Shell

Yesterday we went to the beach and Amelia loves to comb the sand for sticks, shells, rocks and any other things she can find. She brought me back her little mitt of treasures and was telling me about them. As she handed me a shell she said, "I found aunt shell, you need to talk to her mom?". (My sister's name is Rachelle and we talk on the phone a lot) The part I loved best was today when she was recapping it all to Phil, she said it again, including the part that I should talk on the phone to a shell.
Ben loves the sand a little too much. I had to give him a cracker to stop eating it.

Confession

It's time for me to confess something I did yesterday that I think a lot of mom's have probably done and may not be willing to confess, so I will and you can silently smile to yourself. I gave Ben a handful of cheerios and he eagerly attacked them and knocked majority of them to the floor. Amelia was begging me for some and kept trying to sneak his. I told her she couldn't have any until she finished her dinner. It was painfully long, but when she finally did, I told her she could eat all the cereal on the floor (my floor is clean) and made her think SHE was getting the prize, but really, it saved me from 1 more thing to clean up. Thank YOU Amelia.

Another Holiday Amelia May Never Truly Love Like I Do

Since most of my blog is fluff, I decided to blog about just that today, FLUFF. This is the time of year when we start to convince ourselves that we need to fill our closets, houses, and stomachs full of fluff and this is the one holiday that I say, YES. Aisles lined with brightly colored shredded fluff to fill baskets, little plastic eggs waiting to be hidden and packed full of jelly beans or other chewy delights, fluffy bunnies and chicks begging to be snuggled, shelves filled with pastel wrapped chocolaty goodness with layers of creamy fluff and caramel or something to resemble an uncooked egg, fluffy little sugar coated ducks and bunnies begging to be eaten because "it's a tradition" even though you know after you finish it you will immediately say to yourself or even others in the room, "I've made a horrible mistake", racks filled with dresses covering layers of fluffy petticoats and matching ribbons or shoes, or for a real find, little white gloves. Yes, I love the colors, the treats, the clothing, the everything. I realized this fully when I went to Target to and got swept up from the moment I stepped in the store and saw the whole Easter SECTION. I immediately turned in and caught myself thinking, "why yes Veronica, you do need an egg dying and glitter kit, even though Amelia is ALLERGIC to hard boiled eggs" or "$2 is a screaming deal for a package of Milky Way eggs because they never have any left when they go on sale AFTER Easter" and then, "my whole basket is filled with candy Amelia can't eat, so I better pick up one of these and one of these.....". There was just one more thing to make my holiday binge complete, Peeps. I searched everywhere and I was seriously questioning the patriotism of this store when I couldn't find them. You don't dedicate a section to a holiday and not include the basics, Cadbury creme eggs, Peeps, traditional big hard jelly beans, etc. It's like having Valentine's day without the conversation hearts, Christmas without candy canes, St Patricks day without green food coloring. Seriously Target. I managed to get over it, but they better get it together. Easter is still weeks away, and you better believe that I will be back to see. In the mean time, I typically make Amelia an Easter dress, but my trusty sewing machine is on the fritz, so I have to buy off the rack, how low brow. I was a little hesitant, but I was just out and about and managed to find a really cute and much more practical dress, so that will leave me a lot more time to do something like check on Target to see if they will be carrying Peeps.


Oh and Ben is pulling himself up, but still not crawling (just army crawling) and climbs everything. And Amelia is mostly potty trained. Goes without reminding, dry when we go out, and even woke up this morning dry!!!! Yeah.

Conversation this morning

Me: What do you want to do today?
A: I want to go to "newtah"
Me: That's too far away
A: I want to go to newtah and see the snow
Me: That would take a really long time to get there
A: We can go in dad's car and drive really fast


This is of her in newtah in the snow

2 new pics

Phil just sent me his pics from his phone and they are pretty good, so I had to post again. This is Ben on the tea cup ride about to puke and this is Amelia getting ready to board one of her trains.

Travel Log of Disneyland

We went to Disneyland yesterday, so here is a post with all the pics, funny stuff that was said or we saw and some videos. If you want to know what we liked, read the next post. If you want to know why I did not get an annual pass, read the 3rd post.

First off in the park, the carousel. Amelia had fallen asleep on the way there, and then had to wait in the ticket line for about 45 minutes, so when we finally got in, she was not truly excited about it. She said she wanted to go on "that one" and then when she finally got on the horse she wanted to get down. We coaxed her to stay up by showing her that Ben was doing it, so of course she stayed on.

She seemed to be more interested, so we headed to Mr Toad's ride, right next door. She was terrified and told us after we came out, "I don't like that one. It's too scary."

Next, on to Dumbo. She had to wait a long time, and was not so interested in being on it and didn't like going really high, but she didn't scream. She later will tell us vehemently that she did not want to go on that one again.

Lunch and then on to Casey Jr's Circus Train. It was a fun little train that goes around a little miniature village and river. It pretends to not make it up a little mountain while saying, "I think I can". Amelia liked tooting like a train.

Walked over to Mickey's Toontown where we saw "a mouse" (Minnie) from the street. Amelia and Phil climbed aboard a ship play area.

