California Adventure kind of sucked hahahahaha. There were only a small handful of rides my son was tall enough for and even less for my daughter. So many rides were closed, things didn’t open when the park did. There was just a lot that was disappointing. We did manage to occupy ourselves for the whole day but we were super glad we only went there for 1 day.
My son loves the Cars movie so Cars land was a hit Frozen snacks……so cold they almost broke your teeth The rare picture of just usI found the Starbucks!!!! Both parks had a Starbucks in them but they don’t outwardly advertise that they are Starbucks until you get up close. He thought Chip or Dale (not sure which hahahaha) was cool but he was a little wary. My daughter wouldn’t even go near him. There was this cool redwood forest place in the park with lots of fun stuff to climb and explore……but even parts of this had height requirements. What the heck??!!!Nap timeMy sister and brother-in-law got to come and spend part of the day with us! The kids were so thrilled The ‘san Francisco Pier ‘ area in the park.My sister!!!!They both like Monsters inc. He LOVED this wrecked car outside one of the shops in Cars land. It would smoke and make a noise like it was trying to start. He stood there forever! And we went back several times. Micky’s philharmonic 3d show.
And that’s a wrap!!!!
It was long and exhausting but I am so glad we did it. I loved watching their little eyes light up and watching them explore so many new things.
I wish the food was better for the prices they charge. I wish some of the characters were more easily accessible or accessible at all. There were no characters from Encanto which my daughter loves and to see Anna and Elsa you had to wait in a line forever and they were behind doors until you got up there so you couldn’t even wave at them and see them if you didn’t want to wait in line.
I don’t see us going back for a very long time, if ever. It’s just soooooo dang expensive! They really do nickel and dime you…..or should I say like $20 and $50 you.
I was very happy with the time of year we went though. Granted with small kids we didn’t go on some of the most popular rides with the longest waits but with the use of watching the app for wait times and trying to be smart the longest we waited was about 20min for a ride. So, I am incredibly thankful for that because I don’t think they would have tolerated much longer.
All in all I am so glad for the memories but I don’t need to do it again.
Good morning!!It was fun to see Disneyland decorated for Halloween.Runaway railroad! Ella loved it! Robert not so much, I think it was a little herky jerky for him.Fun in ToontownMini’s house!It was fun to explore the houses and see what was just decoration and what you could really interact with. Mini me. He LOVED the rocket ships……I took Ella on once and she loved it…….mama did not lol. I do not like spinning things and it leans to the side and goes pretty fast! Not for me lol. Napping on the Jungle Cruise Star Wars land. Sort of a mini date for us to walk around together while the kids napped in the stroller.
Star Wars land is freaking cool! Very immersive feeling….but! Only 2 rides and the rest is all shops……seems gimmicky for a whole land….but 100% worth exploring…..if you are there.
It’s a small world after all!!!! The kids loved everything you could look at and mom and dad loved the air conditioning Tom Sawyers island. Robert LOVED the caves. Lots of fun to look at and explore. He was so stinking proud to get his ‘licence’ lol. $7 well spent. He still has it. He spent the rest of the trip showing it before every driving ride. We ended the night on the carousel.Hi Papa!IT’S NOT PAPA!!!!!
As if I wasn’t crazy enough to sign up for a long race with 2 kids under 3 I then decided that with only 1 day of rest we would spend 4 days at Disneyland.
I loved watching them look at all the new things and explore everything. It’s impossible to get a picture where we are all looking at the camera and smiling.Churros!!!! Oh the amount of sugar we consumed.This was goofy’s house playground. The kids loved these kind of things just as much as the rides.I love that there were things for them to explore and help their minds work and not just rides.Daily stroller naps.Both our arms were dead at the end of each day. Even though we had a stroller half the time the kids wanted to be carried.I love the wonder in their eyes.Ducks! My daughter is obsessed with ducks and they are all around at Disneyland.
Don’t know how but we picked a great time to go. During the day, we were almost always able to find a ride that had less than a 20 minute wait. I can tell you anything longer than that and your kids are going to freak out. Even the 20 minutes my daughter would get really fidgety by the end. Snacks are key.
Our first year of homeschooling is coming to an end. I loved almost every minute of it lol. Overall, my toddler did amazing with the curriculum. With a year under my belt now I kind of know how he learns and how he does things. So I will review the curriculum that we used for preschool and in a couple weeks I’ll post what we’re going to do for Pre-K.
We started this about 2/3rds of the way through the year and will be continuing it through pre-K. These are much more lesson like so we tend to break them up into smaller sections but I have become a big fan of the Good and the Beautiful.
I didn’t like this at all and neither did my toddler. We found it to be very dry and boring. I wasn’t going to make either of us suffer through it after I decided we didn’t like it. We got about halfway through it then I chucked it in the recycling bin.
Farm land math from Timberdoodle
My son loved this in the beginning and even asked for it regularly to play it. However once his new little sister was big enough to start taking pieces it started turning into a battle so we set this aside as well. But, it did lay a great foundation for us.
Also from Timberdoodle
This was fantastic. Timberdoodle actually added this in their 2023-2024 preschool curriculum kit so I only ordered it about 2 months ago but we are almost done with it. If you do it weekly it is not a full year’s worth of curriculum but it has added a little bit of math back into our study.
Another one that my toddler and I thought was really boring and dry. Just like the math we got about halfway through the book and I chucked it.
History and social studies
Love this puzzle, it is super adorable. For a long time my toddler had little to no interest in doing anything except jumping on the pieces to get them together when I set them in the correct place. But in the last 6 weeks that has started to change, with me helping him identify which pieces go where he is assembling it entirely himself. I thought this book was super cool and interesting, my toddler generally just tolerated it lol. We did not finish it. I might throw it in here and there in our pre-K unit and see if he likes it better.
Nature and science
Love, love, love this. This curriculum is meant to be used year after year after year layering in more information and learning each year. Right now we keep it very basic but I look forward to using it for years to come with the kids. This is really great for kids that aren’t ready for a full curriculum. We started with this entire program which is made of units. Now we use it mainly for it’s great book lists as well as a science project here and there.
Art
Eh, super cute idea but my toddler was just kind of meh about it. Maybe he’ll become more artistic in the future (though I’m not sooooo….I wish I was but was not blessed in that area)
Skills
This was great in the beginning of the year to get my son interested in learning to use scissors but we didn’t finish it because once he semi knew what he was doing he wanted to do his own cutting lol.
Overall, it was a great year. I loved watching my son grow in leaps and bounds. Which is exactly how it came. He would not get something and suddenly it would click. He was really did go in leaps and bounds and stops and starts.
The great thing about homeschooling his preschool is I was really able to follow his rhythm and our rhythm as a family. There were weeks where we didn’t do anything. We kind of fell out of our rhythm and then we’d pick it back up and have a couple of great weeks, couple great months and then kind of fall off again which worked out great for us. We’re still finishing on time and I just love the entire experience.
We started a little before he returned 2 years old. So it was by no means always easy sunshine but it was rewarding and wonderful. Occasionally I did resort to a little bit of bribery or coercion sort of to get him to come over and start. Once he started. He usually loved everything. But it would occasionally be oh. Can you help Mommy do this? Or do you want to come eat a chip with me while we look at this picture and talk about it? Lol.
Trailing the blonde 