Disneyland! We Made it!

Buzz Lightyear was Ben's favorite ride!  Luckily the line was never longer than 10 minutes, so we went on it probably 5 times, I lost track!

This ride I had never gone on before.  It was the Nemo submarine.  It did not look impressive, but like everything Disney, it was way better than I would have ever thought!  Eliza was cute and kept saying fish in her cute little voice.

The parent swap pass was the best finding!  The rides that Eliza couldn't go on, Mike and I each got a turn taking Ben and Hailey.  So, Ben and Hailey got to ride everything twice without waiting in line.  Eliza was such a cutie and had fun hanging out when she wasn't riding.

While Ben and Hailey were riding the Matterhorn, Eliza found the lake with ducks, and had a great time quacking at them.  Ducks and birds are her favorite, she was trying to get in the water with them!  I was so impressed that Hailey rode the Matterhorn twice even though she was a little bit afraid.

My kids loved Small World!

We went to Ariel's Grotto for a lunch with the princesses.  This was Hailey's special lunch!  The lunch was actually really good, with 3 courses including really great desserts.  Instead of waiting in lines for the princesses we got to sit and eat lunch while they all came around and took pictures, signed Hailey's book and said hello.  They all loved Eliza, but she was not such a big fan of all the princesses.  Hailey was so excited to meet all of them, especially Cinderella her favorite. 

Ben posing with Lightning and Mater.  He was so excited to be able to pose with someone cool that wasn't a princess.

Tarzan's tree house and ouside the Enchanted Tiki room.  The Tiki room was one of my favorite places.  I went to Disneyland when I was 1 and 20 years old, and we didn't go to the Tiki room.  Eliza loved all the birds!  She was squealing with delight and pointing the whole show.  Everyone was watching her the whole time instead of the birds.  Two cute ladies who didn't speak any English kept pointing to her and just smiling trying to tell me how cute she was.  An added bonus were the delicious pineapple floats, yum!

Arghh!  Pirates!  We rode on Pirates of the Caribbean every day we were there, my kids loved it.  Ben loved pointing out why everything was fake, Hailey loved the music, and Eliza loved everything about it.  I thought she would be scared, but no she just became our good little pirate and said arghh the whole ride, and waved at the pirates.  We did take the kids on the haunted mansion ride after pirates, and that did scare them!  What wonderful parents Mike and I are.

Although it was a bit of a crazy drive to get to California, it was a perfect first day!  The weather was my absolute favorite, mid 60's and sunny.  It was not hot at all waiting in line, but sunny and beautiful!  My kids had no idea exactly what Disneyland was and were so excited.  They loved all the rides and getting to see characters.  I love that there were so many rides that Eliza could go on.  She loved any ride we took her on.  Ben and Hailey just wanted to keep going and going, luckily this was only day 1 and we had a lot of more fun to come! 

Walking down main street Eliza started clapping her hands, she was so excited and loved everything!  Eliza loved small world, and sang her way through it.  Hailey was in heaven eating with the princesses.  Hailey and Ben were brave and went on the Matterhorn twice even though it was a little scary.  The Kids all loved buzz lightyear, and the submarine.  Hailey was very brave on space mountain twice and on big thunder roller coaster.  Eliza loved dumbo and the rocket ships.

Disneyland Trip- Day 2 - I-15



Root Beer floats at Barstow!

We had muffins for breakfast.  I told Ben to go wash his hands after he was done, this is what I found!  Chocolate soap!

So, the plan was to travel to Anaheim on Day 2.  It was Sunday, so we found a ward in Las Vegas and went to church.  The people there were super friendly and welcoming.  After we went to a park and ate lunch.  Then we were off on a supposed 4 hour trip to Anaheim.  Unfortunately, everyone from California was headed back to CA from Vegas so we got caught in crazy traffic.  I-15 stopped right before Prim, so we got off and hung out for a while, but decided we might as well try the traffic.  We ended up sitting in crazy traffic in the middle of the desert for 6&1/2 hours.  We made a stop at Barstow but the traffic never got better!  Our kids had had it after being in the car all day, so we called Marriott and they found the closest Marriott to us and changed our reservation to Victorville.  So, here we are at hotel number 2 and still an hour away from Anaheim.  We all slept well and left the next morning for the last hour of our journey to Anaheim.

5/15/2011

Disneyland Trip Day 1 - Las Vegas

Having fun at the McDonald's in Cedar City.  The kids did great on the way to Las Vegas.  This was our only stop!



We made it to Vegas!  We were able to stay at the JW Marriott in Las Vegas because Mike had accumulated Marriott points from his many travels with his job at the state.  This was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in!  The grounds were beautiful and the hotel was amazing!  We had fun swimming in their crazy pool complete with waterfalls!

Queen Eliza

We had a great buffet dinner at our hotel and then decided to go the the strip for the evening.  We should have stayed at our hotel!  We went to MGM to see the lions, but they were already gone and asleep for the night.  Then we went to the M&M factory to see the 3D show, but they weren't showing that either.  Vegas is just way too crazy with kids!  It takes forever to get anywhere and everyone is looking at you like you are crazy to have 3 kids in Vegas.  We survived and went back to our fabulous hotel!

