Disneyland

We had so much fun at Disneyland, California Adventure and Knott's Berry Farm this last week. Here are all of the pictures that I have. Enjoy!

4 states in 1 day! Whew, I am tired!

So, I am incapable of actually staying in one place for any length of time, oh, say a week or so. Everyone else knows this, but I never really 'fessed up to it until this trip. A few weeks ago I was talking to one of my sisters and my dad and we were talking about my grandfather's house finally being sold and how the siblings were headed up to Northern MN to clean it out and get it ready for the new owners. I had a half of a free ticket on Southwest that was going to be expired and no where to use it. I figured hey, Southwest doesn't fly anywhere I am planning to go, but they do go to Omaha. Before they went to MN they were going to meet in Omaha (random, I know) and watch one of my cousins run in the Junior Olympics. She qualified for the 400 m and 800 m races. I figured that since SWA actually flies to Omaha why not go and help them, see all my family, let them see Hunter and finally check out Aunna's place in Des Moines (as I flew out of there b/c they had tickets for $100 one way, hard to beat that). I found babysitters for Madison and packed Hunter up to go with me.

I flew in to Omaha on a Friday afternoon. Hunter had so much fun on the plane. He got to stand up in his carseat and eat the handle. He was so happy! Only problem now is that every time I buckle him in to go somewhere he sees the handle and wants to stand up. Doesn't take long for them to get spoiled! I got in to the airport and we went straight to dinner with my cousin Sammie and my Aunt Sarah. Let me just say, Omaha is gorgeous! There are green trees everywhere and a great downtown. We ate at Cascio's steakhouse for dinner. It was so yummy! We love steak in my family and definitely love places that have been around forever that are not chains! After dinner I left my sister to put Hunter down for bed and went to see one of my old roommates. Her parents live in Omaha and she was visiting them for a little bit. It was so nice to hang out with her and catch up. I kept her up until 2 am! Sorry Sarah! I haven't seen her for a few years and I couldn't go to Omaha and not visit with her and see her cute family! We both lamented that we miss Becky and can't ever get her home number to work! We figure if neither of us can get through it can't be a user error, right? The three of us had so much fun together in college.....I often think how funny it is that the three of us bonded so much. We all came from such different backgrounds and lives, yet something clicked with us. All I can say is that I am so glad!

Saturday we got up and went to the Winter Quarters temple for a session. That was really special. We didn't have time to tour the grounds or even grab a picture :( But I am so glad we found the time to go. As much as I love going with friends there is something special about sharing the experience with my family. Someone asked me recently if I ever get tired of traveling so much. I told them yes and no. Yes, traveling so much exhausts me to no end and constantly throws off my schedule, but I love my family so much that I will take every opportunity to spend time with them even when I spend more time traveling to see them than I get to spend with them. One of the many blessings of having a family is having people in your life that love you no matter what. They take all your good with your bad and just roll their eyes and love you more. I love all of my friends so much, but there is something different about a relationship with a family member. I noticed how at ease my dad was with his siblings this past week, he was just so relaxed and that is something that I don't see often with him, and realize now that I am probably that way as well. Anytime I got really stressed out in college I would go home for a weekend just to re-center myself. It made the biggest difference and I always came back refreshed and better able to handle the pressures and trials there. I am definitely less uptight with my family than I am normally!

We spent the afternoon at the Junior olympics watching Sam race. She did AWESOME! She took 3rd in the nation in her age group. My dad said 5 more yards and she would have taken 2nd. Not bad considering the winner of the race set a record. 2 min 5 sec for the 800 m race. I don't think I could have gotten around the track once in 2 min, much less twice. Actually, I probably couldn't have even done a half a lap, so I really admire her and am so excited for her. Go Sam! I was trying to get a picture of her crossing the finish line but I couldn't see the screen with the glare of the sun and had to settle for this one. The field that they had the JO's at was amazing! It was just a public school, but it was so nice I had to grab a picture! Hunter was so great the entire time. He sat on my dad's lap and just hung out. I love seeing my kids with family members, it just warms my heart!

