~Disneyland - Part 2!~

Holy Crap!!!! I have so many pictures!! I think I might have to do each day one post at a time! :)

The next day, Monday, also my birthday :) we headed to California Adventure first, and then over to Disneyland. We left our condo and got over to Disneyland/California Adventure right after the parks opened, which was about 10:00 am. We headed over to California Adventure first, since Disneyland was so dang busy already. The first ride we headed over to was Toy Story. Hazen was SOOOO excited to go on Toy Story. Rhett had fallen asleep on the walk over there and was out, so I stayed out with him while my parents took Hazen on the ride with JC and Elisa and their girls.

They only waited for about 10 or 15 minutes to ride it, so as soon as they got done they all wanted to go again. So this time, my parents stayed back with Rhett and I took Hazen again.

Hazen, Maycee and Kylee, waiting patiently in line to go on Toy Story.
Gotta love the 3D glasses!
Hazen and Maycee in their glasses, ready to go!Brinley was my ride buddy! Hazen wanted to go with Maycee.Action Shot!Another action shot of Hazen and Maycee. Toy Story really is the coolest ride. It is all in 3D and it is so much fun. It was probably our favorite ride there. I know it was Hazen's. I think we went on it at least 15 times throughout the week :)
Next stop, we headed over to the kids area in California Adventure... it has a cute name but I can't remember it right now. Rhett decided to wake up just in time to have some fun!
Rhett hanging out with his buddy, Uncle JC!!! They were buddies the entire trip.
Unfortunately for Rhett, he was too little to go on the bumper cars with us, so he hung out with Aunt Elisa and Morgan while we did that.
Alyssa and KyleeGrandpa Cory and Maycee
Next we headed over to a "Bug's Life Roller Coaster" which was hardly a roller coaster :) The kids thought it was pretty lame actually. Well, Rhett and Morgan liked it. It's definitely a ride for the little ones.
Next we headed over to the a ladybug ride that was like the Tea Cups, only a lot slower and perfect for the kids to start on. Both of the boys loved it! Rhett was laughing so hard the whole time. It was so cute! We were all laughing because of him.
Cute boys! It was fun to see them so excited and having fun. I was so worried that they wouldn't like it or they would get annoyed with standing in lines for half of the day, so it was nice to see them having so much fun. Believe me, we had our moments of crying and whining, but I expected that to happen a lot. On the way back over to get on the Little Mermaid ride we saw Pluto and had to stop and take a picture.
The Little Mermaid is a very close second to my favorite ride there. It is AMAZING! Such a cool ride with lots of fun music and characters. It was another one that we went on a lot while we were there. Hazen and Rhett loved it too. They thought it was awesome.
Alyssa and KyleeI seriously took so many pictures of this ride. It was such a fun ride!
We decided it was about time to head over to Disneyland and check things out. Hazen stopped by this cute bear statue on the way over there and wanted his picture taken.
JC and Elisa and their cute family. Rhett was asleep once again. Lucky kid... he got to relax and be pushed around in the stroller. What a life :)
Right after walking into Disneyland, we saw a few characters. Hazen spotted Gepetto and wanted a picture with him.
Right after that we saw Minnie Mouse. I didn't think Hazen would really care about seeing her or wanting to take a picture with her. Boy was I wrong! He was so excited to see her. I love this picture of him giving her a hug. He was so cute, and a little embarrassed.
I love how he is holding her hand here. So cute.
Just a cute picture of Hazen and Paige waiting in line. Me and Hazen on a ride that he didn't love. Ha ha. I had to make him go on some of the rides to get him out of his comfort zone. He liked most of them once they got going. This one... not so much. I didn't love it either. Made me a little motion sick.
I know you can't really tell by this picture, but this was Hazen's 2nd favorite ride. It was the Buzz Lightyear ride. He loved it of course because it has guns and you shoot stuff. Anyone who knows my boys knows they love that stuff. Rhett really liked this ride too. We went on it quite a few times.
Next we headed over to Finding Nemo. It was a little bit of a longer wait and the kids were getting hungry and tired by this time. It was about dinner time by now and they had been going all day. The ride was pretty cool but I was majorly claustrophobic on it. The kids loved it. Rhett really loved it. He thought it was great.
Giving Momma kisses while we were in line for Nemo. Sweet boy!
Being silly with Papa Cory!
After going on a few more rides and visiting one of the stores in Frontier Land, we headed back over to California Adventure to get ready for the World of Color show.
We had to hit Toy Story one more time for the day! World of Color was really cool, but it was packed and we could hardly see it. I didn't get any good pictures of it, but it was amazing. I love the look on Brooklyn's face in this picture. This is what Hazen did during World of Color. Ha ha... He was so tired and cranky by the time it started that he just sat in the stroller pouting and he fell asleep.
It was a really long day, but it was an awesome way to spend my birthday! Turning 27 wasn't so bad since I was in Disneyland to celebrate!

DiSnEyLaNd!!!! ~Part 1~

So I have slacked at blogging... yet again! I am really good at not blogging very often :) Oh well... not feeling it too much lately! But I do really want to try and keep this thing updated. So here we go again! And here's the warning to you all.... this is going to be a SUPER long post! I am going to split this trip up into a couple posts because we did so much and I have so many pictures.

