do a little dance ...

Embrie had a Christmas Dance recital which naturally means, a lot of pictures of her flopping around on the floor ...

and doing .... her own moves?

Ha ha! it was actually pretty cute. Just another thing Brad had to miss for working, so I recorded it, or at least tried to with a baby on my lap and not having the best view of her. And now I am upset because the "actual dance" is not to be found on my camera?! It really was a cute dance I guess we'll have to settle with their warm up.

And on to December

We had a fun little excursion to Gardner Village to do an 'Elf Hunt'.

We've done 'witch hunt' and this was sort of the same but really, the kids love it they've never been bored with it yet. And it is my chance to spend more time with Embrie too since Garrett is in school all day.

My parents were not going to be traveling much through the holidays (due to Blain having shoulder surgery before Christmas). So they invited us all up for a couple of days to have a Christmas party.

We had competition: Gingerbread houses

Now it was going to be couples or families against the like. I was missing my other half, Brad had to be working that weekend. I knew that with him we'd probably win, but I was determined to show that I could do it without him!

Kalvin brought a friend, Morgan, home. She was his partner. Jared and Jessica, Sunni and Ed with help from their boys Blake and Colton (since they are older kids). And Grandma agreed to be on my team.

I had really grand ideas. To win this competition I wanted to make a long ranch house.

Blake with his families truck and trailer, pretty awesome.

Jared and Jessica made a log cabin.

Kalvin and Mogan made what I thinkwe decided was "a prison court yard" although I think they were at first trying to make it look like a building on campus at USU.

....... well this is the last photo of me and grandma Judy's house still standing. My long ranch house didn't want to stay standing and we tried to turn it into a house with a fenced yard but it was a FLOP! ah! sorry Grandma. Apparently I can't do it with out Brad. I am sure Grandma could have done better with an idea of her own. I probably should have let her make the blue prints :)

Even the kids and Grandma Sheri made houses that stood better than ours!

Oh well it was lots of fun.



I vow to catch up

This is after all my diary/ scrapbook/ family history journal of sorts so because I am a little bit obsessed with chronological order and stuff. I will get these past few months out.

And so this was our Thanksgiving Holiday spent with the Callahan side of the family. There were fun Minute to Win It games for the kids they loved it!

I recognize how amazingly lucky we are to have such great families, to not want for anything and to know that our Heavenly Father has given all of this to us!

November

We'd come back from Disney Land to the first snow of the winter season and so the kids and Brad promptly set out to make a snowman ...eeerr woman. Hmmm kinda looks like me on most days.

Last Day at Dinsey

The House of the White Rabbit is just Maren's size.

Yes, after a couple of days I dared to show my face in fantasy land again and we headed to Alice In Wonder land's ride (don't worry we didn't ride the tea cups).

After that I went and stood in line to wait for the princesses while everone else did a few rides. Then when they got there Embrie joined me and Brad took the other two some where else.

Embrie wore a "Bell" dress up to meet the princesses.

First we saw Sleeping Beauty.

Then Cinderella ... again since we'd seen her at goofy's kitchen.

And sweet Snow White.

Embrie liked meeting the princesses, although we missed out seeing Prince Charming. He was supposed to be there with Snow White but couldn't make it (hence Cinderella showed up to take his place). The kids liked coming up with reasons why they didn't see certain characters like making up what they were doing somewhere else.

And ... we saw more ducks and birds, like I said Maren loved this part of Disneyland.

This was Thursday and was the least busy day that we'd been at DisneyLand. We went on everything we wanted to go on and some rides 2 or 3 times since there wasn't a line. Right after the princess parade Embrie's illness started taking a toll on her. She slowed way down and just was tired. When we rode Thunder Mountain she declined the chance to go so Garrett went twice.

They loved the Haunted Mansion which was all geared up for Nightmare Before Christmas which they LOVED.

We rode Pirates of the Carribean I think 3 times (one of my favorites for sure).

And when we visited Toon Town (I had previously been convinced we just wouldn't see Mickey the line would be too long I'd heard) There was a 10 min wait to see Mickey Mouse!!!

The kids loved exploring his house.

As we began to wind down our last day at DisneyLand we revisted Cars Land, it was time to pick out the souveniers they'd saved up for.

Garrett decided on a toy car (one he could've gotten at any store near home, but oh well he really wanted it) and a Radiator Springs snow globe.

Embrie chose two stuffed animals, Pluto and a mini Donald Duck.

Everyone got a Mickey Sucker.

And Maren got a pink set of Mini Mouse Ears.

Then we said goodbye to the park.

Worn out from so much fun (and from being a little bit sick).

The next day we got up bright and early. Our original flight was to leave around noon, but it was becoming evident that we wouldn't make that flight so we headed out to an earlier one....

