Everyday life . . . . .

Let's take a trip back to some fun memories last Fall.

First we have my silly kids, Ava all cute for school, playing with "Whaley Whale" in the back yard, a jump house visit with good friends, and poor Kai being used as a doll by his big sister. 

Girls night in Vegas!  Adrienne and I having fun before "The Help" movie started.

A girl's trip to see "The Little Mermaid" at Tuacahn.  We all loved it.  After the show we waited in the long line to get pictures with Eric and Ariel.  Ava was being a little stinker and wouldn't smile, but then broke down after about how she didn't look beautiful in her picture with the Little Mermaid.  Soooo - we waited in line a second time and the group picture is the result of that.  Doesn't Ava look so smilingly beautiful?  Also, the picture of me and my sisters is us trying not to have "fat arm."  Does it look really obvious?  Especially maybe on me?

Where's Kai?  Here is a fun phase that the little guy went through.  I would put him down for his nap and find him like this 30 minutes later.  He would empty his toy box, shelves, and drawers and then fall asleep on it.  It happened for quite a while because apparently him having a nap was worth the clean up for me.

Here we are with the beginning of many fall crafts.  I started following Pinterest and found so many fun ideas for the kids.  These are our glitter pumpkins which caused my house to be pretty glittery until after Thanksgiving.  It was really fun and a good start to our Fall activities!

Legoland, Our Last Leg . . . . . .

Legoland was the last stop of our trip! It was awesome because it is perfectly geared towards little kids. There were some great rides, an AWESOME splash park, cute shows, and it was so much fun to see everything completely made out of Legos.  The low-point was waiting for a ride for close to an hour, having them shut down the ride to find somebody's sunglasses, not being able to get it started back up, us deciding to leave, then watch the ride start up as soon as we get out of line.  Luckily, the super cool splash park was right in our line of vision so we could maintain a happy attitude.  We loved seeing Miniature Las Vegas completely made out of Legos while Kai took a nap.  Ava and I went on this rocket ride where they had a screaming contest and let me tell you, my girl loves to win and she can definitely scream.  You can also check out the pictures to see how much Kai loved the big slide.

We had an amazing time on our San Diego trip and organizing these pictures makes me want to go back so soon!  Great memories with great kids. :)

Sea World . . . . .

Can I just say that I LOVED Sea World growing up? I was so excited to take my kids and it WAS fun! We went straight for the new Atlantis ride and I got super excited to take Ava on it. We had to convince her, but she finally decided to go. Then I had to to force her onto the ride which resulted in tears and the worker telling me, "We can't let her go if she's crying." And she wouldn't stop. So we got off. Yes - I sound cruel, but I just KNOW if she would have gone she would have loved it. Oh well, Randy and I each took a turn by ourselves. :) Highlights were definitely the Polar Bears, the HUGE walrus, the Penguins, Shamu, and of course feeding the Sea Lions those nasty fish.  Probably the favorite part for the kids was the 3D Elmo movie.  Kai even kept his glasses on and it's hilarious watching them reach for the floating things in front of them. About 2/3 of the way through the day, the kids were DONE so we headed over to the Sesame Street play area and the kids were in heaven (except for when they had a Sesame Character show and Ava was, of course, terrified.) The kids ended up in the splash park, and since it was the end of the day, we let them have at it. They were SOAKED which resulted in bare naked kids wrapped up in hoodies in our car. It was a really fun day and PERFECT weather the entire time we were in San Diego.



San Diego Zoo

The kids LOVED the zoo. San Diego Zoo is just above and beyond any other zoo we've been too. It is HUGE with tons of animals and we got to see a lot of them moving around a lot. The favorites were the Polar Bears who we got to see wrestling in the water and the Brown Bear who had a big popsicle he was playing with. We were there for one day and we did pretty good about seeing most of the park. We took the tram ride and Kai, luckily, got a little nap so he could make it through the rest of the day happy. Ava keeps talking about the baby giraffe "Harriet."  It was so much fun and we can't wait to take the kids back!



San Diego Part 1

We took a family trip to San Diego back in August and it was so much fun! In fact, looking at the pictures again makes me want to go back RIGHT NOW. Oh, and the kids have asked pretty much every day when we are going back, so I think they would be on board. We started off with a trip to see the San Diego Temple and then headed to the beach. Parking was an issue, but once we got settled in, it was a great day to spend at the beach!