THE HAPPiEST PLACE ON EARTH!!

Back in November we took the kids to Disneyland!  We wanted to go before Melia turned 3 so that she still had free admission.  (And Evera too of course.)  

It took us WAY longer than it should've to get to California.  It took us 2 hours and 45 minutes to go from Draper to Lehi!  (SERIOUSLY!)  I had to stop at University Mall to go to the Disney Store to get Melia's glass slippers.  She HAD to have glass slippers to go to Disneyland.  (In case you were unaware, Melia is OBSESSED with Cinderella.  Or at least that was the phase of obsession she was in at that particular point in time.)

After a long drive to California, we were all exhausted.  We got in around 5 AM and were tired all day.  I had wanted Mike to put Evera to bed but he wanted to be up running round for a while.  When I found them next they'd crashed together on the living room floor.  :)

We got the Disneyland app on the iPad a while ago and Melia has been IN LOVE with it.  It is a super cool app with all of Disneyland on it and California Adventure too.  It has either a video, pictures, or a game for each "ride."  This made actually being there at the real Disneyland 10x more magical.  She kept asking, when we were planning the trip, "You mean, I get to really go INSIDE the iPad?!"  :)

Melia made for the most adorable Cinderella ever.  We stopped at Costco to buy our discounted tickets before we headed to DL.  At Costco when we were eating lunch there was a little girl in line for food who kept pointing at Melia and telling her mom, "Look Mom, it's a PRINCESS!"  Then as we were leaving she said, "Bye little princess!"  It was so stinking cute!

When we first walked into Fantasy Land Melia got so excited because this little statue is on the app and she thought it was so neat to see it in real life!  We had to get a picture!

 

She loved meeting all the princesses.

Ariel was so sweet and complimented Melia on her beautiful dress.

How precious is this little Cinderella?

And this little man is pretty dang precious too.  (And I must admit, that is quite the hunk holding him too!!)

I thought Melia would wear her glass slippers a little bit while sitting in the stroller but that eventually she'd want to wear some better walking shoes.  But no.  She insisted on wearing her "glass slippers" the ENTIRE time we were at DL and she walked around most of the time!  She already understands the phrase "beauty is pain" apparently!  ;)

The funniest part about it, though, was that she kept losing a slipper here and there and she'd have to run back for it.  The crowds at DL would always make a big fuss over how cute it was when she'd lose her shoe because it was like the REAL Cinderella.  I think my favorite part of the entire Disneyland trip was how big of a fuss all the strangers made over Melia, especially the two days she wore her Cinderella costume.

Here are Melia and Spencer in line for Dumbo and Melia lost her shoe again.  Spencer is being the great big brother that he is and is putting her shoe back on for her.  Each time her shoe fell off she would tell us that whoever was putting it back on was "the Duke" like in Cinderella when the Duke goes from house to house to try the shoe on all the girls.

Spencer was our map guy.  He diligently studied the map and would tell us where we needed to go, etc.

 Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Here are my 3 guys on the teacups.

Hands down Melia's favorite ride (although you cannot necessarily tell from this picture).

This picture, however, seemed to capture the pleasure quite well.  Isn't this a perfect "magic of Disney" picture?  I love the lighting and everything!  She is such a little angel.

My little Mickey man, and my sleeping beauty in the background.

Evera enjoyed trying on all the different hats in the store while we waited for Mike and Spencer on Space Mountain (and gave Melia a good opportunity to get a little nap in).

This was Spencer's favorite hat!  ;)

We had fun going into Innoventions.

 Innoventions was probably Ev's favorite part of DL but that's just because he got some good tickle-time in with Daddy!  :)

Although Superman is not a Disney character, people still made a pretty big fuss over Evera in his superman shirt and cape.  :)  (No, he does not have a bow on his head, that is the lamp post in the background with a Christmas ribbon on it.)

THE CAROUSEL!

LOVE this picture of Ev clapping while watching Spencer.

Silly kiddos.

My favorite part of the trip would have to be taking Melia to Ariel's Grotto.  Luckily Melia was free (because she's under 3) so we just paid for a ticket for me and the two of us went together.  It was such a fun Mommy-Daughter date, and it was thoroughly magical!

Here's Melia meeting Ariel at the entrance.

Melia loved how our rolls were in the shape of a flower!

Here's Melia with Aurora.  Definitely my least favorite of the princesses who came around.  She wouldn't even give me enough time to get a good picture (with Melia's eyes open).

