California Trip: Disneyland and California Adventure

From San Diego, we headed to Anaheim, where we rented a condo close to Disneyland.  We were a little tight in the 3-bedroom, 1.5 bath condo since we had 8 adults, 8 kids, and 2 babies in the group, but the location was fabulous, and we made it work.  We were just a 20 minute walk from the gates.  We didn't have to pay parking, and we were able to prepare all our own food, which saved a ton of money.  Each day, we got up early and got to the parks right when they opened.  We just packed snacks in to keep kids happy.  Then in the afternoon, we walked back to the condo for our big meal of the day and naps.  Once we were rested, we headed back for the rest of the day.  It worked really well.  We got the 3-day Park Hopper passes, so we could go back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure as much as we wanted for the next three days.  On the first day, we all stuck together in a big group, enjoying all the rides we could all do together.  Then on the next two days, we split up into different groupings so the kids were able to do the types of things they loved the best.  Both Tony and I were able to spend time with Connor and our girls, but they didn't have to spend any time waiting around for each other to ride rides they didn't want to do.  Everybody had so much fun, and I loved having fun with them!  I also loved the variety of entertainment with theme rides, thrill rides, shows, and parades.  It was a wonderful three days.

We only got one family pic the entire vacation, and this is it.  Not too bad, but not fabulous either.

The only thing Mariah knew about Disneyland was that there was a teacup ride.  She saw it on an ad or something.  So the first morning, we hit the teacups for some crazy spinning.

Mickey was the only character we met.  The kids just really didn't care about meeting the characters.  Seeing them was good enough, and they sure didn't want to use up any ride time waiting in line to meet them.  (That was totally fine with me.)

This was as close we got to the big celebrity, Lightening McQueen.

The kids did think Cars Land was pretty cool, and we had a blast riding the Radiator Springs Racers.  Thank heavens we got a fast pass for it, because the wait was always over 2 hours, and we would have just skipped it.

 We walked through Downtown Disney many times between the parks and the condo.  The kids' favorite part of the walk was the lego store.  We never went in, but they were just amazed at these huge things built out of legos!! (I have my doubts about them truly being built out of legos, but I couldn't shake the kids' belief.)

It was so fun to do this trip with cousins.  Here are 7 of the 10. Only one kid and the two babies are missing. I never did get a pic with all of them together.

The three toothless cousins hanging out at the condo.  --Mylie, Tyler, Jaxon

Mylie, Mariah, and Addelyn--the only girl cousins in the group--on our fun girls' morning.

Brady and cousin Gavin (only 2 weeks apart in age) getting into trouble at the condo.  These two were amazingly good!

Now for the favorites:

Tony--toss-up between California Screamin' and California Soarin'

Me--California Soarin'  I LOVED this ride!

Connor--No question.  California Screamin'  He's my thrill seeker, and he rode this coaster 11 times!

It's hard to see with the glare and reflection, but here are Tony and Connor with their "cool" pose during the ride.

Mylie--California Soarin' and Gadget's Go Coaster

Here she is with Mariah and Grandpa getting in line for the Go Coaster.

Mariah--She says the same rides as Mylie.  But she also loved the princess shows and the parades.  I love this picture of her getting excited about whatever is coming next in the parade.

 Brady--Well, he didn't answer when I asked.  But he seemed to like everything, except getting buckled back into the stroller after riding a ride.  He didn't get very good naps, but he was a fabulous baby and oh so cute!

He loved the carousel.

Taking a rest with Mylie

 Just being his cute, happy self

Although this vacation took a lot of planning (and a lot of money), I am so glad we did it!  And I hope we can go again someday when our youngest child is old enough to remember it.  So totally worth it. :)

California Trip: San Diego

For spring break this year, we did the biggie: a trip to California!!!  Two of Tony's sisters, Angela and Haley, and their families, as well as Tony's parents, also came on the trip, so the kids were able to have all this fun with their cousins, too!  It was an amazing family vacation, and there is way too much to tell and way too many pictures to show.  I will try to condense it into just two posts, one for our San Diego fun, and then another for Disneyland/California Adventure.

We arrived in San Diego Monday afternoon around 3:00, which gave us some time to play at the beach.  After two days of travel, the kids were ready to have some fun.  We stayed at a hotel right on Pacific Beach, which was so nice.  It was kind of chilly that day, low 60s with a cool breeze.  I didn't even get into my swimsuit (I'm such a wuss), but the kids were excited enough to be tough about it.

These smiles say it all.  We LOVE the beach!

 Connor spent most of his time working on this fun project.  He started out all alone, but as it went on, more and more kids got involved.  In the end, Connor and Caden got to be buried.  That night, even after his shower, I noticed one of Connor's ears still full of sand.

