Operation Christmas Child

Last year my family had the priveledge of going to one of the Operation Christmas Child warehouses to help pack shoeboxes. This year we all got to go again and Dan's mom, Ginger, joined us. We had such a fun time together helping children around the world. We hope to make this a family tradition.

My mom, me, and Ginger working hard!

Afterwards we went over to the Preach's house to have dinner with some friends from high school. Here is Rachel Kaplan, me, Annie Preach, & Nicole Lockwood
Here is our Ethan hugging Annie's Ethan.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with our families and we hope you all did too! Here are a few photos from our day.

Here is Ethan helping Papa mow the lawn before all of our guests arrived.

Cousin Evan teaching Ethan how to play his Nintendo.
Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of 23 people!

Here is the view from one end of the table.
Here is the view from the other end.

The three of us!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Magic Mountain

Today at Magic Mountain if you brought in a bag of food for the Food Pantry you could get in for free. So we of course took them up on this amazing offer and invited our friends to come along. I have been wanting to take Ethan to Magic Mountain for a couple of months now because I heard they had a Thomas the Train Town. What a disappointment...the Thomas Town had TWO rides! Ethan loved them though. Here are some pictures from our fun day at the amusement park.

Ethan was SO excited today. He was more excited than he has ever been! Here he is with his gal pal Julia. Melody, Julia's mom, and I felt like we were chaperoning our kids on a date. It sure looked that way!

Bugs Bunny was right at the front to give them hugs!
On some kiddie land ride

Here we are on Ethan's 1st roller coaster. It was really fast for a kids ride. Ethan didn't know what to think at first but we ended up riding it two times in a row.

Here are Ethan & Julia flying the plane with Julia's Papa

On the balloon ride that spins...FAST!

Our little birds in their birdcage.

This is the Percy roller coaster that the kids have to ride on by themselves. I wasn't allowed to ride with him. Ethan & Julia are in the front. Julia loved it, Ethan did not.

On a much slower Thomas the Train

Of course they dump you right out into the gift shop after you ride the Thomas ride. I had such a hard time getting Ethan out of here! He was in heaven!

From the kid land Ethan kept seeing a "Yo ho ride" going up in the sky. He really wanted to ride on it so we went over to the Buccaneer, which was one of my favorites when I was in Jr. High and High School. I felt horrible, my little man was terrified. He was white and shaking. However, after we got off the ride he started crying because he wanted to go on it again. What?

Petting the nasty goats

This big truck was Ethan's favorite ride of the day. It was the first ride we went on when we got there and he asked to go on it again the rest of the day. We went on it one last time before we left.

We had so much fun today! The weather was absolutely beautiful. Magic Mountain is giving out free tickets again on December 5, 6, 12, and 13 if you bring a $15 toy with you. All toys collected will be distributed to thousands of needy children through local charities.

Thanksgiving Music Class

So I decided a couple months ago to not sign Ethan back up for his favorite music class and put him in his Mommy & Me preschool class instead. He talks about his music teacher, Ms. Moira, quite often. Occasionally she offers one day classes with a theme. Today's theme was Thanksgiving and Ethan was so happy to be back!

Playing drums! His little friend Emma is on the left.

In drum-drum land!
The double cowbell was Ethan's favorite instrument when we were going to class regularly. I'm glad to see it is still his favorite...he didn't forget!

Little Steamers & Travel Town

Today we went down to Griffith Park to show Daddy how Ethan rides the horses all by himself. When we got there the line was so long so we drove past it, trying to come up with amazing things to distract our sad man. We ended up stumbling upon a place called Little Steamers. It is only open on Sundays and it is a really neat train ride. If you have a train lover in your house, this is the train to ride. It is the cutest little train and it goes through tunnels and over bridges; two of Ethan's favorite things! Afterwards we went to Travel Town to explore some more trains.

Here we are aboard the Little Steamer

Ethan inside a big passenger car
Ethan & Daddy on the big black train

Family Fun at Beeman Park

Today we went to a breakfast birthday party in Sherman Oaks for one of our friends. I love being in the valley so after breakfast we went to Beeman Park, a park that I used to play at when I was a kid. It brought back so many fun childhood memories! What a fun day with the family!

Ethan & Daddy on the slide

Chuck E. Cheeeeeese!

Ethan hasn't been to Chuck E. Cheese since his first birthday. Today as we drove past it he yelled, "Chuck E. Cheeeeeeeese!" I had no idea that he knew what that place was. So since it was almost lunch time, and they have the best pizza, we went to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. It was so nice having the place almost to ourselves. Ethan's favorite part was watching "the band" with all the characters moving around and singing. It was a lovely little impromptu lunch date with my little man.

Ethan playing my favorite Chuck E. Cheese game when I was a kid.

Ethan & Chuck E. out for a ride

CA Adventure with Daddy, Amy, & Rich

Today we had such a fun day at CA Adventure. My good friend from high school, Amy and her boyfriend Rich were in town for a little visit to the happiest place on earth so we thought we would meet them there for the day. I'm usually not a huge fan of CA Adventure because there really isn't much there for Ethan to go on but we stayed there almost the whole day. It was nice having other adults there so that I could go on some "adult" rides.

A very excited little Mickey Mouse

On his favorite ride, Monsters Inc., which he rode FOUR times today!
Me & Amy

On the caterpillar ride

Waiting to see the Bug Show with his 3D glasses on.

Us with Tato Head

Ethan with Jesse from Toy Story

Riding the rocket ships with Daddy

When it got dark out we headed over to Disneyland to watch Fantasmic and the fireworks show. Ethan loved it! It was probably the best fireworks show that Dan and I have ever seen. We didn't end up leaving the park until about 11:00. Here is our little man...exhausted!

Riding Trains & Horsies!

Today we went to Griffith Park and Travel Town to ride the trains and horses. Ethan was so excited to get a ticket and wait for the train to pick us up. Once we were on the train he was so excited that he couldn't sit down the whole ride. It is so much fun seeing my little man get so excited!

Here he is with his ticket!

On the train ready to go!
When I was a little girl my mom would take me to Griffith Park to ride the horses all the time. Today was a very sad day for me that my little guy was big enough to ride the horses all by himself. I had tears in my eyes and took 71 photos! Here is my big kid on his very own pony!
There he goes...

On to Travel Town for train ride #2.

Ethan enjoyed the horses and trains but being able to stand next to a "ding ding ding" was the highlight of Ethan's day. Click on this photo to see the excitement on Ethan's face.

In his own little world walking along the tracks.

Next to the BIG wheels

GG & Ethan on the HUGE train.

What a fun day! We can't wait to go back!

A lovely Sunday with friends!

Today the weather was so beautiful! We had our friends over for a lunch BBQ in the backyard. Ethan and Julia had so much fun playing together outside. Here is a photo of them "riding" my parent's dog.

In the evening Ethan wanted to watch his favorite movie, Finding Nemo. Here he is watching it with all of his friends. So cute!