After the JO finals we took off for Bemidji, MN. Most people don't know where that is. It is 2 hours south of the Canadian border, smack dab in the middle of the state. It is about 4 hours north of the Twin Cities. From Omaha it was a 8-9 hour drive. We got in at 1:15 am. Not too bad. We listened to a book on tape by Jon Krakauer called Into Thin Air. It was amazing, I highly recommend it. It is written first hand about the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest. It definitely made the time fly as we drove through Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and finally Minnesota. It was all worth it, but it was long!

We rented a boat the next day and trolled around Lake Bemidji. It was a georgeous day and we had so much fun! We bar-b-qued before we went out and and Hunter tried watermelon for the first time. He loved it! Then we just sunned ourselves and enjoyed a relaxing day on the water. I figure a day on the water is better than a day anywhere else. Hunter even got a nap in! I thought he was so cute! He absolutely loves the water and dug being on the boat all day. He got passed around from aunt to aunt to uncle to cousin to grandpa, I even got a few minutes in with him. He loved the attention! We cleaned out the house that night and finally got everything taken care of. It was a big job and my aunts did a great job of taking care of everything. We got to see all the sights in Bemidji, there aren't that many, and got Hunter's picture with Paul Bunyan and Babe. Bemidji is where the Mississippi River begins so there are tons of lakes and a great state park called Itasca. I used to go up there every summer and for many years spent a week with my grandparents all by myself. I looked forward to that week every year. I would go have a doughnut with my grandpa for breakfast and go to work with my grandma at Bemidji State University. She worked as a receptionist in one of the departments. We had so much fun together. We would go to one of the parks that had a swimming beach and play and swim. Every year for the 4th of July they had a little carnival that I would go to. My Uncle Steve would win me a toy playing the games and would ride the Tilt-a-whirl with me over and over. It was my favorite ride! I really enjoyed going there and have so many great memories. One of the things we got to do this trip was see my grandparents headstone. That was really special to me. It was a really fun trip and I am so glad I went.

Madison turns 4!

Madisons's birthday was July 8 and we had a party at Bounce U to celebrate. Her party was 2 weeks after her birthday, I know, I just am not that on top of things, but to celebrate her actual day we had so much fun together just the two of us (well, 3 with Hunter).
We went out to lunch at Pick Up Stix, she LOVES Chinese food, and then went to ColdStone for ice cream. She rarely gets ice cream so it was a big treat for her. She picked chocolate, big surprise there, with sprinkles. Yumm. Once Ryan came home we took her to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. She loves pizza and we love the free birthday pizza for the kid's club there. California Pizza Kitchen is located in this new outdoor mall Vegas has. The best part is the kids play area. There is a big tree house fort with a maze and (drum roll please) a sprinkler park. She LOVES playing there, so for her birthday she got to play for 1/2 hour or so. She loves the park and all the fun things to do and she always finds a little friend to play with and runs around with the biggest smile on her face. She had all her favorite things that day! I even let her wear her favorite dress. Why is it her favorite you ask? Well, since she has been watching all the Disney Princess movies she is all about "twirling." The dress I let her wear is her favorite for the same reason it is my least favorite, because all she will do in it is twirl (refer to her preschool graduation movie, she does the same thing in it). She won't sit down or pay attention. All day long she twirls. She won't let me tie the strings in a bow because then they don't flare out when she "twirls." My mom bought it for her when we went to Memphis for my dad's canoe race. We took her to church in it and what a mistake that was. When she went to primary instead of sitting down like all the other sunbeams she got up for every song and danced and twirled. My dad was in there and was so embarrassed! Poor Dad! Neither Ryan nor I can sit still so I can't figure out for the life of my where she gets this horrible habit!

Her party was so much fun. We invited all of her friends and just had a great time! They got to bounce for 75 minutes and then we had cake and ice cream and opened presents. It was a great party, and the best part was that I did not have to clean my house, come up with party games, chase down kids or clean up. I love location birthday parties. The girls that worked the party were awesome too, they played with the kids and made sure all of them had so much fun! It was great!

Madison got this birthday crown for her first birthday (thanks Kathy) and she wears it once a year on her birthday and that is it. It has been fun to have something special just for the one day a year. I pulled it out again this year and her friends loved it. One of her little boy friends was playing with it and I got a picture of him putting it on while trying to be discrete at the same time. I also found these awesome cupcakes at Costco, they have cake and ice cream in one cupcake. It made cleanup easy and only required hands to eat it! Whoo Hoo! I am all about easy. Madison's favorite part was the sprinkles. The girl adores sprinkles!

