Use Your Imagination

Without our camera, our blog just isn't interesting. Oh, we have our camera, it's fine, but we forgot to take it with us on the great day we had yesterday, and telling you about it just isn't the same. SO you'll have to use your imagination for this post.

Imagine a shot of a scrumpty carmel coffee cake. That's what we had for breakfast. We ate with Nate & Ashley Murray, who we spent most of the day with.

Now, here we are at the Americana, an upscale new shopping center in Glendale. See the high-priced stores, the trolley, the dancing water fountain? Yes, it was as fun as it looks.

Here's the H&M store, one of my new favorite places. Cheap, cute clothes. It was fabulous.

And here's the best public restroom I have ever visited. OK, so even if I had my camera, I wouldn't have taken a picture of this, but I wanted to. It was beyond clean and pretty, it was... it was... there are no words. The family bathroom (which is a truly marvelous concept) was huge, with a playroom, a kitchenette, and private stalls for nursing and diaper changing. Unbelievable. I'm going back to the Americana just to visit this bathroom again.

Then we went across the street to the Glendale Galleria, a wonderful place. Here's me & Ashley freaking out over the cute clothes in Janie & Jack. And here's the boys freaking out over just about everything in the Apple store.

Here we are eating Sees candy. Hey, if you're imagining it, you might as well taste it too. I had a raspberry creme filled chocolate.

Here's us, exhausted from shopping, almost too tired to drive home. That is, everyone was tired except for Addie, who had napped a bit at the mall.

Speaking of Addie, my favorite moment of the day was when I was making the coffee cake early that morning. Addie likes to sing but has never sung along with the music playing or the person singing. But as I was mixing ingredients and singing "God is so Good" to her, she joined right in and we sang our first mother-daughter duet. It made my mommy heart jump for joy!

I hope your imagination enjoyed this little exercise. Next time I'll try to take real pictures!

Disney's California Adventure

Greg took the day off on Monday and we spent a glorious day at Disney's California Adventure park. We had a great time!
One of the best parts was that it was a Monday in the off season, so most of the waiting lines for the rides looked like this.

We didn't wait any longer than ten minutes for any ride all day- which is especially great when you have a two-year-old.
A nice family shot!

We had a really great time, despite that it was pretty hot. It was still ten degrees cooler here than at home, but not cool. Greg and I came home with some nice sun burns.

Bug's Land Pt.1

Hooray! We're here!
Riding the Heimlich Chew-Chew train- shortest and dullest ride known to man.
Wow- just thrilling. Maybe for Addie anyway.
I especially wondered about the gentlemen behind us who was riding by himself- no children. Hmm....

Bug's Land Pt.2

Riding in a box of raisins. How approrpiate! Greg calls them "nature's candy" and Addie loves them too!
Getting ready to spin with Francis
Here we go!
At Dot's Water Thing.
I would like to know WHY when Daddy goes in with Addie he comes out dry, but when Mommy goes in, the water stops, then comes on when she least expects it and squirts her in the neck. I think it's rigged.

Monsters, Inc.

The Monsters Inc. ride was my favorite part of the whole day! Why? Maybe because we were hot and tired and it involved sitting in the air conditioning. Maybe because I love this movie.
Maybe it was the creatively entertaining signs in the waiting area.
Or riding on a taxi through Monstropolis, seeing Sully wait for Boo in the potty while she's singing that song....
Nope. It was this part. At the very end of the ride, you go past this statue of Roz. I took a picture. Then I heard Roz's voice say "Young lady in the third row, your lens cap is on." I thought it was a recorded thing so I laughed and she says "It's not that funny." Then, as my mouth fell open in shock, she said "Take a picture of my good side."
As our car continued on I heard her harassing the people in the car behind us.
Now that's the stuff that makes me like Disneyland! The unexpected!

More Fun at CA Adventure

Here is Addie riding the carousel
And Greg, taking a picture of the reflection of the three of us on the carousel.
"Daddy, you can have some of my fruit leather"
With Pluto

Faces

Here is the face of a woman who doesn't like heights, while at the top of a very tall ferris wheel.
Veeeeeery tall people.
Here is the face of a reeeeaaaally cute guy!
And theface of the Magic Kingdom- the big mouse himself!

