Disneyland 2012

 We surprised the kids with a trip to Disneyland this week.  The word to sum it up: MAGICAL.  I know that probably sounds cliche, but it truly was magical for us.

We were originally going to take a different trip with my family to San Diego, but there were some miscommunications between all of us, and we ended up having to change some plans around.  The good news was that my dad got to come with us, but the bad news was that my mom and Steph didn't get to come. :(  They get to go see Nat in Boston this week instead!

We drove and drove and drove to California, and got there just in time to enjoy the beach before picking my dad up from the airport.  It was my kids' first time, and they thought it was great.

So excited to finally use those beach toys on the beach!

Had a blast chasing the seagulls around

 Newport Beach brought back a lot of memories from about 10 years ago when I went with my best girlfriends in high school and we got pulled out to sea on our boogieboards by the rip current and the lifeguards had to rescue us.  So embarrassing.

We finally told our kids the morning that we were actually going to the park.  Up to that point, we just said we were going to stay at a hotel and that we had a surprise for them.  They were very excited, and it was nice that they didn't know about it before that so they weren't asking us every five minutes of the ten hour drive.  We spent the next 3 days playing hard in the park and sleeping like rocks at night.

We rode The Little Mermaid ride, and then we rode it about 8 more times while we were there.  Sammi adored it obviously, since Ariel is her favorite princess.  She got very nervous about Ursula, and would bury her head in your lap, peek once, then bury her head again.

Right after the Ariel ride.  Mind blown.

 On the ferris wheel

Emerson hating the characters. I don't blame him.  They make me nervous too sometimes.

Cars Land!

 Cars Land was way awesome, but way busy.  It was difficult to get on the racers since the wait was so long, but the other two were pretty easy and lots of fun.

She got so exhausted that she fell asleep in the middle of eating her snack.

Cheeser

Terrible picture of me.  But Mater was cool because he actually drove around.

Sammi was terrified of Lightning McQueen

Disneyland!

Buddies

The magical moment.

Belle

Ti-nana as Sammi calls her

Merida

Snow White

Cigewwy (Cinderella)

The kids laughed and laughed while they bounced with Tigger.  That's why E is blurry.

They LOVED Pooh Bear.  This is E's second time meeting his hero, but he doesn't remember the last time because he was only 18 months.  I will admit I got teary when my kids met their heroes.

Minnie

Mickey

We were so glad to have Grandpa J with us on the trip!  He enjoyed spoiling the children, and we enjoyed his company.  It worked really well to have 3 adults and 2 kids because we could trade off and use the Parent Swap passes so we all got to ride what we wanted.  Mostly we just enjoyed going with the kids though.  As I kept telling myself, "They have no expectations.  They have never been here before, and they will think anything is great."  

 I would say that the most magical moment of the whole trip was when we were watching the World of Color show and they projected Ariel on the wall of mist and played her song and Sammi belted out every word of the song while sitting on Ben's shoulders.  I cried.  I really did.  Then I cried again when they showed a picture of Wall-E and E got all excited since he pretends to be Wall-E half of the time.  

Our trip was just about the right length.  We were ready to go, but sad to leave at the same time.  I was not looking forward to the long drive home, and it ended up being really difficult with Sammi who turned out to have an ear infection, but we survived.  

Overall, definitely worth the money and time spent.

 On the drive home, we took a little detour to Richfield to visit Grandma Christensen.

They read stories

Had good naps

Really good naps

 And she took us to the Pumpkin Patch and out to dinner!

We love you Great Grandma Chris!

Pumpkin Patch

 We met some girls from the Residency program at a nearby Pumpkin Patch and the kids had a blast.  They had this freakishly scary huge pig in a pen and the kids were terrified.  The kids were calling him "Wilbur" since they just recently saw Charlotte's Web and I've been reading the book to them.

I was able to finally coax Emerson to stand within five feet of the pig, just for scale.  It was as big as a horse.

They loved the corn-box.  Luckily I took off their shoes so they didn't get lost in there.  I found corn in little piles all over our house for the next day and then again when I did laundry.