The next morning, we headed off to Sea World.  I didn't take many pictures there, but we loved it!  Since we knew we were going to ride plenty of rides in the next few days, our priority at Sea World was the shows.  We watched the dolphin show (my fave!), a whale show (amazing animals), a pet show (cute and fun), and a sea lion show (hilarious!).  The dolphin show was our first of the day, and we sat right up front to get a good view.  We were warned that we were sitting in the soak zone, but we thought we might just get some incidental splashing or something.  Not so.  The dolphins actually swim around and splash you on purpose!  Rude!  Luckily Brady was sitting up higher with Grandma and Grandpa.  We got completely soaked!  I didn't have a dry spot on me by the time it was done.   Everybody still loved it though.

Mylie showing off how wet she got. So much for doing hair that morning.

We also rode some rides and saw a lot of animals there.  We saw sharks, manta rays, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, sea otters, seals, sea lions, tons of fish, puffins, and penguins.  They also had a baby crocodile that the kids could touch.  They thought that was pretty cool, and the girls were even brave enough to touch it.

 Connor and Jaxon

Before we left, I told Connor I would ride a rollercoaster with him, so he chose the Manta.  It was such an exciting ride, but as I stood up at the end, I realized my phone was no longer in my pocket.  Dang.  That was probably the only bummer of the week, though.  We had a great time in San Diego and would love to go back sometime and spend more time there.

Brady--8 months

Brady is now 8 months old, and has developed so much in the past month!  A month ago, he was not sleeping through the night, eating any food at all, or moving (other than rolling over).   But look at him now!

A couple weeks ago, he started scooting all over the place, and learned how to sit back up by himself.  Then he started pulling up on things, and just yesterday, he finally figured out crawling.  This morning, he is crawling all over the place, getting into everything.  The kids better keep their stuff off the floor now!

Although he still has a ways to go, Brady has finally starting thinking something other than Mom's milk might be okay.  He will gnaw on crackers, eat some baby food (he prefers blends with bananas in them, and he's much better at sucking it out of those little packets than taking it from a spoon), and just this week is starting to drink formula from a soft-topped sippy cup.  There is beginning to be a faint light at the end of this breast-feeding tunnel. Although I do like nursing, I will be ready to be done by the time summer starts, so hopefully Brady will be, too.

But probably the best part of all is his sleeping through the night accomplishment.  About a month ago, I decided I was done feeding him at night, and within 3 nights, he quit crying for it.  Now he rarely wakes up and cries at all.  If he does, it's just for a few minutes, then back to sleep.  And he's usually down for about 11 hours.  I'm loving it!  And wondering why I didn't do it sooner.

Another of Brady's firsts this past month was getting to spend a little time out and about on the ranch.  What a big boy!

We sure love this little chubby-cheeked cutie!

St. Patrick's Day

This year, that naughty leprechaun struck again!  When we woke up on St. Patrick's day, we found his dirty green footprints all over our kitchen, where he had made quite a mess and even turned our milk green!

At least he left some yummy cupcakes!

Me and Playdough

I hate playdough.

I always have. Well, at least in my nine years of mothering, I have hated it. (And I know hate is a strong word. In fact, the "h word" isn't allowed at this house, so basically my feelings toward the squishy stuff are strong enough to bring out near-vulgarity in me!)

Through the years, my kids will come home from places (primary, preschool, grandma's house) with a little baggie of it, so excited about all the possibilities.  I promply tell them that we will play with it later, then put in in a high cupboard to "keep it safe."  Really, I hope that out of sight equals out of mind.  And out of mind means out of hands, out of hair, out of every kitchen utinsil I own, out of carpet, out of clothing, and out of furniture.  And every time I open that high cupboard and realize that the kids haven't even asked for the playdough in months, I pat myself on the back and feel like some kind of a genius.

A few years ago, Mylie asked for playdough ice cream shop for Christmas.  She didn't ask for much else.  In a moment of weakness, I remembered how much I wanted something similar as a child, and how my parents never got me one (they were geniuses, too, I suppose), and I decided that Mylie should have it.  Christmas night, after cleaning up dried up little bits of playdough from every corner of the house, I asked Tony how I could have ever let my guard down like that and done something so stupid!  (There I go again with the vulgarity.)

And you would think that experience would have cured me of any further dabbling with playdough.  I thought it had.  And then something crazy happened this morning.

That's right, they're playing with playdough.  Playdough that I made.  I actually looked up the recipe, used ingredients that I paid for, and whipped up a batch for the first time in my life.  "What kind of mother has never made playdough?" one might ask.  One that values her sanity.

