California

(I wrote this on our trip)

On Friday we took Eliza and Libby out of school an hour early and we headed out to California. The girls did great on the drive and we arrived at our hotel in Newport around 9. After getting settled in, it was time for bed. On Saturday, we walked around the hotel for a bit, then went swimming. Yes, we went swimming.



The pool was heated some. Ruby and I got in the baby pool for a few, then she got in the big grotto pool with Brian while I warmed up in the spa. That sure felt good. After a while we got out and warmed up in the room. We decided to have our family pictures taken while we were here mostly because I got my braces off on Thursday and I wanted to wait until they were off but wanted to get them done soon to have pictures for Christmas cards. So we had those in the afternoon, so we hung out the room and slowly got ready for those. We went to Balboa Pier and had them done by Heidi Ryder--a photographer I found on Google. Can't wait to see them! Everything went well until Hattie biffed it in the water as we were running from the waves. She was a good sport about it and took it well. After pictures, we were greeted with a parking ticket on our car!! Nice. We parked where there were meters and we put some money in--enough for about an hour and a half--when we saw all the other meters were blinking "expired" so we thought they didn't need to be paid on weekends. I guess we were wrong. We are trying to appeal it, so we'll see what happens! We went back to our room, changed clothes and went back to the pier to eat dinner at Ruby's Diner. After ending dinner with their yummy shakes, we headed back.


But first, I took Ruby's bottle out of my purse to look for the keys only to leave it on the bumper. I realized it right away, but not before it fell off and was run over. So we had to buy a new bottle. And the ring on that one fell down in the bottom of the dishwasher today and melted. So Brian is out getting her yet another bottle. Hopefully our luck changes! Haha!

Today we got up and ready and headed down to San Diego. We visited the Mormon Battalion Historic Site. What a great time we had! We took a tour and it was so fun and so well done. My girls LOVED it. Eliza kept saying, "This is so fun!" It's an interactive type tour and you go from room to room and kind of go from location to location learning about the march of the Mormon Battalion. At the end, we had our picture taken and the girls panned for "gold", learned how a brick was made, used a hand pump to get water and so on. We are so glad we went there--it was a fun time.








From there, we went to the San Diego Temple and walked around the grounds.




On the way back, we stopped at Crystal Cove Beach and the girls (and Brian) got their feet wet in the ocean.

(best photo I could get in the dark!)
I volunteered to hold Ruby since there was no way I was getting in the cold water!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving started for me with an early morning hike. I was home in time to watch our traditional Macy's Thankgiving Day Parade. We love watching that parade as we get ready for the day. I had made a couple dishes the day before, so I just had one thing to make that morning. We had Thanksgiving at Brian's parents' this year. Last minute I made some fun place cards along with a little "ice breaker" type of game. Food was yummy as always. If I could remember to document right after the event I wouldn't forget everything! And I don't have pictures because all of them were lost due to an unnamed child who hit all the right buttons on the computer to delete them forever. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we met up with my brother Brian and his family and my parents at a park in Surprise. The kids played, we had lunch and dessert and visited.

Ellie's Circus Party

A while back Eliza helped Ellie decide to do a circus theme for her birthday party. So I went to work on an invitation and last Tuesday was the big day. We ended up doing her party in our garage. We were going to do it outside, but it was very cold and one of our sprinklers decided to malfunction and stayed for a LONG time creating practically a lake in our backyard. So to prevent any accidents falling in the water, we set everything up in the garage. It worked well and contained the mess and the kids!

When the kids arrived, we fed them some mini corn dogs and French fries and Kool-Aid.


Then we started the games. First they tried to be the first to eat a donut off a string.





Then they tossed bean bags into buckets and then tried to pin the nose on the clown. Eliza drew the clown for us and did a terrific job! I told her it would have taken me hours to get the poster done when she did it in just a few minutes.



The kids seemed to enjoy all the games, but they were done in way less time than we had allowed. So we got out Hullabaloo and let them play a couple rounds of that before going inside for Ellie to open her gifts.


That was a whirlwind, so I had my dad entertain them with a Simon Says.



We sang a couple of impromptu songs, then went back into the garage for cake and ice cream. When the parents came to pick up, each guest got a goodie bag that Ellie had so much fun putting together, and they also got a bag of cotton candy and bag of popcorn.

Later that night, Ellie said, "That sure was a fun party." I guess we did well!

Ellie's 5!

(We spent a lot of the day making cotton candy for her birthday party which is tomorrow!)

Today is Ellie's 5th birthday. I say this every year with all my kids, but I can't believe she is 5. She has kind of had a long celebration that started on Friday. Friday and Saturday was Ellie's sleepover with my parents. My mom picked her up on Friday afternoon and they stopped at Target and spent about an hour and a half trying to decide what Ellie wanted for her gift. She vacillated back and forth and back and forth between several things. She ended up with baby gear galore. Ellie LOVES, LOVES all things baby, so I wasn't too surprised. She got a baby doll, mini high chair, baby bath, ironing board, and more. She also got some silly bands to share with Hattie. That night they went to Oregano's for dinner and she discovered she likes spinach-artichoke dip. She also loved the pizzookie. Then Ellie surprised us all and actually slept the night at my parents'. In the past, she has had her fun Friday night, then wanted to come home. But this time she spent the night and had a blast. She was pleased with herself the next morning that she had spent the night. She had pop-tarts in the morning, then she got sad that all her sisters would be getting haircuts and she wouldn't get to. She was so sad and just wanted to go home. Bummer! So my parents ended up picking all but Ruby up and going to Rio Vista park to play for a while. They said they had a blast! I'll watch for my mom to update her blog so I can get some pictures.

