Disneyland vacation 2011

So, I'm a little late in creating this post - just about a month to be more exact.  We planned an early birthday present for Madison this year, Disneyland in September.  We took Maddie when she was 4 1/2 and we decided 6 1/2 was a good time to go again.  This time Maddie would be tall enough to go on almost every ride.  We didn't take her until she was 46" the first time because it would eliminate over half of Disneyland.

We left for Disneyland on Sunday morning (September 18th) at 4am.  It's about an 8  hour drive, so we wanted to get an early start.  Let's rephrase that - Jason wanted to get an early start.  He would have been happy to leave at 2am or 3am.  We arrived at our hotel in  Anaheim around lunch time and unpacked.  Then it was off to Huntington Beach.  Maddie was so excited to play in the sand and in the ocean.  Last time we took her to the ocean, she wasn't really swimming on her own and was terrified of the waves.  This time, it was definitely a different story.  She's a real fish in the pool now, so we were hoping she would be timid about the ocean.  She did really well but wouldn't swim - the water was freezing.  So she and Jason chased waves while Mommy took pictures.  Then we built a few sand castles and headed off to Fat Burger to eat dinner.

Monday was our first day at Disneyland.  We could barely get Maddie to eat breakfast; but she finally believed that the gates didn't open until 10am - so we had plenty of time to eat.  We checked Yelp! and other sites to find a good place for breakfast near the hotel/Disneyland.  We are not the type to eat where the tourists eat.  We love to research and find a local 'mom & pop' place.   We found a great place called The Original Pancake House.  It was in downtown Anaheim and yummy!  We ended up eating there 2 mornings of our trip.  We got in line at Disney about 9:30 and were excited to start our day.  We started by getting an autograph book for Maddie.  She didn't want to use her old one from 2 years ago - she wanted a new one with a 'tiara' pen.  Then we dashed off to Indiana Jones ride.  Maddie was finally tall enough and there was only a 5 minute wait.  She didn't really care for it - but at least she tried and didn't cry!  We also hit the Haunted Mansion.  It was closed on our last trip and this time it was decorated for Halloween - what a great time for that ride.  Maddie didn't quite like the thunder/lightening on the 'elevator' but she enjoyed the rest.  We got to see Winnie the Pooh/Tigger that morning as well.  Throughout the day we did the Thunder Mountain Railroad a few times and also the updated Star Tours.  Later that day we hit the new Aerial ride in California Adventure and ended up being completely soaked on the Grizzly Rapids ride.  We saved it for the end of the day for a reason!

 

The second day was the early entry day - so we had breakfast at the restaurant outside the hotel.  We immediately did the Matterhorn ride and most of Fantasy Land.  We even got to see Rapunzel, Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter.  We also stood in an agonizing long line to meet a number of the princesses.  It made Maddie so happy, but wow - what a long morning that turned into!  We also were able to get into Pixie Hollow and see the fairies.  We spent more time at California Adventure and did Soaring over California.  That is one of my favorite rides.

Dav 3 was probably the slowest day of all - it was just going back to do all of our favorite rides one last time.  We did Matterhorn and Thunder Mountain Railroad at least 3 or 4 times each.  We also got to do the Monster's Inc and Toy Story rides multiple times without waiting in any lines.  That was great.  We had a great trip and hit the road early on Thursday morning to head home. The next Disney adventure for us will be a Disney Cruise while Maddie is still young enough to really enjoy the Disney characters!

Look at what we did today!

Today was a long day finishing off a long, long week. The best part was that we made it through the entire week. Maddie was sick with strep throat last Wednesday - the 3rd day of school! Anyway - back to the focus of this post. ORGANIZING!!

Over the last week, I have become addicted to reading people's blogs. Pinterest was the start of it all. From a picture my friend, Anastasia, pinned, I found my way to a blog named, A Bowl Full of Lemons. From there I read a ton of her posts, clicked on her blog list to find others that I loved and so on and so on. (FYI - I have linked these blogs to my page so that others can enjoy them as much as I have. Of course, if you're not into organizing, you might not enjoy them).

One of the blogs I have loved is, I Heart Organizing. From her blog, I got the ideas for the adorable stickers that I used today in organizing Maddie's coloring books, crayons, markers, papers, paints, etc. I did forget to take a before picture; but below is the finished product.