I'd like to say that I decided to make playdough out of love for these cute little kiddos. I'd like to say that maybe I'm finally a cool mom, or a cool aunt, or some kind of cool person that doesn't calculate the size of the mess when it comes to giving children opportunities to explore and learn.  But the truth is, it was just the fear.  Yep, the fear.  It was only 9am, and my house already resembled the wreckage you see on the news just following some devastating natural disaster.  And in that moment, the fear of what could become of my house by lunch time overcame the fear of tiny colorful, dried bits of salt dough stuck to everything I own.  Before I knew it, the recipe was out, ingredients were being mixed, and I was envisioning hours of fun rolling and cutting, rolling and cutting, all while sitting in one place. 

By the time the kids were seated and I was handing out the three different colors of dough--ya, I went all out--I was starting to have doubts.  Things like, "No cutting it into tiny pieces," "No mixing colors," "This has to go into the ziplocs when we're done so it doesn't dry out,"  and "Anybody leaving this table with playdough in hand will be sentenced with a 5-year time out!" started coming out of my mouth.  And try as they may, I have already bagged up the playdough twice, and I just flicked a small piece of dried blue stuff off my computer desk. Argh.

But they did have fun.  So much fun.  So much fun, in fact, that they were all gone and doing something else by the time I had my own playdough-making mess cleaned up.  But I'm trying to give playdough another chance.  It is still sitting out on the counter (in bags, of course) along with my rolling pin, cookie cutters, and several playroom toys that got involved in the action.  I'm still holding out hope that this time will be different, that possibly by the end of the day I will have found a place in my heart for the squishy, messy stuff.  But if not, there's always that place far in the back of the highest kitchen cabinet.

A Recent Conversation with Mariah

Mariah:  Mom, when does nastics (gymnastics) start?

Me:  In a couple more weeks.

Mar: I'm in number 1.  Number 4 does that dance in front of all the people, but not number 1, huh?

Me: No, level 1 does a performance too.  You'll get to do it.

Mar: Oh.  I'm going to wear the nastics suit Grannie gave me, cuz it's my favorite.  (Pause)  grannie doesn't know it's my favorite.

Me:  Well, why don't we invite her to your performance? Then she can see you wear it.

Mar: Okay.  Well, she might be late because she has to drive far.

Me: I'll tell her what time it is and she'll leave early enough to get here.

Mar: I wish she lived here so she didn't have to drive far.  Then she won't be late.  I know! She could buy on of these houses here!

Me:  Well, she already has a house she likes.  And Grandpa has a job in Cokeville.

Mar: Well, Grandpa could just get a job here and they could get a new house.

Me: I don't think Grannie wants a new house.

((Long pause for thinking...))

Mar: I hope they have a fire at their house. Then they will want a new house here!!

Gotta love 4-year-old logic. :)

Basketball: All in the Family

This post is about a week overdue, and my sister, Olivia, already did a fabulous post about state basketball (you can read it at http://www.lifeaslivi.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-end-of-our-era.html), but I thought I would post a few pics here as well.  Livi had a super fun time at state basketball this year, but me . . . well, not as much.  I LOVED watching Tessa play, I LOVED that her team won the championship, and I LOVED spending time with all of my siblings, but I gotta say it was pretty stressful and miserable at times as well.  Why?

Well, this picture pretty much sums it up.  Mariah was sick the entire time.  And not just a runny nose.  She seriously felt horrible and was miserable the entire three days.  Ugh.  Poor girl.

The nights were also pretty rough.  The first night there, between Brady and Mariah waking up numerous time, I think I got about 3 hours of sleep, with the longest stretch being about 1 1/2 hours.  Not so fun.  The next two nights were a little better, thank heavens.

(I figure these two troopers went to about 45 basketball games this winter, and somehow were still smiling at the end.)

Thankfully, Mylie and Brady were really good during the day and Mylie really liked the games this year.      

She loved cheering for the Panthers!

Although the first person you notice in this picture is Livi, if you look a little to the left and down you can see that Mylie was pretty pumped about the Panthers taking state as well.

Although it wasn't the easiest weekend, I would have done it again in a heartbeat to be there with everyone, doing this state tournament thing for the last time.  Being the oldest, I have really enjoyed going back to watch my siblings compete at state events through the years.  As far as I can remember, I have only missed state track once, and I missed Sulli's state wrestling one year.  Other than that, I have been there for all of them.  And I loved every minute of cheering them on.

This was also a really neat moment for my dad, as he finished coaching his last daughter in basketball.  He has coached all of us, and this was the 4th state championship trophy he won with daughters on his team.  He is a great coach, but more importantly, a wonderful father.  

 Now, what am I going to do next winter? 

 Oh ya, my husband is a coach, so probably go to over 40 basketball games again.

I can hardly wait.