The Ladies' Disneyland Trip

So I love Disneyland. Love it!! I've worked a deal with Ben that we get to go there every time our kids turn 5 to celebrate their birthday. This makes him happy because we don't have to go too often. This makes me happy because I always know it's not way too long until we can go again. This deal has worked great so far. Don't get me wrong, Ben doesn't hate Disneyland. He just doesn't love it like me and going with kids is not completely relaxing, as fun as it is. But, back to me loving Disneyland. I would honestly go as often as possible. My sister has a season pass and lives in Ogden. I don't think she's at all crazy and I'm even kind of jealous. But a deal's a deal and so every other yearish, we get to go to Disneyland. We're still a year out until Kade's birthday so a D-land trip seemed so far away. Except an exception came up....
My girls, Adrianne and Sara, and I got to talking a few years ago about how much we love Disneyland and how our supportive husbands just like Disneyland and how much fun it would be to go, just us girls, to that happy place. We talked about it for a year or so and I really honestly did not think it would pan out into actually happening. Awhile back we came to the realization that there might be a window where none of us was pregnant or nursing and that we'd be free to go. We all ran it by our super awesome husbands (who all had been on their own "man trips") and the dream became reality. We finally had an all girls trip to Disneyland!!!So we took off on a Wednesday around noon and headed straight down. We stopped twice-really just twice-once for a potty and once for gas and dinner! We were down there in like 9 hours. It was amazing! When we go with kids I think we stop about 5 times, at least, and every stop takes forever. It was so breezy. We were able to get down there quickly, pick up our tickets, and check into our motel, and get snoozing before too late.
The next morning was our first day at D-land. We went on our early pass which meant getting to D-land at 6:30 am. It was kind of crazy because we hadn't slept that much so we were all a little sleep happy all day long. We breezed through the parks (D-land & Cali Adventure). Not having to juggle kids, naps, potty breaks, etc., etc. was so easy!! We went on so many rides in just one day alone. It was awesome! My parents happened to be there at the same time so I got to see them for a bit at the Aladdin show which was fun. We had such a great day even though we were so pooped at the end of it. I'm sure we laughed a gagillion times-and it was those huge full body laughs-to the point that you're crying-laughs that are so good for you. It was great!!
The next day we slept in a bit and then headed to Cali Adventure when it opened. It was a good thing we had gotten in so much the first day because it was crowded!! There was a Cheerleading competition going on and there were cheerleaders everywhere! We were able to wrap most of the rides and start on seconds for everything. Two things that we got to see that haven't been at Disneyland forever were Captain E-O and the Main St. Electrical parade. It was super fun to see both. I mean, Captain E-O is just so cheesy that it's awesome! Also, I had forgotten how much I loved the parade, even if the music gets annoying after a half an hour. I'm glad we were able to see it because it is on it's way to Disneyworld in a few weeks and my kids are stoked that I filmed it for them to see too. That night, we headed back early to the hotel so we could sit in the hot tub. Again, we had a ton of laughing. In fact so much, that someone actually asked "What was that?" to my laugh. Kind of embarrassing....
**And well, here's were the pictures end. I was smart enough to get the first two days off my camera and put them on my laptop. The last day at Disneyland and some pics from our morning at the beach are now lost somewhere in Cali. Yup, I lost my camera. Bummer! I seriously don't know how because I know I had it when I got in the car after the beach and then we just drove home. But, needless to say, it's gone. The good thing is that we were all using our cameras to get shots of everything and we were planning on swapping them so I'll still get them from Adrianne and Sara (maybe I'll post more later) but since I'm impatient at posting this, just use your imagination for the rest!!**