Belle was cute and gave us at least a LITTLE more time that Aurora.  (Love that dress.)

Snow White was by far my favorite though.  She was SOOOO SWEET and took the time to really talk to Melia a little.  Melia absolutely adored her!  I LOVE THIS PICTURE!  Look how HAPPY Melia is!  It was worth the price just for this!  I love it.  (Snow White in the past couple years has become my favorite of the Disney Princesses anyway!)

Love this hug.  Melia seriously LOVED her!

Here's my lobster soup.  It was...interesting!  It was good, but not what I'd expected.

Melia got the macaroni and cheese and was very pleased.

Here's the whole restaurant.  It's decorated to be like you're under the sea.

The last princess we got to meet was Cinderella.  Definitely worth the wait.  Melia loved meeting her.  She was super sweet too and took time to really talk to Melia and kept telling her that she was her twin.  Melia loved it.

Melia thought the boxes for our food were pretty funny!  :)

I love that kid!

Here she is decorating her crown and smiling about her birthday cake they brought her!

And blowing out the candle on her special birthday dessert they brought her! 

And here is the dessert plate they brought for us to share.  That white chocolate seashell was my favorite part, but those cupcakes were pretty dang good too.

And here we are together.  Don't mind Melia's green teeth from the cup cake frosting!  :)

This cute little girl sat at the table next to us and they'd traveled here all the way from England.  It was just her and her mom on this trip to America.  Her name is Charlotte and she is 5.  She was super cute and I loved hearing her talk with her English accent.  (Again, don't mind Melia's green teeth!)

Here she is being her silly self showing off her decorated crown and her "Ariel's Grotto" pin.

I think this is my favorite picture!

Here's my little Superman ready to go on Toy Story Mania!  (LOVE THAT RIDE!)

Mike and I were ready too!

And Spence and Melia also!

Melia was excited when we just saw Jessie walking down the street when we got out of Toy Story Mania.  We lucked out on that one and caught her with no line.  We had to walk with her to get her signature and a hug, but it was fun!

 Even Evera liked her!

Here I am with my little bug waiting to see the Bug's Life 3D show.

I especially like this picture of Spencer.

The bug man.

And this one is stinking cute of the two of them.

Melia was TERRIFIED of Hopper when I put her up on the wall to get a picture with him!  He is just a lawn decoration (not with a person inside) but she was SO SCARED!  Look at that face!  (She had ASKED to get the picture in the first place, I wasn't just trying to torture the poor kid!)

Ah, I just love this little man!

"Momma, I'm a big ONE YEAR OLD!"  This is what he does when you ask him how old he is.  He puts up his finger!  :)

Of course one of the biggest highlights of our time at Disneyland was getting to go see the new Cars Land--It really felt like you were in the heart of Radiator Springs!

 Here I am with Spence on Luigi's Flying Tires.  It was pretty fun although the line was ETERNAL!

Mike, Spencer, and Melia on Luigi's Flying Tires.

I love the look on Spencer's face in this picture!

Melia wasn't so sure how she felt about the ride, but she had fun anyway.

 

Here we are meeting Flik

He was SO CUTE with Evera.  Although Evera was slightly terrified of the giant bug!  :)

That evening we ate at California Adventure.  It was FREEZING!   I was waiting in line alone at the soup place while everyone else got food elsewhere.  I honestly contemplated asking the random stranger behind me if we could snuggle for heat.  It was crazy-cold.  But I decided against it.  Luckily Mike came over after a while and snuggled me in line.  

Also, luckily, Ben brought us our sweatshirts when we came after work to meet us for dinner.

Here we are the next morning getting ready for day 2 at DL.  Mike thought it was pretty funny how I decked Melia out in Cinderella and Minnie Mouse dresses for our days at DL and Ev wasn't even wearing pants.  (Of course I DID put pants on him before actually GOING to Disneyland).

Melia was so tired when we first got there and took a little rest on her big brother!  (The best big brother ever!)

We all got to meet Goofy!

We happened to see Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother just coming out to greet people and we got to them before there was a line.  Here is Melia RUNNING to meet them.  It was so stinking cute!

Here are Melia and Spencer with Pinocchio!

And we ran into Snow White again at the wishing well.  (She really is my favorite by far!)

 

 It was a fun time to go because they were in between taking down the Halloween decorations and putting up the Christmas decorations so we got to see a lot of both!

Melia LOVED going into Toon Town and getting to see everyone's houses!  :)  Here she is just lounging in Mickey's chair!  :)

Melia and Spencer especially enjoyed Mickey's piano...or whatever you would call that!

