Special Disneyland Trip!

 A couple weeks ago we got to take a special trip to Disneyland with Grammy to celebrate her birthday!  We made special arrangements for this to be a "girls only" trip (thanks, Daddy!) & when the day finally arrived, we were all SO EXCITED!!

 Grammy came in on the train on a Wednesday evening and we came back to our house to spend the night & drove to Disneyland bright and early on Thursday morning.

 Before going into the gate.

Now that she is 3, Keira needs her own ticket

(Exciting for her, not so much for the pocketbook!).

The classic Disney shot!

Probably her 2nd favorite ride.

First place goes to "It's a Small World," which we rode about 4 times I think.  :)

There was actually no wait to meet Mickey Mouse!

WOW!

Dumbo!

Checking out where we're gonna go next while Grammy is riding Pirates.

Meeting Eeyore for the first time!

Pooh!

It was SO SO HOT out, so we had to splurge on a Dole Whip!

Here she is downing the last drink!

Mmmmm!

Delicious and refreshing!

The BIG highlight of this trip was the princesses!

Keira had never seen them before, but this time she was very interested in waiting in line to get to meet them!

She's never seen any of the movies & has only read the Cinderella book a couple times, so she doesn't know them in context; however, I think she was in awe of their fancy costumes and twirly dresses.

We only got to see Snow White from afar.  While we were waiting in line, she always switched out of the rotation before we got to her. Bummer.

Meeting Mulan!

Here she is telling Mulan she is 3-years-old.
(I was shocked that she went up to the princesses on her own and interacted with them without any help from me).

Here absolute favorite was Belle!

She LOVED Belle's dress and asked if she would twirl her skirt.
Belle asked Keira to twirl with her and then they danced to together.

How cute is that?!

Posing with Ariel!

On our 2nd day at Disney, Keira wanted to see the princesses again, so here she is chatting with Belle again!

I was surprised because Belle actually remembered her!

Princess Tiana

What is a trip to Disney without face painting?!

Getting all blinged out with glitter!

Pretty little princess

We stopped by Pixie Hollow and met Tinkerbell!

It was fun, but not nearly as exciting as the princesses!

Meeting Tinkerbell's sister, Periwinkle

Tinkerbell!

How she was dressed in thick, long sleeves is beyond me because it was painfully hot outside!!

Lunch at The Rainforest Cafe!

Demonstrating her silliest face!

Eating a delicious lunch!

Sadly, this is the last of the Disneyland pics.  :(

Right after this picture, my camera went on the fritz and I couldn't use it again
(it is currently at Canon being repaired).

Anyway, we had a WONDERFUL time at Disney (except for the intense heat).
It was fun getting to experience it with my mom since she hadn't been there since the last time she took me when I was about 10 years old & and for her to experience Disney with Keira was a highlight too!  It is so fun to see things through the awe and wonder of a 3-year-old!

Happy birthday, Mom!

I'm glad we got to do that trip and I hope it won't be our last time to experience Disney together!

While the girls were away, Noah also got to get away for some quality bro time with Jonathan!

They spent the weekend together in SLO and did lots of fun activities!

Like rock climbing...

... and sushi!

Some frisbee golf...

Along with hiking, mountain biking, seeing a movie, and more!

It was a great brother weekend!

Kid Swap!

Back in the spring when we made the decision to not send Keira to preschool for her 3-year-old year, my friend, Mackenzie, asked if I'd be interested in doing a child care swap. Basically, each week we would take a turn hosting each other's child for one morning until after lunch 1x per week and the next week we would switch. It sounded like a great idea and so we planned to start this fall.  Now that we're more than half-way through September, we have had a few kid swaps and it has gone very well! The worst part is when the mom comes to pick up her child at the host's house because both girls are so sad that the fun is over and the friend has to go home.

This is at the first swap!

Keira LOVES playing dress up at Ella's house!

Just like at home, Keira is quite the helper with folding laundry!

Mackenzie is a Pinterest-loving, very crafty Momma at heart and the girls got to make these super fun art projects!

Creative use of toilet paper rolls!

For lunch, the girls got to pick their vegetables to put into the mac-n-cheese!

I don't think Keira has eaten so many vegetables in her life!

Footsie friends!

The next swap was at our house.

Ella came over bright and early because her Daddy dropped her off on his way to work.

The girls are still trying to wake up!

We had a little bit of a rough start...Keira had a hard time being flexible with our routine, like allowing Ella to ride in her blue car or help push her car on our walk with Jack (she is used to pushing it along without having to share!). So, there were a lot of tears as Keira adjusted to sharing and being flexible.

Once we got to the park, swinging helped lighten the mood and the girls had a great time giggling and squealing with glee!

Tetherball is fun with a friend!

Sharing the trike and helmet went really well!

So fun!

Time for a smoothie break and Cat-in-the-Hat!

Painting with brushes was out the window!

It's way more fun to get messy!

Play-doh was the epitome of fun!

Each girl had their own dough and tools and made lots of fun things! 

I think they played on their own for 30+ minutes (while I just watched from the sidelines).

Ella asked me to put her hair in a ponytail, which was very exciting for her mom!

Little sweetie

Silly Ella with her play-doh!

The girls were taking turns using the camera to take pictures of each other. When it was Ella's turn, Keira was upset about having to give up the camera, so she is pouting on the bed. When I showed her this picture that Ella took, she said, "Why am I laying on the bed?"  Good question!  Why are you?!

Keira took this picture, which is so sweet.

Here they are back at Ella's house!

Making collages with magazine pictures.

Keira loves to use scissors to cut!

Hard at work!

Snack time = veggies!

Look at Keira's face:

"Ummm, I'm not sure if I like this..."

"Ella, are you SURE you want to eat this?!"

"Okay, well, if you think it's good, then I do too!"

Yay for eating veggies at Ella's house!

When lunchtime rolled around, it was time to make pizza!

Very focused

Cheesssssssse!

Always gotta steal a bite!

Mmmmm! Delicious!

 The last time we had Ella over, I didn't take too many pictures.

The girls had so much fun playing at the park together (for at least an hour!) and they had lots of fun at the play-doh table again. Keira seemed to be much more relaxed and flexible this time and overall the day went really well!

YAY for Kid Swap days!!!!!!!!!!!!