Road Trippin'

 This year we decided that my parents being gone the whole winter, and our winter being so brutally cold, we decided to take a little road trip and go visit sunny California!!



 We started out by driving to Las Vegas the first night! I love Las Vegas and couldn't wait for my kids to see the lights! 


We checked into our hotel after a LONG day of driving and decided to take the kids to to strip! We drive up and down the strip and there eyes are huge!!!


 They couldn't believe everything they were seeing! First stop Bellagio, we needed to see the water show, we park (love valet parking) unload the stroller and kids, walk down to the water show and wait....and wait... and Ryan is giving me the look of why didn't you check the time of the shows. I keep checking my watch and then the announcement comes on the because of high winds the shows for the night are cancelled! Yikes!! So we walk back to the valet pickup and wait for our car. To Ryan's great excitement there was a Lamborghini parked in the front row and the boy in him could not resist taking a picture while we waited!

We then headed to the mirage and just as we pull up we realize we barely missed the volcano going off! We still have an hour so we go into the casino and get a treat! 1 piece of pie, 2 chocolate chip cookies and 2 sprites later we leave with full tummies and an empty wallet ( our bill was 40.00) Wowzer!! 

Whitley wasnt that impressed! The chocolate chip cookie had nuts in it!



 We head back outside and watch the volcano!!

 The kids absolutely loved it! By this time the kids were super tired and the drunks were in full force so we headed back to the hotel  for the night!

The next morning we were up bright and early to head to California- We of course were intrigued by all the billboards for ALIEN JERKY, so we made it our first pit stop!


 Yeah I could of went my whole life without stopping at that place..It was gross and nasty and bleck! But we got to stretch our legs so we were good!

 We get about 3/4 of the way to California when I decided I need to get something out of my wallet and make the awful discovery that I have NO wallet! We stop at a gas station and start digging in every piece of luggage we own to only come up empty handed. We make a few frantic calls to the Las Vegas hotel to luckily find out that my wallet was in my room and they will fed ex it to me free of charge!! I'm glad there is still honest people in the world.   After another extremely long day in the car we make it to Oceanside and finally get to see my parents!! My kids were super excited and I think grandma and grandpa were happy too!! I may or may not of even got so much as a hello for the first 15 minutes! I know how I rate! :)

The following morning we woke up to rainy skies, This was supposed to be our beach day so we made a little change of plans and went and walked the Oceanside Pier

. We seen a bunch or fisherman, a lot of pelicans that really liked Karden,


 one surfer

a look out point,


 and we about gave my mom a heart attack when the kids would get too close to the sides of the pier!


 She kept a tight hold of Berkleys Stroller, and kept her right in the middle of the pier the whole time!!



We then went to the San Luis Mission and walked around. They were doing some construction so we were not allowed to go in to the chapel. But it was a pretty neat old building,


  After lunch the sun was trying to peek through so we decided to hit the beach.


 The kids had a blast. Playing in the sand,

Building sand castles ,


 collecting seashells,



 and playing in the waves. Berkley loved the sand on her fat little feet and chasing the seagulls!


 It was a super fun day!! But a little bit of sand goes along way...I am still finding sand in the car!!

The next day we headed to see were my mom and dad "live" and were taken back in time, to the civil war era, We walked around the camp,


 see how the soldiers lived and slept. We watched the battle!









 It was really neat. Of course we ended up with a parasol and a civil way hat and gun and a lot of memories!



The following day happened to be Kardens 9th birthday!! He was in heaven because this was also LEGOLAND day!! What 9 year old wouldn't want to go to legoland on his birthday!!
The kids all had a blast not only being there with grandma and grandpa but there cousins as well. Pure Heaven!! We rode all the rides



 and posed with all the characters

goofed around a bunch....Really Dad!!


 and had a all day good time!

That night we decided we needed to celebrate Kardens Birthday with Ice Cream so we went back to the pier and stopped at Rubys.


 The waiters all sung Happy Birthday to Karden!  He pretended he was embarrassed but he enjoyed every minute of the attention! :)




Monday was the day we needed to head for home! On one of our pit stops as we got Berkley out of her car seat she was all wet. Then we realized it wasn't just wet!! It may have been one of the nastiest diapers I have ever changed in my life.. Down to her toes, up to her chest!!  Changing a baby on the front seat of my car, Trying to find clean clothes in the back of the car that is stuffed so full it is going to burst! Putting poopy clothes in 3 bags to seal in the stench. How can someone this cute be that gross!!

 Good times!!  We arrived back in Vegas that afternoon and decided to hit Fremont street! We loaded up parked in a super scary parking garage! Fremont street was fun and loud! It was busier that the strip! We watched Bon jovi on the overhead canopy




 and did some shopping in the cheap stores and had a great time! On the way back to our hotel we decided to give the bellagio fountains one more try and parked again and this time got to see the water show!! ( My favorite thing in Vegas)




 The kids loved  it and we finally went back to our hotel totally exhausted!

