California Adventures Day 1

Finally.

Finally feeling somewhat caught up.  Somewhat back into a routine.  It only took a handful of days to recover from vacation and a subsequent work training.

Don't worry.  I am not complaining.  Rather, I am wishing that we could go back.  We had so much fun on vacation and more importantly, made a ton of memories.

As evidenced by my cameras (yes, cameras as I bought a point and shoot just before we left and took over 400 photos on that, PLUS all of the photos on my iPhone).  So needless to say, its going to take a bit of time to capture this vacation.

One day at a time.  And what a better day then Day 1 at Disneyland.  Which was a TOTAL surprise.  As in, the girls had no clue until we pulled up into the hotel parking lot.  We may had let it go a bit longer, but for the life sized posters of all-things-Disney.

Even though she just woke up, think she's excited?

The best part about the surprise was that she's been asking to go for nearly a year.  And has watched friend after friend go (including some of Littlest Miss's friends go) and really couldn't understand why our family had an arbitrary you-must-be-five rule (no clue where it even came from).

But without further ado, here are some highlights of Day 1 at Disney.

iPad entertainment on the flight.  Thankfully, the headphones weren't too big of a struggle!

One of our first rides.  The every popular merry-go round!

Family selfie on the boat ride through Storybook Land.  The worker's at this ride were amazing.  They took pictures of us and gave us a "gift".

   

 

Then it was off to get our first signature.  Although, we unknowingly, may have waited the longest for Tinkerbell's signature!

But its all good when it ends with a "faith, hope, and pixie dust" chat.  Especially, since we were decked out in Tinkerbell and Peter Pan gear for day # 1.

And even better, when you find tons of "pixie dust" immediately afterwards

   

Another ride!  The mad hatter's tea cups!

And of course more character meet and greets!

 

 

 

We had hoped on getting the girls a little bit of rest mid-day, but sleep was nearly impossible when your hotel has waterslides

 

And there are more rides, um, rollercoasters to ride

 

And more characters to meet

 

And this mom is convinced Disney is pumping magic energy into the air.  Other than a 20 minute nap in the car from the airport to the hotel, these girls were up from 4 AM until 10:30 PM.  And at times it seemed like they could go on for ever. 

Until the exact second we walked out the gate.

Think she was tired?

 

Not tired enough as she was up bright and early for Day # 2! 

More to come!

Whoa, weekend!

Happy, happy Monday. 


Or so I tell myself.  Especially given that Texas weather cannot decide whether to be spring or fall and my allergies are running rampant and yet another weekend has come and gone.  Sad, as I really do love weekends.  And although we didn't have any "huge" plans this weekend, we surely crammed a lot in.


Starting on Friday.  When the Husband "guilted" me into picking the girls up early as I was trying to get in my second run in eighteen months (no, seriously, check my Nike app and I've run less than 5 times since my last half marathon in October 2015).  However, given that it was hot AND humid, I was happy to cut it short.


And hang out with the Littles. What's better on a Friday afternoon then time at our favorite park (picking all the flowers...again) followed by custard.  And cotton candy custard at that.

Then it was off to home for dinner.  And homemade pizzas. 

I don't know what its is about make-your-own food, but the Littles ate it up.  As in all three of their shaped (star, butterfly and flower) pizza.



Apparently someone was not impressed with my photo taking.

And doesn't everyone need a dough necklace.  I am not sure what these girls like more -- making their own pizza or playing with the leftover dough.

Even the Husband got into the fun of it...

And will now be in charge of all adult pizzas as it was delicious (well at least the small bite of crust was that I tried.  Dang "diet" and "peppers")

The next morning we were off to gymnastics, followed by numerous errands.  Since one of them was returning clothes at the factory outlet, I may have bribed the Littles with lunch at the Rain Forest Café.

Needless to say, they had a blast AND ate all of their food (seriously, they never eat) so we may have to go back more often.  Especially on Wednesday nights when kids eat for $3.99.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, going to Barre (me) and grocery shopping before heading to our old neighbors for dinner.  Not only was it great to catch up but the girls were in heaven -- spending time with their sweet friend AND playing with play doh and paint (two things that are essentially off limits in our house)

Can you see why?  This mess.  I just cannot deal!

