Well it’s been a while and it’s overwhelming to try to catch up since the last post, I’m going to just start again where we are. If you want to see what we’ve been up to in between, look at our Flickr photo page.
Besides being so close to Christmas, I love that our boys’ birthdays are right at the beginning of the New Year. They turn their new ages just after the new year so it’s easy to remember what age they are/were anytime during any year. So for 2009 we have a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old. Wow! I can’t believe they are that old already.
Caleb turned the big 3 on Jan. 3rd so it’s the end of free admissions to most places. We went to Disneyland on his birthday for his last free day at Disneyland (unless they do free birthday admissions another year). Even though it was a Saturday and pretty crowded, we got there right about when it opened at 8AM and packed in quite a few activities before heading home around naptime. We went to the Nemo submarines first hoping for a short line and it wasn’t too bad. It was the first time we’ve been on them and we enjoyed it, but decided it wouldn’t have been worth the hour or two waits that we’ve seen the last few times we’d been there. We also went on Dumbo (Caleb’s favorite), the Carousel, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, Casey Jr, Small World Holiday, Autopia, and Tom Sawyer’s Island or Pirate’s Lair I guess they’re calling it now.
Micah is now 5 and will start Kindergarten this fall. Even though it is 8 months away it feels like it is right around the corner, and I guess in a way it is. It will be a big adjustment for all of us and I’m trying to think about how to prepare myself and all of us already. We took advantage of the Free Admission to Disneyland on your Birthday deal for Micah as well and went again on his birthday, the 6th. Since Micah (and Mom & Dad) has an annual pass, we got the merchandise credit for him to spend in place of admission. We also decided to get Caleb his own annual pass. While Caleb & Daddy waited to get Caleb’s picture taken for his pass, Micah & Mommy went across Main St. to the Emporium to shop. I had already decided to look for a jacket for him since he needed one anyway and we found one. He also picked out a big lollipop for himself and also got one for Caleb. And we still have $10 left to spend next time. The boys started working on their lollipops through the rest of the Annual pass line. Micah wanted to go on Autopia (his favorite) and the Tiki Room. We decided to start with the Tiki Room since you are allowed to bring food in there so they could keep their lollipops a while longer. Caleb decided he was done halfway over to Autopia and Micah threw his out in the Autopia line. After Autopia, we went to Space Mountain. Micah seems to like roller coasters and even Caleb is just big enough for most of the ones at Disneyland (40″), but he didn’t like it. After that we had pizza for dinner, then decided we had time for one more ride before heading home and we decided to go to the Storybook boats. The line went much slower that we had hoped, but I love the Storybook boats at night. By the time we got done with that it was a little later than we had planned on leaving and we kinda tried to hurry out of there before Fantasmic got done and big crowds would be leaving at once. That was a fun day too.
Then came the birthday party. Caleb wanted a “Cars” party and Micah wanted a “GeoTrax” (trains) party. So I threw in airplanes and did a “planes, trains, and autos” theme. We sent out boarding pass invitations to grandparents, Uncle Sean, and 6 of their friends and everyone came. We decorated the garage as our party room and set up our GeoTrax set for the kids to play with. The kids decorated their “luggage” treat boxes with stickers. They ate PB&J’s cut in plane train & auto shapes. We had a Lightning McQueen pull-string pinata. When I was gathering up the kids and told Caleb it was time to do the pinata he went right out and pulled out about 2/3 of the strings at once before we were really ready to start! Fortunately there were still enough strings left and we had the kids line up and take turns pulling one at a time. The second to last string was the right one and all the goodies poured out. The kids gathered goodies into their luggage boxes. The second game was called Find the Airplanes in the Clouds. I filled our wagon with packing peanuts and tiny plastic planes and the kids dug around to find them. Then we played Stick the Caboose on the Train. After games it was time for cake. We had cupcakes with cookie wheels and racing flags on top. They were yummy. After the party we took a rest and after rest time let the boys open all their gifts. They got lots of fun stuff and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing with lots of new toys and reading several new books before bedtime. Thanks everyone!
Micah and Caleb had really great birthdays this year (and Caleb wasn’t sick for his party this year which was nice). Now we’ll see what the year has in store for our 3-year-old and 5-year-old. Happy New Year everyone!