Halloween 2011
This is G's actual costume which she actually likes much better than the other one. I asked her which she preferred to wear for Boo at the Zoo, school party and trick or treating and, with no hesitation she replied, "the long sleeved one!" I think she likes it better because it looks more like the "real" Queen of Hearts costume. Again, the scans are not very good. I'm not sure what the issue is...maybe the red??? Whatever. There will be a few editions to the costume for actual trick or treating. Its become somewhat more elaborate as time has passed. Hopefully I'll have time to post pix before we leave.

What a little cutie!

Boo At the Zoo
Friends Paula and Sophie joined us at the LA Zoo for Boo at the Zoo. Super fun! The zoo has a few trick or treat stations where they pass out candy and there were lots of little ones in costumes but otherwise it was a pretty typical day at the zoo. Fortunately, with the zoo membership we were able to get in early when it was less crowded. What the means is that at 8:15 am I was standing in line in front of the zoo. Eeek. It was early.

G enjoyed collecting (and eating) the candy and playing with Sophie. I enjoyed seeing the animals. I don't know if it was the weather or what but the animals were so much more active than usual. The black bears were wandering, the jaguar pacing, the tiger played with a ball int he water. Even the koalas were moving around! Before we knew it we'd been at the zoo for 7 hrs! I was exhausted. G wanted to stay longer :-)

Sophie and G in the pumpkin patch. G was stoked to have a chance to wear her costume. She loves that costume.
I thought these masks were really neat
We've been to the zoo now 3-4 times in the last few mos. I knew there was a train there somewhere but we'd never found it. We were bound and determined to find it and we finally did. Truthfully it wasn't that exciting but G and Sophie thought it was great!

The LA Zoo recently opened their brand new $2.5 million carousel. Its really beautiful. G chose to ride the zebra for her first go round.

Apparantly a Puss in Boots movie is coming out. To promote the movie they had two of the movie characters there for pix. G always loves a character!

We always stop by to look at the meerkats.

The last stop of the day was a hands on exhibit featuring hissing cockroaches. G enjoyed petting them but passed on having it sit on her hand. Yeah, can't say I blame her much. Little goof.

First Official School Pic
Fall theme obviously. I love this picture. So cute! As always, Georgie was totally excited about picture day. My sweet, sweet girl.

Yeah Casey!
He's not officially 21 but he will be in just a few days. Scary. How is it that my kids keep getting older and older and older??

Dinosaur Train at the Zoo
I'm pleased to say that we were able to make another trip to the zoo this past weekend. Yeah! Getting some more use out of our family pass. Brett and his friend, Talin, joined us. G was thrilled. She love, loves, loves Talin. She's convinced that the reason she comes to our house is to see and play with her :-) Brett's not completely sure its untrue.
Buddy the Dinosaur from Dinosaur Train was there for a meet and greet. As always, G was thrilled to meet a character.
I love zebras. They're so beautiful and seem so gentle. I wish I could pet one!

It was such a nice day. The weather was nice, the company was good. Just an all together calm and pleasant way to spend a sunday!

Crazy, busy day!
Boy we had a busy weekend. Saturday morning started out with dance class at 8:45. After that we quickly came home, changed clothes and picked up our present for a birthday party later that day. G loved the birthday party!!! It was a Barbie theme. Barbie is kind of a new thing to Georgie but I think she swallowed it hook, line and sinker. There was a LOT of candy at the party though and every time I looked at G she was shoving it into her mouth. She has very little self control when it comes to sweets.

After the party, G took a nap in the car while we drove home. We picked up Bobby because we had tickets to a play, Honus and Me, at the local theater. As usual, it was very well done. I'm constantly impressed by how good the productions are for a local community theater. This one was a bit over G's head. Thankfully it was pretty short so G just hung out on my lap and chilled. After the play she told me she really liked it and she wanted to go meet the "characters". She was even excited about getting her picture with the villain! So funny.

After that, we had dinner with the family. I think we got home at about 8pm. I was exhausted!

G enjoyed helping her friend, Gracie, celebrate turning 5!
G shows off her Barbie cupcake. She didn't like the cake part but managed to wolf down all the frosting. I told you, this kid has a wicked sweet tooth.
Just before the play. G's doing Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas hands. I tried to get her to do them when we met Sally the week before but she wouldn't. Ever since then, she's been showing me her "sally hands". I think she's regretting not doing it before. So funny. We might have to hunt Sally down and take another go at it.

With the "characters". The guy on the left was the baddie. The actor on the right was "Joey" the main character. He was very good.

With Honus. The expression on his face is priceless!

