Halloween & lizards

The kids sure did get a ton of use out of their costumes this year. It seemed like every week in October they were dressing up. It was fun to send them to school on Friday all costumed up. The entire school paraded through the playground area for all the parents to see. After the parade they performed a choreographed dance to Thriller. It was pretty awesome. All of the teachers were in costume right along with the kids and even got into the dancing.

After the parade and dance I went to Grace and Neil's classrooms to help with their parties. They both got to do some fun games and cookie decorating. Here is Grace's class.

Saturday was pretty low key. It was a beautiful sunny day and we stayed home for the most part. We played outside and got some things done around the house. The kids were so eager to get out for trick or treating that I didn't end up with many pictures. Thankfully, they had been dressed up so many times that I didn't care too much.

We walked around the neighborhoods and the kids each made off with full buckets of candy. The weather was perfect. Warm and dry. We didn't really even need long sleeves. We came home and the kids made graphs of their loot. 

It was such a nice weekend that our "pet" lizards spent lots of time sunning themselves on the rocks. We have tons of these little guys in our front yard. Even though I know they are there, they still scare me to death every time I walk through. I kinda like them though. They are pretty cute. That is until they come in the house. I may have had to relocate one with a dust pan not too long ago. 

Gracer is 8

Grace turned 8 today, and we had such a fun time celebrating her. It's pretty fun to have a birthday around Halloween because there are so many ways to celebrate. This year we had a Halloween themed costume party at our house. We had about 6 girls over and we had a blast. There was a pumpkin piñata, Halloween charades, musical chairs, spider making crafts, freeze dance, and cake with ice cream. The kids even turned all of the balloons in Baymax. Grace was really happy with it overall.

On her birthday I bought surprise donuts for breakfast and she took cupcakes to school for the class. We opened family gifts that evening. She got a pretty neat zebra rolling backpack that she's really wanted. She also got a new pair of purple fluffy boots and a giraffe poster for her room.

It's hard to believe that 8 years have passed since she came into our lives. I can't imagine life without my Gracie Pants. Her spunky personality is so fun to be around. She has a contagious laugh and is very kind hearted to those around her. Playing soccer has been keeping her busy although she wants to try softball in the spring. Her favorite show is Descendants. She still loves to play outside and ride bikes in her free time. She is a happy kid. Happy birthday Grace!!

October Fun

We have been busy this month and I haven't had a lot of time to keep up with the posting. Between all of the softball and soccer games as well as practices we have been running around a bunch. Thankfully, we've managed to do some fun things too.

Just down the road from us was a for real corn maze that we decided to check out. It was a 6 acre field of corn in a design that included the word "Livermore". It was pretty huge. I was amazed at how tall the stalks of corn were. When you see it from a distance it looks maybe 6ft high, but nope. This corn was at least 9 or 10 ft. We had a fun time navigating the turns. The only downside was that there were  clue posts all over. They had trivia questions on them. That would have been fine, but they always included a super easy question for smaller kids to figure out. So, it took a lot of the mystery out of it. Towards the end we talked the kids into not reading the signs. Trial and error was more fun.

On another night, the kids's school had a Halloween carnival. Everyone got dressed up and we went to the school for fun carnival style games and prizes. They had middle schoolers there to run all of the booths and everything was free. It was so nice not to have to go buy a billion tickets for silly games. The principal was even in on the fun as she did the "fortune telling" booth. The library was turned into a big haunted house. It was fun to see the area transformed. Our kids did the cake walk and came away with a whole case of cupcakes! 

This last weekend we tackled the task of pumpkin carving. Honestly, it's not my favorite thing to do. The kids always need help scooping out the guts and I usually spend a couple of hours combing through everything for seeds because eating the seeds is the best part. The girls are getting much better about doing it on their own. They required very little help this year. Neil surprisingly didn't want to get dirty and therefore didn't do much until it was time to draw the face on. It was such a nice day that we had been hanging out in the backyard. We had a fire going and we worked on the pumpkins on the patio. It was pretty fun. Yes, they are all in their jammies. I'm not sure why...

Ready for Halloween 2015

Field Trip

On Tuesday I went with Neil's class to another pumpkin patch, called G&M Farms. There was a tractor hay ride, a corn maze, a smaller hay maze, animals to see, a playground, a fun pit of corn, and of course pumpkins.

Neil's class in the shade. Not a great pic. It was 90 degrees.

This corn pit was pretty fun. Like a giant sandbox filled with dried corn kernels.

The kids each got to pick out a pumpkin, a gourd, and a piece of Indian corn. I think they were more thrilled with pulling the wagons around. We had a good time overall. It was nice to have the place mostly to ourselves. We'll probably go back with the family to check out the giant corn maze. 

