Joyful Noises times six!: Documenting Disneyland

My inspiration for this record of my days:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” -Anna Quindlen

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Documenting Disneyland

It has gotten nearly impossible to plan family activities that appeal to children of all ages. With everyone going a million different ways these days, we really felt the need to drag them all away from friends, sports and commitments, and take some time to just be together.

So...we took the family to Disneyland.

We chose December so we could be there for the Christmas decorations and, best of all, the magical snow in the evening!

Please excuse the blurriness. These were taken on our way out of the park after getting COMPLETELY soaked from the rain. Eli had just gotten off of Splash Mountain, wet his pants, and fallen fast asleep in my arms.

Unfortunately, it rained almost non-stop the day we were in Disneyland. The evening shows and SNOW was cancelled! Sad! But because of the rain, lines were short, and we were able to go on our favorite rides over and over again! Here are a few of the favorite rides:

Splash mountain. The kids went around and around on that ride. They didn't even have to get out of their log. Nobody else was crazy enough to be in line.

Space mountain

Space Mountain. Jeff had to jump out of line to take Simon to the bathroom, so some random guy ended up in our picture.

Eli was SO CLOSE to being tall enough for the rides that sometimes they let him on, sometimes they didn't. Finally Jeff got the idea to put napkins in his shoes. It was just the little bit of help that he needed. After that he rode every ride with us! And he loved them all!

Getting ready for the CARS ride. Simon was a crazy driver!

Did I mention that it rained on us??

This is a tradition for us- taking a picture in front of the White Rabbit's door. It was such a cute picture when there were just a couple of little ones. Now we pretty much just block the whole front entrance!