we {heart} disneyland!

Oh, my goodness!  We have had quite a whirlwind of things going on the last 2 weeks (and it's not quite over, I have Ian's birthday to plan for next week.  And Lydia's the week after that.  I'm already exhausted.)

Last week we went to DISNEYLAND!  We had such a great time, none of us wanted to leave, though we could tell the kids were totally exhausted by the third day.  On our drive home we were even lucky enough to be one of the first to see Ben & Jodi's new baby boy (he's very handsome.)  Jodi had had the baby that morning.  We tried to help them with a name, and they seemed to like Ian's idea of Earwig (that kid has naming issues.  Tonight at dinner he told us he's going to live in the apartment house next door and his kids are going to be named Foo Foo, Moo Moo & Kee Kee.  Um, yeah.  Austin & I had no response to that, mostly because we were laughing too hard.)

the happiest place of earth

pure happiness!

flying of dumbo in the rain

Ian loved this ride

wes' favorite, Lydia wasn't going to let anyone else drive

Lydia LOVED mickey, and kept giving him hugs and high fives.  it was so cute!

i had to keep a tight grip on the girls; Fiona was too shy and was trying to get away, and Lydia wanted to tackle the characters with hugs

We got to do everything we wanted to at Disneyland.  We saw Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy dressed as a Skeleton, Minnie as a witch, The Evil Queen for Snow White, Cruella De Ville & the villains from Pinocchio.  We even lucked out and found Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (Fiona was so excited to see Cinderella, her favorite.)  We rode tons of rides; the lines weren't bad at all.  Austin liked the Indiana Jones and was able to take the boys on it with him (they barely made the height requirement).  I loved the haunted mansion sporting a 'nightmare before Christmas' theme.  Wes' favorite was the Mr. Toad's wild ride.  Ian said he liked the rockets (the ones right as you walk into tomorrow land) the best.  Fiona would have stayed on the carousel all day if we let her and Lydia loved Dumbo.  But it really is hard to pick a favorite, we loved all the rides so much and watching the kids have so much fun made it that much better.  We are already saving up for the next trip back.

love the fall

here's some pics of the fun stuff we've been doing this month....
making cookies:
<---yep, that's an halloween tricerotops next to the skeleton and pumpkin

posing for pics:

i just think these two are the cutest girls EVER!
enjoying the garden:
our flowers get one on one special care.


enjoying the fall leaves:

playing in the rain:
(<--ian is practicing his school picture look)

 fun at the zoo (ian looks sad, he almost got pushed off by that little girl behind him and it really scared him, but what a trooper he stayed for the pic):

ian found his name in 'siberian lynx' he was so excited