neal into letting us get our family photos done again like we did last April. They were still taken with Adam from Treasured Moments Photography but this time rather than going to the beach we were at the Point Vicente Lighthouse. They turned out great! Here is just a sample of them, I cannot give away all the Christmas card shots now can I??

Halloween Parties

Last Friday Austin and Paige both got to have some Halloween fun before Halloween. Austin got to participate in our Stroller Strides trick or treating and Paige had her fall carnival that included a Halloween parade for all the kids to show off their costumes and then tons of games and food. We had a great time and the kids really loved all the fun that they got to have.

Austin by the beach as Buzz Lightyear, I love the palm trees in the background

Austin waiting so nicely for all the babies to sit still so we could get a group picture (I never did get a good one)

Austin and Paige with their vampire teeth before the fall carnival

Paige waiting with some of her classmates for the costume parade to start

Mr. Manzanal and her class on their parade turn

Paige parading past us

Paige's kindergarten class all dressed up

All I have to say here is that she LOVES those vampire teeth...even though she looks like a nerd in them!!

Austin playing the golf game, he loved playing all the games and getting the prizes, Paige really didn't like to play for some reason that day.

Pumpkin Carving Fun

Halloween morning we were finally able to carve our pumpkins. The kids had a great time and are eagerly awaiting the pumpkin seeds that they know they get to eat! I don't really know what else to say about it other than enjoy the photos :-)

Paige, Austin and Neal cleaning out the guts
Paige and Daddy

Paige pulling the lid off the pumpkin

Paige and Austin checking out the inside of the pumpkin

Mommy, Paige and Austin carving out Austin's pumpkin

Mommy and Austin posing with his cat pumpkin

Paige's heart pumpkin and Austin's cat pumpkin all lit up on Halloween night, they turned out really good and the kids had a great time!

Happy Halloween

We hope that everyone had a Happy Halloween! The kids had a great time, we have a ton of candy and I think that our version of Toy Story was very cute! This year both kids got to pick out their own costumes, and they both did a great job. Paige decided that even with the choice of any princess that she wanted to be that she was going to be Jessie from Toy Story, I have to admit that I was happy to not buy another princess costume! I tried with all my might to talk Austin into being Woody from Toy Story, but he has said all along that he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear! They had a great time walking around the neighborhood, but for some reason, neither one of them would say "trick or treat" but as soon as we start to change them into their PJ's they were both chanting "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat"...I still don't know where they even learned that from!

Buzz and Jessie
Jessie and Buzz in front of their pumpkins (watch for the pumpkin carving post soon, we did that today also).

Paige walking around

Buzz on the move

For some reason Paige seems to like sitting out front and handing out the candy more than walking around and getting it for herself.

Austin checking out his candy haul

Paige going through her stash

Paige enjoying her only treat of the night, a tootsie roll

Austin decided that he was going to try a Twix bar for his treat

I hope that no one was disappointed with the costume choices! I know that there were a few of you quite aggravated that we wouldn't disclose the costume choices this year. We carved the pumpkins this morning so I will be posting that soon, I will also be posting about Austin's Stroller Strides trick or treating and Paige's school carnival and costume parade that we got to do on Friday (I didn't post them last night because that would have given away the costume surprise) I know I am so cruel!

Halloween Time Disneyland Style

Last weekend (I admit to being a little lazy/busy and not updating everyone earlier) we went to Disneyland. Neal and I have been looking forward to taking the kiddos to Disneyland to see it all decorated for Halloween. The decorations are unbelievable!! We are excited to go back over Christmas and see it all decorated, I can only imagine how excellent it will look then! The day started out rough, but by the end we had a good time and were glad that we went, I think that it was a little too hot for the end of October, but I guess that comes with living in CA.

Just one of the many themed light posts
About 5 minutes after we got to Disneyland and no one wanted to take a picture. I think that Austin spent the next 2 hours pouting in his stroller, he would only get out to ride the rides (and then only if you carried him and he complained the entire time)!

We decided that as long as they were cranky and uncooperative they were going to go on the Haunted Mansion, it was all decorated for the season from the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas" The kids said they liked it, but when asked they also said that they would not go on the ride again.

Neal and Paige got to meet Woody, Austin was still pouting and refused to get out of his stroller

I will start by saying that no one looks good in this photo, but we were waiting to get our turn on the Matterhorn...even Austin rode it and we all LOVED it. He was grinning from ear to ear, if you ask him about it he gets all excited and starts to tell you about how he "saw 2 monsters and wasn't even scared"! It is totally cute!

As we were leaving Disneyland we took one last ride on the carousel, that always brings out the smiles!

I was able to bribe the kiddos on the way out of the park, they had to stand for a nice photo or they wouldn't get popcorn for the ride home. I don't know that I would call this nice (they could have at least stood next to each other) but they did both stand there!
We took a quick trip to California Adventure to see what their Candy Corn Acres was all about. They decorated Disneyland in pumpkins and California Adventure in candy corn. Paige and Austin got to meet Minnie and Dale in front of the HUGE candy corn.
Paige posing in front of the candy corn cactus
Austin with the candy corn cactus
Paige and Austin taking one last photo before we got our popcorn and headed home

Angels

This is a conversation between Ms. Jane (the kids Sunday School Teacher), Paige and Austin

Ms. Jane: What do you think is in Heaven with Jesus?

Paige: There are Angels in Heaven

Austin: NO, Paige! Angels aren't in Heaven, they were on TV last night and they lost to the bad guys (a.k.a the Yankees)!

Is that not the funniest thing that you have ever heard! Ms. Jane totally understood what he meant and just sat there trying to figure out how to tie it back to the Sunday School lesson...I don't know that she ever found a way to do that :-) You can totally tell that Austin has baseball on the brain!!

On a side note, here are a couple pictures of my Angels! We had our friend Rosie ask us if she could use the kids to practice taking head shots and using her camera. She did a great job, I picked out my favorites for you to check out.