Disney 2.0

Since we moved cross country to California recently, it seemed appropriate to reward ourselves with a trip to Disneyland.  We are within a 6 hour drive of the happiest place on earth give or take depending on glorious traffic. The kids had a couple of days off of school last week that we took advantage of. They had no idea. It was seriously the best surprise ever!

I picked them up from school on Wednesday and we left immediately. I told them we were headed to a hotel for the night near the beach. They were pretty excited. We even stopped right at the main gate so I could hop out and exchange our vouchers for tickets and they still had no idea. I got back in the van and they were like, "where were you?" I showed them the tickets and they were SUPER surprised and excited. Grace couldn't get over the fact that I "tricked" them. We were even able to see the fireworks from our room at the Ramada Plaza.

Our first day in the park was Thursday and we took advantage of the magic morning. We were all pretty tired from not sleeping very well in the hotel. We managed to get to the park at 7am. It was great to be there before the masses. We took the kids on all of the big rides in that first hour: space mountain, Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, and even astro blasters. It was great that Neil was tall enough to do every ride. He was also the bravest of the bunch. If it was a ride, then he was game. It was really fun to watch him giggle through the Indiana Jones ride. He especially loved the time he got to "drive" the car.

I love how the park is decorated for Halloween! 

It's also the 60th anniversary, so there were extra sparkles all over.

The girls were not impressed with Space Mountain. Neil would have gone again.

We hopped parks everyday and we were able to ride the Cars ride twice on that first day. It's so fun to see "Radiator Springs" and all of the detail that went into it. We went on the tractor ride and ate lunch at Flo's. They have tasty milkshakes. We also really like to visit the Cozy Cone for churro bites and soft serve ice cream cones. Of course it is always fun to run into Lightning McQueen. 

One of Grace's favorite things is to participate in the dance party with DJ. It is pretty fun to rock out in the street!

Of course we hit up a couple of parades as well. The Soundsational parade in the day was pretty much the same as it was a couple of years ago. The kids still really liked it. The most impressive one was the nighttime Paint The Night electrical parade. All the dancers and characters were lit up. It was really fun! Unfortunately I couldn't really get any pictures of that one.

We stayed in the park until about 11pm and we were exhausted! We trudged back to the hotel to shower and sleep. Everyone slept really well that night. :) 

The next morning we slept in an hour later, arriving at the park at 8am. We headed straight to California Adventure to ride Cars again. We got really lucky and happened to be standing right where they started a line to see Mickey Mouse. 

This is where they said Claire reminded him on Minnie. It was pretty cute.

Unfortunately for us, we got two of the hottest days in Anaheim. It topped out on Friday at 107!! It was insane. We rode the water rapids ride a couple of times and spent the entire afternoon seeing indoor shows. We watched Aladdin, a Frozen sing along, and went back to Flo's for milkshakes. 

That evening we spent our time in Disneyland where they we setting up for the Halloween party. We didn't stay for the party this year because I wasn't sure if Neil could handle staying up that late. Note to future self....DO the party! It's worth it. At 7pm, we along with thousands of other people, left Disneyland and went back to California Adventure. It was a madhouse. We pretty much just watched the world of color show and went to the hotel. It was a really long, and very hot day!

Saturday was our last day. It was another scorcher. Just a little bit cooler at 101 degrees. Still pretty miserable in the middle of the day. Also, it was Saturday. Note to future self....don't do disney on the weekend. The crowds were at least twice as bad. That combined with the heat made it a tough day. We did a bunch of things early in the day and tried to stay cool again in the afternoon. Chris even got the girls to go on the big roller coaster California Screamin. They both really liked it. Our strategy was to collect all the fast passes we could and avoid places in full sun. It turned out pretty good. We rode splash mountain, Indiana Jones, the jungle cruise, and Thunder mountain a few times. 

We got to meet three of the princesses; which was really fun. (They were in an air conditioned building) 

Neil didn't want to meet them. He hid behind me.

It was so hot. We all tried hard to stay hydrated and happy.

Splash Mountain never felt so good!! We packed flip flops so that we could ride worry free. Bring on the drenching! We were completely dried off within ten minutes. :(

We stayed at the park until after 11 that night. Phew! Three days of open until almost close was pretty exhausting. We did it though! And even though those hot afternoon hours were miserable, the rest of our time was a blast. We had so much fun together. It was great that we could all do the rides together. Our favorite treats were: the Dole whip float, rice krispie treats, flo's milkshakes, and the macaroons at Jolly Holiday Bakery.

We slept in the next morning before heading off to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping. When we go to Disneyland I make a deal with the kids. They get to browse the entire time and then at the end they can choose 1 thing to buy. Neil ended up with an Astro Blaster gun, Grace got a stuffed white cat, and Claire chose a stuffed Sven. After a leisurely brunch we hit the road for home. 

Until next time Disneyland. Hopefully we'll have cooler temps.