When the party was over we were starved, none of us had had dinner yet. So Ryan asks Madison where she wants to eat. When you ask her what her favorite restaurants are she says Costco and Burger King, so Ryan was expecting one of those two answers. What does she say though? Cheesecake Factory! I think this girl is spoiled rotten!

Teaching Hunter tricks

I get such a kick out of seeing Madison teach Hunter tricks. She just wants him to grow up so fast and play with her and he wants to grow up fast to be her. Hunter just adores his big sister. It is sweet, hopefully they will always be close and enjoy each others company. Here is one of my favorite videos of them together. I took it a while ago when Hunter was first starting to crawl and Madison was trying to be helpful, of course. I think she just wants to be the best big sister ever, and she is pretty close, she is a great sister. He is a great crawler now, although, he just wants to run. My favorite part is Madison in the beginning says "Come on Hunter, I know you can do it." She is always so encouraging.

Fun pictures

My sister and her husband, Colin, came to visit us the day we got back from Hawaii. He took some pictures of us and made this awesome video as a birthday present for me. Thank you! I wanted to share it because there are so many cute faces of my kids that I never get on camera. Thanks again Colin! You are in the running for best brother in law!

http://facstaff.elon.edu/cdonohue/aingechildren/publish_to_web/index.html

Hunter, Hunter and more Hunter

This is a post devoted to my little stud. He is just the happiest little baby and so incredibly sweet. I have been getting all these fun videos of him lately. He is just becoming so big! I can't believe how mobile he has become! Here are some great videos of him crawling. I took them yesterday and today he is crawling differently! Wow! I also uploaded one of his zerberts. All day long he spits all over the place. I get two or three showers a day by him, not short ones either! Enjoy! We sure do.

Rockin' out at the American Idol concert

Yes, we are one of those. We totally went to the Idol concert, and yes, we loved it! I have to say they actually sound so much better live. I had a great picture of our group and some of David Cook, but the computer didn't transfer them and they got erased :( I am so bummed, but I have Jason Castro!!!!! I know he kind of is a love/hate with most listeners, but I love him. Here is one of my favorite songs he did, the picture is crappy, but you can still hear him.

Family fun in Hawaii

We had such a wonderful time in Hawaii this year. We are so grateful that we get to go each year with Ryan's company. I can't imagine we would go very often without the company. I posted the pictures from Hawaii yesterday, but I wanted to add my favorite stories in with a few select pictures.

When we were waiting to check in and get the luggage handled Madison asked for a penny to throw in the fountain. I gave her one and told her to make a wish. I stood by her and she grabbed the penny so tight, pulled it close to her heart and wished to be a princess. I about died. It was the sweetest thing, and who knew that a 4 year old actually knows how to make wishes. So, for my dear, sweet little girl, you are my princess.

Hunter just had so much fun in Hawaii. He just took to water like a little duck. We put him in the first day and he fell in love. He also fell asleep, but that is a different story. At the resort there is a great kids pool. It is only about a foot deep. The kids all congregate there and share toys. It really is wonderful. Well, he figured out really quick that he could walk in his whale, so the entire time we were in the pool he walked around. Sometimes he would grab the black handle in the front of the whale and look like he was driving. It was the cutest thing! This is the only video that turned out, enjoy, he just had so much fun walking around.

My other favorite Hunter moment was the day we took the kids down to the beach. Every other day there were jellyfish in the ocean. We took the kids in the water and let them ride the waves and then we hung out in the sand. Hunter REALLY, REALLY dug getting dirty. He put sand all over him and then played with the toys. It got all over his hands, then he decided he was tired and stuck his thumb in his mouth. Now, did I take it out and say no,no? Nope, I took a picture. I nominate me as mother of the year......

While Hunter was covering himself in sand and then proceeding to eat it, Madison was building a little dam to stop the water (trickle) fall by us. She had so much fun and looked to cute and intent on what she was doing. Ryan helped her a little bit, which she enjoyed. She idolizes her daddy.

Hawaii Pictures

Here is the link for all of our Hawaii pictures. We had such a great time this year. The pictures are in reverse order, I haven't figured out flickr yet, but I wanted to be able to share them. I have so many funny stories to share about our trip so I will blog those when I have a sec. Until then, enjoy the pictures!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28609875@N03/show/

Last bits

Goofy sleeping pictures are my favorite. I went in to check on Madison the other night and this is what I found. I just cracked up. I can't figure out how her leg didn't want to fall off, but she slept all night long.

