Family Vacation to California

We just got back from a week long vacation in California and we had a wonderful time! I must admit Chuck and I were a little apprehensive about spending a week in hotels with the 3 young ones. We often joke that we are "staff" in our kids lives. This joke reminds us to try our best to create fun and memorable experiences for the kids despite the fact that it can be a lot of hard work for us. The first night we stayed in Vegas in a very nice hotel suite and the kids were wired! They were jumping all over everything, running around - to much pent up excitement for Disneyland. It looked to be a very long week, but after that it got much easier. They were so tired at the end of each day that they would pass out in the hotel room while watching TV. Isaac was a little bit harder for me. He was waking up every 1.5 to 2 hours all night long. I just kept feeding him - another reason he's the Big Buddy!

A short visit to Newport Beach. Samuel's favorite part was not the water, but chasing after the birds. He told me he wished he had a cage so he could catch one. Then when it was time to go and he hadn't actually been able to catch one he threw quite the fit. He was sitting in the sand just crying because the birds were just to fast!

Chuck and the kids getting their feet wet in the cold water. The weather was actually great, not too hot and not too cold - just right!

Disneyland!

As part of our vacation we went to Disneyland with Aunt Trina, Uncle Wes, Kambree and Grandma Jerri Lynn and what a wonderful time we had! We spent 3 days in the park and all of us loved it! Samuel was so cute one morning when he said, "I like it when we have this much fun!"

The Stroller Brigade! We couldn't fit the double stroller and our single stroller in the Pilot so we ended up with 4 seperate strollers! Uncle Wes was at a conference 2 of the days, but that still left us with 4 adults and 4 kids so this worked out great. You can't see from the picture, but Isaac is eating Cheerios. That poor little kid ate so many Cheerios during the trip. We just kept filling his tray to keep him happy - another reason he's our Big Buddy!

To quote Chuck, "I don't do tea cups" or anything that spins for that matter. Chuck brought along a good book so he would stay with the sleeping babies while the rest of us rode the rides.

We stood in line for 45 minutes to see the new Pixie Hollow, Tinker Bell and some other fairy princess (Bella's not really into the princess scene yet so I'm not really sure which one it was). After running around the park the whole day I didn't really mind taking it easy in line. The nice thing about Disneyland is your kid can do whatever and it's okay becuase everyone else's kid is just as bad! The kids were swinging on the ropes, wondering around, droping rice balls in the pond and no one cared! It was great! Poor Bella would literally start to shake whenever we dragged her along to get a character picture, but with a little bribery of fruit snacks she would agree to it.

The FAKE Mickey Mouse

Samuel can really make us laugh with the things he says sometimes. To quote the conversation:

Samuel: "Dad, that Mickey's not real, he's a fake"

Chuck: "Why do you think he's not real"

Samuel: "Because he doesn't talk"

Then Samuel went on to point out the fact that the other characters we had seen the day before Minnie, Goofy and Pluto we also fakes because none of them talked. He then said that Tinker Bell and the princesses were real because they had talked to him. Chuck told him maybe they were real, but were just tired of talking. But when we went to California Adventure and saw the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show where the characters talk Samuel informed us after the show that that Mickey was real because he could talk.

Disneyland - Favorite Rides!

One of the kids favorite rides was the tea cups. I lost track of how many times Trina and I took the kids on this ride. They just loved it and we would all laugh and laugh as Samuel would try and spin us crazy and Bella would make funny faces and hold her hands up in the air.

Samuel also loved the flying rides - the jets and dumbo - anything that went round and round. Good thing mommy and Trina can do the circle rides because daddy and grandma couldn't stomach it!

And Samuel's favorite ride was the roller coaster in Toon Town. He couldn't get enough of this. Our first ride I thought he was going to hate it, but we got done and he wanted to immediately ride it again and again. I loved hearing him shout Woo Hoo all during the ride! The kids favorite part of the park was definately Toon Town - Mickey and Minney's house, Donald's Boat, Goofy's playhouse - they loved it all. I think I enjoyed riding the rides as much as the kids did!

California Adventure

We had a wonderful time on our vacation, but we did have a very nasty 24 hour flu bug that Chuck gave all of us and it circulated through everyone but Samuel and Kambree. Friday afternoon, Trina came down with it and had to leave Disneyland early. Luckily, most of the rest of us got it when we got home. Those who got the flu shot only suffered a little, and those of us who didn't had a horrible day of throwing up! After Trina and Wes went back to the hotel we ventured over to California Adventure.

Samuel LOVES Cars (the movie) so he was really excited to see Lighting and Mater.

And Samuel's favorite part of the trip was the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show. We finally found the "real" Mickey because the one in the show could talk. Samuel and Bella had so much fun dancing and singing during the show.

