April 26th, 2012

Dinseyland with a Toddler: What we did right/What we did wrong

First of all, let me just say that I mostly mean me (at least for the mistakes). Disneyland. oh holy hell. So much fun and so, so crappy. All at the same time. I’m still recovering and processing. I think I’ll hold off on the photo bomb post just to get some of my thoughts down while they are still fresh. We decided to go a bit at the last minute. We’d been intending to go before June this year to take advantage of the Southern California resident discount, but hadn’t set a date. Just last Saturday, we realized that Monday-Tuesday of the same week might be our only option so we went for it.

Ultimately, it’s probably for the best that we did things last minute given my tendancy to overplan and stress. We didn’t even have a hotel reservation! But only because the hotel’s website went down when I was trying to make a reservation. We did have a plan. Sort of.

What we did right:

• drove down the night before so we could swim (for Spencer) and get settled before heading to the park bright and early.
• bought park hopper tickets (for only $15 more, could visit both parks (Disneyland & California Adventure) on both days
• packed light (only carried a purse)
• If you are bringing disposable diapers (which we did), bring a new vacuum sealed pack of diapers. When you take the diapers out to bring to the park, they will be super flat and take up almost no room in your bag.
• rented a stroller on the second day (strollers are only $15/day. Don’t be a hero! Or, you know, remember to bring a stroller)
• asked at City Hall about times for cast member appearances (the was a great tip from my Disney-savvy friends at SoCal Lady Bloggers. I asked about Buzz on the second day and not only was given the exact time he would be appearing and where, but she gave us some Fast Passes, too.)
• line snacks/ride cookies (small snacks distract and satisfy a toddler, espcially on longer rides like the submarine)
• don’t buy any toys/gifts/presents the first day (I didn’t have to cary them and we could use the purchase as bribery for good behavior)
• Meal Box for toddler (We had lunch in tomorrowland (and caught the awesome Jedi training live show accidentally) and they had something called a Jedi Snack Pack or something and it was the prefect toddler lunch: yogurt, string cheese, apple slices and goldfish with a juice box. All individually packaged so I could carry what he didn’t eat. Much better than Spence taking three bites of an expensive hamburger and abandoning the remainder. Overall we made pretty poor food choices, but this was a winner.
• I left my big camera at home. Maybe I don’t have the best pictures in the world (photo bomb post coming soon), but have have the memories and didn’t have to carry my DSLR around for two days. We actually just used our phones but a little point and shoot would work too.
• You can see the parade from Alice in Wonderland’s line if you time it right. Also, the lines in Fantasyland are really short right then. We aren’t parade people.

What we did wrong

• we didn’t go back for our stroller. I remembered right when we got on the freeway and it was my call to keep going. We could have done one day without, but no way we could have made it through the second.
• stayed at a hotel on the Anaheim Resort Transit system instead of a hotel with a private shuttle. We had to pay, it didn’t come very often AND I lost my ticket and had to pay again for the ride home. We walked the second day, there and back. It took us over an hour to get home the first night, the second night we hustled and were back at the hotel in 15 minutes.
• relatedly: choose a hotel more carefully. This is the one place where our spontaneous trip hurt us. I didn’t have time to research shuttles/perks/free breakfasts and the like. It wasn’t so bad that I would bash the hotel chain on the internet, but I wouldn’t recommend it either.
• I committed the ultimate mom of a toddler sin: I offered a choice and then didn’t follow through on the answer. I asked Spencer if he wanted ears or a balloon. He chose ballon and then I found out they were $12 and I refused. TWELVE DOLLARS FOR A BALLOON. No way. I refused. So we got ears and he is ambivalent. I hope he likes them later.
• check the weather everyday. This is just me being dumb. It was cloudy and awesome the first day and I assumed it would be the second because that’s what the weather said on Sunday. Because I didn’t check the weather, I ended up lugging Spencer’s jacket around all day. It’s not that big of a deal, but it did take up valuable purse space.

I love the girls posing. I have no idea who they are.

April 24th, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: Toy Story Mania. Literally.

This week has been crazy. My husband got some extra days off and we went all over Southern California and the Central Coast. Most notably, Spencer’s first trip to Disneyland. Consider his mind blown. More photos to come.

Link up your wordless wednesday posts below!

April 20th, 2012

Spencer Cooks: Smoothie

There are easily a million smoothie recipies on the internet and I am not trying to say the Spencer is some sort of toddler food savant. One of my favorite things I have from my childhood is the recipe card from the first recipie I “invented,” the Meat Roll-Up. Essencially, it was wrapping a pickle in lunchmeat with optional cheese. Genius! I still eat this. I loved that my mom kept the recipe card in her box with the other real recipes. I thought since Spencer created this smoothie on his own, I would document it here. The measurements are guesstimates – you can just substitute have toddler add yogurt with a spoon until he gets bored.

 Spencer Smoothie

Blend together:

2 Ripe Bananas, sliced (banana bread ripe)
20 blackberries
3 guavas (halved and scooped)
(about) 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
(about) 1/2 cup milk

And add more milk if too thick. I used a measuring cup and an immersion blender, but a regular blender would work great too. We make a great team. I chop and blend. He selects the fruit, scoops, “measures” and pours.

April 19th, 2012

Thrifting: Glasses, Snakes and Shrimp Newburg

Thought I would link up with High on Thrifting Thursday again. This is a purchase from quite a while ago, but part of it was a present that I didn’t want to blog about until showed my sister the glasses and then I forgot all about them. I got all of this one morning, the glasses were on super sale, but I thought the books were a little pricey. Or I am just old and miss the 10 cent paperback days.

These are copse glasses, which are what I was supposed to get my sister for christmas, but never did. They are an old fashioned type of non-flute champagne glasses. There are some cocktails they like to make at home that call for them. These are vinatge fun and I adore the little etched polka dots around the rim. Maybe this will motivate me to get them in the mail. Nothing better than christmas in April!

Random purchase, but it was in great condition and I figure Spencer go through a snake phase eventually. I’m keeping it in the emergency toy cupboard for now and will get it out when we get board some afternoon. I had a ton of books like this when I was a kid and I just loved them. I found my whales book the other day and I’ll be stoked when Spencer is old enough to read it.

This has to be my favorite genre of cookbook – hardback with strange printed cover instead of a dustjacket, weird colorization and half black and white photography half color and the crazy recipes. The description for the covor photo: franks with a corkscrew cut are sauced with a tomato soup mixture for Saucy Franks.

This is a glorius 70s printing of a cookbook from the late 1960s. My favorite recipes based on the titles alone are Carrots Piquant, Pampered Beef Filets (pampered!!!) and Instant Pastafazool.

And the winner for grossest picture:

Shrimp Newburg! Ew. Just Ew. I love these things. Also, look at the recipe below: tuna stroganoff. TUNA STROGANOFF. That is like the mother of all ews. And the curly parsley is delightfully dated.