And a good time was had by all . . . except Jasmine

Our children still haven't figured out waking up early on Christmas.  Sure, we were a bit late getting out of Grandma's house the night before, but I guess the whole thing wore them out because Daddy gave up and woke them up at 9am.

Kaitlyn laid there, answering Daddy's questions about what day it was and who came last night until a light bulb went off and she dashed out of bed.  Tyler wasn't quite awake yet, but came along anyway.

Jackpot!

And then Daddy explained that they would go nice and fast . . . outside, when it isn't snowing.  So Tyler tried the gas pedal anyway.  And Kaitlyn got rather scared of it and promptly got off.  On to less frightening toys!

Those silly pez dispensers were a huge hit.  Tyler went through all three packs before breakfast.

And by the way, in this picture you can see that Kaitlyn has opened her Santa present and is halfway through her stocking.  She isn't as fast as I was as a kid.  I seem to remember ripping things open in one minute flat, but she checks each object out for a minute first.  Tyler, however, is holding the first object he got from his stocking.  We could give that child one dollar store item for Christmas and he would be happy all morning.

Each object had to be inspected for 20 minutes.  When he found his (green is for Tyler) piggy bank, he refused to move on until he got coins in there, because an empty bank was just wrong.  This year we prodded him along to the next present, mainly because we were excited to see his reaction to everything.  But I think next year we might just let him go at his pace and see how many days it takes for him to unwrap it all.

The "Santa table" where Santa brings yummy food to share is always a hit.  This morning they even got chocolate cereal with marshmallows in it, instead of the regular cheerios mommy forces on them.

And Daddy loved the present I gave him.  He mentioned earlier in the year how much he loved pogo sticks as a kid, so I got him a big kid version.

You can't tell, since I am standing up the front stairs from him, but he was getting some good air on it!

And Kaitlyn liked the Rapunzel hair I made her.

Jasmine slept in until the kids were mostly done unwrapping.  But that poor girl was still miserable.  In fact, of my three children, this is my second "baby's 1st Christmas" that started off with puking in bed.  Tyler got the stomach flu his first Christmas.

But hey, the packaging was tasty, so she figured life was okay.

And she even liked the Princess castle she got from Santa.  She would bob her head along with the music for the dance floor.

And the kids loved Tyler's hot wheels track.  Which turned Daddy into a big kid at heart.  "I can see why I always wanted one of these as a kid!  This thing in awesome!"  Oh, and you'll notice that Tyler put on all of his candy jewelry from his stocking.  I think he just about emptied them by the end of the day!

I didn't take pictures of everything - the kids got a piano/microphone thing they love, I can't wait to break out my new serger, and the kids had a blast on their new wii game that night, too.  And we had another turkey dinner that night, where Grandma Skarda even came to relax and eat with us instead of hosting at her house. I was enjoying the day too much to break out the camera that much though!

But I did get a video of Tyler trying out his power wheels for the first time.  Daddy figured he cleared off enough snow for him to give it a shot, though obviously he still got stuck on the ice a few times. I think we were expecting a bigger reaction from Tyler, but he was all business about this.  Important stuff.

Almost Christmas . . .

I should be sleeping right now.  But I'm too excited for Christmas, and so instead I'm going to write this blog post because I love looking at all these pictures of the last few days so much.

One of the fun things this year is that Christopher had a lot of vacation days in the "use it or lose it" category, so we've had him ever since the kids got off school!  Hooray!  One of the first ways we took advantage of that was to sleep in and have a killer breakfast.  Christopher got this recipe from a co-worker and forwarded it to me a while back.  Hostess cupcake pancakes.  I'm not a chocolate fan myself, but the rest of my family sure is.

The white swirls melted, but my husband had three helpings, so it was a success anyway.

The next night, a friend invited us to come on the "Polar Express" with her family.  She made awesome tickets for each of my kids too, and we tried out the new Frontrunner trains that go up to Salt Lake City.

It was so much fun!  The kids loved hanging out on the train.  And once we got up there, we bundled up for the cold and headed to a toy store first.

"Look, Mom!  There's a dinosaur head on the wall!"

Jasmine didn't care for the snowsuit, unfortunately, but it did keep her warm.  She sat just like that, zoned out, almost all night.

The water fountain show was pretty cool.  But the kids probably were more impressed by the hot chocolate we brought along.

And then we walked to our favorite part - the lights at Temple Square!  They really are just gorgeous.

And a wonderful way to bring meaning back to the holiday adventure.

I love Tyler's face in that shot.  Silly kid.

The next day, I decided to try out an idea from Pinterest.  I cut some green felt into Christmas trees, and let the kids go to town with my felt stash making "ornaments".

