The Partying Continues

How fun is this? I even dressed up for the party!  Can't let the opportunity to wear stripey tights pass without taking advantage of it!  Not to mention the awesome hair.

Here is Supergirl trying to convince Spiderman to come join us in the photo.  He was being shy and didn't want to be in the photo.  The bubbling brew was much more interesting.

Shrunken Heads

This year on Adele's birthday for a fun birthday activity she wanted to carve apples and make shrunken heads.  I showed her pictures on the internet of the  shriveled apples and ever since then she really wanted to make some.

 This might have to become an annual tradition.

My baby is 5.

I took the kids swimming today and I had one of those moments where you suddenly feel like your life is flashing before your eyes and your kiddos are growing up too fast.  My littlest baby is 5.  It is kind of weird.  Next year she will be in kindergarten.  I am happy that we have moved on from the difficult baby years but I'd sure love to go back and cuddle these guys as newborns again.

Happy 5th birthday to Adele!

 Happy 5th birthday to my crazy 5 year old!  

Adele:

Loves makeup, dress up, shoes and sparkles

Names her hands and feet and also the feet and hands of others.  And pretends her feet are dogs and cats.

Is very sneaky

Loves to draw and color (sometimes on walls still) and always wants to be with her friends.

Loves to chew gum

The breakfast candle in the strawberry

She asked for an orange skeleton cake.  I made the bones out of white chocolate

Modelling the tutu and new scooter

Rocking R Cabin

 My good friend Jodi's family has a cabin near Zion National Park and invited us to go up there with her this weekend since the kids were on fall break.  There are actually 3 small cabins but I wasn't thinking and didn't take a picture of the one we slept in.  The one below is the "main cabin" with the kitchen and sleeping area.  Kent wasn't feeling well, and he also had some winterizing yard stuff (and a BYU football game) so he ended up staying home.  Jodi took her 4 kids up and Jodi's sister Jennie was also there with HER 4 kids.  So, lots of kids, not lots of adults.  It was still lots of fun and we really hope Jodi will invite us again sometime (hint hint...)  And maybe if there is a next time everyone will be healthy and there will be NO puking or fevers, right Jodi?

 The main cabin was built by Jodi's grandpa who was a contractor and got a bunch of leftover stuff from jobs and brought it up to his property on the mountain and turned it into a cabin.  It's super rustic with no electricity and no running water.  Just a couple steps up from camping.

 Emilia was walking around with a roll of toilet paper because nature was calling and she was looking for a place to answer the call. While exploring she got sidetracked by a tree house and ended up packing that TP up and down the steep ladder.

Elise had a good time despite her bored face in this picture.

Hiking with a bunch of kids.  It was beautiful and adventurous!

Fun swing! 

Crazy bent tree

This was the cutest thing that Emilia built. It was a mini-fort that she built in the forest by the cabin.  She even built a tiny little fire pit with a little teepee fire made out of pine needles.

And of course, I had to get a picture of our favorite smelly place.  Nothing says togetherness like using an outhouse with your kids.  

And, on the subject of outhouses, Adele was the only one (besides myself) who consistently used the outhouse.  I was worried that she would be afraid to go in there and would freak out to have to go to the bathroom over a hole.  I guess for her no flush = no fear.  The other kids found it VERY exciting and entertaining to answer the call of nature IN nature.  They giggled and laughed at going to the bathroom in the bushes and in the forest behind the cabin.

Llama Vest & Ugly Pants

I was shopping at Kohl's last week and I think I may have possibly seen THE ugliest pants ever. WOW.  If this is the new trend count me out.

The llama vest was pretty awesome too.

Family Photos 2012

My good (and very talented friend) Kirsten A. agreed to take some photos of my fam so we'd actually have something for our Christmas cards and something to replace the 2.5 year old photos on our wall.  She did a great job and I am so glad we got everything I hoped for!

Horse Class

The city parks and rec dept. sponsored a class called "Horses Up & Close" and I enrolled Elise since she LOVES horses.  There were 4 sessions of the class and it was really fun even though it got off to a rocky start.  The first day of class the instructor didn't show up because she got stuck in Florida due to a hurricane.  She called the parks and rec manager who didn't pass the message on to any of the parents.  So we all showed up and there was no teacher and nobody could figure out what happened.   The class was supposed to have 8 kids but since many of the parents were disgruntled and demanded refunds, only 4 actually showed up for the rest of the classes.  This meant that each of the kids in the class had their own horse to ride the whole time during the 3rd and 4th classes.  It turned out great for us even though it was crazy at first.  Elise hopes to take the "advanced" class if the series is offered again.

San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo is in a park in the middle of San Diego and it is very tropical and lush.  The zoo was huge and so amazing!  We especially liked the double decker bus tour that drove us around about half of the zoo.  We wouldn't have had nearly enough time to see all the things we saw if we would have had to walk the whole time.  

The hibiscus flowers at the zoo were amazing.  It was really a tropical paradise.

The kids wanted to get in on some of the animal behavior and had a little scratching battle.  Faces have been cropped to protect the guilty.

Feast or Famine

Usually it's famine.  I am talking about blogging.  Feast of craziness. Famine of writing about it.  Maybe that is good.  It seems like I blog about once a month, covering all the big events and trips and stuff. At least that is how it has been during the summer. I hope I can get back to more regular blogging.  I kind of miss having a place to come vent and talk about some of the quirky things about life.  It has been a long time since my IBV has been active.  I need to start listening because crazy stuff happens all the time.

California - Legoland

I have to admit I never knew what the big deal was about Legoland. I have a few friends who have been there recently and I wasn't really even considering this theme park as a vacation stop for us.  I figured that spending an entire day looking at legos could perhaps not be the funnest thing we could do in Cali.  Somehow I finally figured out that Legoland is actually FUN and they have rides and stuff.  Then I looked it up online and realized it was an AMUSEMENT PARK!  (No kidding!)  So we decided to go there.  We were trying to do some new things on this trip and were staying exclusively in the San Diego area for this trip.

Apparently there is a cross-over in Lego lovers and Star Wars lovers.

Look at our cute matching backpacks.  I made those for our trip.  So cute.  Someday my kids will make fun of me for doing that.  I just did it because I didn't want to carry all of their stuff.

My cute little fam at LEGOLAND!!!

I have to mention that my very good lifelong friend AMY joined us in Cali for our awesome vacation.  We got to party with her for 4 days and it was so fun to have her there with us!

I was just noticing that all the pictures I posted were actually of Lego creations.  You will have to take my word about they rides.  They even had some fun roller coasters.