2013 Family Pictures

We had new family photos taken a little while ago at Thanksgiving Point.  Here are a few of my favorites.

4th Birthday Party at Black Diamond Sports Academy

We celebrated Josie and Piper's 4th birthday a little early yesterday with all their friends at their gymnastics gym, Black Diamond.  The kids all had a great time and some friends from preschool, dance, gymnastics and other family friends all came.

All the kids getting warmed up: Piper, Josie, Scarlett, Ireland, Marley, Olivia, Ava, and Brody.

 Fun with the parachute

Ireland, Brody and Piper.  And let me pause here for a minute and introduce you to Piper's boyfriend, Brody.  We've been hearing about Brody nonstop for months now and Piper was so excited that he was coming to their party.  She's been saying things like "I want Brody to dress up like a prince and I'll wear my princess dress and then we'll dance."  Also, "I didn't dare to talk to Brody today".  Thank goodness Brody's parents brought him to the party.  It literally made her day.  They ran around holding hands together, jumped into the pit together, shared a hula hoop together.  My girl is already boy crazy!

 Getting ready to jump into the pit.

 After some gym time, we came in and had pizza and cupcakes.  There's little Emery in there too!

 My big girls are almost 4!

 Finally, opening presents together.

What a fun party!  We'll do it again with family on their actual big day.

Halloween Wrap-Up

I can't believe November is almost over and I'm just getting around to writing a little about October.  The month of October flew by this year with our trip to California, but we still had time to fit in some fun stuff for Halloween.

Halloween is not like it was when I was a kid.  I remember wearing my costume one time - on halloween night when you would go trick-or-treating.  That's it.  Now it is a month-long affair.

First up - we went to breakfast with a witch at Gardner Village with Lauren and Olivia Larsen.  Brooke was with a sick baby, so it was me and all the girls.  Josie wore her fairy costume and Piper wore her Care Bear costume.  Not the best picture of my carebear here.

 Then on a super warm Saturday, we headed to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point again, which is a lot of fun.  This year, they went with all their Jones cousins.

Then we painted punkins on a Sunday night.  I thought it would be easier than carving, but maybe not.  Paint all over the dining room...

 The Monday before Halloween, they wore their costumes again at their dance class.  A bunch of little princesses showed up, plus one little scarecrow.  Too cute.

 Then on Halloween morning, they wore their costumes to preschool and there was a parade around the school with all the different classes.  These little girls, Ava and Ireland, are their preschool BFFs.

 All the kids in their classroom.

 On Halloween, we went to Bubba's work party again, which is incredible.  They put on quite the party.  They did some trick-or-treating there, then we headed to Josh's work for more trick-or-treating.  I didn't get any pictures because by this time, Josie was getting pretty sick.  By the time we got home, she was in full-blown fever mode and the sickness/fever/cough stuck around for the next ten days.  Welcome to winter!


 

My Little Hoarder

Oh Josie, my sweet little hoarder.

A few months ago, Josie started carrying around a collection of junk with her at all times.  She stores it in a variety of places, the pink princess bag in this picture, a purse, a kitty that zips up, and most recently, her closed up umbrella (!).  Last night, she slept with this collection at the bottom of her bed.  This particular collection includes: a knitting needle, two spoons, one of my scarves, a broken jewelry box, a kitchen clip, two headbands, one ballet slipper, a stuffed pig, etc, etc.  If you attempt to take ANY of this stuff away, there is a giant freak-out.  A couple of weeks ago, I found her in her bedroom.  She had arranged all of her junk in a circle and was curled up in a ball inside of it.  She called it her "nest".  Also, her teacher recently asked that I please not let her come to school anymore with rocks in her pockets (safety issue!).  She says the rocks are very special to her and she needs them.  She doesn't play with any of these toys normally, she just likes to spread it all out and look at it.  If you ask her what exactly is inside her bag on any particular day, she tells you "it's a surprise".

I fully expect to see her on an episode of Hoarders one day.

Disneyland, the Beach, and a Wedding: Days 1 and 2

We just got back a week ago from a great vacation down to Southern California.  My cousin Kelcy got married in Redondo Beach, so we decided to make a week out of it and take the girls to Disneyland for the first time.  My parents decided to join us for the week and we had a blast!

After spending the first night in a crappy hotel in Mesquite, we pulled into town Tuesday afternoon and headed right over to Disneyland for a few hours, sans my parents.  We got the Military hopper 3-day passes for half price, so we wanted to take advantage of having the three-day passes. We got a few rides in, and watched the parade, then came back to our hotel to rest up for the next day.  The parade was great and Josie was THRILLED when Princess Aurora blew her a kiss.

The next day, we had a crowd with us.  My parents came over, plus Uncle Jeff, Aunt Leslie, my cousin Kelcy and her daughter Addison.  Almost every trip I have ever taken to Disneyland as a kid included these family members, so being there with them made me feel a bit like a little kid again.

The girls (especially Josie, the little mother), had a great time with Addison.

Unfortunately, the girls were about 1/2 inch too short to ride the big roller coasters, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, etc, but we had lots of fun riding the other rides.

 For lunch, Josh and I took the girls over to California Adventure for lunch with the Disney princesses at Ariel's Grotto.  This was all new to me as the princess obsession was not around when I was a kid.  But Josie and Piper know all the princesses and each have their favorite (Josie - Aurora, and Piper - Belle).  They just watched the Little Mermaid for the first time a few weeks ago and have watched it 3 or so times since then.  Ariel was the first princess they met.  Piper wasn't sure what to think so she fell back to her happy place with baby.

Eventually, she warmed up and all the other princesses came by our table.  We had brought along their little notebooks so they got autographs from each of them.

After lunch, we headed back over to the old Disneyland to meet the rest of our group.  We rode some more rides, including Pirates and the Haunted Mansion.  And then for our finale, Josh took all three little girls and the rest of us rode Splash Mountain.  It was CLASSIC riding that ride in front and listening to the comments from the old folks behind us.  Kelcy and I laughed until our stomachs hurt. We snapped this off the screen displaying all the pictures, so it isn't the best quality.

 After a group dinner in downtown Disney, it was back to our hotel.  We were all exhausted.  Disney is no joke!

Disneyland: Part 2

 Our last day of Disneyland, we were all getting a wee bit tired, but still having fun. The highlight of this day was a reservation we made for the girls to turn into princesses at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.  After riding a few rides, we headed there.

 Here is Josie in her chair getting all dolled up.  She loved it immediately.  As part of the package, we brought their princess dresses and the fairy godmothers do their hair, a little makeup and nail polish.  This was RIGHT up Josie's alley.  My little Aurora.

 This was Piper's reaction at first.  She is like Josh and just does not enjoy people looking at her and paying attention to her.  At one point, her fairy godmother pulled me aside and said they could not continue if she was going to cry.  I asked Piper if she wanted to do it and she said YES.  She really wants to do things like this, but she has trouble feeling comfortable.  After she was all done, she LOVED that she looked like Belle, but not until the people were not looking at her anymore.

 They taught the girls how to do princess poses and as you can see, Josie took to it a little more than Piper. :)

 Then after we left, they were both as happy as can be.  They each got to pick out a doll.

 The rest of the day, we rode rides at California Adventure looking like this.

We watched the parade over there too, which was great, and wrapped up our Disneyland time!