The happiest place on Earth!

We were able to go down to Disneyland last week with my oldest brother and his family and my parents. It was a jam packed 4 days (3 of those at Disneyland) and we were all pretty much exhausted by the end, but it was the most fun we've had in a long time.

We went there when we first moved out of Utah but Kiara was only 14 months old. It was so much fun to see her recognize all of the characters and themes this time and overall she was pretty good and loved it. She waited in line a lot better than I thought she would and she didn't get scared of any ride. The hardest part was there was so much stimulation and things she wanted to see. She was none too happy with us when we didn't let her run off to explore!

I think Kiara's favorite area was Toon Town. That is actually where she first started walking on her own when we went last time and she loved it even more this time around.

Kiara also loved having her cousins around 24-7. It was so great to be able to experience this with them. I don't think Whitney stopped smiling the whole time we were there!

We've decided to make it a tradition to take a picture outside of Snow White's castle every time we go. Here is the 2007 version:

And present day:

I think the only thing that hasn't changed since then is that Bunny-Bear is still permanently attached to Kiara.

We were so excited to have Grandma & Papa with us on this trip. Kiara really can't get enough of either of them. Thanks for making the sacrifice to come with us, it really meant a lot.

We were also thrilled to have Ben with us for 4 straight days. The closer we get to April the less we see of him so this was great to have some family time.

One of the greatest things about Disneyland is you throw all of your normal rules out the window and get away with stuff you normally can't. For instance, stealing Dad's ice cream cone for which he just stood in line for 20 minutes. It's a good thing she's cute!

Until next time Walt...thanks for the great time!

Pixar Play Parade

Another one of the highlights of our Disneyland experience was the Pixar Play Parade in California Adventure. We ended up watching it all 3 days we were there and I think we all liked it even more each day. The kids LOVED the music and characters. I think they all danced through the whole parade each day. The costumes really were incredible (pun intended) and so was the "acting" of all of the characters.

Kiara was pointing details out to us the whole time to make sure we didn't miss a thing.

My niece Lindsey kept pulling this move out while she was dancing and as soon as Kiara saw Linds getting a reaction for it she decided to play along. She actually kept doing the move randomly throughout the trip. It was hilarious!

Princess Dot's puddle park

We were extremely lucky with the weather in Disneyland. Thursday & Friday stayed right around 70 and then Saturday it got up closer to 80. Someone had mentioned to me to let the kids wear their swimsuits one day because there was a fun splash park in California Adventure. It was the perfect solution to the heat on Saturday and the kids had a blast! I even walked through in my clothes and was quite refreshed. This was definitely one of the biggest highlights for me and if I'm not mistaken, I think my little girl liked it a lot too! She was in a state of pure bliss!

You've got a friend in me

We saw a lot more characters at Disneyland than we thought we would. And we didn't have to wait in line for more than a few minutes to see any of them.

Kiara's favorites were definitely Minnie & Goofy. She shared her most prized-possession, Bunny-Bear, with Minnie. That shocked all of us because she didn't let go of that thing the whole time we were there!

She hung out with Goofy for a good 3-4 minutes and didn't want to leave him. He was perfect and played with her in just the right way. He had been joking with the girl in front of us and messing up her hair and I found myself getting very nervous that he would do the same thing to Kiara. Luckily we dodged that bullet and he didn't go anywhere near her head.

By the time we got to Mickey's place Kiara had realized that there was a whole cool house with super cool toys and things waiting for her so she kind of just blew him off. Poor Mickey...

Kiara has taken a recent liking to Jasmine and was so excited to see her and Aladdin walking around. This was the longest line in which we waited to see anyone and I was disgusted by how many adults pushed their way past the little kids to get these characters' autographs. Kiara waited very patiently though and even though she's not really smiling in the pictures, she loved meeting all of these fun friends. She has talked excitedly about it several times since then.