Easter 2010

Easter was fun this year, except it was a little cold. And we had waaaay to much white stuff on the ground. Here is a picture of the girls, Michaela had given Payden a make over, don't know why it is blurry.

We had a nice dinner, stuffed ourselves full.

The girls helped out with the preparation, and Jason got a really good picture of us all. Thanks hon.

This was darling. We had taken the girls to two egg hunts on Saturday, and Corrine got the hang of finding eggs and putting them in her basket. The girls had all gotten these little bouncy balls shaped like eggs, and they were all over the floor. As we were getting ready to go out back for our own egg hunt, I was telling Corrine what we were going to do. She said ok, and then starting picking up all the bouncy balls and putting them into her basket. She kept saying, "another one. Oh, another one!"

Here is us in our new Easter finery. General conference fell on Easter Sunday this year, so we didn't get to wear them until the next week.

We had a great time dying Easter eggs. Let the creativity flow.

Corrine got really excited, whenever she dropped an egg into the cup she would gasp and get this shocked and excited look on her face. So cute.

For our neighborhood egg hunt, it really was a hunt to find them in the snow. It was also cold and windy, so nobody stayed long. Michaela was the only on of her friends to hunt for eggs, I am glad she isn't trying to rush growing up. And she got candy, they didn't!

Poor Corrine, is there an egg in there?

Ava's a Dancing Star!

Ava has had a hard time with dance this year, she doesn't seem to like it as much as she did last year. She often doesn't want to go, and asks "how much longer" when we are there. And getting her to practice is a nightmare. I would have just quit taking her if we hadn't already signed up for her to compete, and I thought she should finish it, plus we paid for it already! And I was so worried that she would get up for her solos and throw a fit or refuse to dance or something. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much she liked performing! She loves to get her makeup done, so that helps, plus she loves the limelight, apparently. She had a ball dancing for the judges!


Here she is with her friend Riley. They dance on the same team. Ava dances on a team, and then did two solos. She did a team dance last year, but this was the first year for solos.

Here is her team backstage, waiting to go on.

Here she is after her solo. She was so proud, "I did it!"

I am thinking I will try a few other things for her, find something that she gets really excited about all year, not just at the end, like dance. But I am so glad that she will remember this experience as positive, and that she had so much fun. She can't wait to dance in Lagoon for Nationals. I will post some videos of her dancing as well. So cute!

Luv

Last night for FHE, one of the parts of the lesson involved us going around the house to see what we could find that would help us in our fight against evil. We were learning about the stripling warriors and how we are also in a war, a war against evil. Well, we got the things we would all expect; scriptures, pictures of family and temple, Ensign, etc. But what Ava brought really touched me. She went and found a piece of paper, on which she drew a heart and wrote "luv".

She was so right.

This is what life is about...

A toddler, warm and chubby, soft and close, cuddleing in bed when she wakes up from her nap.

Her head tucked under your neck, her sweet lips whispering about the ice cream cone she saw on the pages of a book on the floor.

Wispy hair tickeling your nose, arms burrowing deeper into the covers for warmth.

And knowing that this fleeting moment won't last forever, soaking it into memory with all your senses so you never forget it.

An unfortunate case of the giggles

Have you ever got a case of uncontrolable giggles?

I would imagine that many of you have. It is fun, and feels good, if it happens in the right place.

I can tell you one of the NOT right places is in sacrament meeting, where I got mine a few weeks ago.

I am telling this now, because even today, just the sight of the young man passing sacrament who is part of this story caused me to smile.

A few weeks ago, we were reverently sitting, waiting for our turn at the bread. I wasn't finding anything particularly amusing at this point, but that is what is so funny about a fit of the giggles.

They strike you unawares.

Ava was sitting on the floor in front of me, and when the tray of bread came our way, she stood up right as the young man who was holding it passed it to me. This caused him to tag her in the side of the head with it.

See, here I am, giggling already.

I really don't know what was so funny about this; maybe Ava completly ignoring the whole thing, or the look of "oops" on the young man's face. I don't know. But this was when I started chuckeling.

Then, as I took the tray from his hands, I met his eyes, and he saw me starting to laugh. He smiled, and I looked away.

Only to hit the other side of Ava's head with the same tray.

That was it. I lost it.

I looked up at the young man to see if he had seen what I did, he had, and he was stifiling his giggles as well.

After that, I couldn't stop. I did it quietly, but I laughed until I had tears in my eyes.

My poor family didn't know what was going on, just looked at me like I had gone crazy. The only person who understood my situation was the young man, Jesse.

I continued to try to stop laughing for almost the whole sacrement meeting. Just when I thought I had gotten control over it, I started laughing. Again.

So today, when Jesse passed us by with the tray of bread, I smiled to myself.

No Ava heads were harmed during the making of this giggle fest. She didn't even seem to notice what was going on.

Even funnier.

Disneyland

Well, it has been a couple of weeks since we got back from our trip to California, and I am just now getting around to posting about it! I will show a few pics from Disneyland, then to another post about SeaWorld, then the beach. I may throw in a few others later when I get the pics from my moms camera too!

