A little getaway of our own.

Ok, I admit it! If there were a 12 step program we would have to go. We are addicted to Disneyland. I promise we won't be going again for a long time. Last month we went to Disneyland, with our "give a day, get a day" passes. It was SO much fun, but a lot of work with the kids. On the way home Jerry got a brilliant plan to go on a trip to Disneyland in Sept. with just us, and his brother's & wives. I was sold, easily. When he called his brother to talk about it, Brian was on board, but asked, "Why are we waiting till Sept. Let's go next month." (You can see the love of Disneyland runs deep in Jerry's family) His brother Barry had to work, but they were wonderful and watched the kids for us.

It was such a different vacation without the kids. We missed them, but knew they were having a blast with cousins, and let's be honest.. I didn't miss pushing a double stroller packed with diaper bags, treats, a cooler, and children all around. And I didn't miss doing a head count every two minutes to make sure we had everyone. I didn't miss tantrums because of lack of sleep and over stimulation and hunger. I also didn't miss diaper changes and being woken in the middle of the night. It was so nice just being with my hunny!
We drove down Thursday afternoon and met up with Brian and Jennifer and went to Downtown Disney that night. Of course we had to go to the Lego store to get Hayden some Legos. Because that is always what I need, MORE Legos to scatter on my floor. :)
We ate at House of Blues - By the way, if you go on vacation check out Restaurants.com for restaurants in the are. We were able to get $25 off our meal.
I just love Downtown Disney at night. Just a fun feel.
The next morning we were there bright at early, right as the park opened. It was the perfect day to be in the park. The weather was perfect, and it was not busy at all. In fact we walked right on to several rides without waiting at all. We even looped Pirates because there was no line - unheard of!

Jerry's favorite ride! - Splash Mountain

My favorite ride - Space Mountain

Perfect snack - Dole Whip!

Small World

Jerry's brother, Devin and nephew Billy were there at Disneyland too, they spent the morning in California Adventure, so we met up with them for an early dinner at Blue Bayou. DELICIOUS!! I love that place. We had a good time eating there, and laughing. Then we all went over to California Adventures till it closed at 9:00.

I haven't spent much time at California Adventures because we run out of time. It was so fun over there. Here is a cool street scene.
We went on the Tower of Terror. It was the first time for both of us. SO FUN! I love that ride.
(Notice, I made the pic black and white to add to the fear) Teehee.

We are in the upper right corner. (We're too cheap to buy the photo's so we just take a picture of the picture.)

When it closed at 9:00 we headed back to Disneyland for a couple more hours. It was a very long day, my feet were sore, but such a great memory and wonderful vacation.

Time to head home!

Hayden's farewell to his buddies

My brother in law, Joe enlisted in the Army and has been away at boot camp and basic training for several months. The day finally came that Hayden had to say good bye to two of his favorite little buddies, his cousins, Joey and Tyler as they move to Alaska. He loves these two so much and it makes me sad that they won't be able to play together anymore. I'm also going to miss Jerry's sister, Bonnie. She is Jerry's only sister and has become a sister to me as well. We love you guys and wish you the best of luck. I'm so proud of Joe and his service to our country. We've been able to skype a few times, and that makes it seem like they aren't so far away. I'm excited for them on this journey, and a little jealous that they get to be in Alaska during the summer. Every summer I threaten to move to Alaska because of the heat. Now, maybe I'll just do that since there's someone there:) We love you guys!

Hayden, Joey, and Tyler - it is so fun to listen to their conversations all about Batman, Spiderman, Star Wars, you name it. They all love the same thing. It's very cute.

They had been playing dress up/Star Wars, and Rebecca was NOT Cinderella in this picture, she was Princess Leah.

Such a Tease

The day came. Sydney's teasing finally got her in trouble and she had to go to time out for the first time. She loves to pick on Rebecca, (Because Rebecca picks on her). The other day she was pulling Rebecca's hair. Sydney is still my baby, so I thought it was on accident... till I looked at Syd's face. She had the biggest grin on her little face as she was tugging. The harder Rebecca yelled, the bigger the grin got. I gave Sydney a warning and pulled the hair out of her clenched fist. No more than two seconds after walking away, she was doing it again and laughing out loud. Once again, I detangled the hair from her fist, and told her if she did it again she'd have to go to time out. And once again, 2 seconds later she was at it again, this time pulling out a chunk of Rebecca's hair. What could I do???? I had to follow through. So I put Sydney up on the time out chair. The only problem is that Hayden and Rebecca thought this was the funniest thing ever, and laughed the whole time, and afterward Rebecca was dangling her hair in Sydney's face trying to get her to pull it so Syd would have to go to time out again. And Sydney loved sitting up there on that time out stool. Anything to feel like a big girl. When I took her down, she wanted to get right back up. I think the whole idea of it being a punishment was lost to her. But on the bright side, she didn't ever pull Rebecca's hair again. (That day, at least.)
I'm seeing more and more sides of Sydney's personality develop, and she's becoming quite a little tease. She loves to play with her brother, Hayden because he loves to wrestle, and she loves to sit on his head. It's a perfect match. I think I'm going to have my hands full, especially when these two girls are teenagers together. Wish me luck! :)

My sweet nurturer

When I got home from the race on Saturday I was exhausted, but at the same time we wanted to go have some family time after being away since Friday afternoon. So we went and played a bit, and went shopping. By the time I got home I was beat. I stretched out on the couch for a minute, and before I knew it I was out. I was gently woken up by my sweet Rebecca. She had brought down her comforter from her bed to lay on me, and gave me her pillow also. Then she was so sweet and she got me a sippy cup of water, cradled my arm around it and tucked me into the blanket. It was the sweetest thing. Her voice was so soft and loving. She warned Hayden and Sydney not to wake me up because I was tired, then she left me in peace. But then she quickly but calmly turned around and came back to me and gave me the softest, most tender kiss on the cheek and said, "I love you sweetie." The quietly tiptoed away to play with her Barbies.
Oh, that girl can melt my heart. I know I get frustrated with her independence sometimes, but her independence is also what I love most about her - in an odd way. She has such a sweet little heart! I'm so lucky to be the mother of each of my special children!

