Disneyland!

After years and years of waiting, I finally got to take the kids to Disneyland!!! We kept it a surprise until about 4:15am Monday of last week, when we hauled them out of bed, had them get dressed, and shared the news as we were heading out the door to the airport. I expected jumping and screaming, but I think it was too early, and they were too stunned. They reacted much bigger once we got to the airport and they'd woken up a bit more. Then there were huge smiles on faces, excited chattering. Surprise #2 was when Grandma Marlee and Grandpa Jeff showed up just before 4:30am packed and ready to come with us!

Because of flight times, we had half a day Monday to "kill" before jumping into playing at Disneyland Tuesday. "Auntie" Monica is currently living in CA for school, near Disneyland, so she met up with us and showed us around Downtown Disney, and came back to the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel (where we were staying) with us and we all watched the kids playing in the cool pirate-themed splash park.

I have zero clue why I didn't take more pictures of the kids with Auntie Monica, because we hadn't seen her since July, and it's likely we won't see her again until Christmas... At least I have this one of her with Em and J!


The Lego statues at the Lego Store were really neat!




We stayed at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel (8-10 minute easy walk to Disneyland), which had a pirate-themed splash park outside. It was only around 62 degrees outside, but the kids were determined to enjoy the splash park regardless!


Em and J pretty well stuck to the little one foot deep pool that was heated to around 80 degrees


Connor couldn't get enough of the water slides, the giant bucket that dumped water down, the water canons, etc.






Connor was also showing off his swim lessons skills by showing us how he can float by himself for a few seconds at a time. He's got his face underwater, but he IS actually floating!


There were quite a few restaurants lined up along our walking route to and from our hotel and Disneyland, so we weren't stuck eating the same foods all week. After dinner that first night, we headed back to the hotel room and were all asleep by about 9pm (mom and dad had their own room, but said they went to bed right away as well). After a long weekend of packing and a full day of travel, exploring, playing, etc. we were TIRED!

**more tomorrow!**

THBPPPPPP!

Did you know that dogs can blow raspberries, too? *grin*

You know it's time to vacuum when...

...your floor is frowning at you:

New Camera

We've been wanting to have another pocket-sized camera, but haven't really gotten around to researching and purchasing one until recently. I posted on Facebook asking what other people have and what they like/dislike, and the overwhelming response was Nikon Coolpix.

We hit up Costco and I played around with the different versions they had on display. While I did really want the 14.2 megapixel option, I was willing to go lower in favor of the higher optical zoom. We decided on the S8100 version because it had 10X optical zoom, and was still a decent megapixel (12). I tested out taking pictures across the store on the highest zoom capacity and was quite impressed with how it looked on the screen.

At the point that I'm writing this blog post, the camera is newly purchased and currently charging, so I haven't had a chance to play with it around my own house yet, but I'm certain we're going to be very pleased with it. I chose the red one for no other reason than that it's FUN!

I do love my Nikon D90 DSLR camera, but there are just some instances it isn't handy or reasonable to have that large camera, and I'll be happy to be able to grab up the little Coolpix instead.

Curious George

Jared's class had a Curious George themed day in class, where they read some of the books and did Curious George art projects. I was pretty impressed with this one Jared did!

My Sweet Girl

I was having a rough day a few days ago, and my sweet Emily Grace sat down and drew me this picture to cheer me up:


I ♥ her!!

I'm cursed!

You've all heard my woes about how many broken house-hold appliances/items we had last year. I'd really hoped that 2011 would be a new year, but it's shaping up to be 2010 all over again. Except this time around, I'm already burnt out and frustrated from the first time around. LOL

2011 so far:

*half the house without power.
*fixed the power, but now the light switch doesn't connect to the outlets for the floor lamps any longer.
*Internet connection still sucks, despite new computer AND expensive virus protection.
*washing machine #2 konks out. Possible cheap-ish fix, with the generous help of my amazing daddy.
*dog's Invisible Fence collar not working; dog escapes twice and is rescued by friendly and helpful neighbors. Must drive far away to replace collar on a day that's already extremely booked.
*oven timer button almost totally broken.
*Refrigerator freezes large majority of items placed inside... Nothing like trying to make a sandwich with frozen meat and lettuce!

Still waving my white flag of surrender... Maybe I need one for the other hand. I really feel I'm getting dumped on here! And yes, I know it could be worse, but it's extremely stressful dealing with one thing after another!!!! aughhh!!!!!!!!!

My kids are weird

Emily requested chef salad for dinner last night, and when the boys caught wind of the plan, they were jumping for joy and whooping it up around the house.


I'm pretty sure I would have thought it was TORTURE at their age to have to eat salad for dinner!! Those bowls are quite large, and all three came back for seconds! Connor was shoveling the salad into his mouth like it was chocolate pudding or something!

PS Our carrots, hard boiled eggs, and radishes were all chopped with my new Pampered Chef chopper, which made things sooooo easy!! love it!

PPS After my kids were done eating two giant bowls of salad, they polished off the radishes I hadn't used for the salad.

Like I said, my kids are weird. (and I'm so glad they are!)

Eva's hat

I recently knit a hat for Eva using two strands of yarn at the same time. One strand was leftover yarn from the sweater set I made Eva and gave to Alisa at her baby shower:


And the other strand of yarn was a funky "string" with random bits of colored fluff here and there along it, which I got for $1 at Big Lots almost a year ago.

