Disneyland

Whew.  We knew that this trip would be a little different from the others, because we have never taken a baby before.  And babies don't care for sitting in a stroller or being carried in line ALL day - Jasmine wants to crawl around and explore and get hours of nap time on her schedule.  Thankfully, she adapted and survived, but it certainly wasn't ideal.

I brought my sling so I could carry the wiggler in line all day, and that did save us a lot of headache.  (And cause a lot of backache.)  And the miracle was when she fell asleep on the boat rides!  She has been a particular little sleeper, falling asleep when she is in her crib all alone, and she HATES cuddling.  So when she laid down her head and dosed off in Small World and again in Pirates of the Caribbean, it was a huge victory.

The part that made it more fun than usual is that Tyler and Kaitlyn are getting older.  First of all, that meant they were easier than ever to take care of.  Sure, we had to talk them into not climbing while waiting in line a bit, and Tyler ducked away from us a few times, but I remember from previous years that after days of trying to keep them from wandering off/touching things they weren't supposed to/running into people  I wanted to come home, turn on the TV, and not tell them what to do for a day or so.  And right now I want to wake them up and talk to them about what their favorite part was!

And as a bonus for having older kids, they are now tall enough to ride cooler rides!  Last year Tyler got to ride the Matterhorn, and this year I got to take him.  But the most amazing moment was when we got in line and he looked at the ride and told me I had to look out for the monster.  He remembered something . . . from a YEAR ago!  This kid forgets things from an hour ago!  In fact, when Grandma Skarda was dropping us off at the airport, he said that Mommy and Daddy were going on an airplane.  We've talked to him about Disneyland, and Kaitlyn has been counting down the days for a month, but he was convinced that he was going to stay at Grandma Skarda's while we were gone like he did while we were in Napa.  So we asked him if he wanted to go to Disneyland or stay at Grandma Skarda's, and he wanted to "go to Grandma's."

So the fact that he remembered the Yeti on the Matterhorn was totally awesome.

I asked him to tell me about the monster, thinking that he would make a scary monster face for me, but mostly he just looked really thoughtful and told me about the red eyes.

Tyler wore his Santa/Mickey hat the entire time, by the way.  And Jasmine decided her main goal in life was to yank it off his head.

She succeeded more times than I can count.  And Tyler just loves her so much that he would laugh and laugh.  He doesn't even complain when she grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks.  He just laughs and says "awww, baby Ja- mine likes me!"

Tyler also got to go on the Tower of Terror with Daddy.

He was a bit scared, but did alright.  The awesome moment was when they cut off the lights to make it more scary and Tyler said "turn the lights on please!" while everyone else was silent.  Christopher said he got a few laughs from that honest plea.
And when they were all done, he asked Tyler if it was fun.  "Yeah."
"Do you want to do it again?"
"No."

I took him on one of my favorites, the Thunder Mountain Railroad.  It's actually a fairly fast little coaster, and has three different climbs.  So when we got to the first pause, after racing through some tunnels with the red eyes of "critters" around us, Tyler turned to me and said "was it scary?" (He often asks us the question he wants to be asked, like when he is hungry and hops up in his chair to say "what does Tyler want?")
"I don't know Tyler, was it scary?"
"Yes!"

When I asked him if he wanted to do it again after that one, he told me no because "I already did fast train."  He does like checking things off his lists a lot.

The main attraction for Kaitlyn, however, is meeting characters.  She likes the rides a lot, but meeting the Princesses is what she talks about for weeks afterward.  She told me that she thought that it was just people pretending to be them, but her friend Lily told her they are really them, so she believes her.

And so I whipped up one more Tink costume.  This was my weakest effort by far, but it was the third time I have made Tinkerbell shoes, so I guess the challenge was just lost.  I sewed a green strip onto a T-shirt, dug out the skirt that is now too short (well, that probably makes it more accurate, actually), and called it a day.  Tink and her sister Periwinkle loved her shoes, so all was well.

Now, we had noticed in years past that Tyler got a little smiley and shy around the princesses, and that his favorite seemed to be Snow White.  But this time, the pretty girls were just too intimidating.

This is the family shot, since Tyler was standing ten feet away and clinging to a banister in case we tried to drag him closer.

So the girls had all the fun.

One of Tyler's favorite stuffed animals is his Tigger, so I was hoping that he would do better with a more approachable friend.

I don't know if this was actually better.  You probably can't tell from this picture, but Tyler ran and dove straight into Tigger, clinging for dear life.  It took some work to get him to let go and stand upright for a regular picture.

He hugged Pooh bear in a mostly normal way, at least.

But when Woody and Jessie came to the company party, Tyler tried to duck between Woody's legs.

Sigh.

And when we were in line for Buzz, he ran away.  So Kaitlyn got a picture and I left baby Jasmine with our friends while I ran after Tyler.

And the baby tried to go meet Buzz on her own.

But when Tyler got there, he ran in, hugged Buzz, and ran away again.

The good news is that he figured it all out in time to meet Merida!  She was less scary, I guess.

We went on a lot of rides . . .

. . . and had fun with our friends.

But my favorite moment of all was the fireside girl costume.  When I saw that there was a "Phineas and Ferb Dance Party" show, I told Kaitlyn that there would be big girls pretending to be Fireside Girls just like her.  I could tell that much from pictures online, but I didn't know what they would do in the show.  Kaitlyn told me that she would wear her costume, and then "they will see that I am a Fireside Girl too and they will have me come dance with them!"  I tried to let her down gently, but she was confident that they would know what a good dancer she is and want her to dance too.

So we went to see the show.  The Fireside Girls spotted her right away (because honestly, they had probably never seen a girl pick such a random character to dress up as in Disneyland) and started a dancing show with Phineas and Ferb.

Which Kaitlyn loved.

And then, the Fireside Girl pointed to Kaitlyn . . . and asked her to come out and dance with them.

Along with 20 other kids.  But STILL.  Kaitlyn was right!

And Kaitlyn was in absolute heaven.  She was utterly focused, from beginning to end, on doing exactly the same dance as the big girls.  And the smile never left her face.

The funny thing was, I think I was more floored than she was.  In her mind, this was exactly how she saw the day going.  And it was just as awesome as she knew it would be.

So that's one dream come true checked off right there!

(Oh, and Daddy took a video, posted here.)