The original person said that she made the kids their own trees "so they can play with their own ornaments and they won't touch the real tree!"  I laugh at the naivete every time I think of that.  Clearly that person had never seen a toddler in action.

So while this would never stop the kids from playing with the regular tree, I think I'll do this one again.  They thought it was great to cut whatever they wanted and stick it on there.

Sunday morning they looked so cute for Church that I told them I wanted a picture first.  And when I told them to stand by the tree, they went into this hug.

Which Kaitlyn declared was "just like we are getting married!"  Which is sorta creepy - and true.

Unfortunately, baby Jasmine and I did not get to go to church that day.  That poor girl woke up in the middle of the night with a solid fever and a raspy cough.  She has been better during the day the last two days, but still rather miserable each night.

Thankfully, the bug hasn't affected anyone else as much.  So the bigger kids got to make some Gingerbread houses.

You might be able to tell that Kaitlyn had almost no help with hers.  I put the house up, made a door,  and let her go.  Tyler never did get the hang of the icing though, so he just directed Daddy on what to do.

And then today was the annual Skarda family bonanza.  Poor Jasmine was still sick, but she soldiered on anyway.

Kaitlyn got to be Mary in the nativity play this year, which she was pretty excited about.  This is her acting out her part - "surprised" when she found out she was going to have baby Jesus.

Daddy got to play his plastic trombone in the annual "Tuba Christmas" event.

And Tyler was SO excited when Santa came to see everyone!  I wish I had a better picture, because he went a little crazy happy for a minute there.

And for the first time, he actually said something when Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas!  I couldn't hear him, because baby Jasmine was sobbing at the moment, and Santa couldn't understand what he said, so here's hoping it is something he is getting.

Though, honestly, the kids have no idea what this Christmas has in store for them.  Daddy has been giddy for weeks about these presents.  Amazingly, they have been just stashed under a tarp in the garage, and neither kid has questions that huge elephant in the room.  And of course, now that we need clear sidewalks to test them out, we have a beautiful white Christmas outside.

Time to head to bed until my little ones come get me!

Snow!

Our first snowy visit to the cabin!  We were able to drive our Pilot up, but it snowed 6 inches or so overnight once we got there, so that is the last trip up by car I think.  Next time we will have to maneuver a baby on a snowmobile.  But for this trip, it was all just fun stuff!

Kaitlyn's favorite was the snowman that was "SO big!"  I love the little tiny arms that Tyler wandered off to find all on his own.

And of course, we have to make snow angels too.

But Daddy and I loved the sledding the most.

I got this pretend snowboard at a garage sale a while back, and it probably wasn't worth the 50 cents I paid for it.  Though watching him try was kinda fun, in a way!

One of Daddy's jokes with Tyler is that "you are my favorite pillow!"  So whenever he tries to wake up Tyler in the morning he just lays down to sleep himself, and Tyler just laughs and laughs.  "I'm stuck, Daddy!"

Disneyland

Whew.  We knew that this trip would be a little different from the others, because we have never taken a baby before.  And babies don't care for sitting in a stroller or being carried in line ALL day - Jasmine wants to crawl around and explore and get hours of nap time on her schedule.  Thankfully, she adapted and survived, but it certainly wasn't ideal.

I brought my sling so I could carry the wiggler in line all day, and that did save us a lot of headache.  (And cause a lot of backache.)  And the miracle was when she fell asleep on the boat rides!  She has been a particular little sleeper, falling asleep when she is in her crib all alone, and she HATES cuddling.  So when she laid down her head and dosed off in Small World and again in Pirates of the Caribbean, it was a huge victory.

The part that made it more fun than usual is that Tyler and Kaitlyn are getting older.  First of all, that meant they were easier than ever to take care of.  Sure, we had to talk them into not climbing while waiting in line a bit, and Tyler ducked away from us a few times, but I remember from previous years that after days of trying to keep them from wandering off/touching things they weren't supposed to/running into people  I wanted to come home, turn on the TV, and not tell them what to do for a day or so.  And right now I want to wake them up and talk to them about what their favorite part was!

And as a bonus for having older kids, they are now tall enough to ride cooler rides!  Last year Tyler got to ride the Matterhorn, and this year I got to take him.  But the most amazing moment was when we got in line and he looked at the ride and told me I had to look out for the monster.  He remembered something . . . from a YEAR ago!  This kid forgets things from an hour ago!  In fact, when Grandma Skarda was dropping us off at the airport, he said that Mommy and Daddy were going on an airplane.  We've talked to him about Disneyland, and Kaitlyn has been counting down the days for a month, but he was convinced that he was going to stay at Grandma Skarda's while we were gone like he did while we were in Napa.  So we asked him if he wanted to go to Disneyland or stay at Grandma Skarda's, and he wanted to "go to Grandma's."

