Christmas in Disney!

I love Christmas in Disneyland. The kids and I packed up Sunday (14th) and left Aaron at home to work. Sounds cruel, right? He is working at M Resort and they had a big turnover so there was no way he was able to join us. We stayed at the Anaheim Hilton and had an awesome view of the park.

Highlight #1 - Alivia is now over the 40" mark so she was able to ride Space Mountain (loved it!), Thunder Mountain Railroad and pretty much everything else!

Highlight #2 - No crowds on Monday because of the rain. Didn't scare us off. We just headed out with our ponchos and umbrellas. Walked on to all the rides and even rode them more than once.

Highlight #3 - My kids were troopers. No complaining from anybody!

Highlight #4 - Being with some friends and having time with my kids.

Highlight #5 - Free tickets! Can't beat that.

Highlight #6 - Making it home. I woke my kids up at 5am on Wednesday because that big storm was coming in. I drove in the snow from the Cajon Pass all the way past Barstow. For those that don't know, it was far! Especially for me, the Nevada native. Notice their pants. We were very wet. In fact, I could squeeze the water from Alivia's socks.

Since being home, we've been busy. We had our annual progressive dinner with Aaron's family, the Gifford party, a few other parties and of course...shopping!

Cute, right?

Aaron built a schoolhouse for the Schoolhouse Rock play my kids were in,so instead of them throwing it away, we built this:

Our very own gingerbread house.
We made the snowman and Santa a few years ago. Handy husbands are so....well, handy!

We had a yard sale on Saturday and I couldn't believe how well my kids handled it. I thought they would be trying to sneak things back in the house but they didn't. Actually, I let them help label things with price tags so they were eager to find things to put out. We ended up making almost $300.00. That means we had too much junk and as I look around there is still more junk we could have sold!

We started our yard sale at 6am because Alyson had to be at the soccer field at 1 pm for her last tournament. She did well and even scored a goal. This was it for the season. I am so impressed with the progress Alyson has made with soccer this season. Her coaches are great! They coach for the love of the game and not out of parental obligation. Neither one of these guys has a child, niece, granddaughter or any relative playing on the team. Coach Larry and Coach Al with Alyson. Impressive,right? I know I would never be that generous.
That's Alyson in the purple. Man, I wish my camera had a better zoom!Every year Aaron's Aunt Jamie does a Christmas video of the entire Gifford family (88 members thanks to Aaron's grandma and grandpa Gifford). She puts it to music and we are assigned different parts of a song. This year Aaron and I were assigned "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause." It's a lot of fun to watch the video and see all the different pictures.
Well, I would like to say I have all my Christmas shopping done, but I can't. I am running out of time but it will have to wait because the girls and I are going to Disneyland for a few days. We were able to land some free passes so off we go! Dad will have to stay home this trip because he has an important job, I guess. Sorry Dad!

Why we love our kids....