The end result is pretty gosh darn cute if I do say so myself!

Father/Daughter Ball 2011

For the 3rd year in a row, Dan and Emily Grace attended the Father/Daughter Ball. Emily looks forward to this event ALL. YEAR. LONG.

She's about ready to jump out of her skin from excitement here!


Gotta strike a pose when you're all dressed up!


Pretty hair accessory and bling!


Fancy nails (complete with tiny "diamonds" in the centers of each one), and the pretty pale pink freshwater pearl bracelet she won at last years' Father/Daughter Ball.


Posing together just before leaving the house


They stood in line and paid for professional pictures, too, which will get mailed to our house at some point in the next few weeks. I'll be sure to share them at that point!

Valentines Box

First things first, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Now I'll jump into my Valentine's Day related post...

Emily Grace got a homework assignment (to be graded) where she had to create a box to collect valentines in, and we were told it had to have at least three moving parts, it must be creative, it must be able to hold 25 valentines, we must have fun doing it, and it needed to be turned in on Valentine's Day.

Em and I put our heads together and came up with a ballet-themed box, which has 6 moving parts, is creative (if we do say so ourselves), will easily hold 25 valentines, we had fun doing it, and she'll be turning it in today.

We have two ballerinas (thank goodness for my Cricut machine!) on each of the long ends, that "dance" back and forth across the stage as you pull either end of the ribbon.

She starts here:


She ends up here:


See, she's on the other side, too:


If you're counting, we're up to TWO moving parts...

On one side of the box, we also have two spot lights for the "stage", which swivel on brads:




And that's FOUR moving parts...

Emily decorated the top of her box with ballerina stickers, and we created a door that opens and can be tied shut (FIVE moving parts!):


If you open the door, there's a ballerina bobbling around on coiled pipe cleaner (SIX moving parts):




On the short end furthest from the "door", we cut out a crown with my Cricut machine (did I mention how much I love my Cricut yet?), and Em glued gems onto the points:


One the short end closest to the "door", we cut out a smaller crown, and her name:


PS I think it's funny how the box appears to be 4-5 different colors depending on whether the flash went off and how close or far away I was to the box when the flash went off (or not). ha! The first picture is probably a decent representation of the true color...

I told Emily Grace to pay close attention to all the other boxes, because I wanted a full report on what the other kids created! I'm anxious to see how elaborate, or not, the boxes got. Emily said one kid turned one in already that looks like a piano, and when you press the different keys, it makes sounds. I'll admit to helping Emily with her box, but I'm curious to know how much of the work the 3rd grade student did on the piano box that actually plays notes????

Connor's playdate with Cousin Eva

My SIL Alisa and I got together at a fairly new play place in our area (they're popping up like crazy lately out here!! We have THREE now, and it's a pretty small town!) earlier this week, and both Eva and Connor had a GREAT time!

There were several of these slightly squishy items to climb around on (like you'd find at a mall play place; at least at our mall!). A canoe, a car, a "stone" bridge, some flowers, a turtle, and a HUGE tree that had a tiny slide.












There was also a giant L shaped pit of MOON SAND, which Connor and Eva both thought was pretty neat. Connor got some for Christmas and thinks it's AWESOME! Eva had never touched it before and it was fun seeing her reaction. She had a good time crumbling it up and poking at it. She also really wanted to eat it, so we had to be watching her closely! LOL




Another area had a grocery store area (complete with tiny grocery carts and tons of plastic food and empty food containers), a pizzeria (complet with a fake brick oven), and a veterinary clinic (complete with x-ray light box and real x-rays of animals, a whole wall of stuffed animals in "cages", and items like bandages, plush shots and thermometers, leashes, collars, etc).






They had a train table set up in the back corner, and Connor thoroughly enjoyed driving the trains around and loading and unloading their loads, etc.




There was also a coloring station, with seasonally-themed coloring pages set out


Eva makes this funny face a lot, and I had to share it, even though it turned out blurry. It's so cute! She was "concentrating" on her coloring! LOL


As if there wasn't enough fun stuff at this place, there was also a really neat rock area where you could dig through and match rocks to the ones on the laminated cards, and inspect them with provided magnifying glasses (and could even take some home for a small fee if you chose, which we did NOT).




Prior to going, I was thinking $8.50 seemed like a lot of money, but we were there for nearly three hours and Connor was STILL having a fantastic time. It's still a fairly pricey outing, but I was free, and I feel I got my money's worth from paying for Connor!

We'll definately go back!

Birthday Luncheon

My Aunt Cheryl hosts birthday luncheons for each month where a family member has a birthday (this started out for just the girls in the family, but as the nieces and niece-in-laws have had children, we've added the little boys to the fun as well).

At the end of January, we celebrated my SIL Alisa's birthday, as well as my cousin's daughter Gracie's birthday. My Aunt used a Valentine theme because we were so close to February and there aren't currently any February birthdays.

My mother is usually the one that documents the luncheons, but she was sick and unable to attend, so I took over the photo-taking for the event, which means I have pictures to share!!

Aunt Cheryl always does an AMAZING job setting the table:






Once upon a time, we all used to fit at the same table, but now the kids have their own table!




Time to open cards and presents!






Love this picture of Alisa and Eva


Time to blow out the candles!