After days of excitment the kids were just exhausted. We were going to try and stay to see the Fantasmic show, but the kids just couldn't hold out. They were all passed out in their strollers.

Mom in her Mouse ears.

Longbeach Aquarium

To finish out our trip we went to the Longbeach Aquarium before driving to Vegas on Saturday. We all loved seeing the beautiful fish, touching the rays and sharks, and my favorite the jellyfish and seahorses.

Typical monkey Bella, swinging from the display bar. This was also a great place to have her wearing the monkey backpack. She was running all over and it's the only way we could keep track of her. At one point we were separated from my mom and I could hear this distant screaming and just knew it was Bella. And sure enough as I rounded the corner I saw my mom dragging a screaming Bella along. She is at the fit throwing stage now and had thrown herself on the ground and was creating quite the scene.

One of the touching pools. We finally got Samuel to touch the starfish, but could not convince him to touch the sharks or rays.

We spent a lot of time in the bird feeding area. I think everyone took a turn feeding the birds and letting them crawl on them except me, but somehow I was the unlucky one who got pooped on! This is my shocked and discusted look immediately after the bird hit me on a fly by. Little spots were all over my shirt, pants and the worse on my neck! Yuk!

Chuck with a bird that landed on his head.

Isaac got really excited when Chuck brought a bird close to him. He even tried to grab one.

We could only describe mom as the "Bird Lady". She had birds crawling all over her. One was even eating her hair.

New Year and New Changes

When did my precious Samuel get to be so big? The Primary secretary called me on Friday night to say they were having a Primary activity on Saturday for the kids to meet their new teachers. I got off the phone and could hardly believe that my baby was going to be in Primary. I was excited, but sad to think of how fast the time flies. Now just look at that face. In typical Samuel style, he was not excited about going to the activity. In fact the kids were supposed to wear their pj's, but Samuel threw a fit and said he was not going to wear his pajamas. I think he was the only kid not wearing pajamas, but I was just excited he actually went. He has been telling me for weeks that he isn't going to Sunbeams, he doesn't like church, he doesn't like Primary. You name it he doesn't like it. But thankfully he has a wonderful Sunbeam teacher, and so he went to the activity and to Sunbeams today and loved it!

Isaac surprised me this week by doing his first "baby sign"! He has learned how to sign "more" when I feed him. Of the three kids, he is now the official earliest signer! I have enjoyed teaching all the kids a few baby signs because it's so fun to see their little minds working to let you know what they want before they can talk. And Isaac has been getting lots of help and encouragement from the other kids!

And here is the little guy giving crawling a try. He actually has only moved one knee forward, but he is trying really hard! Of course, with the third little one the longer he holds off going anywhere the better for me.

And Bella - what can I say! I feel like I spend most of my day chasing her around trying to make sure she isn't destroying anything. This week I found her naked in the bathroom sink having a great time in the water with her tea set. I just can't figure out why she refuses to keep any clothes on. She goes through several outfits a day. She'll take everything off, run around naked for awhile then pull a dirty outfit out of the laundry room and put it on. And then for this picture. I usually cut up her peanut butter sandwhich into little pieces for her to eat, but yesterday she kept telling me, "No cut". So I just cut her sandwich in half like I do for Samuel. I was busy feeding the baby and then looked up to find this! I think she just must have stuck the sandwich on her face. I couldn't help but laugh, which was a mistake because then Samuel thought it was okay to stick the sandwich on his face- not quite so funny when they know better. And of course she did it again today and then looked at us and said, "Funny"! Well, the second time it really isn't funny so I told her if she did it again I was going to have to cut her sandwich into little pieces again so hopefully that will solve the problem, but knowing Bella probably not!

New Year

With the New Year we finally broke down and got a new vehicle - a Honda Pilot. Before we had Isaac we thought about getting a bigger vehicle, but then discovered we could fit three kids in car seats in the back of our car - it was tight, we looked like circus clowns, but it worked. So being the frugal people we are (except when it comes to dresses for Bella, then I throw all frugality out the window) we just kept the car. Then Chuck decided a few weeks ago now might be a good time to get a bigger vehicle since you can get a deal. We looked around one Saturday, then got busy with the holidays. But when we came back from Bountiful the other night, Chuck got on the internet, found this Pilot in Vegas, called up the dealership, negotiated with them over the phone and we went to pick it up this weekend. It usually takes us forever to make purchases because being two engineers we crunch numbers, make spreadsheets, all the nerdy things. But not this time, Chuck thought it was a great deal so we just did it. And I'm sure it will be nice to have a bigger vehicle, although I'll miss the challenge of getting everything stuffed into the car!

After we picked up the car we went back to the Springs Perserve to take some more pictures. I brought along my nice camera this trip, but just my luck I took about 20 pictures, which at that point I'm just warming up, and the battery went dead! I was so sad, but did get a few good ones of each of the kids before it died.