Thursday, April 23, 2009

The worst thing about getting behind on my blog is that now I don't remember half of what I would have written for this post. So I'll do my best!


This is the little roller coaster in Toon Town. It was Charlie's first experience with a roller coaster. We had no idea that he would love it so much that he would insist on getting in line over and over and over. Then, when given the opportunity, he rode the Matterhorn with Dad, and kept his hands over his head (at least until the first big drop).



Todd and the girls convinced Granddad (who has a serious claustrophobia problem) to ride the Thunder Mountain railroad ride. There are several tunnels that Todd and the girls swore were "no big deal". Poor Granddad thought he was going to die. He was white as a sheet nearly the whole time, and kept asking Grammy "is it almost over?"

Then ... we spent some time in California Adventure ...


The Mulholland Madness ...



The little kids' play area ...



Charlie was so bummed to find out that he's just a little too short for the floating jelly fish ride.


That rocket ship thing that spins around and flys over the lake ...

Charlie loved the "and 'yond" (short for "To Infinity and Beyond") ride (aka, Toy Story). You can't tell it from this picture, but he had pretty good aim with the little gun.


This is us in the hotel lobby after a long day at the park.

Friday, April 17, 2009

easter morning...

The children woke up Sunday morning and were immediately at our bedside saying the Easter bunny had come. They had already found Charlie's basket! We rolled out of bed and each found their baskets one at a time. Emma Grace said, "I hate getting older because the Easter bunny hides my basket in hard places".

Charlie's basket was beside the TV in the family room. He wasted no time going for the candy. Although, funny thing, he carried around the sucker ALL DAY and hardly asked for us to open. He just liked carrying it!
Emma Grace found her basket in the very difficult hiding spot ;) right in the cupboard where the pans go. You can see in this picture that each of the children got a picture of the Savior in their baskets.
Eliza found her basket in the front room bombay chest(I think that is the "technical" name for it...around here we call it "where we put Charlie's clothes). She finally got her night time eye mask. It's a frog mask which made it even better!
Brenna, our little game machine, got a game of pit. Yahoo! It is pretty fun!
And of course the Easter Bunny made another mess on our front porch.
I love holidays with kids! It was so magical for them again this year to open the front door and see big paw prints, money and eggs(filled with cookie crisp cereal for breakfast). The part that is even better is that the Bunny hops around the street to all the houses with kids and leaves the same "mess". All the kids on our street love it!

easter pageant...

While Mom was visiting, we attended the Easter pageant at the temple. It is so wonderful to be able to go to this with our children(well, right now just Brenna and Emma Grace) and watch the story of Christ's life. I am so grateful to have the knowledge of a Savior who died for my sins and broke the bands of death by rising on the third day. I'm grateful for the Spirit in my life that guides me daily as I fulfill my mission on this earth.

To get a good seat you have to go early and eat dinner while you wait. This is when you make a quick trip to Little Caesar's for their $5.00 pizza's.
And then you top it off with a visit to Dairy Queen next door to the temple. Voila! An hour has now passed and it's time for the pageant to start!

easy easter nests...

This is a really simple Easter treat to make with the "littles". I got the "recipe" from Eliza's preschool teacher. I called her to get the recipe and thought that it was going to be several things like peanut butter, karo syrup, etc. Nope...three ingredients...


1 pkg butterscotch chips
1 pkg chow mien noodles
easter egg candies of your choice for the eggs


Melt the chips and stir in the chow mein noodles. Let the kids shape them into nest and put the eggs on top.


Here is what I get when I ask them to turn around and smile. Check out Eliza's expression. They crack me up!

easter egg hunt....

We joined the Stapley family again this year for an Easter lunch and Easter egg hunt. We love being with their family and really appreciate their friendship.
Eliza is styling in her new pair of boots. This is now her third pair. She completely wore out the last two pair until their were holes starting to show in the bottom. We'll see if she can love "Hello Kitty" as much as she loved the caterpillar boots and the cherry boots.

Brenna is now the old pro at Easter egg hunts.
I love Emma Grace's expression in this picture. It's so fun to discover things!
Charlie being just...oh so cute! I could just eat this kid up on a daily basis.
Nothing like good friends and good times. This is the crew after the big hunt and before the sugar high begins.
Okay...really....loading a bunch of kids in a old wagon never goes out of style. Good memories of the old red wagon and friends!

dog school....

Dog school is so fun when one of the dogs is real! My other two girls had to just use their stuffed animals to play dog school when they were this age. Eliza set up all the toys and got Missy's treats out. Missy was really good and got lots of treats.

Oh, it's fun being 4 and playing pretend!! Life is good!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

happy 34th birthday....

Yet again....Todd had a birthday! They just keep coming these days and I'm not far behind him. The years keep passing and the hair line keeps receding but I love him even more on his 34th than I did on the 33rd!

Here are 34 reasons I love this man(without getting too personal of course!)!

