Birthdays and Disneyland!

We decided to go big this year and celebrate both girl's birthdays at the happiest place on earth!  

In February, we celebrated Addy's FIRST birthday!

In April, we celebrated Maya's FIFTH birthday!

Disneyland - again!!

We went to Disneyland again a couple of weeks ago!  We feel so darn lucky to have gone a few times this year!

We went during Halloweentime - so awesome to see everything decorated!
We also went to Mickey's Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treating, such fun!

Happiest family at the Happiest Place on Earth!

Maya loved all of the rides in Cars Land

Our little beauty

Maya loves seeing all of the Disney Characters!

Maya's most favorite character this time was Chewbacca!

We couldn't believe Maya was tall enough to ride some of the
'big-kid rides' like Splash Mountain!  And, although her face may
say otherwise, she loved it and kept asking to go again!

Another favorite Disney Character of  Maya's right now is Baily
from 'Finding Dory'.  She was all about the Baily stuffed animal!
And it's not a Disney trip without a yummy churro!

 We don't know when our next Disney trip will be, but we sure have lived it up so far this year!

May Yay!

May was so exciting!  We had a fun end of year preschool party!  And we celebrated my (Rachael's) 40th birthday!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to the end of year preschool party too!

Brandon took us for a hotel stay in Salt Lake for my birthday!
Look at that view from our hotel - beautiful Temple Square. 

My favorite birthday gift - Brandon took me to Alex and Ani to pick out some bracelets.
I picked Maya and Brandon's birth stones- to always have them with me. 

May Yay!

May was so exciting!  We had a fun end of year preschool party!  And we celebrated my (Rachael's) 40th birthday!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to the end of year preschool party too!

Brandon took us for a hotel stay in Salt Lake for my birthday!
Look at that view from our hotel - beautiful Temple Square. 

My favorite birthday gift - Brandon took me to Alex and Ani to pick out some bracelets.
I picked Maya and Brandon's birth stones- to always have them with me. 

3 Years Old!!!

Guess who had a birthday in April ?!?  How is this girl 3 Years Old already!  We are so grateful for the amazing blessing of adoption and the incredibly difficult decision her sweet birth mom made to place Maya into our family!  Maya, we love you so much!  Maya is a fun, sassy, happy, smart, grateful, helpful, strong, independent, outgoing, and thoughtful little girl! How lucky we are to be her parents!

We had a little birthday party for May with family a couple of days early, because Brandon and I made plans for a last minute surprise!

She sure loved the decorations and loved being the star of the day!

Maya was pretty specific about her cake, she wanted a Bubble Guppy Cake!
The difficult part of that was finding a bakery that made that specific cake, I couldn't
find one anywhere nearby!  So, I ordered some fun Bubble Guppy candles online and a
local bakery made a fun beachy/underwater cake, we added the candles, and it
looked great!  Maya was so excited about it!

Opening Presents!

Look who got a strider-bike!  She loved it and picked up on the idea of how to
ride it pretty quickly -- what a girl!

And on for the big surprise ... Brandon and I decided a few days before her birthday to take a last minute trip to, of course, Disneyland!  No better place to celebrate the BIG THREE than at the Happiest Place on Earth, right?

One Happy Faimly!

We always decorate the house for birthdays, and being away is certainly
no exception!  We brought decorations to keep our fun family tradition
alive at the hotel!  She loved waking up to decorations and presents!

Birthday Breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen!

Swimming at the hotel pool!

We didn't get to see the Sound-sational parade back in February so we made
sure to get a spot to enjoy it this time!

Ready to ride Winnie the Pooh!

Happy Birthday big 3 year old!

February Disneyland Trip

In February we took a fun-filled family vacation to our favorite place -- Disneyland! We spent 10 days visiting the Happiest Place on Earth!  The weather was perfect and we had such an exciting time, it was difficult to come home!

One of our favorite spots for a pic in California Adventure!
Maya's favorite ride is close by in this pic, The Little Mermaid ride!

This picture!  Isn't it the best?  Brandon captured it just before The World of Color.
We love it so much we printed a large copy and Brandon has it hanging in his office at work!

I had so much fun dressing Maya in casual clothing inspired by Disney Princesses!

Maya wanted to dress as Princess Jasmine for the princess lunch at Ariel's Grotto.
It was so cute to watch her when a princess would come out, Maya would become
this little star-struck nervous eater.  She was in heaven, which made us so happy!

Characters! Characters! Characters!  This trip had a lot to do with meeting characters!

The Big SIX

Happy 6th Anniversary to us!

We celebrated as a family with a little get-away just outside of Salt Lake City - we love a fun hotel stay!  The hotel even upgraded us to a suite because we were celebrating!

Our suite!  So fun and so big!

Ready to go to the pool!

Our little fishy. 

While in Salt Lake we went to the zoo! Our favorite!

The zoo also had a lot of dinosaurs to learn about too!

She was hiding behind the pole so the T-Rex wouldn't see her. ;)

The best part of the whole weekend was being together, of course!

Happiest Place on Earth!

A few weeks ago, we took a little family trip to Disneyland!  Oh what fun we had!  We spent 6 days at the Happiest Place on Earth and we were ready to go back as soon as we got home! ;)  Here are some fun pics from our awesome trip.

We went during 'Halloween Time' - so fun to see it decorated!

In front of the castle. It was hotter than blazes the first couple of days. 

Maya - with her face painted.  So excited to have makeup, and especially glitter!

Maya's not too impressed - but we sure are! ;)

With Walt and Mickey at California Adventure

Maya had the time of her life!

Maya got to meet a lot of characters!

Donald was so cute with Maya!

Maya got to pet Pluto and kiss Mickey's nose!

Dancing with Goofy

Hugs from Minnie

Twirling with Tink - they loved each other's shoes. ;)

Checking out Fawn's wings

Hugs from Buzz and a wave from Woody on his way out!

Ka-Chow!

Kisses from Donald - she sure loved her some Donald!

At the Princess Lunch - Maya (dressed as Tiana) was in heaven!

And we already can't wait to go back! ;)

Our whole world!

Waiting for our flight home.  We could have stayed forever!