The last day at Disneyland was super crowded! Joining the cheerleaders were a bunch of choir groups and it was a madhouse. We spent some time getting souvenirs for our kids so they would forgive us for heading to D-land without them. We were able to go on rides for the third or more times and left feeling like we had seen everything that we wanted to see and do. We had such a great time and it was sad to have to leave!!
The next day we packed up and headed to the beach for awhile. I think it was Huntington but we were being guided by Adrianne's OC surfer hubby, Spencer, via cell phone so I wasn't paying too much attention to where we were. We walked around for awhile and just soaked in the sun. It was like 81 degrees that day and just absolutely beautiful!! Have I mentioned that I just love, love, love the beach-even way more than Disneyland!?! Every time I'm there I dream of the day that I will live close enough to go there on a regular basis. It doesn't even need to be in So. Cal. I just want to live near the ocean. I don't know how to even describe my love for the beach, but it just feels like home to me. Some day, some day.
So it was hard to leave Cali and I always feel a little depressed about the whole thing but I had to head back. I couldn't convince Ben to pack up the kids and move down there and since I missed them all like crazy, I drove us home. It was bittersweet. We had such a great time!! I feel so lucky to have such good friends that I can feel totally comfortable and laugh so hard with. I totally lost my voice from laughing so much that weekend. We had the most fantastic time and we are definitely going to make this a tradition!!


P.S. I have to totally publicly thank and gush over my super awesome amazing husband who totally sacrificed for me to go on this. The weekend I went was a less than mellow one for him and yet he was happy to let me go enjoy some time with my girls. He had three birthday parties and a baby shower to take our kiddos to, along with just the craziness of our every day lives. Then on top of that, he had finals and grades to get done for his classes that he teaches. I am seriously the luckiest to have that man!! Thank you Ben!!!! You're the best!! Are you prepared for next year? You best be! Ha ha ha.

The Fairy Tea

I'm slacking at posting this but a few weeks ago, Skylar and I were lucky enough to go to the Fairy Tea. This is held every year at the Provo Library and every year it's sold out before we can get tickets. We were so excited when we found that they still had a few. I was even more excited that even though Skylar is all grown up (she thinks), that she still wanted to go with me. I know these moments are fleeting, so I am cherishing them as much as I can.
We were glad that our friends, Adrianne & Amy (Skylar's first little sister) were able to come join us. Amy was so much fun to watch because she was in awe of all the magic of the night. What a cutie.
Now, I've heard that this Fairy Tea was a big thing, but I had no idea. There were tons of sweet little girls, all fancied up, and even some moms too. I kind of felt under-dressed! The grand ballroom was totally decked out and there were fairies everywhere! It was really very beautiful.







Skylar was excited that her friend, Mara, was there, especially since they were some of the oldest ones.
We had a magical time watching ballerinas flit around, eating our light little fairy tea treats, and being presented to the Fairy King. My only wish is that I would've been able to bring Skylar every year since she was three because it was a really fun girly thing to do. Skylar insists that she'll still come with me for years to come. I hope so, my beautiful sweet little fairy girl. Stay little, stay little!!

My Baby Boy Is Big!!

My baby boy, Kade, is now 4!! I was just getting used to the idea that he was 3 so I'm going to really miss my 3 year old. It really seems as if the last 4 years have been a blur and I wish I could go back and savor again every minute of this cute boy's life. Kade is really such a fun little boy and is always up for an adventure! I love how much excitement he has about things and I can only imagine all the many things he's going to do with it. That kid and I have some big plans of crazy stuff we're going to do together-scuba diving, surfing, learning to luge, and the list goes on. We're going to have a blast! He's also promised me that even if he keeps getting bigger, that he will always be my baby boy. He'll even suck his thumb until he's a grandpa and give me smooches and cuddles forever. Ahhh....I love that kid, thumb sucking and all.
We love the birthdays around here and so we had to celebrate big. If the birthday just happens to land near a weekend that means the entire weekend is spent celebrating, so we had a great weekend of fun! Kade's birthday was Friday, the 19th, and we began the day by having his favorite breakfast, German Pancakes-we even sang and had him blow out candles on his "cake".
Later on, Kade, Alexis, and I took a trip to Coldstone to get Kade's free ice cream. Alexis knew just what to do and climbed right up on the chair ready to participate in all of the fun eating. It's a good thing I got an extra one or I think we would've had a very unhappy girl. We then went to get some delicious Island BBQ from our friends, the Maile's, for their fundraiser. I'll have to post about their next one because everyone should get some! After picking up Nick we went home to devour our goods. We all love the BBQ around here-(seriously, why don't the Irish make Island BBQ instead of corned beef and cabbage?)! Kade was seriously so excited that he got white rice, his absolute favorite, for his birthday lunch-how easy is he to please?
Later that night we went out as a family to CPK to get some more free food-gotta love the birthday clubs. We had a fun time together.
Kade was super excited to get his very own giant sundae with more candles to blow out!
We then came home and opened presents. Kade got our traditional 4 year old present, a bike-a Toy Story one to boot, along with Hotwheels, a game, and a Batman set from his siblings. He seemed pretty happy with his loot.



