A big birthday shout-out to our babies who are now officially 7 years old!!! Thinking about how much we have experienced in just the 7 years they've been in our lives, I've got to say it just keeps getting better. There were times I wished they would just get a little bigger, or a little more self-sufficient, and here they are: independent, brilliant, passionate, wonderful kids. I love remembering how they "used to" do things, like mispronouncing words as they learned them (mazagine, popplipop, renember, Jofess), or when they couldn't even reach the doorknobs. But those days are long past; now I'm the one who has to remember how to pronounce things (do you even KNOW how many different Pokemon characters there are??) and our doors are the gateway OUT in order to play with friends in the neighborhood. The Wiggles and Elmo have been replaced with High School Musical and Spongebob Squarepants. Playing in the sandbox or with their Little People has been replaced with soccer, drama class and cheer. It goes by fast and it keeps getting better.
We took the twins to Disneyland to celebrate their birthday this year in lieu of a party--which they didn't mind a bit. Disneyland is running their Year of Celebrations, which includes a special offer of free admission on your birthday. Considering half of our family has the same birthday, we pulled the kids out of school for a day (oh, the rigors of 1st grade...) and took them up the night before to be ready to go in the morning. For a pre-birthday extravaganza dinner we had made reservations at Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney, which they loved.
Here's a photo of the 2 "R's" outside of California Adventure:
We stayed in a hotel right across from the park, and surprised the kids again in the morning with the character breakfast. It's always been a favorite of ours and you can't beat the Mickey-shaped waffles!
Lots of friends stopped by while we ate:
Then our first stop was Space Mountain, which everyone is finally tall enough to ride!
Thank goodness our kids love rollercoasters too, because we have many more years to enjoy amusement parks. The kids have the best faces in this picture!
The park was pretty crowded due to Spring Break, but we made our way to all of our favorite rides at one point or another during the day. We tried to spoil the kids and say "yes" as much as possible during the day--it was their actual birthday after all, so they ate ice cream sundaes for lunch, and Ryan got to buy a sword and Riley got her face painted. Both came away with new t-shirts and treasures and it was fun all the way around!
The coolest thing about the free admission is that there were tons of other kids & adults celebrating their birthday, too. Everyone wears the special button, so almost all the employees and even some other revelers wished our kids a Happy Birthday all day long! The kids were confused at first (pleasantly surprised I guess) but after a while they were telling everyone they were 7 and yes they were twins and asking other kids how old they were.
Ryan also had a special event on his birthday--he lost his second tooth. It came out during the ice cream sundae lunch while eating a chocolate chip cookie--and he swallowed it by accident! Thankfully the Tooth Fairy does not require collateral to drop off the cash.
Quick lost-tooth tally at age 7: Riley 6, Ryan 2.
Once we go to Disneyland, we are always anxious to go again, so we may actually make use of the So Cal 2-fer tickets we have and go back up to California Adventure this month! It was a great way to celebrate the momentous occasion in our family which is the March 25th birthday of our twins.
Happy 7th Birthday, Riley & Ryan. It's going to be another great year.