On to the Alice in Wonderland area where Amelia and I went on the tea cups. I coaxed her on to this ride by letting her pick a pretty pink one to sit in. She loved it. She told me while we were going that, " a boy's screaming. No screaming" I told her on this kind of a ride, she can scream because that's what makes it fun and I proceeded to scream. I think she loved it so much because she got to scream as loud as she could for the whole time and wasn't in trouble for it. She said immediately she wanted to do it again.
Next, Alice in Wonderland ride. You sit in a caterpillar and ride through the dark, terrifying, loud, psychedelic story of Alice in Wonderland, some sort of fiery demon/devil area, smoking caterpillar, crazy queen and all. When we got outside of the tunnel she yelled, "yay, it's all done". Touche!

Back on the tea cups one more time, this time all of us. Philip was hesitant to go on it, that's why I went first. I convinced him it really wasn't that bad, and even Ben could do it. Halfway through, Philip looks at Ben and said he looked like he was going to puke, and it made him think he was going to puke. This is why we don't do roller coasters folks. It was fun. Check out the video in the sidebar.



Next was Nemo's submarine ride. Since Amelia LOVES Nemo, we had to wait in the 45 minute line for this, but it was one of my favorites. Well worth it. She kept herself busy by climbing the rocks while you wait. You get to go in a submarine and "dive" deep into the ocean and see the characters from Nemo interacting in the water around you. It's kind of long and hard to explain, but it was really well done. Amelia was so scared. First off it's really dark and they make it really loud and they simulate you dropping, so it gives you a little sea sickness feel. She made me hold her and cover her ears like I did when she watched fireworks last year. At one point, they simulate hitting an explosive and the sub shakes and bubbles everywhere and sirens and red lights. I think she really thought we were sinking. Ben managed to stay asleep the entire ride.

Next we went to the Innoventions attraction(is that what you call something you have to stand in line for but it's not a ride?) You go in this room and it's all this technology. It is mainly a house that is run by computers. It is pretty cool and you get to do a lot of interactive things. Upstairs is an entire gaming area including lots of xbox's and arcade like games. Amelia had fun doing some driving one and Philip attempted the guitar hero, but the controller was broken, or so he says. We emerged just about dusk and made our way back to "It's a Small World". This was by far Amelia's favorite ride. It wasn't scary or dark and it was painfully cheery, just her style. She bounced her head, clapped her hands, tried to hula and was overall mesmerized by the whole thing. And to tell you the truth, so was Ben. It's a nice long 10 minute relaxing ride. We came out when the sun was just setting, so it seemed really magical.

Finally, to end the day, we hopped on the train that goes around the park. The kids were winding down and snuggly, so we rode the train around the park and saw what we missed from distance. When we got done, we asked Amelia if she wanted to go back on "It's a Small World". I truly expected her to say yes, but she said,"no, I want to stay in the double stroller". We walked around the park to the areas we missed, hopped on one last ride, Winnie the Pooh, and walked down to the New Orleans area. As we neared Pirates of the Caribbean there were a number of people sleeping on the ground. I asked Phil if Disney provided bums to give you the real effect of the area. We laughed but as we kept walking there were more and more. I asked someone what they were doing, not crazy bums, just waiting for the water/fireworks show 2 hours early!! Are you kidding me? Finally Amelia was conked out, so we went in search for anything milky. We kept walking down the street thinking that looks good,when's the last time you had cotton candy, there's got to be a churro cart around here somewhere, maybe the lines will be better at the next one, yes I would like hand scooped ice cream, etc. Next thing we knew we were at the tram and didn't get one treat. At that point, we were done, we loaded up the kids and went home. Amelia did not wake up once even when I changed her diaper, put her in her seat. Set off the car alarm while we were in it, Ben screaming, changed her into jammies and put in bed. (But she did wake up at 4 in the morning telling me, "Nooo, I don't wear socks in my bed!!!" My mistake, I'll try not to let it happen again.)
What an enjoyable birthday. Thank you Phil, Amelia, Ben and Disney. Here's my never ending need for a photo collage of the rest of the pics from the day. Check out the videos on the sidebar.

The Joys of Disneyland

We finally made it to Disneyland. All in all, it was a nice day. Disneyland is closer to our house than I realized, about 45 minutes with no extreme traffic. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm with a nice breeze, I even managed to sunburn my neck. We stayed until 8pm or so, so we watched the sun set and the lights come on in the park. Here are some of the things we really liked about Disneyland.
It was my birthday, so you get into the park for free. It was a great treat and brilliant marketing tool. Kids under 3 are free, and you get to bounce back another day for free when you get a ticket, so for our family to go 2 days, it was a very good deal. Amelia loved "It's a small world", the 2 trains, and the tea cups. When we would get off a ride, we would ask Amelia if she liked the ride and she would almost always say yes. Then we would ask her if she wanted to do it again, and every time the answer was no, except for the tea cups. The wafting smell of fresh baked churros and kettle corn everywhere from the minute you step off the parking tram, to every corner of the park. It smells delicious. There are beautiful trees and flowers everywhere. Amelia loved waiting in line and looking at flowers. Ben loved that he got to be held all day. So glad that we stayed until dark, because the park seems so much more magical at night with the twinkling lights every where. Every staff member seemed happy to be there and it was spotless. It was nice to be able to take Ben on everything we would go on. There was only 1 ride we wanted to go on without kids, Splash Mountain, so some day we will return when our kids are older and enjoy that together. I also loved that Amelia had no idea about concession stands, gift shops or any of that, so we managed to walk past a million of those and not once did we hear, "I want that". This might be the ONLY time we can get away with that. It was nice to spend an entire day together. Amelia kept her diaper dry almost all day. When we would ask her about a ride, she would tell us that it was scary 7 out of 10 times.