Our St. Patrick's Day!

I love holidays! I love traditions! And now that I have my own little family to enjoy making traditions with! I have never really had very many traditions for St. Patrick's day other than to wear green and spend some time with family. This year I decided to look into what St. Patrick's day is really about and make some traditions with my little family.

First, I want to share a little summery of what I found out about the meaning of St. Patrick's day. I never knew that St. Patrick was a person, until last year when I read about him on some one's blog. All I knew growing up about St. Patrick's day was, you wear green so you don't get pinched, the clover was a symbol, that leprechauns had something to do with it and it had something to do with Ireland.

Anyways this is what I found out with the help of google.

St. Patrick was a person who's name wasn't Patrick when he was born. He was born in Britain, was kidnapped and taken to Ireland at he age of 16. He was made a slave and his job was a sheep herder. He was there for 6 years and returned to Britain. He then started to have visions that he needed to go back to Ireland and be a missionary to the people, to bring Christianity to the Irish. He took on his priesthood vowels and became a priest. He took on the name Saint Patrick and brought Christianity to the Irish. He died on March 17th, that is why we celebrate it on March 17th. My reason now to celebrate St. Patrick's day is that he brought Christianity to the Irish!

Why the color green and the clover. It is a myth but could be true that St. Patrick taught the holy trinity with a clover. Green comes from the land in Ireland. It is covered in hills of green.

Leprechauns and how St. Patrick's day made it to the U.S. There was a potato famine in Ireland and the people left Ireland to take care of their families. A lot of them came to New York. They celebrated St. Patrick's day and it caught on in America. As for the leprechauns, people came up with this by the way the people were dressed when they came from Ireland.

There you have a short version of what St. Patrick's day is about.

Anyway, this what we did on St. Patrick's day.

I noticed last year from people's blogs that one of their traditions was to dye food green. I decided to take on this tradition. I made green waffles for our breakfast!

Ayla enjoying her green waffle!

I enjoyed mine with the usual strawberries and whip cream! Yummy!

Then we got dressed in our St. Patrick's day shirts!

We headed out the door to go shopping with my mom that day!

My Mom and I took Ayla to McDonald's so she could play!

I think I will make this a tradition, to take my kids to eat somewhere, where there is an inside play ground! Ayla had so much fun!

I also made some green chocolate chip cookies! We had them after dinner of course!

Ayla enjoying her cookie!

For an activity, I came up with a tradition, to have a pot of gold hunt!

I had these fake coins that I hid in certain parts of the house. Each coin had a new location of the house written on the back that Ayla knew. She had to find the coin in that location and have her daddy read the next one, until she found the pot of gold.

Here was the pot of gold.

I just bought some simple things from the dollar store and wrapped them in yellow tissue paper. I couldn't find any yellow wrapping paper, so the tissue paper had to do.

I recorded the whole pot of gold hunt on video and so the pictures down below of the hunt were taken from the video.

Ayla at the computer desk!

Handing it to Daddy!

I hid one on Kermit!

She found the one by the sink!

One in the apples!

One in her room on her doll house!

One in Mrs. Potts, that she loves to bathe with!

She had to find one in "Toy Story 2!"

She found the pot of gold in her closet!

And opened her gold!

This was a little fishing rod with fish.

At the end she was asking, where the gold was!

I guess she was wanting a whole pot of those gold coins! I guess she had more fun with those than opening the gifts! LOL!! It is the simple things in life that make us happy!

Then we played with the bubbles that she got from her pot of gold!

I love this picture!

We had a fabulous St. Patrick's day! It has a whole new meaning to me now!

Disneyland trip! Part 3

Our last day at Disneyland and our day at the beach!

I can't believe it has taken this long to get to this post done! I have been busy!

We started our last day at Disneyland at "California Adventure." We wanted to take Ayla on the "Monsters Inc." ride because she has loved that movie lately. She really liked it! I liked that it was a 10 min wait!