Here is Melia getting Mickey's autograph in her little autograph book! 

And a big hug from Minnie to Mickey!  :)

How cute are these kids?!  Look at that smile on Melia's face after getting some more signatures in her book.  (I am not a big fan of buying stuff at the theme parks because it's usually outrageously expensive, but I must say, I love this little book.  It was a little pricy for what it is, but what better souvenir that one that the kid can collect along the way and then look back at over the years with pictures to go along with each signature.  It was well worth it!)

Here they are driving Mickey's car!  :)

Melia (of course) especially LOVED Minnie's house!  I LOVE this picture!  Look at her looking at herself in Minnie's vanity!

And here she is taking a nap in Minnie's bed!  :)

Melia's favorite part of Minnie's house was her dishwasher where you could actually see the dishes floating around when you pushed the button.

 I absolutely loved Ariel's Grotto, but I think THIS MOMENT took the cake for my favorite moment of the trip!  --  After going through Minnie's house we decided to ask when Minnie would be back for meetings.  They said it wouldn't be too long so we decided to get the line started so we could be close to the front.  There was just one couple in front of us.  After waiting a while Minnie came out and the SECOND she got up onto her porch, Melia DARTED out of the line and ran right up to Minnie and THREW her arms around her.  Minnie did the same.  She got all excited (as excited as a permanently smiling cartoon character can get) when she saw Melia (her little twin "Minnie") running towards her and she hugged her right back!  (I was a little embarrassed because we were not at the front of the line, but luckily the people in front of us were all adults and just thought it was adorable.)

A big hug for Minnie and her Minnie-me!  :)

CUTEST.PICTURE.EVER!

Minnie was so sweet signing Melia's autograph book and Melia was thrilled to get to talk to Minnie!

 Here are Melia and Spencer enjoying some hot chocolate (not really) in Minnie's gazebo on her back porch!

Here I am with my kiddos at the Roger Rabbit fountain.

I loved taking Melia on the Small World ride--which has always been a favorite of mine.

Evera and Spencer had fun too.  But I think Ev's favorite part was just playing peek-a-boo through the seats!

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!

I have heard great things about the Monte Cristo sandwich so I was determined to get it.  We waited FOREVER to get into the Blue Bayou restaurant.  When we finally got in and were getting seated Mike had ran out to put the stroller away or something.  I started looking at the menu and knew Mike was going to have a heart attack if he as much as glanced at these prices--not to mention the Monte Cristo was not even on the menu!  I began to tell the waiter that we were at the wrong restaurant (after they'd made special accommodations to get us in last minute with no reservation).  I was informing him of this as Mike returned.  I was ready to just get out of there (I didn't even want to deal with Mike's money-spending phobias) but he wanted to know what was up.  Luckily we were able to find out that they only serve the Monte Cristo at the Blue Bayou for lunch, but the Cafe Orleans serves it all day.  So we headed over there.  Although it was still quite pricey, it was NOTHING like the Blue Bayou.

Here's Spencer playing games on his menu.

And Melia and Mike taking a little nap together!

 Melia was super excited to eat the one strawberry that was on my plate.  Unfortunately as she went to eat it, she dropped it on the floor.  She was very distraught.  I asked the waitress if we could get another strawberry for her and she brought out a cup full of gigantic strawberries.  Although this picture does not necessarily show her excitement, Melia was THRILLED!

 She was also thrilled with the "birthday treat" with a candle that they brought out to her.  It was pretty much a scone in the shape of Mickey Mouse and covered in powdered sugar.  It was SOOOO GOOD!!

 They also brought her a birthday card signed by the characters.  So cute!

 Seriously, this dessert was the best ever!  YUM!!

 Here she is blowing out her candle.  (Check out the size of that strawberry sitting next to her plate!)

 Small World had been closed earlier in the day and I was totally bummed.  But it re opened that evening and I was so excited!  It was so magical all lit up and decorated for Christmas.

 Here I am with Mike and Ev on Small World.

 Evera enjoyed some more tickle-time with Daddy.

 Here are Melia and Spencer on Small World.  Aren't those cute smiles?

 Mele Kalikimaka!  It was super fun seeing it all decorated for Christmas inside and out.  Instead of singing "It's a Small World" they sang a "Jingle Bells" "Small World" medley.

 Once again, the next morning, Melia was wasted and laid on Spencer's lap while we rode the tram to Disneyland.