This is Hunter's version of "The Crawl." He shows off all his mad skills in this video, yes, that is my son squealing, not my daughter....He gets up in the crawling position, rocks back and forth, then proceeds to plop back down on the ground and army crawl to whatever he wants. He also growls when he gets frustrated....I love it.

Here comes the bride, all dressed in white.....

Parker and Jessica finally got married! Yeah! We are so excited to have Jessica join our family. We absolutely adore her, and we like Parker too. They had a wonderful wedding day, everything was perfect. This is our favorite picture from the wedding. They were walking towards us to come say hi and have some pictures taken and Parker got to hold the bouquet and I guess wanted to smell it. I got him to reinact it so that I could get a quick picture. It has become my favorite, so thank you Parker for humoring your crazy sister-in-law, and congratulations for deserving such an amazing girl.

Parker and Jessica had their reception in Craig and Kathy's back yard. It was beautiful. In preparation for the big day Craig mowed the lawn countless times. At least this time he had a riding lawnmower. For Ryan and I's reception it had broken and all 3 boys were out there with Craig using hand mowers to do the final mow. Ryan still complains about that....yes, that is probably the big reason that we have a yard guy now. He gets a yard guy and I get a cleaning lady, it's fair in this household. Anyway, back to the story. Madison got such a kick out of the lawnmower and Craig offered to take her for a ride and let her drive, she was a little nervous but jumped right on and had so much fun. They had to stop after a few rows and empty the grass bags. Madison was so funny, she would pick up the few grass blades that would fall out of the handful and put them in the garbage can. I kept telling her that is was okay if a few got away, but she appointed herself in charge of getting every shred off of the lawn.

Oh, the things we do....

Well, we are leaving for Hawaii tomorrow morning, EARLY, and I can't leave without updating the blog....we have been here, there and everywhere with lots of fun stories to tell.
I got so tired of looking at the hole in Madison's hair, so I finally took her to the salon and got it fixed. I knew we would be taking tons of pictures with the wedding, and hopefully a family picture too. I think she looks great, and I am finally figuring out how to style it so it looks cute. Here are some before and after pictures.


Hunter has started doing this thing with his tongue, it cracks us up....he just sticks it out and plays just happy as can be. I got him on camera after about 10,000 trial pictures. He gets so excited when I get the camera out that he just stops what he is doing and smiles really big. What a ham.....I was trying to get him on video doing zerberts with his mouth, he entertains himself forever when he gets going. But every time I try he stops. I have to sneak up on him and get it that way.

The framing was supposed to be finished on our new house this week. I haven't had time to go out and see it, but here it is with the first story completed. I love seeing the progress on it. Not much longer and we will be all moved in! Yeah! we noticed on this trip out that the house is quite a bit closer to the road than any of our neighbors. That means we get a larger back yard, we are super excited about that. We figure we could care less about the front yard, it's not like we use it like we do the back yard. And....we still have the handicap parking sign up on the wall. I think I might ask the builders if we can keep it since Ryan loves it so much, hmmmm.

Our new house.....

They finally broke ground on our new house....YEAH! We went and met with the contractor on Friday and got to see the cement slab, woo hoo! I didn't take a picture of the cement slab when we were there last week. Ryan's favorite part of the lot we ended up with is the Handicap sign on our fence. Personally, I dig the port o potty. We got the very last home in the neighborhood (which is how we got a killer deal), our lot was previously the sales office location.

They start framing this week and we should be able to move in at the end of August, beginning of September. We are so excited! We have a great house now, but it is just so cramped. I tell Ryan all the time that we are "stuff" people. We just can't get rid of anything (books, movies, cds). You can click on this link and take the interactive tour to see what our house should look like finished. We are not in Timber Creek (don't actually even know where that is, but it shows our floor plan). We are excited......I get a project room!!!!! No more sewing at the kitchen table and eating at the coffee table.

http://www.pulte.com/communities/nv/las-vegas/timber-creek/plans/3799.aspx

Blog templates

So, if you haven't noticed already I cannot stop playing around with the template on our blog. I am just trying to find something that I absolutely love. Any good ideas for websites that offer free templates????? I see all the cute ones ya'll use and I want some good ones to choose from....help a girl out!