Saturday was Kade's big party!! I kind of just threw this thing together. I had decided to alternate Kade's & Nick's birthday parties every year so it wouldn't be so stressful having them a month apart. But I started realizing that would throw off having even year birthdays which tend to be the big ones, especially 8 and 12. So, then I stressed and finally decided to suck it up and go crazy with two birthday parties ever other year and then I'll be totally off the hook the next year. I basically decided this a couple of weeks before Kade's birthday. He was totally excited that he was going to have a birthday party after all. He chose to have Toy Story as the theme. This ended up being chaos for mom. There is just no Toy Story party stuff out there! The good news is that it will be released on April 3 but that was not so good for Kade's party on March 20. Oh well. I did some juggling and found some old stuff we had and somehow pulled it together. Ben made an awesome invitation and Kade was so happy to invite all of his buddies and his "girls". After everyone arrived, we had some yummy pizza at "Pizza Planet",
















and played some fun games-Search for the Green Army Men,
Pin the body part on Mr. Potato Head,and Throw the snake in Woody's boot.We then had yummy cupcakes and ice cream. I attempted to make a cute Andy's bed cake but pretty much slaughtered it, especially after Kade decided to "help" me with it. Ha ha. Kade loved it though so it didn't matter. He had fun blowing out the candles...again. Of course all of the kids dug the cake and ice cream. I think even the adults enjoyed the cake thing.
After some way fun present opening, we had a great time hitting the pinata around. After all of the kids got a turn, Spencer was the one to finally get the thing to break and the candy mayhem ensued.








It was really fun to have such a great party for Kade!! Thanks to all of Kade's great friends that came to celebrate and make him feel special on his big day!! I know he had a most awesome birthday which makes me happy because he's a most awesome kid! Love you Kadybug!!!

Shamrocks and Shenanigans

I like St. Paddy's Day. It's just kind of fun and I like celebrating some kind of something traditional for the sake of my gringo, but Irish, children. Plus, it's fun to see everyone out participating by simply wearing green. One of my favorite things is looking out at the kids at recess and seeing a sea of green. It's very pleasing to the eye, as strange as that sounds. I also love having my kids get so excited about it all. You know, the making sure that you're wearing green when you go to bed the night before and even up through the next night so no one will even have a nanosecond to sneak a pinch in. My kids take it very seriously. It's just fun to have a little day that stands out amongst the others.
We're totally all about eating green food all day too. I forgot to take pictures, but for breakfast we had green eggs and green toast for some and others had Lucky Charms. I was asked if I could make green cream cheese for bagels, but I didn't get that far. For lunch, the boys had green grilled cheese sandwiches, green pears, and even green yogurt. Of course, the drinks of the day are always dyed that beautiful emerald color. It's just kind of fun. That is, until dinner time...
My Irish husband loves his corned beef and cabbage. Me, not so much. Actually, let's make that not at all. But, on the holiday of his heritage, I suck it up and make it for him. This is torture for me. Really, I honestly dry heave while I make it. I just don't like it at all. Yuck! I was lazy this year and just had green toast, instead of making Irish Soda Bread like I usually do. I kind of regretted that because it's the only thing I do like of our Irish meal. I've been blessed in many years to be prego at the time this holiday rolls around and hence, I am excused from actually eating with the family. But not being in the womanly way, I had to be strong and eat some to set a good example for my kids. Plus, I would make them do the same so I figured I couldn't be hypocritical. So I totally choked it down, gagging every few minutes.
Now everyone besides me in the family has that Irish blood. I think that's like a requirement to liking corned beef and cabbage. Kade put up a little bit of a fuss at first about the idea of it, but after he finally tried it, he ate it just fine. There were no complaints from Nick, and Skylar, well, she is a true Irish lassie. She had fifths. Why is it that the one meal that I honestly, truly can't stand at all is such a hit? Oh the irony.

