Disneyland

So we did the much anticipated trip to Disneyland. We kept it a surprise from the kids and that was so fun!  We haven't been since 2008 I think it was. So we woke the kids up early and of course I had a camera set up to record it all. I had made Mickey Mouse pancakes and made each of them a green shirt with either tinker bell or Mickey Mouse on it, partly to keep track of all of them and it turned out to be a great idea. We could spot them pretty quick if they drifted a little away from us. I packed 5 days worth of clothes, but they wore their shirt almost every day because they liked them so much. We also had a headbands game that had Mickey Mouse ears so we had them put them on and then asked them if they wanted to go to Disneyland. They were excited.

They did really well on the airplane. I hoped they would sleep some since we woke them up so early, but no luck. After we got off the airplane we still had to take a shuttle to our hotel, which wasn't too bad, it was about 45 minutes.

 

Our hotel was right across the street, so the walk only took a few minutes to get there, thank goodness. The breakfast was next door and it was a pretty good buffet breakfast. There was so much that happened I couldn't possibly remember it all or really want to take the time to remember it all, so a few points to note.....

1. The first night we made the mistake of staying until it closed and then trying to get dinner. I think by the time we sat down it was 9:00 (10:00 our time) and it took them 45 minutes to get our food. All the kids were asleep and half of them didn't even wake up to eat. 

2. Cooper got picked to be one of the participants in the Star Wars show and loved it! He wanted to try again the next day, and we did, and both he and Bella got picked. They had a lot of fun with that.

3. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of it, but we had the best corn dogs and they were filling and didn't cost us $100 to eat! Disney food is crazy expensive! But it's also really good.

4. The most ridden on ride was Pirates of the Caribbean, largely because of the lack of a line, the jungle cruise and the older kids loved Space Mountain. We hit Splash Mountain a few times as well. Another favorite was the Cars ride in California Adventure. Such an amazing and well put together ride!

5. The little girls had a wonderful time meeting the princesses. Took longer to get to them than most the rides!

6. The weather was perfect!!!

7. Only one major issue happened with bad behavior and that person had to sit out a ride and then was great the rest of the day!

 8. Along with all the fun, we did get some unhappy news that Brian's Grandpa Chudleigh passed away. No matter how prepared you think you are that it's going to happen, it's always a little of a shock and so very sad.

9. At the end of it, Brian swore off family vacations for the next 5 years. Ha! I will just swear off Disney for 5 years. :) It was a lot of work and very stressful and exhausting, but now that I'm several months away from it I can say that it was a lot of fun and the kids seem to only remember the good parts! :)

10. Everything was so fun, the shows, the characters, the rides and mostly watching the kids enjoy it so much! I wouldn't go as far as to say it's the "happiest place on earth", but it was a lot of fun.

Liz- 10 years old

I take forever to get around to Elizabeth's birthday pictures. It usually happens when I do Cooper's and I don't know why. Nothing else is going on in February! :) So here are a few of my faves and a bunch more of how she really is. She was doing something goofy with her smile and she got mad at me for saying that 'cause she really was trying to smile good, but not sure what it was. The collage is definitely more her personality anyway! Cute little stinker!

 

I get this face often and expect that it will only happen more frequently! 

And for the more real pictures...

Cooper's Bday

Well Cooper's Bday was a good way to start out March! We started off the morning with a basketball game, his last one of the season. He did really good. This was his first year playing and he definitely made some big improvements! I think he could do really well in it if he keeps playing and practicing. One day I took him to the park and he shot on a full size basket for about 20 minutes until he got one basket in there, so I think the determination is there.

For his party he wanted to invite a few friends and go to Chucky Cheese, so he had 4 friends, Cole Skinner, Temuu and Mason and James Carwin. We started out opening the presents and then headed over for the pizza and play time. It was a MAD house there! Should have known it would be on a Saturday night. Basically we just let the kids run wild and have fun and then rounded them back up in the end. I don't remember seeing Bella, which is probably why I don't have a picture of her. I basically stuck with Charlotte and then ran around to keep checking on each kid. Liz hit the jackpot in one game and won like 250 tickets. She was expecting to get a really good prize, but even with that many, the prizes are still junk!

After the playing, we headed back to the house and had some cake and called it a day. Coop was pretty happy. It was his first friend bday party. He didn't want to invite a bunch of friends, just his "besties" which worked out really well.

 Such a sweet kid and we love him so much. He has so much love to give, I hope he stays that way.

February

February is kind of a stepping stone to me. Nothing great happens in February, which is why I generally like to take a trip somewhere warm if I can. But since we did a trip in January, February had nothing to look forward too. I guess I should come up with some tradition that make February something worth looking forward to.  There were, of course, some photographic moments, like this cute one of Brian, Bella and Charlotte one Sunday morning. So cute.

Then there's Valentine's day. I wanted to get a picture of Cooper with the girls kisses on him before he got to old to really put up a fight about it. It was fun and they all cooperated which was nice. I think it turned out cute.

A few cute ones of Charlotte and Caroline

Not much happened worth reporting that I can remember. The only other notable thing was Elizabeth had a fun school concert. They went over all the time periods of music and Elizabeth's group was disco, so after several sewing disasters, we came up with an outfit from my closet and I think it turned out so cute. She looked adorable and the concert was a lot of fun. She looks way too grown up but totally adorable!