After the ride, we came out and saw Sulley! We went up and got in line but right when we were next in line a guy came up and said it was time for Sulley to leave. I was not happy about that! I really feel they should come a little bit earlier before the character goes on break and cut of the line at the back of the line. Instead of having people wait in line for nothing. Luckily, Ayla did get to go up and hug him, so she did meet him.

Here is a video of Ayla meeting Sully!

Here is a picture of the hug!
I got this picture from the video.

After Sulley, we went and rode the "Francis" lady bug ride in "A Bugs Life Land."

Then we headed over to the "Toy Story Mania" ride.

We waited in line for a hour and a half!! Can you believe that? An hour and a half!! This was definitely the busiest day while we were there! Notice, Ayla's new hat? Ya, this is what we had her wear instead of sunblock. It worked great!!!!

Here is Ayla in her 3D glasses getting ready to ride!
We really enjoyed the ride! It was awesome!

After we rode "Toy Story Mania," we went over to Disneyland and rode the train around. Ayla really loves the train because of the dinosaurs.

After the train Ayla feel asleep and I went and rode a couple of rides by myself, "Thunder mountain railroad" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." It was so much fun riding, "Thunder mountain railroad! " It was my second time ever riding that ride! I rode it on our honeymoon but the next time I was there, I was pregnant and the 3rd time I had been to Disneyland they had it closed.

After I rode those rides, we were getting kind of discouraged because the shortest lines were 30 to 45 minute waits. We almost through in the towel but then 7:00 pm hit and Fantsyland was thinning out of people, so we were able to ride a whole bunch of rides within the last 2 and a half hours that the park was opened.

We rode....

*Dumbo twice, once because Kurt rode it with Ayla without me and the second time because I wanted to ride it. It was my first time on Dumbo.*

Here is a video of us riding Dumbo

We also rode...

*Peter Pan's Flight*

* Pinocchio's Daring Journey,twice, no line*

*Casey Jr. Circus Train*

In Toontown we rode...

*Gadget's Go Coaster, 3 times, no line*

*Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin*

So by the end of the night I rode a total of 15 rides and Kurt and Ayla rode a total of 14 rides. Most of those ride were ridden between 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm. I am so glad we didn't throw in the towel!!! Another lesson learned, go to Fantsyland and Toontown during the evening.

And right before we left for the night Ayla got this large lolly pop which she dropped and broke of course.

She also got a plush "Sulley" (he is holding Mike Wazowski) and a plush "Boo" that day. I would say she made out like a bandit!

The next day was the day we were leaving California, so we went to the beach for a little while.

This looks totally insane, we have our coast on and we are in the water. It really wasn't that cold. The wind was though when it blew.

Here is a video of Kurt and Ayla!

I wrote this in the sand because it was Ayla's actual birthday that day.

Ayla liked writing in the sand too!

And she loved covering my feet in the sand!

I love this picture! I think it is so awesome!

We had a great time at the beach!

That night when we got to our hotel in Las Vegas, we gave Ayla a cupcake with candles and we sang " Happy Birthday" to her. She also got a couple of small gifts.

Well that's it! That was our trip! It was a fun!

The things I learned...

*Everything doesn't go as planned*

*Do better research on the busiest times of the year at Disneyland*

*Pack medicine for you kids including Binadryl*

*Even under the some of the worst circumstances, you can still have a fun time at Disneyland with your family because Disneyland is the best!*

*It doesn't matter what happens, I will still have a great time spending time with my little family because we have no distractions of our normal busy day to day life when we are on vacation.*

Disneyland trip! Part 2

Our second day at Disneyland!

When we woke up, Ayla didn't have her fever anymore and seemed to be feeling fine. We thought it must have been the sunburn she got the day before. We had bought some sensitive sunblock for her sensitive skin but she still got burned. At least that is what we thought. We went to Target and bought some medicine for her any way. Then we headed to Disneyland. We got there around 1 pm.