Antics in Aingeworld

This week has been crazy!!! My kids have kept me rolling with all of their antics. They definitely get cuter every day.

Madison was getting ready for church on Sunday and we asked her to get 3 books to take with her. She looked up at Ryan and said, but Daddy, I need 4 books so I won't get grumpy. Ryan looked at me and we about died. It is hard to get your kids to take you seriously when you laugh at the things they do. So here she is holding her books and her princess doll that she took to church.

Hunter has been going crazy on his jumpy chair. He gets going on that thing and just has so much fun! Here is a video of what I hear all day long. I call him my little jumping bean!

At the end this is what he looks like.....

He also got his first cookie to gnaw on this week. He has been teething and he just wants to gnaw on everything, so hey, why not the biter cookies right? He made a mess! But he had so much fun and Ryan and I got 15 min of quiet time together. Pure bliss.....

We are so close to having a crawler on out hands! He is trying and trying. Today he started moving one knee, he just hasn't figured out to move his hands. He will get in the crawling position, grunt and groan because he is a boy after all, rock back and forth then fall forward a few inches. It works, he gets to his toys. Every time I try to get a good movie he just looks at the camera and smiles. He definitely knows what to do! He just won't move for me!

Parker and Jessica

Madison just loves her Uncle Parker and soon-to-be Aunt Jessica. They came to visit us a few months back and just kept us rolling with her funny comments. These are my two favorite stories from that weekend. Thanks for reminding me about them!

Parker, Jessica, Madison and I were sitting in the living room talking. Madison was playing with her activity book, seemingly in her own little world. We were joking around and Parker quoted Scarface and said "Say hello to my little friend." Even if you haven't seen the movie I can imagine you have heard the phrase with the accent. Madison just pops her little head up and as sweet as can be says, "I can say hello to my little friends." We about died. It was so entertaining.

Madison is just so in love with Jessica. She loves to give her hugs and show her all of her toys and get her to read stories. When they were here the last morning she went in and woke Jessica up (sorry!). They played on the tv room couch for a little bit while Parker slept in the den on the other couch. After a bit Jessica tells Madison that she is going to take a shower and get dressed. She goes in to the bathroom and about 2 minutes later, if that, Madison goes and sits outside the bathroom door. She starts calling out, "Jessica, are you dressed yet" over and over again. Parker said he started counting and quit after 20 times. If you have ever been around Madison you know how she will repeat herself indefinitely until she gets an answer. After her 20-some odd times she stops. Parker was so relieved. However, about 30 seconds later it starts up again. He said he got so fed up that he finally got out of bed and went to play with her. Poor Parker! Where was I, you ask? Sleeping of course. It wasn't even 8 o'clock in the morning yet! I didn't hear a thing. If children can have parental deafness, I say parents can have child (?) deafness.

It's Hunter Time

There have been so many postings of Madison, I figured it was only fair to show off Hunter.

Yesterday he was in his jumpy chair and started getting tired (he goes to bed at 8pm on the dot), so he folded his hands and laid his head down. It was so sweet. I grabbed the camera, but he got so excited when he saw it that he started jumping up and down and smiled so cute. At least you get to see his cute smile!



He just loves being a big boy and sitting all by himself. He will only play in his chairs for so long before he lets me know that he wants out and wants to be a big boy. He likes sitting on the floor and playing with toys. Could be worse, he could want to be held all the time....

Magnificent Madison

During graduation Mrs. Joy shared a name for each of the kids and how that was applicable to their personalities. Madison got Magnificent, I really enjoyed the description of her, which was dead on.

Peanut Butter & Jelly

This is Madison's funny story from preschool that her teacher shared with us. I was expecting her to say she had a little brother during Thanksgiving.

Preschool Graduation

Madison had her preschool graduation last week. It was so darling! They sang the parents a few of their favorite songs and each kid got a medal and graduation certificate. The song in this video is one she sings all the time around the house, and my favorite part of this video is how the other kids are standing still or sitting down, and there is my little girl dancing all over the place. I think it is about time for dance classes.

This one just has her being little miss helpful with one of her preschool friends. This just shows her personality.