And then it was Sunday.  And our last play of the year (we got the girls season tickets to the Children's Theater for Christmas).  The last show was The Little Mermaid and it was so, so, so good.  As in, it blew the other shows out of the water.  We are guessing that Disney has strict quality control provisions but who knows.

After the play, we headed to dinner with friends who were also at The Little Mermaid, but since the restaurant was across the street from one of daddy's offices, a stop in was a necessity!

The girls loved looking out the windows from the 7th story.

But they really loved playing "boss" and stamping there all-too-important documents.

Then it was off to grab some grub.  If you are in Fort Worth, I'd highly recommend Cork and Pig.  But I may leave the kids home.  Nothing against the restaurant as they were super accommodating and had a kids menu, but my kids want boxed macaroni and cheese -- not fancy macaroni and cheese with various cheeses and bacon...

...but at least we had an ipad to distract and entertain them!

After dinner we headed home and both girls crashed on the way home before 6 PM.  Thank goodness both girls can transfer from car seat to bed.  Littlest Miss ended up waking up around 7:30 and playing for a bit, but Little Miss was down for the count -- not waking up until 7:00 this morning.



Think they had any fun this weekend?

What about you?  How was your weekend?



Just Rollin with It

Happy Friday y'all!

I know I promised a second post about the rest of our weekend -- but in hindsight, we didn't do a ton!  A couple of bday parties, dinner with friends, church, and relaxing around the house.  I think I may have snapped a handful of pictures...so in reality it would have made for a super boring update.  P

Plus, it's Friday

And we have WAY more exciting things to share.  Such as our love for all things Rollie Pollie.

To me these things are still a bug and thus, gross.  Similar to looking for oysters with my Aunt, I am all about the hunt, but I will not pick them up and may scream like a little girl if my Littles try to get me to hold one.  However, the girls are a completely different story.

Little Miss has always loved them -- so much so that she's been known to call them "magical" amongst other things.  Thus, its only fitting that Littlest Miss is following in her footsteps.  Heck, Littlest Miss found a rollie pollie at school the other day, carried it in her hand with her long enough to bring it home and then was reduced to tears when she dropped it and it disappeared (either it was hidden in the dark wood, or more likely, Wrigs ate it thinking it was food from her plate that she dropped)

So needless to say, in order to stop the tears, a hunt was a necessity.

And even though it had just rained and was much cooler than normal, we still found three rollie pollies each.  Thank goodness for the last one -- otherwise Little Miss was on the verge of a meltdown because her sister had more than her.

Welcome to my life.

Tears.

Love.

And rollie pollies.



Friday Night B-ball

In true Stewart fashion, our weekend was once again jam packed with activities -- but fun activities.  So rather than trying to cram everything we did into one post, I figured I'd break it up...starting with Friday night.

I'd love to say it was our version of "Friday Night Lights" but given that we live in Texas everyone knows that that terms refers to football games.  Heck, even Littlest Miss is asking when we get to go back to a football game.

But given that we attended our first Rangers game of the season, and it happened to be a Friday night, under the lights, it seem fitting.

The only thing that probably would have made the night a bit better was if we'd stayed until the end to see the Friday night fireworks.  But a long week, tired Littles, and the seemingly never-ending threat of Dallas Spring storms meant this family left in the 6th inning. 

Regardless, we had fun and can't wait to go back.

The life sized baseballs in front of the stadium were a hit

A little unsure what to do with it and how to climb on it.

Not complaining about some help from (and a picture with) Daddy.

Don't worry, we weren't left out of the picture taking fun.

This statute.  The girls are obsessed.  Last year, they spent hours playing with/on it.  The second they saw it this year, the same thing. I don't get it, but happy girls = happy mom, right?

Trying to get a picture with Little Miss.  She wasn't cooperating.

First home run fireworks.  Girlfriend loves her some fireworks.

See how happy she is.  Amazingly the Rangers hit 4 home runs while we were there, so we got to witness this reaction 4 times.  Heart-melting happiness.

The only thing that may have made them happier was the cotton candy (by the fistful).

Seriously, I don't even think they tasted it.  Just smiled, shoveled and ate.  As in the entire bag, pretty much gone.

View from our seats.  Can't complain especially since they were compliments of the Husbands work.  And have to love seeing the AT&T logo everywhere we go!

One last selfie with Little Miss before heading home.  It only took us about 8 attempts to get some sort of smile out of her.

How was your weekend?  I'll be back tomorrow with a recap of the rest of ours!