Daddy Dan

On Friday, as many of you might have seen on Twitter here, I took the day off and took the Babito to Disneyland while Mommy was Christmas shopping.  I’ll take Disneyland over Christmas shopping any day.  It was perfect mid-70’s weather, with not a cloud in the sky.  When we got there around 10:00 it wasn’t very crowded, but it got crowded during the evening.

Here’s how our day started…

Next stop was the Matterhorn, and Babito took his first ride on the bobsleds.  He’s been eligible to ride for a few months now but I didn’t know the height requirement was only 35 inches.  I thought he might be a little scared, especially during the dark parts, but he wasn’t.  He loved it and laughed throughout the ride.  Here he is pointing at the mountain…

Can you see our excitement about It’s A Small World?….

It was all decorated for Christmas, and thankfully, they had Jingle Bells and a few other Christmas songs mixed in with the Small World theme song…

Finally, it’s over!…

After riding Pirates and Winnie the Pooh, we ran into Brer Bear and Babito showed him some love…

We went over to California Adventure next to get away from the afternoon Disneyland crowds and noticed that the big lake has been completely drained.  They’re putting in a new water show that’ll be debuting next year.  Notice too that the Ferris Wheel cars are missing.  They’re redoing that ride with a Mickey Mouse theme…

Our next stop was the Redwood Creek area.  Babito and The Bear (I don’t know his name) are apparently great pals…

This area is a great place to let your kids burn off some extra energy.  Babito loves to run across the bridges in this area….

Next, we watched the Pixar Parade….

With Mater bringing up the rear…

After a quick trip back to Disneyland to see The Tiki Room Show and take a ride on the teacups, we headed home.  It was a great day with The Babito.

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend…

Thursday we spent the day at my parents’ house with my parents, grandma, and my brother and his family.  We played a lot of Wii.  We had fun making characters for the games.  We made everyone in the family, plus some additional characters.  I made a spot-on Michael Jackson.  Once you create characters you can use them in the game.  My grandma thought it was hilarious to see herself racing cars and playing tennis.

Friday my wife and I took the Babito to Disneyland for a bit.  We went on It’s a Small World, and luckily the theme song was only a small part of the ride because they have it decorated for Christmas and play Christmas songs through most of the ride.  It hasn’t stopped Babito from constantly singing the Small World song, although it’s cute when he sings it.  I wanted to take him on The Matterhorn but the line was huge.  He kept asking me to take him on “The Mountain” but we never got on it.  The line was shorter at night, but I thought it might be too scary for him in the dark so we decided to wait.  I don’t want him to be afraid of it.  We also saw the Disneyland Christmas Parade, which Babito loved.

Saturday my wife’s family came to our house for a late Thanksgiving.  We once again played a lot of Wii, which was fun.  The Wii is a great family/party activity as it gets everyone involved.

Sunday we started decorating the house for Christmas.  My wife has accumulated a TON of Christmas decorations.  There are many storage boxes stacked up in our living room right now, but she’s made a good start.  I put up the lights on the house.  We went old-school this year with the big C-9 multi-colored bulbs like these:

We had these kind of lights on our house growing up, so they bring back some great memories.  I plan on adding more to the bushes and trees during the week.

We also brought out our singing Santa Claus. 

He’s 5-feet tall and sings Christmas songs while he dances back and forth.  He also comes with a microphone so you can make him talk.  At first, Babito was scared of him, but he warmed up to him by the end of the night.  He used the microphone to make Santa Claus sing, you guessed it, It’s A Small World, over and over again. 

And how was your Thanksgiving weekend???

We had a great evening at Disneyland on Saturday.  The entire park is all dressed up for Christmas, and it was beautiful.  This is one instance where pictures do it absolutely no justice, but I’m going to try anyway.

Click on each picture to see a larger version…

And don’t forget the snow immediately following the fireworks.  Babito was in awe of it.  It was worth the 60 minute wait for the tram afterward…

I haven’t had time to put together a thoughtful, well-written post (have I ever done that?) lately, but I do have some things I’d like to share, in functional bullet-point style:

• Christmas season officially begins today at Disneyland.  We’re taking Babito tomorrow.  Supposedly they’ve greatly improved the lighting and the snow on Main Street this year.  It should be fun.  Also, they’re about to reopen the Sleeping Beauty walkthrough that’s been closed since 9/11.  Lastly, It’s A Small World reopens today.  I dread taking Babito on it because that damn song will be stuck in my head the rest of the day.
• I’m thinking about doing a giveaway in 2009 to all my loyal readers.  My plan, which isn’t completely finalized right now, is to hook each of you up with a FREE ticket to Disneyland on your birthday.  Any interest?
• Last Disneyland note, I was looking at the height requirements for the various rides to see how much taller Babito has to get to go on some new rides.  I was shocked to see that he’s tall enough to go on the Matterhorn!  I’m not sure if he’s ready for it.  It’s somewhat of a rough ride, but he does love the kiddie roller coaster in Toontown.  We’ll have to take a closer look at it tomorrow.
• The Social Security Administration has released their list of most popular baby names for 2007.  The top five for boys:  Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua, Daniel (yes!).  The top five for girls:  Emily, Isabella, Emma, Ava, Madison.  The SSA site also allows you to put in your type in your own name to see where it falls on the list and also allows you to view the most popular names by year, going all the way back to 1880. 
• Lastly, I’d like to recommend the new album by Taylor Swift, called ‘Fearless’.  I know, she’s a teenage country singer, but she’s much more than that.  Give it a listen, you may just like it.  She got a rave review in the last issue of The New Yorker, where the reviewer compares her songwriting skills to Hank Williams, Prince, Elvis Costello, and Randy Newman. 
• Have a great weekend everybody!

Babito rides the Toon Town roller coaster at Disneyland: