Dear Lincoln,
First of all I want to thank you for being so very helpful to me the past few months. I know I've been slacking in the Mommy department and have relied on you to do little things for me all day long. I appreciate it and love that you've done it with little to no complaints.
You're now 6 1/2 and almost done with kindergarten. You've grown up so much this school year, it's scary sometimes. You are getting better and better at reading and sounding things out. You're extremely good with math and numbers and have loved learning how time and money works. You're still a budding little artist and love to draw and cut things out.
First of all I want to thank you for being so very helpful to me the past few months. I know I've been slacking in the Mommy department and have relied on you to do little things for me all day long. I appreciate it and love that you've done it with little to no complaints.
You're now 6 1/2 and almost done with kindergarten. You've grown up so much this school year, it's scary sometimes. You are getting better and better at reading and sounding things out. You're extremely good with math and numbers and have loved learning how time and money works. You're still a budding little artist and love to draw and cut things out.
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| (after grandparents day) |
You just lost your 5th tooth (that makes three on bottom and two on top), giving you a huge gap in your sweet smile. I love it! You also got your first few freckles across the bridge of your nose. Your Daddy are I were both very surprised you got freckles since you seem to have inherited my skin and I don't get them. But I'm so glad you have them because they are adorable.
You're still best friends with Grant and get along really well with him most of the time. You are brothers after all, so you have your days, but I feel blessed that you two really are best friends. Your relationship with "sissy" keeps getting better and better. She adores you like no one else and you love to play with her and make her laugh. Making her laugh is probably one of your favorite things to do right now and she just happens to think that you are the funniest person alive. Watching you help and protect and "take care" of both of them makes my heart happy. You're a wonderful big brother. I know there will come a time that you hate that title and the responsibilities that come with it, but for now you embrace it well.
You seem pretty sure that you're getting another little sister and that's exactly what you want. You want to name her Lucy and don't understand why we can't have two Lucys at our house. We'll work on that.
Your Daddy and I are so proud of the young man you're becoming. You are still my lovable social butterfly and I hope that never changes. Love you the most bud.
Next we got some lunch at the bakery/cafe in California Adventure. It's one of my favorite places to eat at Disney because they have killer soup in sourdough bread bowls. Awesome. Then we headed over to the Bugs Life section. Keep in mind that when we took the boys to Disneyworld a few years ago, they HATED It's Tough to be a Bug (the 3D movie), but we figured they were both older and would enjoy it now. Nope. They seriously hate that show. I think Linc cried. But that seemed to be his theme for the trip, so really not that big of a deal. Thankfully the lines for all the rides in the Bug's Life area where a lot shorter than Toy Story. The most we waited was about 15 minutes for Tuck and Roll's Drive'Em Buggies. We did all the rides in that area (
After all the kiddie rides, we decided it was time for a big boy ride. On our way over to The Tower of Terror, look who we ran into...Santa Mickey Mouse! And the best part, there were only 3 people waiting in line to see him?! The boys were so excited and I was happy that Mickey was the first character they got to see. With no line. And lots of sunshine and warm weather. Perfection.
Then it was time for The Tower of Terror. This was Grant's first year that he's been tall enough to go on all the rides (except Indiana Jones). Lincoln's been before, so he knew what to expect and started crying when we got in line :) Dave had to hold him and try to reassure him that it was going to be fun. Yes, we're THOSE parents. Grant was fine, but a little hesitant from watching Lincoln freak out. Then we got inside and watched the little black and white twilight zone clip. That freaked him out a little. He said, "I don't wanna get thundered!" (from the part where the lightening strikes the towers and electrocutes everyone inside). Lincoln ended up crying most of the time during the ride and after, but Grant didn't at all. He was squeezing my hand super tight during the ride, so I thought for sure he'd be crying when it was over. Nope. But he didn't want to go on it again either :)
All that crying and adrenaline made us hungry, so we headed out to find something to eat. For dinner we ate at the restaurant in our hotel- Storybook Cafe. They do a buffet so we thought the boys would like being able to pick out what they wanted to eat. We got them each a plate, I went and got mine, Dave went and got his and by the time he got back both boys were asleep on the bench. Linc had fallen asleep on my lap and Grunt had stretched out on his and Dave's side. It was 6:30. I think they both managed two bites of food before passing out :) So Dave and I finished our dinner and carried the boys to the room. We were both tired as well and knew we were getting up early (we had early morning admission starting at 7 am), so it wasn't too disappointing to go to bed early.