34. He works hard for our family.
33. He is so patient with me.
32. He makes me laugh.
31. He runs 3 or 4 times a week.
30. He takes me on a date night almost every week.
29. He would rather spend time with me than anyone else(and vice versa for sure)
28. We like the same kind of movies. (movie candy...junior mints)
27. He likes all the food I cook(even when my experiments don't work).
26. He makes the best chocolate chip cookies.
25. He adds secret ingredients when he cooks and asks us to guess what the secret ingredient is.
24. He remembers all the good stuff.
23. He is really kind hearted to everyone.
22. He helps with house work.
21. He does his own ironing.
20. He thought he could run a 1/2 marathon without an ipod. (Then he realized that sometimes I do have good advice.)
19. He loves going to see Broadway shows with me.
18. He can't do the Nettie Pot.
17. He flosses.
16. He can't make himself buy a new pillow because the one he has is shaped perfectly to his head and neck.
15. He loves BREAKFAST! (waffles, omelets, donuts,sausage, pancakes...really anything "breakfast")
14. He can't go barefoot ANYWHERE! He had his shoes and socks off recently in the house and it really threw me off. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "ya, I better go get socks on".
13. He calls me several times a day to check in with me.
12. He ALWAYS says "I love you" to me when getting off the phone. In fact, he has a little bit of a phobia about not telling me he loves me. He's afraid something might happen to one of us and we would regret that that was not the last words we said to each other.
11. He is a morning person.
10. He is always so helpful with our new babies and patient with me while my hormones are REALLY whacked out!
9. He doesn't watch sports.
8. He doesn't go spend money on things without talking to me about it first(and the other way around).
7. He can't sleep with socks on.
6. One more funny foot thing....he can't stand for his feet to be wet and pruney!
5. His wardrobe is very simple.
4. He is breaking his terrible habit of drinking milk straight from the jug...hurray!!
3. Cheese, cheese, cheese on everything.
2. He can play the piano, guitar, and drums by ear.
1. He is my best friend!!!!

another millipede?...

Why do I let things like this come home?

Maybe because I know they will only live a couple of days. So I just grin and bear it and send a little container to school for them to pack them home in.
Emma Grace was all too excited to take of the squirmy little millipede. She has quite a love for all creatures which I'm proud of to a certain extent. One day she ran home crying from the neighbors house because her sisters and their friends had killed some bugs that were in the garden. It took me a while to calm her down. A few weeks ago I finally had to tell her that flies pooped every time they land so that she'll get over her kind hearted instinct towards flies. I'm sorry but if a fly is in my house, it's got to GO.

It was only a fews months ago that Brenna brought a millipede home from her classroom after doing a science unit on all kinds of creatures.
Look at these girls huddled around this thing. They passed him around and around.

When I was talking to my neighbor and obviously preoccupied, Emma Grace came up and grabbed my hand and put the millipede in my hand. Talk about jumping ten feet in the air. Ew! Gross! I don't like squirmy things! I'm just glad that my genetic problem with bugs didn't get passed on to my three girls.

emma grace's school musical

Before the show started, you would have thought Charlie was the star of the show. I didn't even bother trying to make him stay of the risers, it would have been completely useless. But he hurried off the stage as soon as it started.Emma Grace had a little speaking part and did great! She spoke up loud and clear.

Really...the show was so cute. The music teacher at their school did an amazing job. And the parent volunteers did an incredible job on the backdrop.

Emma Grace had a great time performing!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

to Santa Claus....

This morning when Charlie woke up he had a pacifier in his mouth and one in each hand. It was only 6:00(too early for me these days) and so I just brought him down to my bed with the pacifiers in tow. Before we got up though, I had him surrender the pacifiers for the day just like we always do. But this morning I had the random thought of saying maybe we should put all of his pacifiers in a box and mail them to Santa Claus. We been talking about getting rid of them for a while. From time to time I'll say something about him being a big boy and it's almost time to give them away. Charlie was thrilled to death and couldn't wait to find a box.

We found a box. Went to his bedroom and gathered any remaining pacifiers. Put them in the box. Got the tape out and taped up the box. Then Charlie said, "name on it". Apparently he knows a little bit about mailing a package. We put Santa's name on the box. Then we had to draw on the box a little bit and top it off with a stamp. He put it in his back pack and we were off to the post office. Well, as soon as I got ready for the day which took way too long in Charlie's opinion.
I couldn't resist taking my camera for a quick pic and a stool for him to stand on so he could open the mailbox himself and put the box in.

There was no return address and the mailing address said "north pole" so I guess our little package of pacifiers is off to nowhere land. But Charlie couldn't have been more proud of himself. When we left he kept saying, "good job".

He was really happy about this until naptime. Normally, he snuggles right down in his crib with his pacifier and blankets. But this time he said, "pa?"(short for pacifier). So I asked him where his pacifiers were and he said "gone". It took some calming him down, some singing, some crying and then about 40 minutes later he fell asleep. Ugh...I waited too long with this kiddo.

Santa is no longer going to be the hero in Charlie's mind. He will be the big guy who took the pacifiers. Maybe he'll forget before Christmas rolls around.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

time to play "catch up" again....

I told you I LOVE catch up (not really...I love ketchup) but I'm so far behind on my blog that I better get busy. Here is my list of blog posts that I really want to get done. I figure if I write it down then it will make me accountable to DO IT.

1. Disneyland (what an awesome spring break we had going to Disneyland with Grammy and Grandad)

2. Emma Grace's spring musical at school. (It was so dang cute!)

3. Todd's birthday.

4. Emma Grace's milipede. (Why do I continue to agree that creatures like this can come home from school?)

5. Week long visit from my mom. (Including Easter pageant, Ice cream truck, Conference weekend)

6. Easter. (Including Easter Egg hunt, making an Easter treat with the girls, Easter afternoon at the Stapley's)

Okay...now I feel overwhelmed by all I need to post. I thought this blogging thing was suppose to be NO pressure!