The Tender Mercies of the Lord

So what a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was so worried about my boy and kind of blue. But today Kade is doing so much better. Thank heavens for the Z-pack! Also, the sun is out and my flowers are poking their little heads up. Today has made me think of something I saw on my friend's blog the other day about tender mercies. So, I'm totally copying you old friend and putting it on mine, except I don't know how to embed it, so just go here:

The Tender Mercies of the Lord

I think about tender mercies all of the time, especially lately . They are such a huge part of my life. I'm so thankful when I recognize them. Here's a few that have been on my mind:

~ For as many migraines that I get, I have been so blessed in the last few months to not wake up with them. I've really needed to be on my toes in the morning lately and if I do get a migraine, it tends to be later in the day, leaving my mornings open for much more important things. Big tender mercy there.

~Little whispers of the spirit that I still can hear when there's a houseful of kids because I love nothing more than a houseful of kids.

~Friends that send me a message or call right at the exact moment I need to know someone cares.

~Flip-flop days!

~The fact that my hard-working husband is so dang good at getting jobs. Wink, wink babe.

~Four little kids that love me no matter what, even when I really, really don't deserve it.

Gotta love those tender mercies!!

Blah, Blah, Blah About the Weather and All....

It's been a rough week. My babies are sick and it's so hard. I woke up at 5 am on Sunday to the sound of my poor baby boy throwing up and then found out he'd been at it all night long. My awesome husband had totally taken over, cleaned him up, changed his sheets, and helped him every time it happened again. Meanwhile I slept and slept. What a great husband I have. Seeing how good he is with our kids can make me feel so inadequate, especially on those nights when I can't raise my sleepy head to help much.
Alexis started the puking later that night but hers didn't last long, thank goodness. Every parent hates the vomiting. It is just yucky and no fun. The nice thing about vomiting is that it goes away after a day or so. Well, not this round. It's not gone yet and added to the fun has been a whole lot of diarrhea. Arrrghh!! My poor Kadybug has been the sickest he's ever been, ever. I took him to the Dr. today and he's got strep and possibly something else. They still want to do some labs on him. Poor kid. He's just miserable, lethargic, pale, and I'm pretty sure he's lost like 5 pounds off his hefty 38 pound body. My heart hurts for how badly he feels and I miss my happy energetic kid. I wish I could make it go away for him and it's hard not being able to make him feel better.
Needless to say, we haven't slept much. The other night Kade was up every single hour, sick to his stomach. Nick's been having sleepy problems again this week and woke up one night so very confused that it scared me. I hate my kiddos being so miserable. We are all super sleepy and moody and blah, blah. blah. On top of it all, I've had the worst migraine in forever. It has been pretty constant and it has made me so very nauseous that all I've been able to do all week is lay in the dark next to my poor sick babes, cuddle, and watch countless Disney movies because they don't hurt my head. We've watched so many this week that Alexis learned a new word, "show". I am not sure how I feel about that.
So, I feel very unproductive and this bugs me. I have a huge list of things to do and can't get motivated to do a thing. Beyond that, being cooped up in the house makes me stir crazy and lonely. When we do manage to go outside to run Nick to school for a minute or something of the sort, it is just so freaking cold. Winter, really, it's time to go. Sick weeks suck. I need some sunshine. I need people. But I think most of all, I need some 30 Rock. It's time to laugh.