We headed home the next morning and about 20 miles out of Vegas Jons car starts smoking!! We pull off the freeway, pull the kids out of the car and sit on the freeway for an hour why we try to decide what to do. Luckily a nice police man stops tells us to head back to the truck stop ( 5 miles away) and go from there. We get to the truck stop and there we sit...and wait...and buy the kids anything they want to keep them quiet....and watch cartoon... and watch the hours tick by (5 and a half to be exact) It was brutal!!! They finally get the right part and fix the car... huge blessing! We are on the road again. We get to St George and it it 6pm. we are all tired...and grumpy...and want to be home and we decided to just keep driving. We leave st George and Berkley starts to cry, then wail, then scream!! We pull into cedar city, get a room, and call in and tell work we will not be there tomorrow! The kids got to swim and we sleep like rocks.....until we wake up to the sound of Whitley barfing! She was sick all morning long!! I just want to be home and now I have a child who is throwing up! So what do we do....We give her a bucket and get on the road! 3 hours later and 3 stops to empty the puke bucket.....we are home!! With lots of great memories and dirty laundry!!!

California you will be missed! I love vacations!!!

A Little Valentines Love..

Valentines day was a pretty fun day this year!




The girls were all decked out in there valentines clothes and hair in the shape of hearts and Then there was Karden even refusing to wear a red shirt! Hes getting to old for moms themes!! Its killing me! :)

The kids woke up to there valentines from mom and dad- Pez dispensers and the movie Hotel Transylvania.



Karden was so excited to go to school that day because he got to take his valentines box.

This year he decided he wanted a cobra. Really! Ryan and I have NO art skills and so we bribed uncle Paul with pizza and he did not disappoint! His valentines box turned out awesome!! a cobra coming out of a basket!!

 Karden was soo excited that his teacher took a picture of it- He probably took a picture of all the kids boxes but still- Karden was on cloud 9!

I pulled the short straw  I got the honor of helping in the Kindergarten Valentines Class Party! I was in charge of the game. I found a valentines themed twister game!

The kids all loved it and got to burn off some energy from all the sugar they were eating, but the fact that most of the kids are confused about there left and right hand/foot made for alot of circling the game and tapping what hand/foot they needed to move!   I went home exhausted! Twenty five 5 year old hyped up on sugar and excitement! Wowzer- Miss Mellor is a saint!

For Dinner that night we had a "red" dinner! Everything we ate had to be red! The kids thought it was the best thing ever!  We had Spaghetti with red sauce, Strawberries, Beets, Cherry jello, and Love potion (fruit punch) to drink. For dessert we had Strawberry Ice Cream. After dinner we watched Hotel Transylvania together- it was a cute movie!

When It was dark I had the kids "kick" valentines to the neighborhood friends. They didn't quite get the concept and rang the doorbell and waited for them to answer- whatever makes them happy I guess.

We were feeling the love!

Show N Teach

In kindergarten one of the big things they do is they get to be the teacher ( for 10 min) and teach there classmates something they know how to do.  We decided to have her teach how to make chocolate suckers. So we practiced filling the molds, putting in the sucker sticks and tapping out all the air bubbles, many many times!

I thought chocolate teddy bears were taking over the house at one point. On the day of her Show N Teach she was SOOO excited!

She got right up there and started out with a great big

Good Morning Class!!! ( Totally unscripted) Miss Mellor and I were trying hard to keep a straight face!


It was hilarious! She then taught them how to make suckers!! She did such a good job!! I am glad she got Ryans Genes on this one because I would of started crying ( just like one little girl did.. It was sad)






After she was done they had a little question/ answer session! They asked her How she learned to make suckers and other little questions. Someone then asked her  why she wanted to make them... Her answer  was because I LOVE TREATS!!



Her favorite part was handing out a sucker she had made to everyone in her class!



She did a great job!

Goldfish 1... Whitley ...0

Nothing like starting out the new year with a bang..........or a cut finger!!

January 2nd I had left Ryan with the kids and headed to the movies with my mom. When I got out of the movie I had missed a couple call from Ryan. I called him back and learned that Whitley was playing with her Friend Dorothy and they had decided they wanted a snack. So instead of asking for help they took the matter in to their own hands. A sharp knife and a bag of goldfish later Whitley was Bleeding everywhere. Ryan even took this picture for proof!!



Ryan had taken her to the instacare and they were too busy to stitch her finger up then so asked they to come back at 8:00 that night.  ( it sounded like a good ploy if you ask me, for mom to have to deal with the medical stuff!! Ryan doesn't do so well in medical situations! )  So we headed down to the after hours clinic and checked in and they took us back to the exam room. Then we waited..........and talked about why we dont play with knives..........and played Eye Spy....and waited...and took pictures with our cell phone......and waited some more.

