Our Louisiana Trip

The weekend is over and it wasn't very eventful. It was full of errands and just hanging out with the family. So, I thought I would finally post about our trip that we took to visit our best friends, the Layfields! We met this family in Texas at Fort Hood when none of us had kids quite yet. Now four years later and four kids later we are still best friends that are separated by way too many miles. Brian and I decided about a month before the visit to go see them and booked the tickets right then. And it was one of our best decisions to this day. We flew in late on a Thursday night and had 4 wonderful days with them. We just hung out like old times and the boys played together every minute they could! It was like no time had passed and they played great together. I look forward to them playing together again. Here are some great pictures from our visit.

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Disneyland Day 2 & 3

Hope every one's week is going well! Thursdays are my busy days. I usually have Gymboree and Jackson's speech therapy. Today I have a meeting for the Spouse Club's Holiday Bazaar too. It is also Brian's Sentinel Week where families come and play sports and grill out. We shall see how today goes. :) Now back to our wonderful vacation in California. Day 2 started out great. We made it to the park at 8:00 am and were refueled and ready for the day. Disneyland park was decorated for Halloween and it was so cute. There were pumpkins everywhere. When we walked through the gate there were characters all over. Jackson got to see Pluto, Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale, and many others all in one place. He chose to go and see goofy and Minnie. When he went up to Goofy he had a huge smile on his face. Goofy played with him for like 5 minutes and the whole time Jackson just giggled. I have pictures but wish I had got it on video.

After visiting with characters we made our way to Buzz's ride and Space Mountain. We walked right on to the Buzz ride and then walked over to Space Mountain for Brian and I to ride. We did the rider swap where I went through and brought back a ticket for Brian and he walked through the exit and got right on. It was great. We then made our way to Toon Town to see Mickey's House and all the other character's houses. There were a few rides and rode those as well. Then more rides in fantasyland and Jackson had a blast. Ella did great too. She rode in the stroller unless we were in lines or on the rides. She took her naps in the stroller too. After Fantasyland we did the single rider for Splash Mountain. This is where you can walk through the exit and get right on because any time they need one rider to fill the ride they take from that line. The single rider option was quicker than rider swap for this ride. All day the lines were pretty short. I don't think we waited more than 30 minutes for each ride until the last ride at the end of our day, the Haunted Mansion. I wasn't sure if we should take Jackson but I really wanted to go on it because it was decorated for Halloween too. It was decorated with stuff from The Nightmare Before Christmas and it didn't disappoint. I'm glad we waited and went on the ride! 

By this time it was about 3 and we decided we hit everything we wanted to see and called it a day. We went back to our time share and ordered dinner from the Cheesecake Factory. We ate dinner in and watched TV. Both kids called it a night by 6 which was good since we still had one more day in Disney. The next morning we woke up and went back to California Adventure to see Bugs life land, and some other few rides. It was all so cute. My favorite ride that day was the Monster's Inc ride. It was so stinking cute! The last thing we did was take Jackson to the Disney Junior Show. Of course Jackson loved it. It was with puppets and it had the characters from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Little Einsteins, Handy Manny, and of course Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We finished up around 1 and headed back to the time share to pack up. It was really sad leaving the parks that day because we had so much fun but we had a blast and will go back again some day! After checking out we drove to Carlsbad and stayed the night with Brian's brother Kyle and his fiance Vicki. It was nice to unwind and relax with them that evening. We had a great time in Disneyland but that was only the beginning because the next day the rest of Brian's family flew in and we all stayed in a beautiful house together for 5 days and ended our trip with a wedding. SO next post will be about the rest of our wonderful trip with family! Here are the last pics from Disneyland. :)

Disneyland Day 1

First I want to say thanks to our two new link ups yesterday during Turn The Page Tuesday. I loved learning about new books and hope they link up again! If you are new and wondering what Turn The Page Tuesday is than you can click on the tab above for all the information. :) Now on to one of many posts of our vacation. We flew in to San Diego and rented a car to drive up to Disneyland! First we stopped and met one of my dearest best friends from high school, Carly. I haven't seen her in two years and she recently had another baby so I wanted to make sure I got to see her and her beautiful kids! It was great to catch up but of course it wasn't enough time. So until next time whenever that may be!

Well we said our goodbyes and got back in the car. We made it to Disney around 2 and spent the afternoon at California Adventure park because I wanted Jackson to see the Pixar Play Parade and it was worth it. He loved seeing all the characters from the movies he watches.

