Disneyland 09

Disneyland is a whole hour and half away for us so we've easily done this trip for the last three years. The last two years I spent most of the time at Disneyland trying to find a spot to breastfeed or shade for a napping toddler or baby. This year I realized my little ones have grown to full kid size and can enjoy and enthusiastically respond to almost every ride. What I'm trying to say is that we had a lot of fun. Babies are great but not necessarily enjoyable at amusement parks.

Here are some pictures of our favorite moments.
Nicky barely cleared 40 inches and rode her first big girl roller coaster ride on Thunder Mountain with her daddy. As you can see by her big grin, she really liked it.

The kids really loved the Jungle Cruise. They were delighted to see gorillas, alligators, elephants, hippos, lions etc., all at close range. We saw more animals in seven minutes than we do on a full trip to the zoo and all from the comfort of a little boat. Nicky said, "The alligators were fake because they weren't in the water but the rest of the animals were real."

Disneyland is definitely the happiest place on earth for this girl.

Some family shots.

Here we are in action on Dumbo. This was one of Nicky's favorite rides. She was scared of "dark" rides so we were waiting for the end of the day to finish things off with Pirates of the Caribbean. When she got wind of the fact that it was a darker ride, she begged me to take her on Dumbo one last time instead. Andy tried to convince her to do the pirate ride. He pleaded, "Nicky, boats?" In the end Andy went with Daddy to the pirates and Nicky and I got one last whirl on Dumbo. She taught me how to make Dumbo go, "willy high."
My handsome men on one of Andy's trains. Andy kept endlessly saying, "all aboard." He squealed so cute on Casey Jones Jr. The only thing that made Andy unhappy all day was the fact that people weren't patient for him to get off the rides unaided, or in his words, "do it myself."

This picture was of no ride in particular just a cute face. Unfortunately when we got home at 11 p.m. this wasn't the face we got. To get the tantrumy little monster to go to sleep, we finally just let him sleep in our bed. I woke to big thud and a wail at 5 a.m. He was so overstimulated and restless that he had rolled off the bed and hit his nose on the corner of the nightstand. Soooo sad. He has the biggest scab on his nose. That incident aside, we had a lovely time. Hooray for living by Disneyland!