05/14/2011

Dragon Award

Ben worked so hard at Kindergarten this year!  This is him getting his Dragon Award, which included doing a reflections project, 3 other projects, reading daily, and physical fitness.  Ben also has received a couple of reading awards.  He's such a smart, cute boy!  I helped in his class one day and he was such a good boy!  He worked hard on his work papers and finished first so that he could have time for his favorite thing in kindergarten..centers!  Ben is such a good friend at school.  I have had multiple parents come up to me asking if I was Ben's mom.  They always say how much their child talks about Ben and how nice he is to them.  I am so grateful for such a sweet, kind, caring, smart boy!

Notice how he's airborne!

She is just the cutest, silliest thing!  She is such a girl!  Eliza loves wearing sunglasses, and putting on necklaces.  She has such a funny personality!  She just makes me smile!

Here's a funny random kid saying:

We were walking in the rain, I asked Ben if we were going to melt.  Ben said a snowman would melt, Hailey said “well I’m not made of snow, I’m made of skin- so I’ll be okay.” 5/9/11

Bike Race and Coach Pitch

Ben and his new bike.  Cute Ben has saved up his money for 2 years to buy this cool bike.  He loves it!

Mike took the 3 kids to Herriman's pedal-palooza bike race.  This was the day before Mother's Day and I got to go with the ladies to our annual Mother's Day brunch.  We went to Thanksgiving point again, and wow it was so much fun and so delicious.  Ben and Hailey did great in their races and both took 4th in their age divisions.  Mike said it was crazy but they had a lot of fun!

Hailey and Eliza in their camp chairs enjoying the game or maybe enjoying treats at the game!

Mormor and her girls!

Silly Hailey, Aunt Aly, and Eliza

Eliza playing peek-a-boo in the blanket

As you can tell from these pictures, coach pitch baseball was freezing this year.  Crazy Utah Spring weather!  Out of all of our games, only one was decent weather.  We had to huddle in blankets with winter coats on each game.  But, Ben didn't seem to notice, he loved it!  This is his first coach pitch season and I was really impressed at how well he did hitting the ball. 

Oh, and Eliza went in for her 15 month appointment, she is healthy and happy!  Here are her stats:

weight 60 percentile (23lbs)
height 80 percentile
head 80 percentile (jumped from 50 percentile)
Eliza also got in 4 molars on 5/4/2011!

Easter Sunday

Love my Hailey!

Eliza figuring out this whole Easter hunt thing

Handsome Ben!

Hailey and cousin Devin, I wish I knew what they were saying!

Me and my Eliza bug

Cute cousins!  They just love each other!

Eliza found that egg early on in the hunt and I think she had it most of the night!

This is my mormor's brother Olaf, he is eating off a frisby.  Maybe that's how they do it in Norway!

Nina, mormor, Eliza, and other mormor

We have always gone up to my mormor's house in Sugarhouse for our Easter celebration.  She has a long yard full of great hiding places.  We enjoyed a great dinner and the kids had a great time with the Easter egg hunt.  The weather managed to stay somewhat nice, just a little chilly.  I have so many memories of my mormor's house and I'm glad that my kids are able to create their own great memories with her.  I didn't get a picture of this, but there is a tree in the lower part of her yard that had a tree house in it when my mom was growing up.  There are always fabulous hanging treats of some kind or other that we get to find.  This year all the adults got huge chocolate bunnies, and all the kids got fun soccer balls.

4/24/2011

Saturday Easter Egg Hunts

We did our Easter hunts at our house on Saturday morning.  We decided that the kids would get plenty of candy elsewhere, so they got camping chairs and hard-boiled eggs!

Ben finding his star wars camping chair!

This is the madness that was South Jordan's free Easter egg hunt.  My kids are in there somewhere!  It was the craziest I've ever seen any race.  Their hunt was at 9am, and the rest of the cities were at 10am, so everyone including us hit this one then went to another one.  My kids had fun, so that's all that matters.

Ben and Nathan checking out the fire truck after the egg hunt.

This is a picture of Riverton's Easter egg hunt, much better organized and a lot less people.  Hailey has the bright yellow rain jacket on.  Ben, Hailey and Eliza all had to be in different areas.  So, Ben did his own thing, Mike went with Hailey, and I went with Eliza.  Eliza was not into the crazy crowds but managed to get a few good things.  She picked up one piece of candy and was happy to just have that!

4/23/2011

Ben's First Tooth Out...Finally!

I was really excited in January when Ben got his first loose tooth.  But, the cute kid  never wiggled it.  I asked him why, and he said it was because his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. McKenna, told them not to wiggle their teeth in school because it grossed her out.  He said he forgot to do it the rest of the day.  Well, it finally got loose and it came out April 22nd!!!  I had my mom and Bri tag team him and get it out!!!  He got: a pennie, a nickle, a dime, a quarter, a gold dollar, a dollar and a chocolate dollar from the tooth fairy. 

His second tooth was much easier.  It was the tooth on the bottom next to the one that came out.  The night before we went to Disneyland I was flossing his teeth before bed.  His tooth was practically sideways, so I just gently tugged and out it came.  Luckily the tooth fairy came through again!  Ben is growing up way too fast.  When he lost his first tooth I thought, he's just getting so big. I can't beleive I have a child old enough to be losing teeth!

Cute Hailey!

Eliza loves swinging!  Notice how she has to be in full winter gear even though it's April.