To start, I removed everything but her shoe cubby from the floor of her closet. Then I re-purposed a wire shelf I had in my pantry and was no longer using and decided to use it for holding coloring supplies, etc. I even found these adorable plastic letter trays at Target in the $1 section. Then we started purging and Maddie easily gave up over 1/2 of her old coloring books she was "too old" for. In 2 1/2 hour I went from a disorganized craft area just inside her door to 2 organized areas with everything organized, categorized and even labeled with these adorable labels.

I think it turned out quite well and Maddie now has a renewed interest in putting things back where they belong. Next it's my office and then the pantry with these cute labels. I'm going to print out some, laminate them and ziptie them to my baskets in the linen closet, pantry, etc.

This is the cubby organizer that used to look like a small tornado hit it...  Now it's cleaned out, labeled and everything is organized!

 The last two pictures are from her newly organized closet with all her coloring/painting supplies.

1st day of 1st grade...

Today was a big day for my little one. The 1st day of 1st grade. At last, after many weeks of asking 'how much longer', Maddie started a 'real' grade as she calls it. She told me that Kindergarten didn't really count as a 'real' grade because it didn't have a number.

She was so excited about today that she woke up at 5am and asked "Can we get up now, Mommy? It's the 1st day of school and I'm sooooo excited". It took all I had to get her to stay in bed until 6am. Then we had a special breakfast in bed - scrambled eggs and bacon. For me, that's a special breakfast on a school/work day. Normally she gets cereal or frozen waffles :-) Next, she put on her new dress and new black shoes and put a barrette in her hair. Then came the pictures. The dreaded pictures! She and Jason both would rather never have their pictures taken.

Finally at 8:10am we were off. We parked, walked to the playground and found Maddie's best friend, Darian. Sadly for them, they are not in the same class this year. The good news, they told me, is that they can see each other during lunch and recess. Then it was a quick picture of the girls and a swift "bye mommy" and she was off to play. I was proud of myself this year, no tears. Last year, they were streaming by this time.

According to Maddie, the best part of 1st grade so far:
(1) Each person has their own desk (not a table like in Kindergarten)
(2) Ms. Cangelosi gives you stickers for getting a 6 on the behavior chart (In Kindergarten, you had to get a 7 before you got a sticker)
(3) We keep a reading log and she receives stickers for reading a lot of books
and
(4) Her classroom door is closest to the recess/exit door

That's my girl. A few pictures to share...

Recipes and Cooking

So I found a new site that is so ME!  It's called "A bowl full of lemons".  This blog is all about organizing and cleaning, etc.  Love the stuff and I'm only through about 1/16th of the site.  She has weekly challenges and one of them is to organize your recipes in a binder.  This is a great idea.

Lately, against my will, I've become a recipe freak.  My  husband, Jason, loves to find recipes for new dishes.  I think, at times, he has forgotten who he married.  I'm a Hamburger Helper, Ragu spaghetti sauce, I don't like to cook type of person.  I'm a very picky eater and can eat the same things over and over.  Not my hubby!  His nickname (from me) is "food snob".  He dislikes most chain restaurants and really loves the 'ma/pa' individually owned restaurants.  He grew up in Scottsdale where those types of restaurants are easily found.  Not so much here in Sierra Vista.  Tanuki's is Jason's absolute favorite in town I think - authentic Japanese food and the sweetest owner - Ms. Maggie.

I got away from the point - I have been collecting a ton of recipes lately.  I even subscribed to Cooking Light magazine.  Scary!

Jason LOVES to send them to me in an email at work with the subject of "Make This" or "Make"  :-)  So I have tried to write them in a recipe book but mostly I have internet recipe printouts stuffed in my recipe book.  So I think I will make this recipe binder and will post the results here.  If anyone else would like to join me, here is the link:



http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/2011/02/week-3-challenge-recipe-binder.html

Happy Cooking!

Try, try, try again

Hmmm...I always thought when Maddie was first born I'd keep this great journal of her life. Then down the road, when she's old enough, I'd be able to present it to her like some great read. Well - like most new moms - I started off strong and then it fell to the side. I wrote in her journal a lot when I was pregnant and the first 9 months or so of her life. Then, life took over all my extra time. I went back to work, we moved back to my hometown and my sweet baby girl took off and started crawling and still didn't sleep through the night. Extra time was a thing of the past...

So six years later, here I am. I thought about doing this before and it had always gone to the wayside. Well - here I try again. With Maddie 6 1/2 and me trying to go back to school to get my Master's degree, I thought this might be as good a time as any. I should have plenty of good stories to share. Kindergarten was full of them - I will have to capture some here one day.

I feel like this will be a great place to share the stories of our life. Work, home, school and being Maddie's Mom!

More to come in the days ahead...