Facebook and Disneyland ... twice.

I have been such a bad blogger since I got on Facebook. It's just so much easier to put a quick update on Facebook rather than write a whole post and add pictures to the blog. I love my blog because it a great journal of our life, but I have found that my life just doesn't have time to blog right now. I will definately try better.

So, what has the Foley family been up to? We have been to Disneyland twice. Once in January for Tristan and Hailey's birthdays and then again for the weekend at the end of February.

Here are some pictures from our January trip. It was me, Tim Grace, Kelly, Chris, Hailey, Tristan, my Mom, my Dad, my Grandma, and my brother Sean. It was so great to have us all together.

Our trip in February was just me Tim and Grace. We left after work on a Friday night and drove up to my parents house to drop off the dog. We then headed down to our hotel, which was about 2-1/2 blocks from the front gates of Disneyland. We went right to bed so we would be well rested for the next day. In the morning we headed out on the short walk up to Disneyland and stopped at McDonald's on the way for a quick breakfast. We got to the entrance plaza just as the gates opened ... perfect timing. Since we have been to Disneyland a lot lately we decided we were going to take our time and really enjoy it we thought we would and let Grace choose what she wanted to ride. First up ... Dumbo. After a few hours of rides and meeting some of our favorite characters we headed over to Califonia Adventure, we wanted to try to get on the new Toy Story ride before it really got crowded. I am so glad we got on it, it was so fun! It is a 3D ride and you shoot stuff for points ... If the line wasn't so long I would have rode it again. It was almost 12:30 by then and we had reservations for the princess lunch so we we went to check in. Lunch was great. Grace was so starstruck meeting all of the princesses, it was so cute! After lunch it was back to the hotel for naps ... all of us :) After our naps we headed back to the park for an evening of rides, rides and more rides. What a fun day!







































The next day we took a little extra time getting out of bed but we still got to the parks only a little after the gates opened. We decided to do stuff that we hadn't done at Disneyland yet such as ride the Riverboat and explore the Pirate's Lair (which is the old Tom Sawyer's Island). It was so neat. There were all kinds of trails and caves to explore with pirates treasure to search for. I am glad we took the time to do that, Grace had a lot of fun. After the island and a quick lunch we headed home. What a fun weekend!

Night At The Foley House

Here is a cute video of Grace dancing and twirling her baton last night. Enjoy!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8720170306766393996&hl=en

Welcome Missy

Two weeks ago we welcomed a new addition to our family. Please welcome Missy, out new bulldog! She is 3 years old and we adopted her from the So Cal Bulldog rescue. She is very sweet and mellow. She is awsome with Grace. Grace became attached the minute we brought her home.

Christmas

Christmas Eve was nice and quiet with Tim, Grace and I enjoying each other. We went to Christmas service at church at 4:30. Grace was great during church!!! After church the 3 of us went out for a nice dinner. After dinner we headed home to call Tim's family, they were all gathering at Tim's mom's house in San Francisco to celebrate. After talking with all of them we got in our Pj's and opened a few gifts from Tim's side of the family. We prepared a plate of cookies and cup of milk for Santa and then got Grace down to sleep.

Bright and very early Christmas morning Grace was up and ready to see if Santa had come. First she saw the empty plate of cookies and her eyes were as wide as saucers. Then she saw all of the gifts under the tree and she said, "Oh my goodness!" It was so cute. All Grace kept saying she wanted for Christmas when anybody asked her was ... candy. So she went to her stocking and she said, "I think Santa put candy in here!"

After a whirlwind of opening gifts we got ready and got on the road to my parent's house for a fun day of just hanging out. Around 3:00 my sister, husband and two kids arrived and the whirlwind of opening gifts started all over. It was so much fun!

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Our Christmas was so blessed!

Christmas Activities

I know, I have been such a bad blogger... I will try better. I can't believe Christmas has come and gone, just like that. Our month of December was filled with fun Christmas activities. Here our a few highlights of our month ...

Our adoption playgroup decided to do a Breakfast with Santa potluck. We all brought yummy breakfast food and we even had some mimosas for the adults to enjoy. After eating we had a special visit from Santa!!! All of the boys loved Santa, the girls on the other hand wern't too sure of of the big guy. Grace got close to him but would not sit on his lap. She did give him a hug before he left though.

This december we did lots of crafts and baking. Grace was so fun and helpful this year. She loves being given a job, weather it be to mix the batter or clean up all of the scraps from a project, she will take the responsibility and get the job done. One of the fun projects we did was to make a ginger bread house. We did this last year and had a great time. I thought it could be a little tradition of ours. This year's house turned out much better than last years.

Another tradition that started a few years back is to visit the live nativity at our church then hop in the car and take a drive over to a neighborhood in our town that goes all out with the Christmas lights. This year we had some friends over for dinner then we did the nativity and lights together. We walked the whole neighborhood and Grace loved seeing all of the different light displays. She loved it so much we drove it again the next night. It was really cold that night so here is a cute picture of her all bundled up in her new hat and "globes", ready to go.

Halloween

Our Halloween was very special this year. Tim's mom flew in that day from San Francisco to spend the weekend with us. Grace dressed up as a fairy this year. My mom bought the pattern for this costume a long time before she had any grandchildren. She said that one day she would have a girl grand baby to make the costume for. Well ... this was finally the year! The costume turned out soooooooo cute. It was the perfect year for Grace to be a fairy since Tinkerbell just came out on video. Every time Grace see the commercial she gets so excited. I think Santa will have to bring that movie to her this year. Enjoy the pictures!

Pumpkins!

I love fall, I love pumpkins, I love Halloween! Here are some cute pictures ...

Camping

I am a little behind on updating my blog. Here are pictures from our camping trip in September.

Our Little Princess

Grace got a lot of dress up clothes for her birthday. Her favorite right now is her Snow White costume, especially the Snow White shoes. She puts the shoes on every day when she gets home.

Ariel Party

A couple months ago, when I started thinking about Grace's birthday party, I couldn't decide on a theme. I decided to print out a page of all of the different themes that I found on one of the birthday party store websites. I showed the page to Grace and let her pick which one she wanted. She immediately picked Little Mermaid. I was really excited because I have loved Little Mermaid since it came out, it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Since Grace picked the theme so many months ago she has been asking me almost everyday if her Ariel party is today. Finally, the day of the big party came on Sunday. We held the party at the same indoor play area that we had her party at last year, Playtown. We ended up having 34 adults and 16 kids! The party was a blast, all of the kids had a lot of fun. Cake was the only thing that got the kids to sit down for a minute.

Grace got so much great stuff. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.