Disneyland, Part 3--Ride pictures

I often wonder if Disneyland ever sells their ride photos to anyone in this day and age of cell phones, where it's so easy to snap a picture of your picture.  After all, you just want to see everyone's faces.  You don't really need a high quality print.  At least I don't.  Here are a bunch of our ride pictures.

I'm more than about 99.9% sure the scores are mixed up on this next picture.

Space Mountain!  Natalie and Kelton loved this ride.  This was the first trip that they had ever been on it, since it was closed the last time we went to Disneyland.  We didn't take Damon on it.  I think he would have liked it, but he is still little.  I didn't want to run the risk of him not liking it and then never wanting to try it again because he remembers it being scary. 

 

It's very hard to miss the camera in Space Mountain.  We rode this ride so many times that the kids started making faces for the picture.  That's what Kelton is doing--he isn't scared.

More faces.  I always like looking at other people in the pictures.  I can relate to the dad in the front.  He's doing everything in his power to convince his son that this high speed death trap is actually fun and not scary at all.  Been there, done that.

And... more faces.  By this point, I was a bit tired of being blinded by the flash in the pitch blackness.

I decided to play along too.  I think this was the time we rode it first thing in the morning.  Natalie and I ran walked {at an alarmingly fast rate} straight to Space Mountain when the park opened and were only beat by 16 other people to the ride. 

 

Radiator Springs Racers.  The kids all loved this ride, and Damon was tall enough to ride it too!  This ride has been around for a few years, but you still have to go first thing in the morning if you want to get a fastpass for this one.  The one advantage to taking really little kids with you (Arie) is that in addition to fastpasses, you also get rider switch passes.  It basically acts as a second fastpass because the whole family can't ride the ride together at the same time.  So we got to ride this one a lot.

 



Disneyland- Part 2, Characters

We didn't specifically set out to take any pictures with Disney characters, but we didn't pass up the opportunity either when it was right in front of us... and without a line.  We ended up taking pictures with pretty much all of the main characters. 

I think we got one picture together as a whole family during the week.  And this is it, with the Mouse himself.

Arie was so excited to see a lot of the characters, but was particularly interested in Mickey Mouse.  While we were waiting, she stood over by the railing, bounced up and down, and repeated, as loudly as she could, "wanna see Mickey!!" with a big smile on her face.  She caught the attention of all of the cast members around and a lot of the other people around.  It was so cute.  She had people smiling and chuckling because she was just so excited and so adorable.  If I remember correctly, a cast member even came over and got her and took her over to get a picture with Daisy or Minnie while we were waiting. (That picture is below somewhere.)

This picture is really blurry, but when it was our turn, you can see how excited Arie was to go see Mickey.

As the girls and I were leaving California Adventure one time, Oswald the Rabbit was standing at the front, all alone, with no line at all.  We figured we might as well take a picture.  This was our first character experience.  Arie was beside herself excited.  You can see it in her face.  She was so excited that when we got to Oswald, she started jumping up and down, which is what she is doing in this picture below.  Oswald played along and got up and started jumping too.  He is, after all, a rabbit.  The part I found the most hilarious...Arie has absolutely NO idea who Oswald even is.  But I guess being a giant friendly looking rabbit with a slight resemblance to Mickey Mouse is enough to get over the top excited about.

Our picture with Daisy.  I think Kelton was waiting in line with Nate for Mickey Mouse (it was probably the one character line we waited in and it only took about five minutes) and was too manly to go take a picture with Daisy and Minnie.  We have a lot of pictures of Arie like this with characters.  It was hard to get her to look at the camera instead of the character.

Excited kids with Minnie Mouse.

As Kelton and I were headed back for lunch one day, Goofy was standing near the entrance, again with no line at all.  I think this picture is funny because it looks like I lost a couple of kids and replaced Nate.

The girls and I were waiting for Nate and the boys to press a few pennies.  We chose to wait in front of this candy store window (in DCA) which happened to be about six feet away from where Goofy was taking photos.  He had quite a line waiting for him (you can see it on the right side of the photo in the background) but he kept coming over to our stroller and pointing out all the different candy to Arie and Natalie.  It was pretty funny.

Pluto in Toon Town was quite the character.  He kept "eating" the kids heads.  He would stick his giant, open mouth over the top of their heads.  I think he did it to Hudson and Arie.  Arie couldn't figure out what was going on when he did it.

 

And in this picture, he had just swiped Natalie's glasses!

Goofy being goofy.  Sidetrack story... just the other day, (in May, not back in February) Arie was being really silly.  I asked her, "Are you silly?  Are you goofy?"  She laughed at me and responded, "No momma!  I'm not goofy!  Are you Donald?"  So funny.  I didn't even see it coming.

