Last Day on Track and a Valentine's Party

I can hardly believe it, today was Hannah's last day of school for this trimester. She is officially 2/3 done with Kindergarten. She is now off track and will return March 6th. The next time she goes off track in June, she'll go back as a 1st grader!!!

Here she is during P.E. where they were learning how to play Dodgeball...which was a huge hit! Since the kids won't be in school for Valentine's Day, they had Valentine's Day today. The kids exchanged Valentines and treats and had a party. As Room Mom, I had the creative idea of heart shaped Jello jigglers with whipped cream atop! The kids loved it!!!

"Okay Daddy, we're ready to go with you"

This picture was taken the night before Steven left for London, when the girls spent the evening with my parents.

Spending the Night at Disneyland

A little over 6 years ago, when I was pregnant with Hannah, I became involved in an email loop of women, who were also pregnant and due in April 2000. We'd email back and forth several times a day, exchanging motherly advice, and sharing pictures of our families, etc. One of those women I've become good friends with is Karen. We first met in person in August 2001, when two other "Loopies" and their April 2000 toddlers met at Disneyland for meeting one another in person. Since then, Karen has been to Southern California two more times, one in which she actually stayed with us!

This past weekend, Karen came to Southern California with her son, Joe, for a special mother/son trip. We had already planned on spending some time together before we knew Steven would be gone, but when we discovered he'd be out of the country and gone for so long, we joined Karen and Joe at The Grand Californian for some fun. Hannah is always asking to spend the night at Disneyland, but because we live so close, it just doesn't make sense for us to spend the night in one of the hotels. Her desire to stay at one of the hotels increased even more, when we visited Gramma and Papa when they stayed at the Grand Californian a few days last year for thier 35th anniversary. When she found out that we'd be get to spend the night at the hotel with Karen and Joe, she was soooo excited. Even now, that we're home, she's already asking when we can do that again. LOL. She has even suggested giving up having a birthday party to stay overnight at Disneyland! This was the view from the hotel room. The kids enjoyed all the lights and music at night! Not to mention seeing the amusement park was just steps away... Joe is almost 3 years older than Hannah, but they got along so well, they were silly together and really had a lot of fun together. Probably because he's used to his sister, who is Hannah's age. Here they are in the Petting Zoo. Hannah hasn't stopped talking about our time with Karen and Joe and is already looking forward to when Karen's entire family will come to Californina in Summer 2007 for another visit!

Sailing the Mark Twain!

Recently on one of my Disney websites, I read that guests can help steer the Mark Twain if you find and ask the Captain. One of my Disney crazy friends confirmed she had read the same thing as well, on a different site. So I decided to determine if what we had read was true and see if Hannah could help the Captain on a voyage around the Rivers of America.

It was true! Long story short, Hannah got to sail the Mark Twain! She got to ring the bell, blow the whistle and steer the boat! Little does she know the boat is on a track, but she thinks she actually steered it. It was so exciting!! What a beautiful view from the very top deck!

100 Days Smarter!

Today marked the 100th day of Kindergarten. I guess in some schools, the 100th day of kindergarten is celebrated bigtime! Hannaah's class celebrated the occassion with special activities in math, and they got a special paper visor that said "100 Days Smarter", stickers, and a special bookmark.

Obsessed with Narnia

For some reason, Hannah is obsessed with the new movie, The Chronicles of Narnia. Her and Steven saw it opening weekend, and ever since then she's been asking when they could see it again. After days of having a good attitude, and being obedient (for the most part), she and Steven went last night to see it again. She enjoyed it just as much the second time as the first.

For the last several weeks, McDonalds has had Chronicles of Narnia toys in their Happy Meals. I am so relieved to say that as of today...we have the entire set of the 8 toys!!!! We've had a duplicate toy that we've been trying to trade in for a few days. Today after school, we went to four, yes four, different McDonalds in attempts to obtain the last toy to complete the collection. We found the final piece at a McDonalds inside Walmart, who claims to have had all 8 of the toys today. Next time we're collecting Happy Meal toys, that's the first place I'm going!

Each of the toy figurines also comes with a cool pop up book. Hannah was so excited to complete her collection. I on the other hand am done with McDonalds for a while!! I wasn't even this dedicated to completing a set when they had the Disney toys a while back!

A Saturday Trip to our Happy Place

With Steven needing to work on a church project all day, the girls and I decided we should pack up and head to Disneyland for a few hours. Hannah had the idea to ask Gramma and Papa if they'd like to join us, and they did! We went only for a few hours as it was a Saturday and gets really busy as the day goes on. I am so excited to have gotten this next picture, which has a story behind it. My mom jokingly has told all the granddaughters that the Fairy Godmother figure they have from the Cinderella set is her. LOL. So whenever Hannah sees the Fairy Grandmother in the Cinderella movie, or when playing with her figures, or when we've seen her in the parade at Disneyland, Hannah always yells "There's Gramma!" and laughs. In the 10 years that I have been an annual passholder at Disneyland, I've never once seen the Fairy Godmother out greeting guests. I was so excited to see her and knew we just had to get a picture of her!!! It was even better that mom agreed to take a picture with her all by herself. Of course she told the "real" Fairy Godmother there was a story behind the reason wanting this picture. And the Fairy Godmother told my mom that her grandchildren only knew her as the Fairy Godmother as well. LOL. Once in the car we realized that the only ride we went on today was the tram ride from the parking structure to the park and back. It was one of those days where we just enjoyed being at Disneyland, and enjoyed the beautiful weather!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2006! And what better way to start off the New Year than making a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. We went this afternoon for a few hours to enjoy the Christmas decorations one last time for this holiday season. It sprinkled off and on, but it sure didn't cause anyone to leave the park. It was still busy, however, we did get to experience a sneak preview of the new Monsters, Inc ride at California Adventure. It was great!