Then we made our way to Toy Story Mania. We waited in the line for 20 minutes and then they closed it because someone passed out on the ride. I told Brian we need to stick around so that we can get right on once it opened back up. We didn't know how long that would be so we rode the carousel and finally it opened back up and we walked right on. It was probably a 45 min wait and it would of been longer if we had walked off and came back. It was worth the wait. It was Jackson's favorite ride. He talked about it the whole trip and we did make it back and ride it again on day 3. After that we made our way to Cars Land and it was so amazing. It looked just like the movie. Jackson rode Mater's Junkyard Jamboree and loved it. After that ride we could tell the kids were exhausted from traveling and the heat so we grabbed 2 turkey legs, my favorite, and popped a squat and ate dinner. Day 1 came to a close and both kids fell asleep on the way back to the time share. It was a great first day and full of great memories! Tomorrow I will post about day 2 and 3 in Disneyland. Here are a few more pictures from our first day. :)

Night Terrors!

You never think certain things will happen to your own kids. Well this past week we were on vacation in California and skipping nap times and having later bed times. My 2 1/2 yr. old was exhausted and his body reacted. He started having Night Terrors, I think. At first I thought it was nightmares but after reading about night terrors I have come to the conclusion that he was probably experiencing night terrors. He would have episodes where I would hear him scream and cry for me during naps and at night and I would go in and he would be sitting up. His eyes would open and close and I would think he was awake but when he would look at me it was like he was looking right through me! I would try and console him but it didn't help. One night I finally took him outside and put him in the cold air to wake him up because it scared me. I now come to find out that is not what you do. You are suppose to leave them alone and watch them to make sure they don't hurt themselves. After each episode Jackson was back dead asleep. The episode that made us look up night terrors was during one of his naps. He sat up screaming and I went to console him. His little sister was asleep in the same room so I had to pick him up and take him out of there. He continued to scream and by the time I had him downstairs on the couch he was completely dead asleep again. At that point Brian googled them and told me everything I was doing was wrong. During a night terror they don't recognize you and can sometimes feel like they are being attacked. After reading all this I was so sad to think that my sweet little boy was going through this. The only good thing is that they don't remember the episodes in the morning. It is like it never happened. Jackson's last night terror happened Saturday night. In the middle of the night he sat up and grabbed my head like it was a ball. He repeated "Gimme that, Mine," a few times and then just laid down and was back asleep. At this point I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure if I stop him or letting him shake my head since I had read that it said to do nothing. I of course moved my head after a few shakes. It was really weird and of course when I told my husband he laughed about it. Now looking back it is kind of funny but in the moment since it was my head and I was dead tired I didn't laugh very much. Well, Jackson hasn't had any since Saturday night and I will now make sure Jackson gets plenty of sleep. I am so glad we are back home and getting back to our normal routine! So I write this post to share our experience with Night Terrors and to shine light on them. I hope Jackson never has any more!

Virtual Book Club For Kids

So I have decided to link up with the the Virtual Book Club For Kids once a month to learn about other great children's books and activities and crafts to go along with them! This month the featured author is Lois Ehlert. I have chosen the book Fish Eyes because I did a wonderful craft with my son to learn his colors and numbers that involved fishing. This book is very cute and I love the colorful illustrations.

So here is my Fishin For Colors activity. I hope you enjoy!

1. You need to get all the supplies. You will need different color foam sheets, a dowel rod, 2 pieces of string, scissors, strong magnets, a pencil, and a fish pattern.

2.  Cut out the fish pattern and trace it on each color of foam sheet. 

3.  Cut the fish out of each foam sheet.

4.  Place a magnet on each fish. I placed my magnets on as eyes on the fish. 

5.  Then cut your dowel rod in half to make 2 fishing poles. Tie a piece of string on one end of the rod. 6.  Then cut a "J" shape out of a gray or black foam sheet to make a hook. Tie the "J" on the other end of the string and place a magnet on the "J"

7.  Repeat step 6 to make the second fishing pole

FISHIN' FOR COLORS

The whole project cost me $7.28. And it was totally worth it when I saw the smile on his face and watched him enjoy it so much. He fished on the floor, table, and tub (minus the water). I hope your kids enjoy it as much as mine!

Don't forget Turn The Page Tuesday tomorrow!  Looking forward to see what great books everyone shares!