Days 3 & 4 Disneyland!!

Get ready for the longest post in the history of mankind.

 

"The happiest place on earth!"

 

 Family picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle take 1:

 

 Family picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle take 2:

 

Family picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle take 3:

 

Come on guys it's only 8:30 a.m. ;)

 

The park was decorated SO cute for Halloween

 

 

 

 Cara, Travis and Dillon:

 

 

Even the Haunted Mansion was all decked out:

 

 

 

Visit to Toon Town...Mickey Mouse here we come!

 

 

 

 

OK we can go home now (just kidding)
Gotta see Minnie too!



Joslyn LOVES Mickey and Minnie on TV but in person, she wasn't quite sure. Hudson was at the perfect age for meeting the characters.

 

Playing at Minnie's house:

 

 



 







 

 

 

Some other characters we met:

 

Tigger:

 

 

 Pooh:

 Rapunzel:



 

 

I waited in line for 45 min for Joslyn to see Rapunzel. whhoooweee! It was SO worth it though. Joslyn loves the movie Tangled she even has Rapunzel's dress on! You can see how excited she is... HA! Once we were out of there she was so excited to tell daddy that she got to see "Rapunzeled".  I guess she is just a little shy around her favorite characters.

 

Rides:

 

Nate, Hudson and Joslyn on Dumbo:

 

The whole fam on It's a Small World:

The kids LOVED Splash Mountain we went on that one again and again! Look at Hudson having a blast, I love it! Nate is trying to not get wet.

 

 

Braiden, Travis Hailey, Jake, Cob and ?

Lucky for us Joslyn's favorite ride was right across from Splash Mountain...The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh we probably did that one 10 times, she LOVED it!

 

Another favorite was Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters which again was perfect because the little ones could go on it while the big kids went on Star Tours and Space Mountain, Brody was NOT a fan of Space Mountain though. :(

 

The Haunted Mansion was decked out in The Nightmare Before Christmas, I like the original mansion better :/ We all LOVED Pirates of the Caribbean they've added Jack Sparrow here and there since I've been.  We were Sad Sad Sad that Indiana Jones was closed. BOO! There's always one right?

 

A little down time after dinner:

 

Sword fighting with their Jack Sparrow Swords



Waiting for the parade to start:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The parade was awesome!! The perfect ending to a wonderful 4 days!

 

 

Day 2

Tuesday: California Adventure! First stop Cars Land!!!
Not only were the gas prices high the temps were high too!! It was hot hot hot!

We bumped into Minnie Mouse, what a fun surprise!

 

 

 Max!

 

 Cara, Travis and Dillon on Luigi's Flying Tires

 

 Brody. Nate and Hudson

 

 Ashley, Cob and Kylie

 

 Joslyn and Hudson with Lightning McQueen

 

 My little trooper on the carousel

 

 Don't look too close at this one, we'd been at the park for 12 hours and we are hot, sweaty and gross.

 

 This is after World of Color, such an awesome show! One of my favorite things of the week!

Nate drug me kicking and screaming on Tower of Terror, now I can do pretty much anything but the "straight up" and "straight down" thing... I don't know, I think I'll pass on that one next time.  When the ride got over Brody looked like he was going to hurl and I begged him to keep it together. He did, what a nice boy! :) Braiden LOVED it and all of the big roller coaster rides, maybe it comes and goes with age????
Cars Land was awesomely fun and awesomely packed. The Radiator Springs racers were way fun! They might have been a little much for Hudson (which is too bad) because he wouldn't go again...but now he's wishing he would have.
Joslyn's favorite ride at this park was Ariel's Undersea Adventure, I have to agree, it was the coolest ride, and I mean that in the literal sense. When ever we needed to cool down we would go on that one, and the best part, there was never a line!
Other family favorites on day 2, Soarin' Over California, Toy Story Midway Mania (totally worth the 25 min wait) and Braiden would have to say, California Screamin'! The kids were so tired at the end of this day it was the only time Miss Joslyn fell asleep in my arms on the way home.

Tune in tomorrow for Days 3&4 Disneyland!!

A Fun Week!

Did you hear that gas prices hit a record high in California? Yup we were just there buying gas...for our SUBURBAN!!!  Fun huh? Well everything else was super fun, buying gas was not, uh well.

We went with Nate's family to Disneyland last week and we had SO much fun!! The kids were amazing, they did great traveling, and they did great with all those long long days.  I will break up the posts because there are alot of pictures. ;)

We arrived in California on Sunday afternoon, so we mostly just lounged around in the hotel room. We went to check out Newport Beach that evening, we got there just as the sun was setting...

 

Lovely!

 



Oops got a little wet.



Monday: Corona Del Mar
Ready for the sand and sea!

First time the kids have seen the ocean!! They were a little leery at first as was I, after an hour or so we all relaxed a little and had some serious fun!!

Hudson and Jake are little buddies

Braiden and Kylie getting the hang of the boogie board.

This picture is hilarious! Little toothless goatee man!

Having so much fun playing in the ocean!

Preschool and Time Out

It's not what you think :)...

Hudson started preschool last Wednesday.

 

Sis couldn't be left out of the picture!

 

Cool backpack!

