Christmas Eve

This year was a Lakey family year, so we stayed in California and had everyone from Nathan’s side of the family come on over for Christmas Eve. It was fun to get to see people we hadn’t seen in a while and to have some fun playing together.

We played the traditional White Elephant game and had a lot of fun with it. Of course, playing with the Lakey family, you never know what you’re going to get! West made out like a bandit with a big M&M dispenser filled with those chocolate candies he loves so well! Eli got a cool set of books, Nathan scored a 20 Questions handheld game, and I got a little bullet blender! I felt a little bad after that, what with our contributions of a pair of CD’s (Phineas & Ferb and Manheim Steamroller), a giant poster of Ron Burgundy’s mustache (that said “CLASSY” underneath it), the 20 Questions game (that we stole), and the piece de resistance:

Oh yes, that’s the fertility statue that made it’s debut two years ago at the last family white elephant gift exchange, courtesy of Janae. This year it was Renee’s turn to bask in its glory. And to think, they almost left it at our house by accident! Luckily we got it to them just in time as they were driving away. Crisis averted!

The rest of the night was spent opening other gifts to and from those that were there, including the family name exchange we do every year. It was a lot of fun!

The boys opened their Christmas Eve pajamas, and we found Eli’s shirt and pants were too big. That’s what happens when Mom goes shopping without her boys there for comparison!

Then it was time for cousin pictures! We’re so glad we now have more cousins on the Lakey side and we’re starting to even out a bit. My boys were spoiled by Grandma and Papa alone for far too long, ha!

Then we snuck in a little family picture for these guys, complete with photo bomber!

We can’t wait to do it all again next Lakey Christmas!

Preschool Christmas performance

(12-19-13)

Today West had his preschool Christmas program. As always, it was just adorable! And sadly, he missed last year’s program because we skipped town early to get to Dallas. So it was extra-special to get to see him perform this year. He loved it, too, and was practicing his songs for weeks beforehand.

He said that he was super nervous about the other parents being there, so he just sat and watched me the whole time and didn’t look at any other parents! That made me smile, because I was wondering why he was staring me down the whole time, ha!

They sang “Feliz Navidad”, “Christmas Cookies”, a song about being special (I forget how it went) and “Up on the Housetop”.

He did a really great job, and we’re so happy that he got to be in Miss Heather’s class again this year. I can’t believe that by this time next year, he’ll be a kindergartener!

Mini Golf!

The boys had never been mini-golfing before, so when we got Castle Park passes on Black Friday and saw they have a mini golf course, we decided to try it out! The boys loved it and were in heaven getting to play against Nathan and I. We all even managed a hole in one apiece!

Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!

Okay, this is something that I have been looking forward to for months! I was so excited to get the kids dressed up and go Trick-or-Treating at Disneyland. Since this will more than likely be our last year with passes, I wanted to make sure that we got to do everything we wanted to, one time at least. So we got tickets for the Tuesday night party and we were literally counting down the days with a giant paper chain!

Because I wanted to get in and get situated a little early, we broke Eli out of school early and headed down to the park. The boys were really excited, as was I, and we got there around 2:30 or so.

They weren’t letting people into the park with Halloween party tickets just yet, but since we had passes, we were able to go in early and check in to get our wristbands and everything inside the park. Of course, we stopped to get photos of the boys in front of the giant Mickey pumpkin first!

Can you tell what their costumes are?? I’m sure those of you with little kids who like to watch PBS Kids will have a leg-up with the guesses! I’ll give you a hint: the boys are doing a pose and saying, “What If?!”  Any guesses?*

After the pumpkin, I made them requested that we take a mini family photo in front of the castle. (Nathan hadn’t gotten there from work yet, so it was just us three.) I even had on my costume by then. ;)

It was fun to just walk around without really having an agenda, waiting for night to come so we could get started on all the fun! We watched some ducks hanging out in the pond by Adventureland,

went on Tarzan’s Treehouse,

and checked out some of the ‘carved’ pumpkins they had surrounding Walt Disney’s statue.

Once we got in line and got our wristbands and miniscule Trick-or-Treat bags, we headed up to the Big Thunder Ranch and had fun doing some of the carnival games and looking at the neat carved pumpkins they had on display. We even tried the tent that conjures up a villain, but we didn’t last through the whole thing because West got scared. :)

They even had their fortunes told, and they both ended up with the same character type – a bat! They received a card that told them to make sure when they go to bed that night, to say “I love you” to their Mummy. It was cute.

Finally, we met up with Nathan, who had to come after work, and we sat down to eat for a little bit. Then we headed out to the Trick-or-Treat stations! They have these stations set up all over the park, usually with a line of three or four spread out on a walkway that you follow to go through them all. The ones we went through were on the river, over by Winnie the Pooh ride, up at Big Thunder Ranch, in the Golden Horseshoe, in the Zocola restaurant, in Fantasyland and the Mickey theater on Main Street. The kids cleaned up! I jokingly told them that they wouldn’t even need to Trick-or-Treat on Halloween night and they rebelled at the thought. Even if Eli did end up giving almost all of his candy to me and West because he doesn’t like chocolate. Whose kid is this?? :)

Oh my goodness, and then my favorite part of the night! We were waiting in line to see Captain Jack Sparrow. Apparently it was just at the same time as a character change, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, Peter Pan and Wendy waiting behind a little trellis for their turn to trade out with Jack. I pointed West over to them and said, “Look! I see Peter Pan and Wendy!” all secretive-like. West was so excited to see Peter Pan that he went right up to him and started talking to him. And if you know what Peter Pan is like at Disneyland, then you know why he’s one of my favorite characters to interact with. He was so cute, asking West how much candy he had collected and what he was going to do the rest of the night. West loved it! Then we got a cute picture of the boys with them both, and that’s when Jack Sparrow came over to them and started interacting with Peter and Wendy. It was hilarious! Peter was asking Jack what that Man-Hair on his face was, and Wendy replied, “That’s facial hair, Peter.” They were really cute. :)

(That’s West telling Peter that he had collected THIS MUCH candy!)

After we decided we had collected enough candy, we headed over to the castle to try and find a spot to watch the fireworks. Usually we don’t stay for them, since West is kind of afraid of them, but I insisted this time because I wanted to see it, plus I figured it would be a good time to try and get West used to them so he wouldn’t be scared anymore. We ended up scoring a sweet table at the Jolly Holiday bakery, where we had a great view of the fireworks and the castle. West did really great, and although he held his hands over his ears for most of it, during some of the parts he took them off and listened, then said, “It’s not that scary!” Score!

I know, it’s fuzzy, but I didn’t want to move and this was the best I could get. :)

We had a great time and I’m glad for the memories! Happy Halloween!