Birthdays, Beach and Disneyland

We have had a very full January. We had birthdays, we celebrated, and even went to Southern California for 8 days. During that time, we spent 2 days at Disneyland. Let me go back to the beginning...

We Celebrated Ella and Brennan's moms birthday on the 20th of January. We had a wonderful time with some of our family and friends over at the new house. Ella is so loved and received more presents than she needed. But, she is loving them all!

The birthday girls

Ohh and Ahh over the presents

Being sung to

It is funny after last year's cupcakes took me hours to make, I vowed to do things easier for her 2nd birthday. Well...that didn't quite happen. However, these didn't take me as long. Anyways, I always feel that since her last name is Snow and she was born in the dead of winter that she should have a snowman theme. I wonder how long it will take me to get over that?... So, I made snowman cupcakes. The funny thing is I enjoyed them more than anyone else. Brennan says they were a little too intimidating. Oh well, they were sure cute!

After we celebrated her birthday, that Friday after school we packed up and headed to Newport. My parents have started this new tradition going to the beach for a month in January and February. My siblings and I definitely benefit from this decision. We went down and enjoyed the sunny, but cool weather. It was better than Salt Lake weather! We had a lot of fun going to the beach, looking for shells, and playing in the water.

The tide came up so high and went down so low that when the tide was low the beach created these warm tide pools. Ella loved them because the ocean was so cold!

Newport after a week of storms, crazy huh!

Ella's actual birthday was the first sunday that we arrived at the beach. I bought a brownie mix and thought I would just do something easy. Well, I forgot to buy oil, and I didn't want to break the Sabbath so I made brownies with applesauce... Well I needed 2/3 cup of oil so I put in 2/3 cup applesauce... Needless to say, when the brownies came out of the oven they were flat, tasteless, and really it was like eating cardboard. So, to make up for my mistake we headed down to the doughnut shop and ate doughnuts and muffins for Ella's birthday "cake". She loved the sprinkles.

Heading back from the doughnut shop

lighting the candles

She blew them out all by herself!

The one day that it rained, we headed to Disneyland with my parents and my sister and her children. Even though it was cold and wet, it was nice because there were no lines. It was fun going with Ella for the 1st time. I don't think she quite understood what was happening but she liked the rides, especially the Matterhorn. I was very surprised when we saw all the characters (Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy) she was not scared at all. In fact, I told her to hug them and she would. She was however scared of the princesses. Like I said, she doesn't get it quite yet.

See... no one around!

Our first Disney pick and she is asleep... Oh well!

She loves Cars. That's what happens when all the cousins around her age are boys! Princesses... not yet!

We had a wonderful time and can't wait until July when we head down to California again.