 

So- we tried preschool earlier this year and it was a complete failure! He hated going (but loved it once he was there, if that makes any sense.) He hated me leaving him, it was a fight every morning so we just stopped (that was in March).  The thing that I didn't get was the sweet teacher was my neighbor, and all the kids were in the ward and/or neighbors, so he knew everyone there. So I have been stressed for months how he would do in a preschool where he didn't know a single person, not even the teacher.  I was prepared for major drama. I was prepared to bribe like no other, I bought a movie for him and promised a trip to McDonald's. Guess What?

There was NONE of it!!! In fact he hopped out of the car and ran up to the door, had his shoes off and his backpack hung up before I even got to the door! I was baffled to say the least! He LOVES preschool and he loves his teacher, he asks every day if it is preschool day.

So what changed? I can't  figure it out either.  Maybe he's grown up in the last few months. Maybe it's because it's in the afternoon instead of the morning, I don't know, I'm just happy because he's happy.

Big boy!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm on a spiritual high right now because I just got back from...

 

 

This was a the first time I've gone to a time out for women event, it was SO awesome!

 

 

One moment of many that had me in tears!

 

A few of my favorite presenters:

 

Kris Belcher had you laughing one minute, crying the next.

Mariama Kallon- the same, she has an amazing story.

Emily Freeman

Anthony Sweat

Wendy Ulrich

Hilary Weeks- how lucky are we?

Brad Wilcox

 

 

Can't wait for next year!!!

 

First Day 2012

The boys started school on Monday morning.

 

Braiden is a 5th grader!!

Brody is a 2nd grader!!

 

Getting on the bus...

 

It is so strange having them gone all day, we are trying to get used to it. Joslyn got into some mischief, it was just to quiet and boring with her brothers gone.

 

 

She decided to put on some of mommy's "makeub" lip gloss and mascara YIKES! This is not too bad, I'm sure it could be worse and I'm sure this is not the last time she will do this. Part of having a girl right?

Summer? Where did you go?

Just like that, it is gone. Boo! We were so busy, we couldn't even squeeze in a session of swimming lessons.  Bad Mom! Bad Bad Bad Mom! :/

 

 I registered the boys for school this past Monday, and they will start on Monday. We are ready, then again we are not. They found out who their teachers are and they are so excited about them, they are going a little stir crazy here, they are ready to see friends and start learning (right kids?) I am not NOT ready for the homework, the alarm clock, and being on the go. 

 

 

I will miss their morning plasma car races.  Every morning after breakfast they run out there and ride until they are tired or until they are sick of the dog licking them in the face.  ew.

 

Hudson starts preschool after Labor Day, I am so nervous about it. I hope he has grown out of the "don't leave me, mommy" thing.

 

Joslyn gets to hang out with me, one more year and she can start dance. I can NOT wait, it is killing me. :) I took the kids school clothes shopping a couple of weeks ago, can't miss out on the Old Navy $10 jean sale.  Anyway, I think Joslyn got more school clothes than the boys did, and she is not even going to school. Little Stinker! That's an only girl for ya.

 

 

We made our count down chain for our Disneyland vacation coming up, I don't know who's more excited, me or the kids.

 

Braiden started football, the first practices of the season are SO hot, so what gets returned to me is one very hot, sweaty, hungry, thirsty boy. Loves every minute of it though.

 

We've had a fun and busy summer, we did everything we hoped to do, well except swimming lessons. ;)

one fish, two fish, RED FISH, blue fish

We were home from Coeur D'Alene for less than 10 days before we packed up again and left for Red Fish Lake. They were an eventful 10 days too, filled with laundry, laundry and more laundry. Meal planning, grocery shopping, and repacking. Sick people, taking 3 of the 4 kids to the Dr, all manner of icky nasty things. Wanna hear about it? Nate and Braiden caught the flu, fever, chills, sore throat..in the middle of summer!! You know something is terribly wrong when a person is wearing sweats and a hoodie sweatshirt wrapped up in a quilt and it is 95 degrees outside!!! Braiden, the poor boy, was delusional from his fever and having bad dreams, scary! Hudson got impetigo, and Joslyn, poor sis. : / Well she woke up one morning with a massive blister on her finger and for the life of me I could not figure out what would have caused it, so we decided to keep her home from church.  The next day the blister more than doubled in size (from her knuckle to the tip of her finger...basically everywhere the fingernail wasn't was a solid blister.)  So we took her in, as soon as the nurse saw it she knew what it was and I never in a million years would have guessed that it was staph infection.  WHAT the heck, where on earth could she have gotten that?? Anywhere really I suppose.  It is still a mystery. The good thing was that it wasn't the Staph that is resistant to antibiotics.  So a nice big round of hefty antibiotics and Hudson and Joslyn were good as new. Miraculously Brody and I came out of all of it unscathed and everyone was better or on their way to getting better just in time for Rad Fish...I mean Red Fish.

 

 The kids look forward to this camping trip ALL year long, even as I write this they are saying, "aaaawwww, I want to go back!"

 

 

 

It is so nice, the kids just play, play, play in the sand all day.

 

This is the magic campfire. Cool huh?

 

My favorite picture spot...they've grown so much from last year, especially that little munchkin on the right.

 

All the Catmull cousins...Love these kids

 

So long for now, can't wait for next year!!