Mickey's Trick or Treat Party

For several years we have been wanting to go to Mickey's Trick or Treat party at Disney's California Adventure (DCA). We finally have an excuse!

We took Amberlin to her first trick-or-treat outing a couple weeks ago and she had a great time! She was so well-behaved and she even kept her costume on throughout the night - hat and everything! Lali and Pop came with us and we had a lot of fun.

Our little Nemo

Sooo Big!

Amberlin & Lali during a costume/diaper change break

Our family

Amberlin with Lali & Pop

Visiting with Mater & Lightening

Catching some zzz's

Happy Halloween!

Learning about how to sort her candy from Daddy

This made her HAPPY!!

Good girl... go for the apples. She also liked the Ghirardelli chocolate... that's my girl!

Andy's Birthday

Andy's birthday was this past week and I took the day off to celebrate him! After waking up and opening his present, we enjoyed a family day at Disneyland. His gift this year was a Cuisinart food processor to help with all of the cooking that he has been doing lately! (He has already used it to make dressing, crab cakes and a pizza from scratch this week.) We had a great time in the parkWe watched the flag ceremony, one of our favorite lesser-known treasures at DisneylandWe rode the Lily BelleEven the conductor couldn't resist holding Amberlin! To end the night, we headed over to the Grand Californian hotel for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - the Napa Rose.

D23 Expo

This year Disney started a club called D23 (which Andy promptly joined). It comes with some perks including special events held for members and a special magazine that comes out once each quarter. They put together an expo in September that we decided to go to. Andy went to all four days and I joined him on Saturday. They had all kinds of fun presentations, displays, exhibits and guests (including a lot of celebrities).

We had a lot of fun!

This display was awesome - it is a new concept that tells stories in sandboxes. I can't tell you how cool it is. You would have to see it! But it is amazing...

A discussion panel with the creators of the Midway Mania ride at DCA

They had a lot of props from the TV show LOST - one of our favorites!

Young Ben from LOST

This was the castle built from donated food cans throughout the expo

Amberlin playing with Wall-E

A lego exhibit where artists were making pictures from groups of legos that people put together.

Our family with Lucky, an animatronic dinosaur that is in testing stages. He interacts with people on an individual basis.

A little glimpse of the fun we had...

Absent

I'm sorry I have been so absent from the blog over the last few months. I have not been very good about updating since I went back to work. It is really hard to find the time because when I get home at night, all I want to do is spend time with Andy and Amberlin. I get about three and a half hours with the baby before she goes to sleep, so I try to take full advantage of every minute. I have also returned to school and, although class is only one night per week, the workload seems bigger since I have to get everything done around my time with Amberlin & Andy.

I am so thankful that Andy is able to stay home with Amberlin. It would make it so much harder to be away during the day if I didn't know that she was in such capable hands. He is a wonderful Daddy and you can see it in the way Amberlin adores him. He has also become quite the chef since he started staying home. He has always been good at cooking, but he has had more time to try out recipes and make meals recently. I am LOVING that! I get gourmet meals nearly every night. It's fantastic! The more time that passes, the more I know that I am so blessed to have Andy in my life... as my husband, as my friend, as my child's father... and now as my favorite chef! :)

More pics from Grammy & Papa's visit

Here are the rest of the photos from our time with Andy's parents last month. I can't believe a month has already gone by since they were here!

Peek-a-boo!

Look what's poking through....

Papa & Grammy's visit

At the beginning of September, Andy's parents came to visit us. We are absolutely loving getting to spend so much time with them! We had a great relaxing time and got to celebrate Labor Day together, as well as visiting the WD Concert Hall in LA, taking them to Porto's in Glendale, exploring the Americana at Brand and trying out some of our favorite restaurants.

There are a lot more photos on the way, but I have to figure out how to get them from the PS3 to my laptop. (Oh, Andy.....!!!)