My First Half Marathon!!

So almost 4 months and 40 pounds after I started training in January I ran my first half marathon last weekend. It was in Hurricane, UT and I loved it. The few weeks leading up to it I was a little worried because I pulled a muscle in my leg and it was taking forever to heal. I just really didn't want to have to run 13.1 miles with pain in every step. I was very blessed! My leg felt great the whole run. It was very hard, but so worth it. I remember in November talking with my girlfriends about running, and I said I don't think I could ever run anything more than a 10K (6 miles) I can't believe I actually did it.
Here are some of the pictures from the run. I don't have the pics from the finish line yet, and after. I'll post those when I get them.
If you want to read more about the race and my journey there you can go to the other blog I did with my friends about our progress HERE.

We drove there Friday night and went to pick up our packets.

Then we drove the course to see what we were in for the next morning.

We woke up WAY TOO EARLY!!! It was 3:30 Vegas time, (4:30 - UT) to drive to Hurricane from St. George. It was cold and early. We spray painted our hair fun colors for the race.

I ran the race and reached my own goals I had set for myself! YAHOO!!

This is back at the hotel after finishing. One last pose to show I did it! (That is my time card in my hand.)

It was so great being able to do this with good friends. It made the journey that much easier.

Tell it like it is!

I've been so sick of Hayden and Rebecca's messy room. We can spend forever cleaning and it is destroyed in 5 min. or less. Notice I said, "We" not they. So new rule. Whatever they don't clean before bed gets put in a trash bag and put in the garage and they have to earn it back. Hayden and Rebecca were so proud of themselves last night for cleaning up all by themselves, and it made me so happy. I was telling them how great it was, and it made me happy. I asked if they feel good too.
Hayden said, "Yeah, mom. I like having a clean room. You should clean your room."

Easter

About time I got my Easter post up huh! We had a very eventful and fun Easter weekend. It started with a great party at my friend Maria's house. She is such a great host. Her house was FULL of kids and it didn't even ruffle her feathers. We all had a wonderful time. We had a delicious lunch and then the kids stayed in the living room and answered good Easter/ Conference questions while a lot of the adults hid the eggs in the backyard.

(Do you see all those kids!!! She's amazing for hosting!)

When it was time for them to go in the backyard to look for the eggs they were all huddled around the door just waiting for the "go-ahead."

And they're off!!




We really are blessed to live in such a great ward with wonderful members. I LOVE our ward family!
Rebecca loved finding all the Easter eggs. She didn't really want to eat the candy, but just loved finding a lot, and opening them.

She wasn't too keen about sharing with Sydney.

Here is Hayden hiding behind his basket - showing off his eggs.


Sydney just had fun pretending to be a big girl. (Who am I kidding, she is growing up so fast, she is a big girl!)



After that party we went home and relaxed for a couple hours till we went over to Jerry's brother, Barry's house for an Easter/ Welcome home/ Good Bye party for Joe and Bonnie. (Post on that coming later) After another wonderful meal the kids got to have another Easter egg hunt. These eggs had candy and some had money. Ooh, the kids loved that!



Jerry helping Hayden and Rebecca find some eggs.

Looking through their loot!

Saturday between conference sessions we colored Easter Eggs. We are total party poopers, but believe it or not this is the first Easter we have dyed eggs with our kids. They've done it at parties, but we always run out of time. They loved it. (Please ignore the almost naked little boy)



Rebecca was terrified and in tears on Sat. night because she DID NOT want the Easter bunny to come hide her eggs. She just wanted me and Jerry to hide the eggs. Honestly, when I was growing up we loved Easter, but we never thought there was an actual Easter bunny that hid our eggs. Jerry and I don't really push the Easter bunny, but at the same time it's a fun little Easter "thing" so we'll see how long the kids actually believe. We are really lazy about Easter so the kids were with us when we bought the presents, and Hayden found the dollar store presents that I had hid in the garage, so they know we do the presents, and they assume the bunny hides the eggs. What do you do? What do you tell your kids?
Anyway, back to my story... she was terrified of the Easter bunny, so I told her maybe we could hide her eggs this year.
They were very excited Easter morning to be able to play with the toy they got. And it was actually quite nice for them to have something new to play with during conference.
Uh, I mean, no, my kids sit perfectly still and listen to all of conference. haha. This way they played quietly and we could listen.
I love having General Conference on Easter Sunday. I just love conference anyway, but what a great time to remember our Savior and the Resurrection by listening to the Prophet and Apostles speak. It was a great conference and I can't wait to get the Ensign to read through the talks again.
Happy Easter everyone!

The Easter presents

In the morning, it didn't matter who hid the eggs, she was excited to find them!

They each got a cute little stool. I think that's Sydney's favorite present. They had fun watching a movie that night on their chairs. (Rebecca's broke the next morning. Surprised??)