Friday, October 26, 2012

The Dolphins at "The Mirage!"

We left for our Disneyland vacation on the 31st of September. We drove half way. We spent the night in Las Vegas. The next morning we had a surprise for Ayla! we took her to "The Mirage" to see dolphins for her first time! Ayla has been into dolphins lately.

 It was so hot!
I of course brought the umbrella for shade!



Happy girl with the dolphins!

I have gone to see the dolphins so many times at "The Mirage." That is how I knew they were there.  My family used to go to Vegas once or twice a year, while I was growing up. Every time I have gone to see the dolphins, they have just been swimming around. Well we went at the right time, this time! They were training them and had them jumping out of the water! I was so happy that Ayla got to see this!




Cute girl with her Daddy!

I was sad to hear that the dolphin named, Squirt had passed. The first time I ever saw the dolphins at "The Mirage," was a couple days after Squirt was born. They showed a video of the birth. Then over the years I saw him grow up. I was told he passed about 3 years ago and that average age of a dolphin is 25 to 30 years old in captivity and less in the wild. It made since to me because the first time I had gone there was over 20 years ago. They did however have two new little baby dolphins that were adorable. I wished I would have gotten a picture of them.

We also went into the Secret Garden there.
  
 Ayla on a statue!


 One with her Daddy!


 They have different big cats in the garden, mainly white tigers. You can kind of see one of the tiger in the picture above.


 Can you see the tiger in the background?


 Here is a better view!


"Look at that cat, Dad!"
I got this picture off of Kurt's phone.


 And here is the cat she was pointing at,


 There is a lion in this one. It is really hard to see it.


 Cute girl!


I just love this girl!

Ayla liked her surprise!

It was fun to show her dolphins! One of these days we will have to take her to Sea World!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Bridals!

A month before we went to Disneyland, we started to watch Disney movies to get even more into the mood. We watched a lot of the old classics's like "Peter Pan, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Pinocchio, etc." That way Ayla would know what everything was in Fantasyland. We also watched a lot of the newer movies too. We watch almost one movie a day before we left. It was fun! I will do it again!

Well a week before we left, Ayla got done watching, "The Princess and the Frog." She loved how their was a wedding at the end! She then started to try a dress up like a bride. She put her Dad's dress shirt on her head as a veil and held the bouquet my sister had at my wedding. We have let Ayla use the flowers for dress up. I then remembered that Kurt's parents had brought by some dress up clothes and one of them was a little wedding dress so I dress Ayla up in it and took some pictures! It was fun!


She did this all on her own!


She is loves to pose for pictures!





I had her do this one!


And this one!


And this one!


I loved this one!


She insisted on getting into the tree! It turned out cute!


She also insisted on sitting on the cart to her little roller coaster!


Little ham!




We also decided to go and by a couple of princess dresses for Ayla to wear at Disneyland. We bought them from the Halloween store, "Halloween City." Which she never wore there but I still brought them just in case. She did do Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique though the last day we were there! A special thanks to Kurt's mom for doing that for Ayla! It will be one of the Disneyland posts of course!

We bought her "Belle."



I love her arms in this one! She looks like a dancer!




And my favorite princess, Aurora! Aka Sleeping Beauty!




I love this girl!

It was a lot of fun taking these pictures!

It was fun to use my camera and get some practice in! I loved my subject!

Hopefully I will be able to get better at photography. I didn't edit these pictures other than cropping them.



Monday, October 15, 2012

Disneyland countdown!

We went to Disneyland over a week ago!
 I decided to do a countdown for it! I made the countdown over a month ago!

Here is Ayla with the countdown!

I wish I would have taken pictures step by step but I didn't so I will do the best I can to explain how it was done.

 I borrowed some hole punches from my friend, DeeDee. I made the Mickey heads out of two different  hole punches. I also used black poster board, instead of scrapbook paper or card stock, to save on money.

I went online and found 30 different things at Disneyland, mainly rides, to put on the Mickey heads.

I scrapbooked the top. 
I wish I would have had scrapbook pages but I didn't. I didn't want to spend a ton of money either, so I made them with Internet and PhotoShop. I also used colored paper I already had.

 I made it so I can change the pictures. That way the countdown will never be out dated. 


 After all, Ashlyn hadn't been there yet, so all the pictures were of Kurt, Ayla and I.
The one with the castle was on our Honeymoon! This was the first time I had been to Disneyland and loved it! I was hooked after that! The rest of the pictures were when Kurt, Ayla and I went in February of 2010!


The actual numbers were separate Mickey heads with different Disney characters.
I went online and found 30 characters to put on them.


 This is what it looks like with all the characters on it!


 I loved that Mickey was the last to take off! Under Mickey was "Mickey's Toontown!" If you notice, above Mickey was Snow White. The number 7 was put on her by accident but I love how it worked out!


 I even did Jack Sparrow with "Pirates of the Caribbean" under him! That is my favorite ride there!
I tried to match up as many characters with the picture underneath them but not all of them were like that.

I then had the whole thing laminated and then used a small dots of velcro on one of the ears.


I also put some plastic covering (those plastic sleeves you use for paper to put in a binder) where the pictures were going to make protection for the pictures. I then punched a couple of wholes at the top and thread some ribbon through them to hang it.

I love it!

We had a lot of fun doing the countdown with Ayla! She was so excited every time to take a number off! She always wanted to see what was underneath the number. She wanted to know if she could ride the rides that were under them. She was way excited about the "Tea Cups!"

We were not going by ourselves this time. We were meeting up with our friends, Amy, Joe and their family. Their daughter is one of Ayla's best friends, so we were really excited that Ayla was going to be  with Emily at Disneyland!

So at the time I was making the countdown, I decided to make some sugar cookies for the occasion as well!

 Mickey heads!
I got the cookie cutter the last time we had been to Disneyland! 


 Ayla eating one of them!

They were pretty big! I was wishing there was a smaller cutter when I made these. But guess what?!! They had a smaller one there this time and I bought it!

I made enough of these cookies for my family, Amy and Joe's family and I also made them for my friend, Ann's family. Ann and her family were going to Disneyland two weeks before us! 

I have decided that these cookies are special and I will make them around the time we are going to Disneyland! You know, make it a tradition! :)

Ayla loved the Mickey cookies! She now always request that I cut her toast in the shape of Mickey's head! I love it!

The countdown and the cookies were a lot of fun to do!

Lots of Disneyland posts to come!