Instafriday - Disneyland style!

I broke our camera a a couple of weeks ago, so our entire trip to Disneyland was captured on our iPhone cameras. Here's a taste of what we experienced, instagram style :)

The morning of our first day into the park - Faith wore her princess dress 3 out of the 4 days

Daddy teaching Noah how to shoot

Mark my words - next Christmas season, strollers all over Disneyland will be lit up with Christmas lights. Out of the 1,000's and 1,000's of people we saw in our four days, ours was the only one lit up with snowflakes and red lights - and a flashing green underneath (Darren's idea!). You would have thought we were the electric parade with the attention we got from guests and workers alike :)

Watching all of their favorite Disney channel shows "Live" in puppet form

Toon Town was Noah's favorite place

Enjoying the scenery at the Rainforest Cafe

The whole gang!

What you can't hear is Noah calling the police because Donald Duck has been killed - he has quite the imagination and wants to be a police officer, what do you expect?!

These pics where I can picture Noah as a teenager are bittersweet for me

The haul the kids made - Faith named her hippo to the left "Que comida mas rica"

Tired princess waiting to meet Tinkerbell

Tired princess waiting for the parade

Faith decided to try out her new face for all of the characters... Noah is the perfect poser right now, nice smile, stands still, he's great. We just have to get Faith on board!

Unbeknownst to Noah, he used his imagination to create a Lego mini fig of Parks and Rec's RON SWANSON

Needless to say, mom and dad were impressed.

Thanksgiving dinner on our late night date

And our Thanksgiving dessert :)

A Sneak Peek

Into our surprise Disneyland trip...

I'm pretty sure we can forget about any magical help from this fairy godmother...

Instafriday

Linking up with all of my random phone pics from the week!

For those of you that don't know, my husband wears a Santa hat the entire month of December. He has done that for as long as I've known him. Last year, Noah started wearing one whenever he was with dad. This year, I found a pink one for Faith - and today I found one for me! I'm not sure I will wear it the entire month of December, but I'm sure it will make a few appearances :)

You can put the princess dress on the girl, but you can't make the girl not make a goofy face.

This week we studied dinosaurs and the letter "D" for school. From me to Noah on his quad in the distance, we measured 110'. That was the approximate length of an Ultrasaurus. We also marked 100' for the length of a blue whale. Wouldn't want to run into either of those.

This is what Faith gets when she asks mom to make a life-jacket for an army man who wants to swim in the sink - a piece cut from the outside of a mini kleenex pack.

We may be in California but my kids love to play in the snow

I love the Target dollar section.

(what you don't see is the 15 pictures I had to take to get just one with the blinking Rudolph nose blinking "on")

This is what I need to learn to do! I took the kids in for a haircut and when Faith came around the corner she was back-combed, bobby-pinned, curled and glittered up - she looked so cute!!

Being a homemaker and a stay-at-homeschooling-mom requires working 14 hour days, taking few breaks, and appeasing sometimes moody bosses....

but when this is the paycheck, it's all worth it.

In March of 2006, two months before Noah was born, we moved into our home. We chose this house because it had a beautiful backyard and we knew that we were having a boy - a boy that would need a place to run and run and run. Today, as Noah and I played tag in the backyard during Faith's nap, all I could think about was the day we chose this house.

THIS is the very reason why we chose it.

Noah ended up with mud on his jeans, shirt, head - everywhere

He got pretty tired out - which made for a nice n' easy bedtime :)

Kalalau Trail up the Napili Coast

Eight days later and and six pounds gained - we are back!

After spending 4 days in full relaxation mode in Maui, we jetted propellered over to Kaua'i for some adventure. Darren planned a day of hiking up the Napili coast - and we were not disappointed! This hike was crazy. Three+ hours of mud, slippery rocks, streams to cross... and amazing views. I was seriously amazed by the people we ran in to: older folks in their 60's, a couple with a 9 year old girl, and a guy that was about 300 pounds even completed a portion of it! And when we made it to the hidden beach, there was a couple there with a baby in a front carrier. What?? There is no way I would have ever considered taking on a slippery, stream-crossing hike with a baby on board!

Anywho, it was really cool. Here are some pics.

All clean and shiny before our 3 hour hike through the mud and rain

We laugh at you, warning signs!

We laugh at you, mud!

Still pretty clean part way through the 1st half

This was the payoff - a secluded beach that could only be accessed by water or by the trail

Here we are after 2-3 falls in the mud (Darren) and one impressive fall into a river (Kim)

We ain't playin' - we got our pant legs zipped off and everything ;)

1/3 of the way back the sole of my boot got pulled off in the mud. Not good.

Thankfully, when you have Darren around, anything can be fixed.

In fact, one of my favorite quotes from our trip was:

"Give a geek a leatherman, I can fix ANY problem"

He tied it up and secured it and it held together for the remainder of the hike!

The views along the coast were amazing

The adventure continued as we agreed to take some hitchhikers back to Hanalei. That was a first for us :) It's actually really common on that Island. He was in the coast guard and his girlfriend was a teacher. They had spent a couple nights camping 11 miles in and were headed to the airport for their flight back to Oahu. They didn't kill us and take our Jeep so that was cool.

Instafriday - Maui Style

Welcome to Instafriday from the islands! Darren's company awarded its top ten sales teams with a trip to Maui. And if that wasn't enough, they put us up in the Four Seasons and offer us a menu of paid for activies for each day! Here are some pics from our trip so far...

Right after our couples massage on the beach - we are very relaxed :)

This, my friends, is made from scratch pancakes covered with coconut syrup and chocolate chips

Our view during lunch at the adult-only serenity pool

So blessed to be here - God is good!

Upon our arrival

In case you are wondering what the kids are up to with Jenny

At the awards reception they thanked the spouses of all the teams and gave us beautiful necklaces from Tiffany's! Seriously, we are being spoiled here!

Yeah, this is the life.

Another perk? We were asked to pick out a pair of Maui Jim Sunglasses - Darren looked them up online and they were $300! What in the world?!?!

Darren accepting his award (and my gift bag!) - so proud.

This was waiting for me when we arrived. I swear my husband is the most romantic guy in the world!

This trip has truly been a dream, I don't think I have ever stayed at a place like this with all of the indulgences. It feels like I am living the life of the rich and famous! I LOVE my normal life, but this experience has been amazing :)