After Dumbo the boys had another melt down. Have I mentioned the melt downs yet? Yea, there were a lot them. Thankfully nothing big or dramatic or long. Just little emotional pouts and then we were on our way. I must say that Dave handled the emotional roller coasters very well. We both vowed to one another to be extra patient and loving and kind this trip. We had to remind each other of that often :)
We continued our way through Storybook Land and did the carousel and Alice in Wonderland. The lines for the other rides were already getting long, so we decided to head over to Tomorrow Land.
Star Tours was our first stop. Disney has redone the entire ride and I must admit, it's pretty cool now. It was fun before, but pretty cheesy and silly. Now it's got some great graphics and the 3D is awesome. Lincoln has a thing with 3D glasses and doesn't like to wear them, so he watched without the full effects. But both boys ended up liking the ride. Next up was Space Mountain. Little background story about this ride...last fall my parents took all the boys and a few others to Disneyland for Halloween. I was 38 weeks preggo, so Dave and I had to stay home. It was the first year Linc was tall enough to ride Space Mountain. So for his first time ever on the ride, my Dad decided it would be a good idea to put Lincoln and Kyler (his cousin who is 6 weeks younger) on the front row together. Not so brilliant. Now Lincoln has this mental block about hating Space Mountain and freaked out when we got in line. Do those words sound like a broken record yet? :) It's not that he hates fast roller coasters, Big Thunder Mountain is one of his favorites. He just think he hates Space Mountain. Yet again, this was Grant's first time on the ride and he did awesome! He ended up loving it and I'm pretty sure Lincoln kept his eyes closed for the entire ride.
Since we emotionally scarred Lincoln, we thought it best to take things down a notch and visit Toon Town. We rode Finding Nemo on the way over (kind of lame) and Matterhorn (again, kind of lame. I usually like this ride, not so much this time). When we got to Toon Town we had 5 more minutes until it opened, so we rode Small World real quick. I have to admit, I've never been a Small World fan. It's slow, the characters are old and cheesy, and by the end of the ride I usually want to stick a sharp object in my ear to drown out the singing. I was amazed...the ride was great. Disney has redone a lot of the inside and added Disney characters throughout. AND it was all decked out for Christmas with lots of Christmas decorations and Christmas music playing along with the annoying song. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Finally it was time for Toon Town. First up was Roger Rabbit's Taxi ride. I haven't been on this ride for a few years because the line is usually crazy long. It was kind of a weird ride and the boys weren't that impressed. Part of that could be because they've never seen the show, so they had no idea what was going on. Next we went to Mickey Mouse's house. There wasn't a line. At all. A group had just gone in right before us, so we waited all of 3 minutes and then got to see the Mouse. Awesome.
Next we rode Donald's Roller Coaster (at least I think it's supposed to be Donald's), Chip-n-Dale's treehouse (Grant was disappointed the chipmunks weren't actually home), and then Goofy's house. When we came out of Goofy's house, low and behold, look who just happened to stop by to visit...
Again, 2 entire people in front of us in line to see the Goof. Great timing.
As we left Toon Town and made our way to Frontier Land through the backside, I saw a sign that said Santa and his reindeer. It was by the BBQ place that I've never eaten at, but always smells good. Mr. and Mrs. Claus were taking a mini vacay before heading up north. All of the reindeer were there as well taking a break. All except Rudolph. The reindeer were real and I'm sure PETA would have a fit if Disney put a red nose on a real reindeer.
Right after we took pictures with Jolly Ol' Saint Nick and the Misses, Pluto came out to join the fun dressed as a reindeer. I told you we had great timing. Pluto gave both the boys a big kiss on the head which they thought was so funny. Lincoln's already mentioned that next year we need to go visit Santa after Christmas..."he goes to Disneyland so that's where we need to go." Good try buddy.
Next up was Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion. I've been on The Haunted Mansion for Halloween time when it's all decked out with The Nightmare Before Christmas. I didn't realize that they keep the whole Jack Skeleton theme for Christmas, but do the Christmas side of the movie instead of the Halloween. It looked awesome and it was really fun to feel like we were riding an entire new ride. Good job Disney. After a quick stop on The Jungle Cruise and a stroll through Tarzan's Treehouse, it was time for some lunch. It's kind of a Gale tradition to eat at the mexican restaurant by the New Orleans part. Sorry Grammy G, I don't remember the name of said restaurant. The boys were so tired, again, that they barely ate anything. So we went back to our hotel and did some swimming, to really wear them out (the weather was fantastic...low 70's), then all took naps.
I took this picture of the boys right before The World of Color show. The show was incredible. I really enjoyed it and loved that it had Prep and Landing and a little holiday spin at the beginning.
