Monday, December 31, 2012

The Merriest Place on Earth

Disneyland is great anytime of year, but especially at Christmas time! I love all of the decor and the Christmas firework show is the best. After our amazing breakfast, we spent the rest of the day in the parks enjoying the rides and a whole bunch of other characters (that is Rylie's favorite thing right now...every character we saw, she wanted to take a picture with them). It was a very full and very fun day.

Rylie on Ariel's Undersea Adventure, one of her favorite rides.


Our traditional family picture in front of a Disney Christmas tree.

She had more fun meeting Donald Duck! He was adorable and danced and played with her for quite awhile.





Handy Manny

Jesse from Toy Story

Her absolute favorite part of the entire day (and will still tell me that)...meeting Minnie Mouse in her "beautiful Christmas dress". :)




Watching the Christmas parade.

I just loved her little outfit. :)

This is what happened while we were waiting for the fireworks. This is how we knew she was exhausted, as she never falls asleep with stuff going on around her. It took her awhile into the firework show to wake up. :)



And the snow is starting to fall! This is the best part of the show. At the end, all the lights change color and the music continues as it snows from the roof tops on Main Street. :)





Sunday, December 30, 2012

Princess Breakfast

Our first day in California, we headed to the Merriest Place on Earth (yes, Disneyland!) for the day to enjoy the Christmas decor. Mimi had a big surprise for all of us and let us know on the way that we had reservations for the princess breakfast in California Adventure! A little back story, we had eaten at Ariel's Grotto (where the breakfast is held) when I was pregnant with Rylie (though, we didn't know if she was a she yet) and the whole time we were there, Helen and I talked about how fun it would be to bring a little girl to this restaurant, and now the time had come!
So obviously we love everything Disney (duh, right!) and think that Disney just does some things better than any other theme park in the world. These character breakfasts are definitely one of those things. After being seated, the food just starts coming! A little while into the amazing breakfast, the first princess is introduced and she starts her way around the room stopping at each table for pictures and will take the time to talk to each little girl. Rylie caught on really fast and was soon asking the current princess who was coming next. :) It was so fun to watch her excitement throughout the breakfast and it was a great way to start our fun Christmas day at Disneyland!



The first course of breakfast (well, kind of...it is all you can eat, so I guess there isn't really courses).


Patiently waiting for Cinderella. :)

Her current favorite, Cinderella!






Being silly with her crown.

Thank you Mimi for such a fun morning!
 

Monday, December 17, 2012

Our Special Announcement




That's right! #2 is on its way and its a little boy! We are super excited to welcome our little guy on May 17th. The pregnancy started out rough as I was extremely sick for a good 16 weeks. One visit to the ER and a whole lot of anti-nauseous medications later, it seemed to finally calm down. Rylie is warming up to the baby brother idea (as you can tell in the video), but overall seems excited to be a big sister. :)

The first belly pic at about 14 weeks.

The cute ornament my mom gave us this year.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Gingerbread Houses

We spent a little time decorating gingerbread houses this past weekend. Rylie and Mimi decorated one, and Brandon and I (well, mostly Brandon...I can't take credit for the masterpiece!) decorated the other.









Thursday, December 13, 2012

Visiting Santa

We headed to Bass Pro Shop one evening so Rylie could see Santa. They have the cutest winter village set up with a ton of activities, crafts, a carousel, and of course, Santa...and it is all FREE! :) Rylie had told me a few days prior that she didn't like Santa and had no desire to sit on his lap, so we talked a lot about it and one afternoon I took her upstairs at the mall where she could see Santa below. We watched a few different kids sit on his lap (luckily, none of them were screaming) and then he noticed her upstairs watching him and he waved. After that, she was pretty excited to see him and tell him that she wanted a Minnie Mouse for Christmas (guess we better add that to our shopping list since that is all she talked about that she wanted).


With Grammy and Papa Perkins.









Craft time with Grandma.