Fire Dept Visit
Preschool is so much fun!! G's class had fire prevention week which was to culminate with a visit from the fire department. G was so excited. I mean really, truly excited about the fire truck coming to her school. All the kids were. Isn't it great when you're three, something so mundane is fantabulous???

There was an emergency which delayed the firemen's arrival by about 90 mins or so. But when they finally did arrive, the kids cheered!!! It was as if Santa himself was on site! Super fun. The firemen explained what to do if there was a fire, they talked about 911, and they passed out coloring books and sticker badges. Oh yeah!

Here's G getting ready for morning snack. BTW, omg my kid is a pokey puppy. All the other kids had eaten their pretzels and drank their juice and there my little one sat with a plate full of pretzels and a cup full of juice. I asked her if she wanted to be done, "no" she replied, "still working on it". Her teacher told me she is consistently the last one done with snack and lunch. Criminey.
While we waited for the firemen, G had a rip roaring good time collecting leaves from the playground. Some of the other kids joined in and eventually they were all running around like crazy people collecting every leaf they could find. What a fun activity!

Finally, the firemen were there. All the kids enjoyed getting to sit in the driver's seat!

Fun day!

Cowgirl pix
My favorite photographer, Carol at Joseph Carroll Photography in Murrieta , does these special theme shoots every once in awhile. Her most recent was Vintage Cowboy. I thought it sounded fun and different. Different is important. We do LOTS of pix so I'm always looking for something different.

I found her a cute dress, western-styled but feminine, and a pair of boots and off we went! I really like Carol. She's calm and super nice. She's totally fine with me making a suggestion but I usually don't because she ALWAYS has a vision. G had tons of fun that day. She giggled and goofed around a bit. It seemed like it went well but you can never be too sure of these things until you actually see the results.

A week later, Carol posted some of the pix on her facebook page. OMG!!! Fantastic! I was blown away. Carol named this first one "Waiting" but I call it "The Thoughtful Cowgirl". Either way, awesome photo imo.
A smiley one.
Seriously, how beautiful is this little girl?

The only problem now will be choosing which ones to order. Ugh. Decisions, decisions...

Passholder Event
Disney had a neat promotion for annual passholders (APs). You had to email and request one of 1250 free tickets to a special after park closing event. If your email was chosen as a winner you could bring in yourself and up to 3 additional APs. I heard about it too late to enter but through the generosity of another AP and the magic of the internet, managed to score 4 tickets for G and me plus friends! I was a bit nervous as the event officially ran from 8pm -midnight. G is usually in bed about 8pm but decided to give it a try figuring if it was a complete disaster we could just leave and go home. As it turned out, wow!!! what a great evening! It was on a wednesday night so we got there a bit early to avoid the traffic. While waiting for our friends and benefactors we took the opportunity to do a bit of character hunting.

We got to see Mickey in his fall wear:
Goofy in his Jack Skellington costume
And Bre'r Fox. G didn't know who he was but when I told her "Bre'r Fox" she said "oh, he BLEW the house down!!!" Fox, wolf, close enough I guess.
Once our friends showed up we hit the Haunted Mansion real quick. Only Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Main St were open for the event so we thought we'd get a quick Nightmare Before Christmas fix before those areas were closed for the evening. By the time we finished with the mansion it was nearly 8pm and the park was starting to clear out the day visitors. You couldn't get on the rides if you didn't have one of the special orange wrist bands. By 8:30 or so, the rides were all pretty much walk on! I've never seen Disneyland like that ever. I guess DL capacity is about 70-75k but for this event the maximum number of guests in the park would have been 5000. In about 2 hrs we rode Star Tours, Buzz, Rockets, Alice, Dumbo, Peter Pan, Mr Toad, Snow White, Tea Cups, and watched a parade! Amazing! Georgie and her friend Gracie laughed and squealed and ran from place to place like the crazy exhausted little things they were.
I also got to meet Shelby from My Year With the Mouse and her family. That was pretty cool! How cute is her little boy??? Unfortunately we had only a few spare moments to chat and never got to have a churro together :-( A definite must for next time.

Now that G is tall enough, a lot more of the park has opened up to her. She was excited to give Star Tours a try. She really liked it. Me, not so much. As I've read, yes, the ride is less queasy inducing than it was before but it still made me feel putrid. It always seems so hot in there to me. Ick!

The parade is called Soundsational. I'm not really much into parades in general but this one was very good. The floats were beautiful and quite impressive. Each of them featured a different Disney movie or theme and was accompanied by costumed dancers. G's favorite was definitely the princess float which I think had every princess on it!

After the parade, they pulled the floats onto Main Street along with their characters and you could have your pictures done with them. We did wait in the long but very quick moving line for the Aladdin float and then caught a quick pic with Mary Poppins. I would have loved to find the princess float and do a picture with that one but, alas, it was almost 11pm and Georgie was toast! It was definitely time to go home.