After the show we headed back to the Disneyland side of things. Dave and I had all intentions of staying until the park closed at midnight. After what felt like 45 minutes of just trying to make it through the masses of rude and ignorant people trying to watch Fantasmic even though they were clearly standing in the walking area, we made it over to Splash Mountain. A few years ago this was Lincoln's favorite ride and Grant had never been on it before, so we thought the boys would be pretty excited. Because all the idiots were watching Fantasmic, we walked right onto the ride. Sweet. Grant and I got pretty wet and Lincoln and Dave got a bit wet. The temperature had dropped and it was a tit bit nipply out, so being wet wasn't really a good thing. Poor Grant is skin and bones anyway, so when you get the bean a little wet with a slight breeze, he almost freezes. There wasn't anyone in line for Winnie the Pooh, but when I tried to get in line for it Grant said, "Mommy no more rides! Can we please go to sleep. I'm really cold and tired!". How do you say no to that?! So we called it a night, even though we paused at each ride we passed and said, "are you guys SURE you don't want to ride anything else?". They were sure.
Day 3:
We let the boys pick where they wanted to go first and they picked the tea cups. So we ran like all the other crazies, but everyone else went to either Tomorrow Land or Frontier Land. We were the only ones that went to Storybook Land. Seriously, there wasn't anyone else around besides park employees. The four of us piled in one tea cup and the ride started. Just us. It was hilarious and the boys loved that no one else was there. By the time we finished that ride, a few people had made it over to Dumbo. Lincoln really wanted to ride by himself, so I told him to tell the Lady he was 7. He's 6 1/2, close enough. And he's freakin' huge for his age. And I'm totally justifying how I taught my son to lie to get what he wants.
After Alice in Wonderland, again, (they both really liked that ride...) we rode Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and Pinocchio's Daring Journey. Then we headed over to Tomorrow Land since it was still before the park opened to everyone else. We did Star Tours again and Buzz Lightyear, neither had a line.
Then Lincoln and I headed over to Indiana Jones. I haven't been on the ride for years and really wanted to go. Grant wasn't tall enough, so Dave took him to Space Mountain. Unfortunately the park opened to everyone right before we made it to the ride, so it had a decent line. Not really long, but longer than anything we'd waited in the entire trip (other than Toy Story the first day). Lincoln didn't like it. He cried at the end. Not from the giant stone ball that almost crushed us, but because he's crazy emotional and that's what he does on rides. Oh well. I called Dave and he had taken Grant over to Big Thunder. They didn't get to ride Space Mountain because it shut down right when they got there. We met them over in Frontier Land and all shared a muffin and some ridiculously hot and slightly chocolate flavored water. It was a bit chilly that morning, but we rode Big Thunder 2 times anyway (on top of the 2 times Dave and Grant had already ridden it). We had early entrance to California Adventure as well, so we headed that direction to enjoy our hour of no lines. On our way out of Disney, we finally saw Dale! Grant had been waiting since day 1 to see Chip-n-Dale and was so excited that one of them was out.
Over in California Adventure we finally rode Soarin' Over California. It was Grant's first time and he was hilarious. He asked me numerous times through out the ride "are we really flying?". It was awesome. Next up was The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure. This is the latest and greatest ride, so I had high hopes. Those hopes were not met. The ride is cute, but it's exactly like the rides built in the late 50's. Kind of silly. While it stays true to the Disney type fashion of the kiddie rides, there's so much more they could've done with it. Then it was on to The Tower of Terror for one last freak out. The first time we rode it was during the night, so we convinced the boys that they needed to try it during the day. It was after this ride that Grant told me, "I'm a real ghost." We've been home for 2 weeks now and he still tells me that daily. He even has his ghost-name of the day and will only answer to it. We did the Hollywood Pictures Backlot next and rode/watched: Muppet Vision 3D, Monsters Inc, Playhouse Disney, and Turtle Talk with Crush. During the Crush show a little boy next to Grant raised his hand to ask a question. The guy doing the mic thought Crush was talking about Grant. So when the mic was put in Grant's face and he was asked if he had a question for Crush, we thought he'd clam up and not say anything. Instead Grant asked, "What you eat?". He then had a conversation with Crush about sandwiches and yellow sea grass and tummy aches. Dave and I were laughing pretty hard. I wish we had it on video. We ran into Handy Manny on the street and Grant gave him an extra hand :)
We had an amazing time. I think the boys really appreciated the one on one time. They're getting to such a fun age. Hopefully when we go again in two years, they'll be able to handle a few more late nights and so will their sister. Thanks again SO MUCH Mom and Dad for the killer Christmas present!