She thought this was hilarious.  (Pardon the grubby toenails, they sorely need to be repainted.)

Both feet

 The race through the corn maze!

Cousins Are Cool

We got to have some of our cousins over to play, and Sammi just loved it.  Carson is 3 months younger than her, but they are just the right size for each other and love to give each other hugs and kisses every time they see each other.

Here he is being a good sport to waltz with Sammi while she wears her Ariel princess dress.

In other cousin news, I am way excited because my brother Scott and sister-in-law Ashley are expecting their first baby in March!

Happy Birthday Ben!

 This handsome Dad turned 29 on September 24th.  The kids have wished him a "Happy Birthday" every day since.  It apparently made a big impression on them that parents can have birthdays too.  I know how that feels though, because I remember waiting and waiting for my birthday, yet it felt like my parents and grandparents had about twice as many birthdays in a year as I did.

Such big helpers

Emerson presenting his first-ever picture to Dad.  It was an adorable stick-figure drawing of the two of them.  They kind of resembled Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, but I think that's why I love them so much.

 

My dad gave Ben just what he always wanted.  Zombieland and Twinkies.  You have to see the movie to know how they are related.

One year older and wiser!

We love you Benny!  Enjoy your last year in your twenties...

The Condo

 My parents have this condo up in Midway, Utah.  We always go there for General Conference and often for New Year's, but sometimes it's fun to go there for no reason at all.  The kids love a getaway, so we decided to go there, just our little family, a few weeks ago.  We always meet my family there, so the kids felt pretty gypped that Grandma and Grandpa weren't there.  We found some things to do though.

Daddy got Sammi dressed today!

 Playing in the sand of the volleyball court

Dad and The Girl

Pretty leaves

More pretty leaves

Me...even though I hate pictures of myself

We saw Moosen!  3 of 'em.

Smiley guy

Sweet little girl

These kids are such little adventurers.  We went on a drive through the canyon to see the leaves and took a turn by Cascade Springs to be adventurous.  We somehow ended up on what we believe may have been a four-wheeling trail?  It got super narrow and really bumpy.  Our vehicle has never felt more rugged, but I was hating it.  The kids were laughing and having a good time for most of it, and then they got really nervous.  Emerson even thought to say a prayer.  It was the cutest thing.  "PLEASE, Heavenly Father, PLEASE!  Make this scary place go away!"  We were all relieved when we turned around and made it back to real roads and arrived safely at the condo.

Fishin'

 Ben had a day off in the middle of the week, so we decided to go fishing at Spanish Oaks Reservoir.  We tried to prepare the kids by telling them it would be a long wait and we probably wouldn't catch anything.  They didn't really listen...and kept asking when we would catch something...but they had a great time.  Ben has been itching to take them fishing since they were old enough to hold things.

Did you know cowboys like to fish?

Dad and The Girl.

We got a bite!

 

The kids look puzzled and horrified.  I'm a little scared of the levitating fish too.

E was pretty nervous about the fish, but Sammi was pretty intrigued.  Just their personalities.

E was concerned about the fish thrashing around.

Then he decided he was proud

  Four fish later...the kids didn't believe me when I said we wouldn't catch anything, and E said he wanted us to make the fish into a fish meat sandwich for him to eat.  I said we had to cook it and asked him how he thought we should, and he answered, "In the frying pan so nothing will happen to it!"  Makes sense...?  The kids had such a good time holding the pole and throwing rocks into the water (Sammi) that every time they wake up and think Dad is going to be home, (every day, but sadly they are wrong) they say, "Let's go fishing today!"

And amazingly, when we cooked the trout for dinner that night, they each ate a whole fish themselves.  I was thoroughly confused and in awe, mostly because I make things that are much less offensive than fish and they hardly touch their dinner.

