Mommy's Favorite Moments

I know we already did a Disneyland post, but I wanted to share my favorite things from our trip. There is always something that makes it amazing. So here are my favorite moments and pictures.

First of all, Siena is amazing. She walks and runs all over Disneyland with her own two feet just like her parents. What's truly incredible is that it's kind of double the distances if you think about how short her legs are! And she NEVER complains or begs to ride. She also made me tear up at the Halloween party by switching seats for her sister without being asked because she saw that Cara needed to sit by me.

The girls rode Space Mountain twice this time (once with each parent) which is amazing because it is switched to Ghost Galaxy and has a scary element added. In this picture, Siena has covered her eye with her eye patch and was closing the other one. She also told herself stories in her head like she was a pirate protecting her crew onboard a ship in a storm to help get her through the ride. Cara was just terrified.

This is how Iva liked to spend her time when she waited off of rides. She pushed her own stroller around!

She also used her sneaky defense mechanism of cuddling with strangers whenever she would get scared. It's kind of hilarious. She just leans into you farther and snuggles down if she is scared, no matter who you are!

One of the best things about this trip occurred Friday night. We got a hotel close to Disney for just one night so we could change into costumes and not travel far that night after it was over. They gave us a complimentary upgrade to a two bedroom suite. (We badly needed that the LAST time we stayed there when we squeezed into a tiny room with Angie and Eric!) We were all so elated that we just played in the room for two hours. The girls even had sword fights. Each bed was a boat. Iva even played the whole time. She giggled and ran around like a crazy person!

This also made me smile. Cara got to use our amazing Sally costume from two years ago with Siena, but we jazzed it up for the beginning of the party. Sally really rocks those ears!

Iva had a lot of my favorite moments. She and I spent one morning running around California Adventure kind of alone. She was adorable and sweet and look at all these great pictures I got!

When I showed her the water, she recoiled for half a second and then just put both hands in and almost laid her whole body against it. You could tell she loved the feeling of it pouring over her arms.

AMAZING PHOTO!

And this perfect shot I finally got on Astro Orbiters! The castle in that background!

On her actual birthday, Siena requested to ride Goofy's Sky School as her very first ride. That paid off! She got to be "The Aviator of the Day" which gave us a fast pass for that ride all day. She loved it. They also let her ride four times in a row because there was no one else over there.

The cool part about this trip was that the favorite rides were Goofy's Sky School and Big Thunder Mountain. That's different from our other trips, but it really worked out because they are less popular and you can always sneak in more rides. In fact, the girls and I got a bonus ride in on Big Thunder because as we got off they randomly asked if anybody else wanted to hop on the next train and we took up the offer! What can I say, it's my happy place.