5 Little Rascals: Disneyland Birthday Day #5

Turns out the park opens an hour early so the first shuttle would be at our hotel at 7am, so we shifted everything an hour earlier, that was fun! After Shawn and I got ready for the day and got some stuff ready for the kids we first woke up the boys and we gathered around Emily's bed and softly sang "happy birthday" to wake her up! That worked really well! After we got everyone dressed (Today's color was red, although Mily only had a dark dink shirt), we let Mily open one present before we ran out the door to grab breakfast and catch the bus.

She got at "Happy Birthday" Tiara...

and Minnie Mouse!

We went to Tomorrow land at Disneyland and spent a few hours of the morning enjoying some fun rides (Star Tours) and some scary rides (Space Mountain)!

I tried to get a picture of Space Mountain but the darn fog was so bad...haha!

That was certainly a crazy ride...I liked some of the special effects but for the most part it was pretty terrifying for the little kids! Really, I didn't have any kids that liked that one!

I love how Shawn's always smiling so pleasantly in all these photo's!

After scarring the kids half to death we went and drove some mini-cars around.

I just thought that the cars would stay on the track no matter what so I pushed the "go" peddle for Rusty and then started taking pictures. After we collided with the cement curb I realized you do have a limited amount of control over the car and perhaps I needed to help him steer the thing!

Next we headed over to California Adventure, our first stop was to get fast passes for the World of Color show. We had been told by several different people to make sure that we go see it.

Then we slowly made our way around the park picking out some fun adventures to try out.

Our first ride was the Tower of Terror! I can't believe we all went on this.

Rusty did NOT like this ride! Josh said it wasn't scary, but that he probably wouldn't do it again! Then Wes and Mily said they LOVED it!

See mom and dad "protecting" the little boys? I was so impressed after going on a ride like this and Space Mountain that Rusty was still okay to try out new rides...he was such a good sport!

We passed by the display for the new Cars area and decided to get a picture taken!

I love that you can see my kids' personalities in their poses. Josh's cool, Wes is laid back, Mily is happy no matter what and Rusty is like, "really?"

Josh said that the Librarian at his school found out that he was going to Disneyland for the first time and she told him that he had to ride Tower of Terror and California Screamin' if he wanted to check out a book from her library every again. So that was a little incentive to push him to try it...especially after he found out that it went upside down...he wasn't sure he wanted to go on it! Rusty was too short for the ride so he and mom went next door to the carousel...interesting how it's right next to a ride that a lot of kids can't ride...smart thinking!

We waited for a while until Shawn sent us a text saying that they would be on the next run, so we ran over and was able to snap a picture of them all strapped in and ready to ride! You can see Shawn and Wesley's head but the other two were too short!

I took a picture of a picture! Poor Wes doesn't look like he was locked in very well, his body was being thrown around a bit more than anyone else!

At least Shawn is REALLY smiling in this one! (and so is Josh!) Mily and Wes look a bit concerned!

When they got off the ride I was shocked to find out that Wes and Mily LOVED it, in fact they loved it so much that they went again! Mily was so excited because she got to ride in the very front by herself! (Josh pretended he didn't like it and opted not to go a second time--which I think he regretted!)

I took another picture of a picture, it was really crappy but I couldn't pass it up...do you see this girl! She loved it!

Cute little Toy Story box that the kids could stand in and pose as toys!

Then what do you know? The toy soldiers appear and perform a cute interactive program for us! My kids LOVED it!

Another of our rides that quickly became one of our favorites was the "big swing" I don't know what they called it, but that's what Rusty would say when he wanted to go on this ride!

Rusty and mom had to find a few extra rides to go on while the big kids went on rides that only tall kids could ride.

Grizzly bear-rapids ride?? Whatever it's name was...that was a pretty fun ride! I like how there are a few waterfalls that you go over and I liked how you don't always come out soaking wet...only if you were really unlucky!

I didn't catch the picture fast enough...they had just come down the falls!

Getting a picture of our buttons! We all had our 1st visit buttons (except Shawn of course) But Mily wore her "Happy Birthday" button that day. And I swear the workers there are trained to look for that button because EVERYONE was wishing her a happy birthday, a maintenance worker, the ride operators and even a several people who were standing in line with us would wish her the best....it was so very cute!

After a few hours we bounced back over to Disneyland and did a few more rides over there.

This was a fun ride where we got to help Buzz light year defeat the evil emperor Zurg.

The kids loved it!

We happened to come across everyone lining up on the side of the street for a parade so we decided to grab a spot and check it out!

There was a lot of waiting, but it was a very cute parade. It's neat to see how much details they put into the performance .

I like the Mickey Mouse tabs on all their shoes!

Here come the princesses

I thought it was really cool how Snow White (Mily's favorite princess) leaned directly towards us and yelled Happy Birthday to Mily!

Although it didn't make a big of an impact on her as I thought it would, because a week later she couldn't remember what princess had done that! --Kids!

I love that Mary Poppins was apart of the parade...and I love that my kids know who she is and have watched the show several times (thanks to Aunt Verlene!)

The sun started to go down and all the Halloween pumpkins started to glow. They do this thing where you can go trick or treating at the park, but it costs extra money so we decided not to do it!

So when the only thing going on at Disneyland was trick or treating we bounced back over to California adventures for dinner and the World of Color show. We decided to grab dinner in the park, this was the only time we did this...and thank goodness because that was very expensive for very little food! Although it was nice to have something other than sandwiches and snacks!!

Waiting and waiting and waiting...it started to get pretty dang cold!

More waiting...

and more waiting....

Then finally it was time for it to start. My only complaint (besides the fact that it started almost 20 minutes late due to some technical difficulties...(bad time to loose power!!) which means our kids "waiting Patience" was all used up and we started to have some pretty grumpy kids) was that my kids couldn't see it very well! There were just too many tall people standing in front of us. But from what we could see it was really neat, you can follow this link and watch it yourself! But I should warn you the video is 30+ minutes long...okay that is probably my other complaint, it was a little long...but other than that it was pretty cool!

See the grumpy Josh? Or how Rusty watched the show for probably half the time (he did fall asleep for a few minutes, but mom woke him up to watch the show...which he didn't love but again was a good sport about it!) After the show finally ended we had to run back to the buses to catch the last bus to our hotel, luckily we made it.

We were all so exhausted but I realized as we got to our room that we still hadn't finished Mily's Birthday...she still had a few more presents to open!

A Princess book and a few more DVDs

We even had a cake for her so she could blow out the candles!

Then we all went to bed and slept really well!

Here are a few pictures from the kids camera from this day...they didn't get too many because we forgot about it for most of the day! But they got some good shots so I thought I would include a couple!