When we entered the main street in Disneyland, there was a mother duck and her duckling walking down the street. It was so cute! One of the ducklings fell in between one of the tracks. Some little kid helped it out. It was okay but it was sad to see it get stuck for the brief moment.

Our main goal on this day was to have Ayla meet characters. Mainly we wanted her to meet Tinkerbell because she loves her and Cinderella. Ayla loves her too. The first thing we did is go to meet Tinkerbell.

This a picture of the boat the fairies made and the little house that Lizzy made in the 3rd Tinkerbell move. If you have seen the movie then you know what they are. I had to get a picture! We love the 3rd movie! It was fun to see every thing set up like the 3rd movie. We waited in line for 45 minutes which was better than the day before, which was a 60 minute wait.

Here we are at the "Fairies Welcome" sign.

The first fairy me met was Iridessa, which was perfect because Iridessa is Ayla's favorite out of Tinkerbell's friends.

Video of Ayla meeting Iridessa!

The picture with Iridessa!

Then she met Tinkerbell!!!

Video of Ayla meeting Tinkerbelle! I thought Tinkerbell was so cute! I loved how she grabs Ayla's face and giggles at Ayla in this video. I only wish I would have kept filming!

Ayla's picture with Tinkerbell! I think Tinkerbell was her favorite to meet out of all the characters she met.

I took this picture as we left after meeting Tinkerbell. I love this picture! Ayla rode on Daddy's shoulders for most of the time at Disneyland! Notice the little Minnie Mouse, dressed as Tinkerbell, she is holding? Ya, she got that at the little gift stand right outside the exit from meeting Tinkerbell. They really know what they are doing with those gift shops and stands. We didn't mind getting it for her because we agreed that she could get one toy each day we were there.

Then we decided to go and try to meet the princesses. Ayla fell asleep when we first got in line, so Kurt took her off to the side to sit down, while I waited in line for an hour and a half. When I got close to the front Kurt brought Ayla over. She was still asleep but she did wake up for the princess. She got to meet, Ariel, Belle and Tiana!

Video of Ayla meeting Ariel! I love how Ariel asks Ayla if she had sweet dreams!

Ayla's picture with Ariel!

Video of Ayla meeting Belle!

Ayla's picture with Belle!

Video of Ayla meeting Tiana!

Ayla's picture with Tiana!

We bought this picture of Ayla with Tiana. It was the only picture Ayla didn't look like she had just woken up. I love this picture! I think it is a sweet picture! I have it on my desktop on my laptop now!

I had to get my picture with Tiana! I wanted to see her last May when I came with my sister and my dad but we didn't see any princesses. I was happy! I thought she was beautiful!

After the princesses, Ayla fell back asleep. She slept for most of the day while we were at Disneyland. I guess she wasn't feeling well! :(

We then headed over to California's Adventure. We had to get our tickets from our reservations for "World of Color." Kurt rode the "California Screamer" while we were over there. Ayla woke up just in time to see her Daddy take off on the roller coaster.

After Kurt got off the coaster, we noticed that Ayla was having an allergic reaction to her sunblock. She had a rash on her face, so the sunburn we thought she had the day before was not a sunburn. Kurt ended up running all over Disneyland for an hour and a half, looking for Benadryl because they were sold out all over the park. He ended up going all the way down, Downtown Disney to a hotel before he found some. I had wiped the sunblock off of Ayla's face the best I could and by the time Kurt got back to us, she was doing better. Next time I will pack Benadryl too! I learned a lot on this trip!

We then watched "World of Color!" I thought it was awesome!

So that was our second day, Ayla and I didn't go on a single ride that day but we did meet characters. We wanted to make sure Ayla was able to meet characters while we were at Disneyland. So we did achieve that goal that day! Even though Ayla slept most of the day and she had the allergic reaction, we still had a good time and we felt we accomplished what we wanted to that day. I only wish that one of the princesses was Cinderella! Maybe the next time we go to Disneyland Ayla will meet her!

I so love Disneyland!

Stay tuned for one more post of our trip!