Sugar and Spice....And a Big Dash of Sass

Alexis has just been so stinkin' cute lately I felt it was high time I document it. Having a baby girl after two boys has been so much fun. Alexis is all girl and I am loving it! She's been so different from Skylar was when she was little. I guess I shouldn't be surprised-the boys are sooo different from one another. Skylar was girly to an extent but she had pretty much only boys around her until we moved here-the majority of my friends that had babies with me all had boys-so she's always had major boy influence and still is really into a lot of boy things like Legos, Star Wars, Superheroes, etc. Oh, and don't anyone mention to her that I said she has boy friends. She's kind of anti-boy friends right now and likes to keep that info on the down low until we get together with them and she has a great time. Anyway, it's been fun to girl out with Alexis. Some of the things she's super into right now:
~Looking "pretty". Okay, so Skylar has allowed me to put curlers in her hair once-really, just once. They lasted about 30 seconds. So a few weeks ago, Skylar had the idea to do it again-this time it lasted one curler. But Alexis was insistent that she be included in all of the primping. She sat so still and allowed me to doll her all up. Then she left them in forever and loved how pretty she was when they came out. I still don't do her hair too often, except for a clip, because as much as she loves it, she can't resist touching it, and then I just have to start over. I'm afraid I'm going to have to start doing some research on doing hair, since mine and Skylar's routines consist of a pick, a brush, and 30 seconds of mousse. I'm afraid Alexis is going to insist on more. She also loves to have her toenails painted and will actually sit and let you do it.
~She is really, really, really into baby dolls at the moment. She rocks them, kisses them, puts them in their carseat and stroller, and just totally mothers them. It is adorable. She is in complete awe of all babies right now and points them out wherever we go. We were at our friend's baby blessing a few weeks ago and she insisted on rocking the baby-even though he was practically the same size as her.
~Her very favorite baby doll would be Cinderella. She loves the Princesses but Cinderella has become her absolute favorite. She actually sat through most of the Cinderella DVD when I turned it on for Kade to watch-amazing! She of course had to have her doll and her purses. Those purses are attached to her almost constantly. A lady has to have her stuff. ~Make that dolls in general that she's into. She totally digs Barbies. They've got all that cool stuff.~As girly as she is, she still loves hangin' with her bros, whom she has totally wrapped around her finger. Those boys treat her like a princess-just like they should.
~She is really into chairs right now. She loves nothing more than climbing a chair and just sitting there all big. Bring a comic book along to read (upside down, but hey, it's Spiderman anyway, right?) and then she knows she's just the coolest.
~She's also really into coloring and playing with play-doh-which of course she taste tests every time we get it out.
~But if you really want to know what is Alexis's favorite thing of the day, you just need to check her stroller. This is where she stores her treasures of things she deems to be cool. We find all sorts of fun things in there. Underneath Nick's camera there are her new shoes, "ishes". She's really into shoes at the moment. But what girl isn't?~As cute as this girl is, she sure can throw a nightmare of a tantrum. We are learning very quickly that Alexis has a major attitude about what she is entitled to in this life and if she does not get it, watch out. She is a screamer! Sometimes its kind of funny because she just has so many major emotions coming out of that tiny body. But sometimes it's scary because she jerks like a crazy and throws her head back. I'm pretty sure one of these days, that noggin is going to hit something that just doesn't give and we're going to end up with some stitches. She can be so frustrating at times. But soon enough she'll calm down and flash one her new cheesy smiles at us, and of course all is forgiven and we're enamored with her. We just can't help it. She's our Lexi.