So, my family started planning a trip to California to go to Disneyland about a year ago. My parents and both of my older brothers and their families were planning on going. They had invited us to go as well. Ryan didn't want to go and said that the boys were too young and he would rather wait until they were older to go. So, he basically said No, we are not going. End of story. I was bummed. But... I didn't want to go and do it alone with the boys either. Fast forward to the end of September. My family had the whole thing planned basically and knew that we weren't planning on going. The kids were all so excited and I was still SO bummed. Ryan called me one day from work and asked if it was okay that he was going to be gone for my birthday... (Nov. 7). He was going white tail hunting in Missouri. I joked by telling him "Ya, why not! Go right ahead. Everyone else is going to be in Disneyland for my birthday!" and he took that as "Ok! Perfect! I will go hunting then!". My family had been planning to go the first week in November the whole time, and figured it was no big deal because they were hoping that we would come with them. They planned on going to Disneyland on my birthday. So when we said we weren't going, they were bummed that they weren't going to be home for my birthday. Oh well... I am 27, no big deal, right? Well.... when Ryan told me he wasn't going to be home, I decided there was no reason that I should stay home by myself on my birthday while everyone in my family, including Ryan, would be playing and having fun. So, I decided last minute that I was going to go and take my boys to California. The only bad thing about this decision was Ryan wasn't coming with us and I hadn't been planning on going, so therefore I hadn't been saving money to go. :) I really have to give a HUGE shout-out to my parents and my brothers. Especially my parents. I stayed with them in their condo, and they were so awesome to help me with my boys the whole entire trip. They were so happy that we were able to come and they were SOOOO much help. We left the morning of November 5. I was excited to get out the snowy day we were having here! First snowfall of the year and Hazen was sad were leaving! Silly boy! Me and the boys and my parents flew out that day. My brothers both drove with their families and another family friend that was going on the trip with us. It's safe to say that I was more than a little nervous to fly by myself with the boys. I have only flown (is that a word?!) a couple times myself, so I was so nervous to have to deal with both boys by myself on the flight. My parents and I were on the same flight, but they had bought their seats months before, so we weren't sitting anywhere near each other. Luckily for us, when we got the the airport that morning we told them our situation, and they helped us the best they could by moving some seats around and my parents ended up sitting in the row right behind me. Awesome! I had brought a backpack full of things for Hazen to do and I had given Rhett some Benedryl :) hoping that he would sleep the whole entire time. The flight there wasn't too bad. Hazen was pretty good, other than he didn't understand why he couldn't have the Ipad on the whole time... and Rhett slept most of the way there. He woke up probably about 20 minutes before we were going to be landing and he was screaming.... I couldn't just get up and leave Hazen, and we weren't supposed to be up anyways. There was a sweet older guy sitting next to us and he was awesome to help me with the boys however he could. So, as Rhett was screaming for like 5-10 minutes... and yes I mean SCREAMING... I was starting to panic about what I was going to do. My dad was on the aisle seat behind me, so I handed Rhett back to him hoping that he would be able to stand up and calm him down. Success! Rhett fell back to sleep as soon as I handed him back to Papa. My dad has the magic touch! We landed in Long Beach to nice sunny skies and warm weather. Perfect! We got our bags and headed over to the rental car place at the airport. I had booked our rental car online to pick it up at the airport. I had even called and confirmed it was the airport location before I booked it. When we got there, they told me "Oh your reservation is for the downtown location. You will have to go there." Seriously!!!?? I explained to them that I had called and confirmed it was this location... not the downtown one. Sure enough, the guy behind the counter looks at my paperwork and says the phone number matches the airport location, but the reservation is still for the downtown location. Luckily for us, he says he will get us a car. But... unfortunately, they don't have a full size car available. So, long story short, they gave us a nice minivan for the same price, which ended being awesome and better for us anyways. So, we headed out towards our Condo in our minivan. Hazen was so excited and thought we were going to Disneyland right then. Ha ha! He didn't quite understand that we weren't going for a couple days. :) We headed to McDonalds for lunch while we were waiting for my brothers and their families to get there. They had stayed in Vegas the night before and were on their way, but were a couple hours behind us. Well, we met up with them and got checked into our condo, which was amazing. I should have taken pics of it. It was so nice. That night we didn't do much other than go shopping and get a bunch of food for the week ahead of us. Our condo's had kitchens in them, so it was kind of nice to not have to eat out 3 meals a day the entire week. The day after we got there (sunday) it was raining and cold all day. Rhett wasn't feeling well at all that day either, so I was so glad we hadn't planned on going to Disneyland that day. But the kids were SOOOO wound up. They needed to get out and do something. Our condo's had a staff that entertained the kids and planned activities for them everyday. So we headed to the clubhouse and let them play in the arcade and then they colored a really cute Thanksgiving craft thing. Here are a couple pics of the kids playing in the arcade room. They had a blast playing air hockey and the other games in there.
Playing the shooting game with Grandpa Cory :) He is one happy kid!

We were trying to find a bowling alley or something else around us that we could take the kids to do to get rid of some of their energy, but no such luck for us. There was a little outdoor shopping mall that was a couple miles away from us, so I wanted to go over there and look around. JC and Kendall kept Hazen for me, so he could stay and play with them while me and my parents took Rhett and went shopping. All I really wanted to do for my birthday was to go to H&M and go shopping. So that is what we did! I think I was in H&M for at least an hour and my parents just let me shop and try on things while they kept Rhett outside and did other stuff with him. Thanks mom and dad!!!! I loved every minute of it! After we had been shopping for a few hours, we decided to take the kids and head over to Huntington Beach. It was SOOOOO cold!!! I seriously think it was only like 40 degrees and the wind was blowing like crazy. But it was gorgeous. We got there just in time for the sunset. We didn't stay very long at all. We were probably there for about 20 minutes and the kids had had enough and were freezing by then.
All the kids at the beach right before we left to head back. Burr!!!!! I want to go back to the beach on a warm day!

Off to Disneyland the next day!!!!