CA Adventure: Pixar Parade

The last big event of our great day at Disney's California Adventure was the Pixar Parade. We are much bigger fans of Pixar than Disney overall, so this was where we saw our favorite characters, some of which Addie actually recognized (because she is oblivious to the whole Disney Princess thing, thank goodness!). However, we've had many a bad reflux night that finds us all on the couch watching "Bug's Life" at 2 am, so....
The Pixar parade was great!
Here's Lightning McQueen who started the parade.
This was Addie's reaction.

This IS her "I like it" face.
Don't be fooled- she's just not the jump around with excitement type.

Some cooks on stilts- pretty cool.
Remmy from Ratatouille! One of our favorites!

Good Thing it was Hot

Because it was such a hot day, we didn't mind that much of the parade involved water. In fact, many of the characters were armed with water squirting devices of some sort or another. Is this payback for them? Having to wear hot costumes and walk a parade route? At least they get to fire water at the guests? Maybe.
Here's Woody, anyway, with his big squirter.
And Sully at the start of the parade.
And then, my favorite part. One of the "CDA" characters walked up, stood right in front of Greg, stopped, took aim, and since Greg still had his camera aimed at the guy, Mr. CDA just blasted him right in the belly. It shocked Greg a bit, since he was aiming the camera for the picture at the time, but the guy was careful to aim for belly, not camera, so it was funny.
We laughed pretty hard.

Addie Meets Dory

The highlight of the Pixar Parade: when Dory came over and gave Addie a kiss.


While out garage-saling this week, I picked up a Nemo and Dory stuffed toy for Addie and we brought them to the park with us. During the parade, she was holding them, and the Dory operator spotted them and came right over to her. She loved it!

We also liked Heimlich...
who came apart and then went back together.


What a great parade!

Funny Photo Shoot

Addie wore this great dress on Sunday and then added my sunglasses to the ensemble.
Greg took her outside for some pictures, and this is what we got:

The day that gets better and better

Today is one of those days that was soooo good, you want to pinch yourself!

First of all, this round of Addie's reflux seems to be clearing up. She was very happy yesterday, able to sleep good last night, and today is cheery and eating normal. All the normal indicators of reflux have gone away! Yippee!

So this morning, she and I went garage sale-ing and had a great time. We found some fun things, like this Fisher Price A-Z zoo set, and a stuffed Nemo and Dory toy (some nice lady gave her the Dory for free!). Also, Addie did a great job of listening and obeying while we were out, and that was better to me than any bargains found.


After coming home with all our bargain goodies, we had a nice lunch and a great afternoon rest. It was nice to be inside comfortably, since it was 104 degrees in the shade today.
This afternoon we went to the pool with the Kropf and Kaneversky families. Addie did great and we all had a blast!
(see post below)
When we got home, we discovered that the much-anticipated shipment from Christian Book distributors had arrived! It was like Christmas! Some of these resources we've been wanting to get for quite awhile. Some of the books we've already read, but wanted to own our own because they were so good. Here's a sneak peek into our minds- we got:
-Volume 4 of a set of "Read Aloud Bible Stories" which are FANTASTIC for toddlers.
-Addie's first Bible, the "Jesus Story Book Bible", which is darling
-"Big Truths for Little Kids" which teaches kids the Catachism. It's a bit over Addie's head still, but we can get started. I know it sounds heavy, but it's just a systematic way of teaching Addie about hte truths about God and this world, so it's not so scary.
-Volume 2 of Steve Green's "Hide 'Em In Your Heart" CDs- we are addicted to Volume 1!
-Another CD- "Go the the Ant" which is many of the Proverbs in song form. They are catchy little tunes. We've borrowed the Kropf's CD and loved it, so are excited to have our own!
-The Heart of Anger, which is a WONDERFUL book for parents, teaching how to deal with all types of anger.
-A book called "Seeing with New Eyes" which we just read through in our Sunday School class. It is very, very good.
-"Shepherding a Child's Heart", one of our favorite books ever, and one every Christian parent should read.


The great day continued with Brooke and Grant Kropf as dinner guests for beef gyros and Greek salad with lots of iced tea. The kids played after dinner with the new zoo toy.

Then, after Addie was down, the Murrays stopped by for a chat and brought fresh strawberries.

What a day! And tomorrow is CHURCH! And no one is sick so we get to go!!!
So many things to be thankful for!