\ \

Finally the doctor came in and looked at her finger and said she was going to need a couple of stitches. So he numbs up her finger and she is brave!! No tears here!!! Then we wait some more......and think we are dying of hunger......and wait until the nurse comes back and cleans out her finger. Then we wait again until finally the doctor comes back in and stitches up one tired little girl!! She had to get 6 stitches! She was funny and thought the reason she got 6 stitches was because she was 6!!  They the trauma was over. and we left without even a sticker or a good job!! I was irritated, I guess I was hungry too!

She was so excited to go to school the next day and show everyone her stitches!! I think she has also learned her lesson and will ask for a snack in the future....hopefully!!

Bringing in 2013!

This year, like the last few we were planning  on Trekking to Lindon to spend New Years Eve with Jon and Sharlyn and there kids!  But we found out that morning that we had been so great and shared our Flu with them! After being cooped up in the house all of Christmas break this news was accepted with sadness and gnashing of teeth...........the kids were sad they couldn't go play as well!

So out of desperation, I tried to find something for just us to do without being bored all night! I turned to Pinterest and found a few ideas that I tailored to stuff we were planning to do already. The kids had a blast!!! It was so easy and the kids acted like I spent all day planning when in reality it was like 5 minutes!!
We had an envelope every hour from 5:00 pm till 12:00 midnight!!

5:00 Our note said to eat nachos and soda for dinner!!

6:00 Our note said to watch Happy New Year Charlie Brown that happened to be on Netflix!!

7:00 We wrote notes about of favorite things this year and what we want to work on in 2013.
I plan on keeping these and looking back on them next year to see if we accomplished what we wanted too. And to see if anyone's writing has gotten any better! :)

8:00 We had a WII Dance Party!!  Dad even got in on the  action... it may not of been pretty, but it was fun!

At this point We decided Berkley had as much fun as she could handle and the rest of her new years eve looked like this!



9:00 Ice cream sundaes and new shades!!




10:00 We played a new game we dug out of the closet that we had never opened


 This is also the point that Ryan and I started to fade, Ryan had worked at 5 am that morning and we were tired!! The kids were still going strong so Ryan Popped open an energy drink!


11:00 Fireworks and silly string!! Being a fair weather firework watcher I watched from the front window for this one! -1 is way to cold for me!!


12:00 We watched the ball drop,and had sparking cider to drink




The kids were exhausted and as soon as the new year came, they brushed there teeth and were asleep by 12:08!!

The kids had so much fun, they got along, played together and we liked it so much we will probably do it again next year.............at Jon and Sharlyns house of course! :)

Christmas 2012

Christmas This year was fun!!

We had to have our annual breakfast with Santa so we could make sure he knew we were good and what we really wanted for Christmas!! Once again Santa was amazing!!

Karden got up there and rattled off a rehearsed list that was a mile long... good thing Santa is old and a little deaf so he only heard a few things Karden wanted!!

Whitley asked for a box of makeup!! Santa then chuckled and asked if she had a boyfriend? Whitley was embarrassed and quickly said NO!! Hopefully that is the truth for the next few years!!

Berkley was having NOTHING to do with the creepy old man that wanted to hold me!! :)
She will learn soon enough!! That you want to be nice to Santa!!

We also did Gingerbread houses one night!

The kids had a blast and they turned out pretty good this year!

It was neat to see that Karden wanted his to look GOOD and took his time on his.. unlike the last years he has just thrown on the candy! There may be hope for him yet! :)

We started off at Christmas at my moms house!! We had dinner and then opened presents! I'm not so sure when it stopped being we draw names to holy crap- Lets show up Santa!!

But it is always fun!!! The kids had a blast opening presents. Berkley didn't much care for the presents but she thought the candy canes were the best!!

This year we had snow so they got to have rides in the sleds!!

The screams of delight were heard up and down the streets of goshen!! Berkley was having a ride if she liked it or not!! She loved it once they started going!!

Chad found out the hard way if you fall asleep your bald head can and will become the track for the cars to play on!

Good memories for sure!!

The kids woke up and were so excited to see if Santa came!! He did!!!

I think he might of got our kids mixed up with someone else because I am sure they were not that good!! They all got what they wanted and them some!!

The house was in total and complete chaos. But it was a great chaos!! Santa may have had a lapse in judgement when he decided to buy Whitley roller skates!!

We went down to Barbaras house and had Christmas breakfast and opened more gifts!! The kids got spoiled again!!!!

It is good to be loved I guess!!

It was controlled Chaos there too....okay so maybe not so controlled!

That night Karden started acting really tired! I thought it was from all the excitement and sent him to bed only to have him wake up a few times that night with huge fevers!! The next day we trek to the Dr's office only to be diagnosed with Influenza B! Of course he had to share with mom! We were sick ALL of Christmas Break!! I thought I was going to die!! Actually I was hoping I would Die!!  It was miserable. Thankfully there is Lysol and expensive great drugs. So everyone is now healthy!