Little Stinker

This girl has been giving us a run for our money lately.  She has been a really good sleeper since she was a baby for the most part, but she has never slept as much as Emerson.  I think I got spoiled with that boy and his 4 hour naps in the afternoon and then 12 hour nights.  She is a pretty light sleeper, and is pretty good at manipulating us.  I'll just tell it like it is. :)

We were going through this ridiculous bedtime routine where I'd put her in bed, tuck her in, start walking out the door, and this is what would happen:

Me: "Goodnight Sammi.  Love you."
Start walking toward door
Sammi: "Mommy!  Wanna drinka water."
Me: "Ok, you can have one."
Gets a few drops of water in the bottom of a Dixie cup
Me: "Ok, goodnight."
Starts walking toward door again...almost made it...touching doorknob...
Sammi: "Mommy!  Wanna sleep with Brown Bear (her books)."
Me: "You already have Brown Bear.  Night-night!"
Running to door...touching doorknob...closing quietly...
Sammi: "Mommy! I have happy dreams 'bout Tiana, and Ariel, and Belle, and Aurora, and Snow White, and Daddy, and Prince Eric and stinky-winky Mommy, and...
Me: "Ok! Good Night!"
Close door, walk away.
Shrieking ensues since I didn't let her finish, so we start it all over again with me feeling extremely exasperated.

Soo....fast forward past a week of this.  I am ready to pull my hair out, and I decide, "This is the night!  Emerson is fast asleep since he didn't have a nap today, Ben is on call, I have nothing else to do.  She is going to cry it out."  Now don't get me wrong, she cried it out once or twice when she was a baby and we were doing the initial sleep training thing, but she can form coherent words now and it's so much harder.

So I tell her goodnight, shut the door, and wait.  She immediately goes berserk, starts pounding on the door in a fit, and keeps hitting the doorknob guard until she breaks it apart and throws it furiously into the garbage in her room.  Then she tries to open the door so I put her in her bed about 10 separate times until I just decided I was going to hold the doorknob shut.  Meanwhile, I am silently laughing because I can either do that or cry.  She is just so MAD!  I never knew so much rage could come from such a small girl.

Then she laid on the ground to push books under the door.  I wish I could've gotten inside her little mind to see what she thought she would accomplish by doing this.  Maybe she thought if I saw the books I would think, "Why look! Books! I think I'll go in and read them to Sammi!"

Bait NOT taken.

Since that plan failed, she just resorted to saying "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, etc." for half an hour straight (I timed it) with a few choice phrases thrown in like, "Open the door Mommy!  Stinky-winky Mommy!"  "Don't close the door Stinky Mommy!"  I just had to laugh.  Then it got even better when she started thinking up excuses like "I wanna sit on the potty!", "I'm sick!", "I poot again!" (She says poot for poop), "Change my diaper!", "Want Daddy!".  I am proud to say, I didn't budge, and she eventually gave up, climbed back in bed, and went to sleep. 

I think she learned to stay in her room from that experience because while she can open her door on her own now, she won't come out of her room.  Thus we found this when we went up to bed the other night.  Door open, girl hit with the sleep dart in her doorway.

And now our newest problem is that she is waking up at 3 am because she is hungry.  Any suggestions?  Similar experiences?

1st Day of Preschool!

 E started school today!  He has been really excited about it in an Emersonian way. 

I didn't think I'd be sad since it is his second year of Preschool, and he is only a couple of houses away, but I got a little teary when I dropped him off.  I also got a little teary thinking of our carpool to Preschool last year in Columbus with the 3 best buddies, Tucker, Aaron, and E.  Their conversations were the best.

He's at school right now, so I'm hoping he has a better first day this year than last year when he fell into the urinal at school and soaked his shirt.

The obligatory hand-on-the-doorknob picture

I should've made the font bigger and bolder, but it says "September 2012, Preschool, Age 4, Wants to be an Engineer when he grows up."

Sneaky Sammi jumped into this picture.  But luckily she is hiding behind her flip-flop so we can't see her.

I just really hope E loves school and that the other kids are nice to him.  He has such an outgoing personality and tender little heart that he sometimes gets his feelings hurt when he's trying to make friends with new kids at soccer, the playground, or anywhere we happen to go that he sees other kids.  I sometimes wish I could keep him with me at home forever, but I know that really wouldn't be the best thing for him.  I just don't want him to stop being himself.