Disneyland, part 1

The kids were very excited when the end of February came and we finally got to go on the Disneyland vacation they got for Christmas.  We left early on a Saturday morning (February 21st) so that we could get to California in time for the kids to play at the beach.  Christy, Tennyson, Hudson, and Easton joined us at the beach.  The kids were so excited and ran straight for the water.  But, it was a fairly cold day, so that didn't last for long before they were all freezing.  I hadn't really planned on them getting in the water.  I thought they would just walk in it and then play in the sand.  But because they got totally wet, they didn't want to stay at the beach for long.  It's funny to see which kids were wimpy about the cold and which ones didn't care and just kept playing.

There was some kind of sailboat race going on (we were at Huntington Beach) while we were there.  It was kind of fun to watch.  That's Natalie out in the water.

The next day, Sunday, we went to church with Christy and Tennyson and then hung out at their house for the rest of the day.  It was fun to visit and the kids had fun playing together.

Here's a good idea... let's get a good picture of all the kids together.  Because that's not too much to ask...

Arie loving on Easton.

These next two pictures are at the hotel the night before we started all of our days at Disneyland.  I thought it was funny that the boys, who were in the same bed, were sleeping the same way...

And the girls in the other bed were also sleeping in a somewhat similar fashion as each other with their arms up.

Morning came and we started day 1 of 5 at Disneyland.  Here's Arie watching the Astro Orbiters warm up before letting us on.  That puppy backpack leash thing was a great idea (because Arie likes to run away).  Until Arie figured out what it was actually for.  Once I tugged on it once to keep her with us and she wanted nothing to do with putting it on every again.

Look at the anticipation.  This was our very first ride before hitting some of the other rides in Tomorrowland.  This kids love this ride, but it gets a long line that is not worth waiting in.  So we jumped right in when there was no line at park opening so that we wouldn't be forced to wait in a line later during the trip.

The reason for my severe blog neglect.

I must be crazy.  So, along with having four little kids, teaching 14 piano students (including Natalie and Kelton), and being in Young Women's, I decided I had a little spare time to start making and selling crocheted items.  I started in October, and I will admit, I got a lot more business than I originally thought I would.  November and December were a bit crazy.  I stopped taking orders for Christmas before Thanksgiving even arrived.  Here are my stats for October through December.  I made 75 hats,  7 hooded cowls, 1 cowl, 3 scarves, a pair of mittens, a large stuffed minion, 7 large stuffed giraffes (each one of these takes about as long as making three hats), and a stuffed My Little Pony.  Like I said, crazy. I was crocheting about 30 hours a week for a while.  (A few of those items were for my own kids... but I still had to make them!)  It has slowed down since Christmas, but even then, I have made 3 more stuffed items, 37 hats, 2 pairs of baby shoes, and a mermaid tail blanket/dress up fin.  Orders have now slowed down pretty much to a stop.  And I am grateful.  It's really fun to make this stuff, but I'm ready to be back on top of having a somewhat clean house and not having to crochet in every spare moment.  Here are some screen shots from my phone of some of the things I've made!

I didn't make the minecraft blanket above, but I am working on one just like it.

This one below has some repeats, but the last few lines are new.

I'm sure anyone actually reading my blog already knows this (since it is a private blog), but just in case, my site is www.facebook.com/crochetedbycherie if you ever want to check it out!

Some of my most recent creations

Here are a few things I've made since Christmas.  I've been dying to share them, but haven't wanted to post them to my site until I get all caught up on orders.  Aren't they so cute?

 

My kids were particularly excited for me to finish this one.  I made him for a school fundraiser auction that will go live in just a few weeks. 

When he was finished and I was photographing him, Damon came into the room.  He asked, "Mom, if Olaf all finished?"  I said he was.  Damon's eyes got wide and he asked, "Can I hug him?"  I said sure.  He was so excited.  He gave Olaf a big hug and then looked at me with those big chocolate eyes and said, "That was a warm hug."  He's such a cutie.  I think I will keep him.  :)

Kelton is 7!

Kelton turned seven on January 16th.  He was so excited for his birthday!

Opening presents before getting ready for school.

I forgot to take a picture of all of his presents.  But I think everything is in this picture.  He got a big Lego City set and a small Lego 3 in 1 helicopter, the second half of the Magic Treehouse books set (he got the first half for Christmas), and a Nerf Gun.  He was more than thrilled to get money from both sets of grandparents and has his sights set on buying another lightsaber from Disneyland.

I took packages of little donuts, chocolate frosted and powdered, into Kelton's class for a birthday treat.  He thought that was really fun and enjoyed passing them out to everyone.  When he got home, he excitedly started playing with all of his new birthday toys.  He requested stir fry for dinner--still his favorite dinner.

Kelton doesn't really care for cake.  The problem is, I care quite a lot about cake.  I asked him what other birthday treat he would prefer, and he chose ice cream.  So I bought the requested ice cream, but also had to make some sort of cake.  I introduced my kids to cupcakes in ice cream cones.

He's such a little cutie!  I can't believe he is already seven.  He is such a sweetheart and loves to be loved on.  Happy birthday Kelton!  We love you so much!