We had such a great time, and we managed to surprise the girls! They thought we were going to Utah to look at houses for spring break. On the way there, we told them the truth. They were very surprised and sooooo excited! Payden was actually speechless! We spent a night with Uncle Von and Aunt Connie on the way there, and another night with them on the way back. They live in Las Vegas, so it was a nice stopping point. Then we spent 5 days in Disneyland, a day at the beach, and two days in SeaWorld. It was a fantastic trip, the weather was beautiful, we had no car troubles, no sick kids, no lost kids, (well, we lost Ava for a few minutes in SeaWorld, but I won't count that) no real problems of any kinds. Our most serious problem was actually kind of funny. We realized we forgot the umbrella stroller, so we bought one when we got there. It proved to be a popular pattern. At one ride, someone took our brand new stroller thinking it was theirs! Jason informed me that someone took ours, and I told him to go find the other one that was theirs. It looked just like ours, but with more wear and tear. After that, we put the umbrella stroller in the big stroller when we left them!

Here is our picture with Mickey, which we only had to wait about 45 minutes for. Corrine loved all the characters, and hugged them right away. She would see a character and say, "An hug"!


The bumper cars in California Adventure were fun. Payden and I also went on the rocket one that shoots you straight up really fast, then drops you faster. Payden and I also went on Tower of Terror. She was the only one brave enough to go with me on those two. I don't think I would want to repeat Tower of Terror. It was scary!


This was also in California Adventure. We went there on our last day, but I really didn't want to rearrange my pictures!

Tinker Bell was a big hit.

Corrine just about got eaten up by the princesses. One of them asked her if she could stay with her all day!

Eeyore liked Corrine as well. He hugged her and rubbed her head for a while.

The girls loved Toon Town. I like it to, so much to look at.

I had to get a fortune from Esmeralda. It remined me of the movie Big.

This was in Minnie's house. Ava and Corrine could have stayed there all day! This was a dishwasher that when you turned the knob, the dishes danced around in bubbles. Very entertaining.

I think Minnie was Corrine's favorite. We bought her a litte Minnie doll she liked her so much. She ran right up to her and hugged her legs.

Here is Ava looking at the bigger than life Buzz Lightyear before the ride. She was in awe!

One time when the girls were off with my mom, we saw Minnie. This was actually the first time we saw her. She loved Corrine; she took her hand and petted it and then caressed her head. Corrine just looked at her and grinned. So sweet!

Here is the girls in Toon Town Jail!

This is a picture of Its A Small World Jason took at night.

This was one of Ava's favorites. Its A Small World After All gets sung around here a lot now. On most of the rides, I had more fun watching the girls reactions that the actual ride. This was one of them. Ava had a face of rapture the whole time. I really wish I had a camera on the rocket on I went on with Payden, although I doubt I could have held on to it on that ride! When we reached the top of it, right when we started to shoot down, I glanced over at Payden. She had her eyes closed, and her tounge stuck straigt out so far, it was pointed at the end!

Ava loved the big Castle when we first came in. She was so funny. She went on Matterhorn, which is a really mild roller coaster, and liked it. So we took her on Space Mountain, because she also really liked Star Tours. She HATED Space Mountain. Too much for her. After that, she asked many times before she got on any ride whether it was a roller coaster or if it was dark! Michaela and Payden loved everything, and were having so much fun that they didn't really even whine about getting tired. We pretty much got to see everything. We found out that if you get to the park at 8am right when they open, you have about 1 to 2 hours to ride the rides with minimal wait times. After that, we could count on about 30-45 minutes waits for EVERYTHIHNG. We acutally waited an hour just to see the princesses!

We had such a good time we were planning our second trip before we left. We would like to go again in a couple of years when Corrine will be a little older. Can't wait!

Chaos

We are leaving for spring break on Friday, and since I am working tonight, Wed., and have dance and Achievement days on Thursday, I figured I had better start packing yesterday. We are hoping for some warm weather, and I thought it might be nice to pack shorts.

I started with Payden and was innocently decieved into thinking I could finish everyone quickly because of how easy packing Payden was. She had tons of shorts and t shirts, and I had her done in 10 minutes.

Well, Michaela is growing like a weed and had only two pairs of shorts (that were really kind of tight) to her name. Payden has a bunch, because that is where all of Michaela's went.

So off to Ross ( I love Ross) to purchase her some shorts.

Then I move on to the little ones, and can't find the things that I put away from last summer that I thought would still fit this summer. Jason came home, and he got all the bins down from the garage. I did find lots of things, but not those that I had saved from last year.

My house was full of piles of clothes; ones I didn't want anymore, ones that Corrine can wear now, ones that Ava can wear now, and ones that were in between that I wanted to make sure we could find NEXT year.

Didn't I start out packing?

I still can't find the things I set aside last year, and am getting tired and frustrated with all the endless piles of clothes.

Which also now have to be washed, because even though they went into storage clean, somehow they just don't smell clean when you take them out.

After I get tired and decide to finish tomorrow, I remember where those clothes are. You know, the ones I set aside, the ones I KNOW I told Jason to put somewhere up front in the garage, the ones Jason has been looking for the last 45 minutes?

Yeah. They are in a bin in Corrine's room, right in plain sight. The problem was, that bin has been sitting there since summer last year, and has become such a fixture in her room that I ceased to see it anymore, so it wasn't really in plain sight.

But it was.

Sorry hun.

What started out as what I thought was going to be a relatively simple process has taken me a day and a half to accomplish and made a mess out of my house, and also caused a lot of frustration.

Anyway, I am glad I started packing on Monday, because if I had left it until Thursday I would have lost my mind.


Or three of my kids would have either gone naked or worn their winter stuff. I would let them choose.

So now, all the kids are packed, the in between clothes are in a bin we probably won't find next year, and I can continue packing.

Geesh.

And also , my post below is really fun. Ignore the part where I said I would write 6 things but there are really only 5. It is still fun.