Our Family: Disneyland 2013- Day 1

Back in August we started planning another vacation with the kids to Disneyland. We scheduled for the last week in September. To save money we decided to drive. Knowing that it would probably not be fun, especially with a 5 month old, we split the drive in two days. Leaving on a Friday afternoon, we drove the 6 hours to Las Vegas. Can I tell you how "Un-Fun" that was? Maddie started asking if we were almost there yet after being in the car for 15 minutes. Neither of the two older kiddos took a nap the whole drive. Brooklyn did great until about 15 minutes out of Vegas, then decided she'd had enough of sitting in her carseat. I've never been so happy to see the approaching lights of Las Vegas as I was that night!

We settled in for the night, got up the next morning and hit the road again by 8:30 Am. 4-5 More hours to Anaheim California!! The two older kids were WORSE on this drive. Brooklyn was an angel.

We arrived around around 2:00 with all the gas stops and bathroom breaks we needed to take. Check in was 3:00 so we headed over to downtown disney to kill an hour.
Within 5 minutes of Maddie being there, she had found a baby "lady and the tramp" stuffed animal that she just HAD to have. We only let our kids pick out one thing from Disneyland while we are there, so we told her since we still had 4 Disney days ahead of us and that she needed to look around a little more. That resulted in an hour screaming (literally) tantrum. Borderline embarrassing I tell ya.
We finally got her out of there and went and checked in to our hotel. We played in the pool that night and just relaxed and tried to recoup from all the driving we had done in the last 24 hours.

We had a 4 day park hopper pass, so we got up bright and early and headed over to Disneyland. We just went last year, but Max was too young to remember. He's in a big Mickey Mouse stage right now and he had been researching the park on the Disneyland Discovery App on the Ipad. When we walked through the gates and on to Mainstreet that morning, I can't even begin to tell you the Magic I saw in his eyes. I will NEVER forget it. Seriously the kid was so happy that I get teary eyed just thinking about it. When we walked in, Pluto and Goofy were in town square signing books and taking pictures. When that boy spotted Pluto he let out the most excited and ecstatic giggle that I have ever heard leave his mouth. It will forever ring sweetness in my ears it was that cute!
When it was his turn to meet Pluto he almost cried. But not out of being scared. Out of sheer happiness. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen! He buried his face in Pluto while letting out this uncontrollable and unbelievably cute giggle. After taking a few pictures he finally heard me yelling at him to turn around. His cute little expression says it all.

We met lots more characters that day and had a full day of fun and sun.

My Sweet little baby was so good all day long. She was so content to be in her stroller observing everything around her.

As we headed out the park that night, we decided to pop over to California Adventure really quick and check out Cars Land, which I was really excited to see since it was still being built last time we went. Max is a Cars fanatic and when we walked stepped in to Radiator springs it was amazing. Jeff took the kids on Maters Junk Yard Jamboree and I sat and watched with Brooklyn. It was almost getting dark and I had my camera out and lucky for me I caught all the neon signs light up and Shaboom started playing on the speakers. It was really cool!