... and here is where the fun begins. For one thing if you're flying standby don't ever try to leave LA on a Friday. We know that now. I had said to many people before we left that we'd never had any trouble flying standby thats what we always do. I should have knocked on wood.

We tried for 3 flights that morning, didn't make any. Finally we got on one going to Oakland, but the SLC flight from there wouldn't be leaving until 8pm.

To make a very long story short, we were in the airport or on a plane from 9am to 12:30am with 3 sick kids. Good times. It definitely could havebeen worse the kids were pretty good considering so I shouldn't complain.

But that in a nutshell (and 4 blogposts later) is our trip to DisneyLand! can't wait to go back.

On a side note everyone went to the Dr. the next day and Embrie had pnemonia, go figure. :)

DisneyLand night 3 cont...

I know this is a little late in coming I was having blog issues so I am behind...

Dinner at Goofy's Kitchen!

The kids loved meeting all of the characters. Just as we were leaving Aladin was going in, bummer we missed him, but we were on our way to World Of Color. 

World Of Color was amazing, my only wish is that we'd gone to the front, what they called "wet zone". We didn't because it was a cool night and didn't want the kids miserable especially Maren, but turns out you don't get that wet and we would've been able to see better.

DisneyLand Day 3

By the end of the previous night Embrie had started to cough. But she didn't seem to be too congested. We'd stocked up on medicines, I'd brought plenty and we'd gotten a couple more things at the store our first day so we hoped to be set. That night was another sleepless one for Brad and I, with Garrett, Embrie and I coughing all night and Embrie having another few fits in the night. We woke up again that morning about 6ish.

-Maren loved the chance to walk around a bit and try to chase the birds that were around the park.-

This day we'd visit California Adventure and the much anticipated Cars Land (which was sort of the main event for our family). Since Radiator Springs Racers is the hottest ride right now (Cars Land being brand new) I got in line for a 'fastpass' to that ride before the park even opened. That would allow us to go to the ride at a certain time and be able to bypass most of the regular line for the ride.  You see this time we had a plan for the day. We knew basically what we were going to see and what order we'd try to do it in. I would say this was much more effective!

While I did that Brad took the kids to The Monsters Inc. ride and a Bugs Land rides.

They also met Minnie Mouse! Where is Garret do you say? He was too shy of Minnie to get in the picture. Guess we needed a little more warming up and a pep talk from mom.

Then We headed for Cars Land!

You'll notice in Garrett's arms Lightening McQueen, the pillow who has been his best, favorite toy since he was 2. Garrett was insistent on bringing this fragile stuffed toy to the park each day and wanted Lightening to be in a picture when we met .. Lightening.

I have to say I was impressed! Cars Land basically looks like you stepped into the real town of Radiator Springs! It's prefect!

We saw Red the Fire Truck driving around.

Garrett was for some reason really excited about Mater's petting zoo, which consists of this solitary little tractor, but everytime we passed it he had to go visit it. This is about the time he started saying "mom take a picture of me right here!"

Then we got to meet Tow-Mater! Another favorite character! The kids got their books signed and picture with him.  He talked and made jokes!

Then we started the rides, like Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.

Another great thing at the parks is the stroller swap. If you have a stroller child who can't ride, one adult can take the two kids on the ride and the other adult gets a pass so that when the first riders are done the person waiting with the stroller can get on the ride with the kids right away instead of having to wait in the full line twice! So our kids got to ride a lot of rides 2 times, once with dad and once with mom.

When we got done with that ride we noticed a change. Mater was gone but Lightening McQueen, himself was now out for autographs and pictures. He talked and revved his engine and we got to see him drive around too! (make sure you notice little lightening tucked under Garrett's arm, had I been next to him I would have made him more visible, but he was there!)

more of  ... ' mom take my picture doing this."

and 'now me'

They got their picture next to Red because it was another line to get a picture with him and we decided to ride more rides instead of wait.

While the kids rode with dad on Luigi's Flying Tires Maren and I watched DJ put on a misuc and dance show.

No pics of the Radiator Springs Racers ride, but I will say both Brad and I thought it was pretty fun and the kids loved it! Definately one of the coolest rides.

We spent most of the day in CarsLand but we ventured out toward the end and headed to Mickey's Paradise Peir. Where we found another cool Character, Donald Duck. By this time everyone was completely warmed up and we were getting autographs in those cute little books we bought.

For some reason one of the rides Garrett was most excited about was Mickey's Fun Wheel (farris wheel).

And The Toystory ride was pretty cool.

I was really surprised but glad to find that Maren could ride on almost everything too!

Now these aren't great pictures by any means, but I had to mention Ariel's Undersea Adventure. Because it is the ride we rode the most at Disney. There was not much of a wait, the line was really fast, and once again everyone could ride. They just kept asking to go on it again and again so we did.

I couldn't get a good shot of the girls but just look at Maren's face! She was in love with this ride! By the time we left she could say 'Ariel '.

TBC ....