All in all it was a great evening! I'd been worried that it might be a complete disaster but instead it was probably one of the more enjoyable times I've ever spent at Disney. Yeah!!!

"Off with their heads!!!"
Georgie modeled this set for this seller Heavenly Things for Angels on Earth. I'm not sure why the scans look so crappy. I had a lot of fun making the crown, the heart wand and the candy bag. The red spot on her cheek is a heart-shaped jewel which Georgie LOVED!! We now have two Red Queen halloween outfits. This one and a long sleeved, much more serious one. I guess it will depend on the weather which one she actually wears =) It was 100+ the other day so who knows??

Disney Firsts!
Eager to make the most of our annual passes, we decided to hit DL again this Sunday. Due to it being a holiday weekend, I was a bit concerned about crowds so we thought we'd get a super early start on the day. To encourage us to get up and out on time I made a 7:10 ressie for the Minnie and Friends breakfast. We arrived in the parking lot at 6:50!!! Egads, really?? We weren't the first car there... we were about 10th :-) In case you were wondering, this is what a nearly empty Disney parking lot looks like:
The great thing about having the very first breakfast reservation is that when we arrived at the restaraunt, we were the only ones there! Well, you know, us and the characters. There were a few on hand to play ring around the rosie
Georgie loves character meals. She really enjoys character hunting and getting their autographs. I must admit, it has become a bit addicting. We'd met Rafiki before but that was in WDW last year and I don't think G remembered. Plus, we'd recently seen the Lion King movie which made it fun.

We've seen Captain Hook many times. G likes to say "tick, tock" to get a response from him. Or rather, she likes for me to say it :-)

It's Minnie's breakfast so you're guaranteed a visit from her

Fairy Godmother showed up and asked G about dresses and glass slippers and other such things

More fun with Pooh and Eeyore

Mr Penguin from Mary Poppins was new to us. G was trying to do some sort of penguin footwork but she ended up looking like she was going to fall.

Tigger is one of G's favorites

After breakfast we went past Pixie Hollow and found out that Fawn was there! We've had no luck finding fairies. The line wasn't so bad so Bobby waited in it while I took G to ride the rockets. By the time we got back he was first in line and had been letting people pass him. Yeah! Having Daddy there gave her front of the line access. Fawn was very sweet.

Recently, G has had this huge increase in her quest for adventure and all things new. This whole week she'd been telling me that she wanted to go into the "skeleton house" which meant the Haunted Mansion which currently has the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay. I really was a bit concerned that it would be too scary for her. I explained to her a bit about what was going to happen and tried to show her a youtube video in preparation. After the rockets and the fairies G said somewhat insistently "mama, I want to go to the skeleton house". Bobby and I agreed, if she thought she was ready we weren't going to hold her back. So off we went!

As we made our way through the line, Bobby and G made scary faces at each other. This was practice for what they were going to do when they saw Jack Skellington inside.

This next picture is so funny!

And "how did G enjoy her first trip inside the Haunted Mansion?" you might ask. She loved it!!! In fact, she loved it so much that she asked if we could ride it again, right then. So we did! It was my first time seeing the Halloween overlay. It is really cute!

Brazened by her success with the mansion, G pointed at Splash Mountain and said "I want to go on that one!" I was fine with taking her but I wasn't quite sure she was tall enough. You have to be 40" to ride Splash. About a month ago we were at DL with some friends and tried to get G on Star Tours. She was close but definitely not 40" tall and was unable to ride. Bummer. I was pretty sure she hadn't grown a sufficient amount in the last 30 days. But, we let her give it a try. Sure enough, G had grown!! Holy heck! G was so excited she started jumping and yelling "I made it!!! I get to ride!!!" The kid manning the fast pass thing was amused and as a little Disney magic gave G an instant fast pass. Yeah for us! G and I rode in the back. I got a little wet but poor little G got soaked! And, on that last drop, she screamed!!! She loved it.

After Splash we were back to our quest for the ever elusive characters... I'd read on the disboards that Jack and Sally were in the park. G kept talking about seeing the "skeleton man" so I started asking around. As seems to always be the case no one can ever really tell you exactly if, where, or when they characters will be around. But, finally we found him!! In fact we were super lucky because they cut the line right after us. Then a few mins later Jack returned... with Sally. Jackpot!!

We finished up the afternoon with a visit to the Tiki Room. I think this is G's new favorite attraction. Yes, she enjoys the birds and the music but mostly I think she looks forward to the Dole float she gets for a treat while we wait.

Fantastic day!