Christmas Hodge Podge

Raegan discovered the nutcracker. The actual ballet on DVD (we borrowed it from Grandma). She loves it and dances around to the whole thing. It's adorable. 

Terrible horrible picture. But for documentation purposes... Michael and I went to his work Christmas party at the Buttes. It was great. Always fun to have an excuse to get dressed up. The skirt even has a fun train. My friend Janae did my hair.

Raegan and Weston were snuggling and watching some Christmas cartoons. It was adorable.

My ward made these trees for an activity day thingy. The kids had lots of fun decorating it. But mostly Weston just pulls everything off.

Christmas PJ's. My kids love taking pictures with a flash, can you tell?

The annual Shumway family Christmas party. Weston was a sheep and Raegan was an angel. It was adorable!

Birthday

Raegan has been talking about birthdays for about six months. She understands what they are and she has been waiting for her own turn. She wanted to be Dumbo for Halloween, but I didn't give her the option, but I promised her she could have a Dumbo birthday party. She was very very excited and it was probably the best day of her life so far. She loved every minute and every person and every present and she never even got over excited and upset. This party was definitely worth the work because of how happy it made her. The only bad part was how windy it was. Nothing stayed in place. 

 Carolyn and Lauren were very helpful as usual. They both helped make this enormous, gorgeous cake and Raegan was over the moon excited about it. She kept climbing up on a chair to stare at it. So cute!

 Four layers of multi colored, multi flavored deliciousness.


Carolyn also made these dumbo hats with Timothy in them. All the kids loved them. Even though I'm sure a majority of the kids have never even see the movie. The juice boxes were also a big hit.

This picture makes me miss his long hair. We chopped it off on Thanksgiving.

We played pin the feather on Dumbo. Lauren made this cute poster. It was the only game we played. The kids were perfectly happy jumping on the two bounce houses the rest of the time.

The kids also got to color Dumbo pictures.

See the hair and tablecloth? It was windy.

She was in HEAVEN having all her friends around her and having them sing to her and blow out her candles. She loved it.

Lauren got her a Dumbo and it was a hit.

She loved ALL the presents she got and was supremely excited at opening each one. I didn't even have to tell her. 

 Post birthday smiles. Thank you to everyone who helped. She had a very special day and she still talks about it.

Disneyland!

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should finish up with Halloween. These are the pics from my phone.

Ward Halloween party/chili cook off.

 Halloween jammies with grandma.

Post trick or treat candy evaluation. She done good. Mommy ate most of it. 

Heading out for our trick or treat adventure. We only did our three little streets here. I know there are some really cool places to go, like Val Vista Lakes, and while I would love to take the kids there, I also want to support our neighborhood. If people keep going elsewhere then eventually no one will come here at all. Plus it's a great way to reconnect with neighbors. 

Rewind. The week before Halloween my parents came to town. My mom brought my dad as a surprise birthday present. We had a party for him here with all his old friends. Then my mom surprised him with tickets to Disneyland. We were lucky enough to be able to go and my mom paid for the tickets! 

She sure loves her Papa

 Outside the gates to Disneyland. Why couldn't I manage to get the sign in there?

 It's McQueen! Raegan loves Cars and was super excited to see Lightning McQueen in person. Sadly she was too short to go on the McQueen ride. She would have loved it. It was a really fun ride.

 Super cute the way they captured Radiator Springs so perfectly.

 The winner of the favorite ride award goes to Dumbo of course! Weston had about the same reaction to every ride except one ride in Bug's Life land in CA adventure. He LOVED it and beamed the whole time he rode it. We rode it multiple times. But Reagan only had eyes for Dumbo. Close seconds were the Carousel and the roller coaster in Mickey's Toon Town. She LOVED that roller coaster. She did NOT like any ride that went indoors, whether it was a "scary" ride or not. All those little ones like Peter Pan, she did not like at all.

 Raegan is a big fan of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. So she really enjoyed Toon Town. Weston was extremely uncooperative when it came to taking pictures. Trust me, we tried.

 Michael's brother Tyler has a year pass so he met up with us for a couple hours on both days. The kids of course loved seeing him and so did we.

 Loved seeing Mickey in his house. There was no one in line to see him.

 Matterhorn Fun Fact: They recently redid the tobogan seats for the ride. I thought I would give it a try because I normally don't ride the Matterhorn because it is so jerky it just isn't fun. So I tried it. Still not fun. FYI.

 We probably waited in line the longest for this ride. The stupid train that goes around the park. We waited about 20 minutes, but then the train was already too full so we had to wait for it to come around again, which took another 20 minutes. The kids were not fond of standing around.

 But when we finally got to sit down it was oh so nice!

 Weston was uber excited about the orderliness of this candy display. He's never wanted to destroy anything more.

 Moving around a cone in the McDonalds. Also a highlight of the trip.

The kids did better than I had hoped. We took them home for naps everyday. It was good times. Thanks again to my parents for letting us tag along. Probably won't be doing Disneyland again for a few years. I decided I want my kids to be older so they enjoy it more and we don't have to take a three hour chunk out of our day for naps.