Birthdays

We've been busy celebrating around here since Jake and Addi both just had a birthday. The big news is that they finally saved up enough money to get their Disneyland passes. Jake earns money by recycling bottles and cans, and has been saving for over a year for passes. We told him that if he saved enough for two passes for them (Addi had to pitch in any money that she happened to get), we would buy the two additional passes for us...since, afterall, they do need somebody to take them. They had gotten up to about $250 or so, and then Jay's parents gave them each cash for their birthdays that got them where they needed to be. We bought the least expensive passes we could get, which blocks out all weekends and the entire summer, but really, who wants to go to Disneyland when it's at its most crowded anyway? (If you asked Jay, he would say, really, who wants to go to Disneyland at all?!) We were able to go once last week for their birthday celebration, and then we are going again once this week before the passes are blacked out for the summer. Jay is thrilled.

Jake is definitely a thrill-seeker. He was just barely big enough for the California Screamin' roller coaster at California Adventure and couldn't get enough of it. He was very nervous at first because it goes upside down, and he was just not understanding how it could possibly stay on the tracks. After one time though, he was hooked. He would have just done that ride the rest of the day if he could have.

We waited in line for 45 minutes for Addi to meet the princesses. She was very excited, but then she was almost too nervous to talk to them...as evidenced by her nervous habit of rolling her hands up in her clothes. She could hardly let go of me long enough for me to get a couple of pictures, but she managed to do it.

After having Addi just borrow an extra scooter of our neighbor's for the past year, we decided it was probably time for her to have her own...a pink one, with a bell and streamers.

Jake picked out these clip on earrings for Addi all by himself. He was very excited to give them to her.

We took the kids for ice cream for their birthdays and Addi did not like when they sang Happy Birthday to her. Jake, on the other hand, stood up on the booth bench and was loving it.