Evan's 1st Birthday

In my family it is a tradition to make a train cake for 1st birthdays. Here is Evan's train cake.

Opening presents
All the cousins wanted to stay very close to Evan while he opened presents which caused him a little anxiety

Eating his cupcake. (side note: lots of blue food coloring is not a great idea. Sorry to any shirts that may have been ruined)

It was very windy the day of the party which we thought was a bad thing because we couldn't put some of the yard toys out. However, it turned out to be the best part of the party. Between chasing balloons and playing with streamers the wind was the highlight of the day.

The kids never got sick of this game

Disneyland!!!

Yay for Disneyland! I am so excited that this vacation worked out. We stayed in Vegas on the way down and St George on the way back. We spent 2 days in Disneyland/CA Adventure, one day at the beach, and one day in L.A. Everything went great. The kids weren't too bad on the drive, nobody got sick, we didn't have any car troubles, and we had great weather. The lines at Disneyland were super short. The longest line we stood in was to see Mickey Mouse and it was about 25 minutes. Overall we had a great vacation!

At Disneyland we stayed at Portofino Inn and Suites. It was less than a ten minute walk to the entrance of the park. I didn't get any good photos of the whole room so here is one from their website. Of course this picture looks better than it did in person. :) Shawn and Evan were thrilled with the bunk beds and the little table with chairs. It was a perfect place for us.

I wasn't kidding about Evan loving the bunk beds. Most of his time in the hotel was spent playing with this ladder.
We never did get a great shot of us at the entrance of Disneyland. This is the best one.

The first ride we did was Buzz Lighyear. Even though Shawn looks blah in this picture was was so excited to see Buzz and he was extactic about the ride. As you can see we couldn't even get Evan to look away from Buzz.

Jon took this ride very serious and tried to get the best score. He is making a funny face in all the pictures I took.

Evan on Buzz Lightyear

It's a Small World Afterall.... Evan slept through It's a Small World

Shawn driving Mickey's car outside his house

Knocking on random doors with random little girls.

Waiting in line to see Mickey

Shawn loves Mickey Mouse and was so happy to see him

He refused a hug from Sleeping Beauty

Tired little guys

What you don't see in this picture is Evan taking of his hat and wacking Shawn in the face until he woke up

Evan found ways to entertain himself in the lines. He tried to climb on everything.....and he also liked to play this game where he would suddenly throw himself backwards and then just laugh. We were lucky we never dropped him

On the Jungle Cruise. I love that ride.

Carousel

The germaphobe in me just about freaked out when Evan kept licking the pole

One of the only family photos we got (plus our new little girl in the background)

Shawn kept trying to get his sword out and then resolved that Daddy would be able to do it because Daddy is SO strong

Nope

Hanging out on the bunk beds

CA Adventure

On day #2 we went into Disneyland for a little while and then headed over to CA Adventure. None of us had ever been to CA Adventure so it was a brand new experience.

Of course Shawn loved driving. He now thinks he can drive my car.

Shawn was able to go on everything except Indiana Jones and he loved the rides. I was certain he was going to come off Space Mountain crying, but he came out laughing.
It's too bad that Cars Town (or whatever its called) wasn't open yet. Shawn would have LOVED that.

Cooling off in Bugs Land

I deem this ride the worst ride that either park had to offer. It was the caterpillar from Bugs Life going around eating giant food and burping.

I love the beach!

We happened to be in CA the same time my Aunt planned her family vacation. We saw them at Disneyland and we hung out at their beach house one of the days. It was so nice and really fun. I love the beach and I could definitely get used to live close to a beach. Shawn LOVES it too. He has asked me every day when we are going back to the beach. I think he talks about it more than Disneyland. In his prayer the other night he prayed that we would go back to Disneyland and the beach.

Getting ready to chase the waves (Shawns favorite activity)

Checking out the beach
It might have been Jon's favorite activity too. Like father like son.

Evan loved playing in the sand until he decided to taste a handful of it

I tried to get Evan down for a nap under our little umbrella and this is what happened.

Then Daddy tried

Have I mentioned that Shawn loves the beach.

I only post this picture of me in swim suit because it is the only family photo we got of us all smiling

Hanging out on the patio of the beach house