Disneyland

What a day! We wanted to take the kids to Disneyland before the baby is born. We ended up going on the hottest day so far this year! 90 degrees and 8 months pregnant walking around Disneyland is not my idea of fun. But we do this stuff for our kids right?! This was Julia's first time there and we kept it a secret that we were going until the night before. She calls it Princessland and couldn't wait to see princesses and Mickey of course. She was a trooper and did great until after the World of Color show at California Adventure. It was an amazing show! But by about 10 pm she was pretty grouchy! One of my favorite parts of the day was waiting to have a picture with Winnie the Pooh and she wanted to tell him that she was getting a new baby. So sweet! She loved the tea cups and Soaring over California - not impressed with Pirates though. The boys and Mike rode some of the "bigger" rides like the Matterhorn & Space mountain. We had to split up and make sure that everyone got to do what they wanted. So this trip made me realize a few things about Disneyland:
*The happiest place on earth turns to the grouchiest place on earth once you've been there for 12 hours
*I do not want a season pass - why anyone would do that to themselves more than once every few years is beyond me
*3(almost 4) year olds cannot wait in a line longer than 45 min.
*When you finally get to the front of the line someone will have to go potty ( it might even be Mom!)
*sometimes the tram ride to the parking lot is the best ride of the day
*But... When it's all over the fun memories stay with you forever!

Triathlon

So the boys and Mike,Grandma,Grandpa,Pam and Jonathan all raced in a sprint triathlon last weekend. It was held at the Los Alamitos army base. It looked like we would have rain all day but as we arrived the sun came out and it was nice except for the wind. Ethan did a half mile run, mile bike ride and 50 meter swim. Hyrum did a half mile run, half mile ride and 50 meter swim. The adults did a 5K, 12 mile bike ride and 200 meter swim. It was fun to cheer everyone on and see them finish what they had trained so hard for.

Busy Boys

The boys both entered the science fair this year. Ethan grew his own rock candy and Hyrum explored what would brake up a nail the most. They both worked hard and Ethan earned a first place award while Hyrum got a second ( not bad for his first year)! They are both smart boys!


Ethan played a duet last Sunday at Redlands Univ. for a piano festival. It was a good experience for him. He and his partner received medals for Honorable Mention. They played Broadway Lights. I am so proud that he is brave enough to get up and preform in front of judges.



Julia started sucking her thumb at 3 months old. We were thrilled because before that she was a screamer and hard to console. Well, 3 1/2 years later it isn't so cute and we can't get her to stop. We tried bribes like getting a new big girl bed or going to Disneyland but it didn't work. Now we have gotten mean! I had to buy the horrible tasting stuff to put on her nail and I hope it helps.

Being a Mom Is............

Do your kids ever drive you CRAZY???? Mine seem to be having a really hard time listening to anything I say. To start last week off, the boys broke a plate in the kitchen because they thought it was a good place to wrestle. It is like they don't remember we have any rules in our house! Went to Costco with the whole family on Saturday morning. I would not recommend this to anyone. It was so busy, but I had coupons that were about to expire so we had to go. Anyway, the real problem was that the boys wore their Heelies (the shoes with a wheel in them) . I told them before we went in that skating in crowded Costco - cutting people off, falling down in front of people etc. wasn't allowed. Do you think they listened? NO! Mike threatened to make them take their shoes off and walk in their socks and I finally sentenced them to a time out as soon as we got home. An hour later they had eaten lunch, Julia was put down for a nap and I told the boys to go play outside and if anyone slammed the door coming in or out they would be in trouble. They kept coming in saying they were bored and wanted to play video games instead. It was beautiful weather out and they had friends to play with so I did the only thing I could think of - Locked them out! Am I the only Mom that always feels like a bad guy? Sometimes I just wonder what is going on in their little brains!

Catching Up

Playing in the leaves at Granny and Papa's.
Nerd day at school!
My family on Christmas Eve.
My mom brought a bunch of hats for Buddy so he could get in the Holiday spirit!

This pillow pet brought tears to her eyes!
Hyrum finally got a DS! He was sooooooo happy!

Disney on Ice
Snow in the Desert!

Wow.....the end of 2010 flew by and I have really neglected this blog. We went to Idaho in November to visit family, had Thanksgiving with Mike at work, my family joined us here in California for Christmas,we found out that baby #4 is a girl,celebrated the New Year with everyone having the flu and now 2011 is as busy as ever! The boys are both doing science projects( lots of work for Mom). Ethan is super busy with piano - Cert. of Merritt is coming up and he is playing a duet for a festival at Redlands University. Both boys and Mike are training for a mini Triathalon next month. Whew.......I am trying to start planning the bedroom situation since someone has to share now. Life is as busy and exciting as usual! I am posting a few pictures of the fun we had over the past months, enjoy!

Credit Card Fraud

I should be writing about the joy of the Holiday season, but I just found out that our credit card has been stolen.....again. Does this happen to anyone else? This is the second time in the past 4 months for us. Our card was used for some online purchases and to top it off our address changed. The credit card company said they received a change of address notification from the post office, so they changed it without calling to verify things with us! If you are a thief you don't have to be too smart since the companies that claim to be secure don't really seem to have good safety measures in place. This has happened to us several times in the past few years. Once with our debit card which was used to buy about $500 worth of stuff at Sears about 1 week before Christmas. Definitely not a good time to have your account tapped into! I have had enough! I rarely shop online and now I will never shop online. What a pain!

Fall Fun!

It's been a busy few weeks. The boys went on a campout and Grandpa and my brother were able to go along and add to the fun! Mike made some delicious dutch oven desserts for everyone and the kids had a fun time shooting the BB gun. We took a trip to the local pumpkin patch for our pumpkins which we didn't carve. We added Mr. Potato head parts to dress them up instead! Julia dressed up as Sleeping Beauty for her Ballet class and the girls did a "Witchy" dance for the parents. So cute! We went to our ward Halloween Carnival and the kids loaded up their bags with prizes, cookies and candy! So much fun! P.S. We are headed up to Idaho this week to go to my nieces Baptism. So excited to see everyone!