January 2013

Still trying to catch up and for some reason life keeps moving forward.... quickly! So, the quick recap on January....

First of all... best January ever! Brian took me on a much needed cruise. He surprised me one day saying he was taking the time off so we could go on a cruise. I was having a really hard "mommy" time so he took me for some good R&R and my Mom was so great to come out and watch the kids, which they were thrilled about. It was a great trip. We flew red eye to Miami, took a cab to the cruise then got on the boat and relaxed in the SUN until the ship took off. We had fun eating, swimming, walking, sleeping, going to the show and watching Brian win a song competition. It was so beautiful and this is how I will build my heaven someday. :) We went to Nassau and Cococay islands. We had fun snorkeling and saw a lot of fish and a few sting rays. We ate yummy food and enjoyed our new friends from our dinner table. It was just a lot of fun.

We came back from a nice sunny trip to a cold Colorado. We celebrated Elizabeth's 10th bday. She had a pretty special day, I think. My visiting teacher (Linda McDowell) watched the kids so I dcould go to lunch with Elizabeth. I took her favorite 5 layer burrito from Taco Bell. Then at night we went to Panera, her favorite place to eat as of late, and then she wanted to go ice skating. Quite a full day. The skating was different from a month ago. This time the skies were blue, it wasn't too cold and the ice on the rink was melting, but it was good fun. She wanted a friend party, so the next day, Saturday, we had one for friends.

 She has been really into Harry Potter at school and reading all the book and watching the movies, so she wanted her party to be Harry Potter themed. We made good invitations that we sealed with wax and she really had fun with it. We played who's who with Harry Potter characters, made homemade pizzas, made "wands" with pretzel sticks and chocolate, played pin the scar on Harry and then they played Harry Potter scene it. It was a fun night.

As for the rest of the month, there's been snow fun, dates with kiddos, swimming fun, tub time with goggles, movies,  game fun and game night with our dental friends. So, a pretty fun month over all!

New Year's Eve

This year was good times, as it usually is. We had our good friends the Skinners come over for some food and fun. The kids just ran around having a good time while we, adults, were able to play some games. We played games with these guys all the time in dental school, so it's been fun to be back together and play games as frequently as we have.

We did the normal eat, play and then count down. At midpoint we had a quick bday cake celebration for Chuck. His 33rd birthday is January 1st.

Most the kids made it to the end. We lost Charlotte and Bella around 10:00 and Liz fell asleep, again, right before midnight. We tried to wake her up, but she was out. We did the sparkling cider and had set up a little balloon drop to fall on the kids. They really liked that. Liz woke up in time to join us for our toast. Such an overrated holiday to me, I'd be fine to go to bed, but it was fun to hang out and see the kids have so much fun.

Christmas Eve

Good times for Christmas Eve. We made a new tradition a few years of going out for dinner, then we come home, do the Christmas Story and then the kids open their pj's and one present. Pj's came from Grandma Chudleigh (except mine and Bri's). One day  I told Brian I wanted footie pj's. I was kind of kidding and kind of not. He caught the kind of not part and bought some for me. After I wore them he told me that he expected me to take them back, that they were kind of a joke. I thought that was funny 'cause at that point I actually really liked them.

This year our ornaments were from the Wizard of Oz. Each kid's ornament was whatever character they were for Halloween. A fun night. Always fun to see and feel the kids excitement for the next morning.

Ice Skating

The kids have been wanting to go ice skating since we took them in Logan 2 years ago. This year we finally took them and they loved it. It was a little shaky for most of them, but Bella and Cooper really rocked it! They did have the double bladed skates, so that made a difference. It was this cute little rink in downtown Louisville, CO. It was a fun atmosphere and we had a really good time. They're anxious to go back again.

Buddies

These two are pretty good buddies. This is Ty. Sometimes they have a love/hate relationship, but usually a love. It's fun to watch them play together.

December part 1

Since I'm so far behind in blogging, I have to do it a month at a time. So for December.... we started off the Christmas season with our ward party. It was a fun night. We were asked to do a family musical number so we did the bells. It went pretty well. Then at the end of the night, of course, there was a visit from Santa. No tears this time, always a good moment. Caroline said she almost grabbed on his beard. That could have been a disaster.

We also took about 10 pictures before church one Sunday to try and get a family picture for the Christmas card. I think it worked out pretty good. Wouldn't know that I was yelling at all my kids to cooperate. They've learned how to fake the smile for a good picture. :) That way they know they're done sooner.

All the kids started fighting about which one was going to put the star on the tree so I devised a great plan. We had them all in our room watching a show and called one out at a time and told them it was a secret, but "they were the one to put the star on the tree". Then as soon as they got down, we took the star out and repeated. I thought we were so clever, but apparently Caroline said:  " did you put the star on the tree?" Liz: " yeah. " Caroline: "me too". So I guess we weren't so sneaky after all. But aside from a little, " well I did it first", it solved the drama.

I bought the tree off someone selling it and it was cheaper than a real tree. We went and looked at the real trees but there weren't that many out yet and I hate throwing down $50 + each year on a tree. I loved having the tree up and seeing the kids enjoying it so much too.

 

We also decorated gingerbread men for FHE one night. The kids enjoyed that and I had to solicit some help from Brian to get them all to look at the camera and smile. If you look in the window behind them, you'll see Brian's face. Funny.
 

That's the start to our December.