What's New with the Serranos: Disneyland Holiday Weekend

Disneyland is so awesome at the holidays!! We spent the weekend there - drove out at naptime Saturday and drove back and naptime Sunday, and stayed at the Grand Californian which is the closest of the 3 hotels on site there to the actual parks (in fact it has an entrance to California Adventure through the hotel). We had fun but MAN was it packed on Saturday. By the time we checked in and got in, it was about 3:45. Sofia wanted It's a Small World and Gabby and I camped out for the parade. Had I known how long it would take to start, I may have re-thought it. But Sofia loved seeing the characters. Gabby seemed to the like the music. It was chilly out but she would not keep her socks on. Pulled them off every 5 minutes. She is a little sock monster! Then we headed back to Downtown Disney for dinner, and got take out to eat in our room. Gabby was super tired, so Sofia and I took off to go ride the Ariel Ride in C.A. The show was going on so we rode it 3 times in a row with no lines! But by then it had started to rain and we headed back to the hotel. Gabby was super fussy, and I forgot the teething medicine. So both she and Sofia ended up falling asleep in my bed. We were able to transfer Gabby to the portacrib. Sofia stayed in my bed though there was a gap between the bed and the wall so I put a bunch of pillows there. Wouldn't you know, middle of the night she rolled off onto the pillows, didn't even wake up, slept there til morning!
This morning Nelson and Sofia went to "Magic Mornings" - the park opens an hour early or hotel guests. They were able to get on all of the rides that always have the longest lines including Peter Pan and Dumbo, and of course a few more times on Dumbo. Gabby and I met up with them around 8 and rode Small World again (gabby loved it) and then went to Toontown for pics with the characters. It was still pretty light on attendance at this point so very short lines. We managed to hit up a few more rides before lunch, and we could see that more and more people were showing up. So we headed back to C.A. for 2 more quick Ariel rides then grabbed lunch at the hotel and left. It was at lunch I realized that Gabby was so fussy because her second tooth broke through! No wonder! Both girls crashed by the time we got on the freeway and slept the whole way home. Gabby even slept for another hour one we got home.
I have to say though that half days at D-land are the way to go. I don't know how people do a full day. It's exhausting. It's so nice to have a room to walk back to to rest, nap, shower, etc.
In terms of travel tips, the rooms at Grand Californian weren't as nice as I thought and I wasn't super impressed with their guest services. Maybe next time we'll try Disneyland hotel so we can ride the monorail!