 We spent a lot of time that day at Cars Land.  Here I am with Spencer on Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.  That ride was SUPER FUN!  It moved surprisingly fast and was really fun.

 We also had fun going to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.  The kids got to be like Jr. Wildlife Explorers from "UP."  They had fun doing the ropes course and just playing around.

Here's Melia in one of the little tunnels. 

And Evera too!

Here's Spencer FINALLY doing the zip line which he waited in line forever for!

And here he is doing the rock climbing wall. 

Evera's favorite part, by far, was this little slide.  He had so much fun and just wanted to go again and again.

Here are Melia and Spencer with Walt Disney!

One of Melia's favorite things, and where I had my best monents, was at the big warehouse building called "Stage 17" where they had "Dancin' with Disney."  It was super fun.  The characters would come out and dance with the kids and Melia was thrilled.  She was slightly terrified of Cruella De Vil but also enthralled with her.  Melia followed her around quite a bit.  And when Cruella had a "runway walk" challenge, Melia rocked her stuff walking her "Dorothy walk" which really just looks like she is seriously strutting!  It is stinking cute!  Everyone was dying over the adorable little two year old dressed is Minnie Mouse and strutting her stuff right behind Cruella De Vil!  :)

Here Melia is meeting Anastasia (one of Cinderella's evil step sisters).  It was awfully cute.  Melia was a little hesitant, knowing Anastasia is evil, but she actually was super sweet with Melia and was definitely my favorite character that we met there.

By the end Melia was willing to give her a big hug!  :)

And here she is meeting Drizella (the other evil stepsister).

Melia loved getting to dance with Daisy Duck. 

How cute is she?

Melia also got to meet and dance with Baloo, the Big Bad Wolf, Captain Hook, Clarabelle Cow, Genie, Lilo, Mr. Smee, Prince John, the Queen of Hearts, and Timon!  She had lots of fun chasing Captain Hook and Mr. Smee around (at the suggestion of the DJs).  Considering Melia's infatuation with anything evil, those were quite fun characters for her to get to see, although she was rather frightened of them too.

Shortly thereafter, we stumbled upon Sully on one of the back streets at California Adventure.  Here are Melia and her little cousin Lucy taking a peek as Sully through the bushes.  :)

This just might be my favorite picture from the entire trip.  How adorable is this?!

Such cute girls!

I had a blast riding this lady bug ride with Melia and my nieces Kate and Lucy.  Everyone was CRACKING UP and the girls were having crazy-fun!

Here's Ev just bein a cutie in the stroller.  Look at those eyes!  (Completely unedited!)

We got prime seats for the parade.  Here we are waiting.

By this point Melia was obviously OVER waiting!  :)

Aunt Kir held Evera during dinner and he enjoyed his control over the food!  :)

And Daddy held Melia. 

After dinner it was FINALLY my turn to get to ride the new Radiator Springs Racers!!  As everyone else had already ridden it except me, we used our "baby swap" passes and Kir, Spencer, Jake and I got to go on the ride.  We still had to wait in line for an hour (in spite of using our passes to skip most of the line), but it was worth it.  It was SUCH a fun ride.  And it was also fun to see what Ben (Mike's brother -- Kir's husband) has been working on for a while now.  He contributed to creating the ride.  (In this picture, Kir and I are on the back row--I'm in the middle, Kir is on the right, and Spencer and Jake are in the front--Spencer middle, Jake right.)

Our last full day in California we spent relaxing and recuperating before our long ride home.  We spent some time at Ben and Kir's neighborhood pool.  It was super fun.

Ev enjoyed the wagon!

Here are two cute, clean girls ready for bed after their bath.  It's fun for Melia to have cousins so close to her in age.  This is Lucy.

That night Mike, Ben, Kir and I all went and did a session at the Newport Beach Temple.  It is so fun to get to see different temples all over the world.  I hope to get to see a lot more in the near future.

In spite of the fact that all 3 of our kids came down with the croup (yes, including 11 year old Spencer), and the fact that we had to spend a good portion of our time at doctor's offices, urgent cares, and pharmacies trying to track down the proper prescriptions to treat their illnesses, we still had a great trip! 

This is probably our last Disneyland trip staying at Ben and Kir's house for quite a while as they are now moving to Shanghai China!  We are excited for them though, and DEFINITELY want to visit them there!  Ben just got his DREAM JOB as an IMAGINEER for DISNEY!  He is going to be working for them as the project engineer of the new Tron ride going in at Shanghai Disney!  I cannot wait to visit them there!