So the fact that he remembered the Yeti on the Matterhorn was totally awesome.

I asked him to tell me about the monster, thinking that he would make a scary monster face for me, but mostly he just looked really thoughtful and told me about the red eyes.

Tyler wore his Santa/Mickey hat the entire time, by the way.  And Jasmine decided her main goal in life was to yank it off his head.

She succeeded more times than I can count.  And Tyler just loves her so much that he would laugh and laugh.  He doesn't even complain when she grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks.  He just laughs and says "awww, baby Ja- mine likes me!"

Tyler also got to go on the Tower of Terror with Daddy.

He was a bit scared, but did alright.  The awesome moment was when they cut off the lights to make it more scary and Tyler said "turn the lights on please!" while everyone else was silent.  Christopher said he got a few laughs from that honest plea.
And when they were all done, he asked Tyler if it was fun.  "Yeah."
"Do you want to do it again?"
"No."

I took him on one of my favorites, the Thunder Mountain Railroad.  It's actually a fairly fast little coaster, and has three different climbs.  So when we got to the first pause, after racing through some tunnels with the red eyes of "critters" around us, Tyler turned to me and said "was it scary?" (He often asks us the question he wants to be asked, like when he is hungry and hops up in his chair to say "what does Tyler want?")
"I don't know Tyler, was it scary?"
"Yes!"

When I asked him if he wanted to do it again after that one, he told me no because "I already did fast train."  He does like checking things off his lists a lot.

The main attraction for Kaitlyn, however, is meeting characters.  She likes the rides a lot, but meeting the Princesses is what she talks about for weeks afterward.  She told me that she thought that it was just people pretending to be them, but her friend Lily told her they are really them, so she believes her.

And so I whipped up one more Tink costume.  This was my weakest effort by far, but it was the third time I have made Tinkerbell shoes, so I guess the challenge was just lost.  I sewed a green strip onto a T-shirt, dug out the skirt that is now too short (well, that probably makes it more accurate, actually), and called it a day.  Tink and her sister Periwinkle loved her shoes, so all was well.

Now, we had noticed in years past that Tyler got a little smiley and shy around the princesses, and that his favorite seemed to be Snow White.  But this time, the pretty girls were just too intimidating.

This is the family shot, since Tyler was standing ten feet away and clinging to a banister in case we tried to drag him closer.

So the girls had all the fun.

One of Tyler's favorite stuffed animals is his Tigger, so I was hoping that he would do better with a more approachable friend.

I don't know if this was actually better.  You probably can't tell from this picture, but Tyler ran and dove straight into Tigger, clinging for dear life.  It took some work to get him to let go and stand upright for a regular picture.

He hugged Pooh bear in a mostly normal way, at least.

But when Woody and Jessie came to the company party, Tyler tried to duck between Woody's legs.

Sigh.

And when we were in line for Buzz, he ran away.  So Kaitlyn got a picture and I left baby Jasmine with our friends while I ran after Tyler.

And the baby tried to go meet Buzz on her own.

But when Tyler got there, he ran in, hugged Buzz, and ran away again.

The good news is that he figured it all out in time to meet Merida!  She was less scary, I guess.

We went on a lot of rides . . .

. . . and had fun with our friends.

But my favorite moment of all was the fireside girl costume.  When I saw that there was a "Phineas and Ferb Dance Party" show, I told Kaitlyn that there would be big girls pretending to be Fireside Girls just like her.  I could tell that much from pictures online, but I didn't know what they would do in the show.  Kaitlyn told me that she would wear her costume, and then "they will see that I am a Fireside Girl too and they will have me come dance with them!"  I tried to let her down gently, but she was confident that they would know what a good dancer she is and want her to dance too.

So we went to see the show.  The Fireside Girls spotted her right away (because honestly, they had probably never seen a girl pick such a random character to dress up as in Disneyland) and started a dancing show with Phineas and Ferb.

Which Kaitlyn loved.

And then, the Fireside Girl pointed to Kaitlyn . . . and asked her to come out and dance with them.

Along with 20 other kids.  But STILL.  Kaitlyn was right!

And Kaitlyn was in absolute heaven.  She was utterly focused, from beginning to end, on doing exactly the same dance as the big girls.  And the smile never left her face.

The funny thing was, I think I was more floored than she was.  In her mind, this was exactly how she saw the day going.  And it was just as awesome as she knew it would be.

So that's one dream come true checked off right there!

(Oh, and Daddy took a video, posted here.)