The celebration continued on Sunday--just with cake and ice cream at home. I had a coupon for a free cake from Bashas, so we had gotten that. Well, Hattie thought she needed to look at it before church and splat, it landed face first onto the floor. I salvaged it as best I could, added some sprinkles on top to cover the mess and that is what we had. Ellie was a good sport about it considering what happened. I felt bad for her though.




Today was her actual birthday, so she started the day with toaster strudels for breakfast. She got to choose what she wanted for lunch and she chose those again. For her birthday, I obliged. She got to open one gift before everyone left for the day. She got "three-er" stroller. Like I said, she LOVES babies and she loves looking on Amazon for different strollers. When she saw a twin stroller, she would call it a "two-er" stroller, so she found this "three-er" (triplet) stroller and that is what we got for her. She's had fun with it so far.



She got to take the treat today for preschool, so she took fruit snacks and Go-gurts. We stopped by Brian's parents' to do the chickens and she got her birthday gift from her grandmother. She got a cute Moxie doll. She has enjoyed playing with that this afternoon. After Brian got home from work, she opened the rest of her gifts from us. She got her own Bubble Tape (I think she was most excited about that gift), a shirt and a crayon tower.


Tonight for family home evening we went out to the desert with a couple families from our ward. It was actually my visiting teachers and families and us. We roasted hot dogs and had some fixings, had a lesson and had s'mores. Ruby had had it about halfway through, but it was fun and the girls really enjoyed it. Mitch brought his machine that made animal noises and tried to scare the kids. They were getting scared, so I quickly told them what it was so it wouldn't ruin the night. It wasn't as bad as what Brian did--we were the first ones out there and in one of the fire pits, there was a mannequin head--like you'd use in beauty school, so he quietly hid it on the seat of their car for their girls to discover when they got in. I guess there was screaming involved when they saw it. I think it was a birthday that Ellie will remember for a long time.

We are so glad Ellie is in our family. She is such a joy and brightens any room she is in. She is very helpful and loves to do what is right. She has a very tender heart and if you give her a cross look, she just might cry. Her favorite shows are the baby ones on TLC or Discovery Health. She also loves watching 19 Kids and Counting. I think she may be a midwife one day or labor and delivery nurse and we think she'll have at least 10 kids! LOL She is facinated by what kind of cars people have and if they have a big car or a big house, they must have a lot of kids. She loves to play with her dolls, carry them around, push them in strollers and so one. She loves preschool and loves to learn. She also loves to serve others and share.

Happy birthday, Ellie!

No Training Wheels

Look who has no training wheels anymore! The other day I asked Hattie if she wanted me to take them off and she did. I think it took me one time running behind her in the street and she didn't look back! She keep saying, "I am a big girl now!" And don't you just love her outfit!?

Sisters

Just had to capture these moments...

Touching

If you want a good cry and to hear something very touching, listen to this: Conversation with Gary Ceran. I was doing pretty good until he talked about what he said in the courtroom. It reminded me of a video about a similar story that was equally as sad.

A Christ-Centered Christmas

My mom shared a book with me a couple of weeks ago and I loved it so much, I am doing it with my family. It's called A Christ-Centered Christmas and there are seven "lessons" that teach your family about seven figures from the nativity and as you talk about each one, you add that figure to a nativity scene in your home. We started tonight but had to do two in order to be done by the Monday before Christmas. There is a song to go with each one, scriptures to read, questions to ask and ponder, stories, activity ideas, etc. It's a really good book--I loved it and I'm looking forward to doing it with my family.

Shopping and Project

Last Friday and Saturday I've got to have a little fun. Not that everyday isn't fun, but a while back my mom and I signed up to take a class together. It happened to be on her birthday, so we thought it would be a fun way to celebrate. My aunt Deb who works for Seven Gypsies and another lady, Paula, who works for them, too, put together this class. It is the cutest, most amazing advent board you've ever seen. This is what my finished product will be.

I think I got 17 of the tags done that day, so I don't have too many left to finish, then I can assemble the board.

But backing up...on Friday, several of the ladies who took the class all met up for a day of shopping and fun. My mom and I drove with two other ladies we didn't know before but who turned out to be super nice and fun. We went to Rust & Roses and Melrose Vintage.



We had a delicious lunch and lots of visiting at Postino. From there, we trekked out to Mesa to go to Found and Domestic Bliss. I totally found the couch and chairs I want for my front room.


Cute, huh?! Too bad, we could trade Brian's car in and still come up short! Ha ha. It's fun to dream though.

We stopped at Mystic Paper. From there, we took off to head home but not before stopping at a boutique in Chandler. I found some handmade soaps and really cute headbands.

The next morning, we were up and at 'em and at Deb's house by 9 AM. They seriously went over the top for this class. The presentation for the supplies was so cute none of us wanted to use anything and ruin it! Everything was wrapped up so cute and thoughtfully.


We did get to work though and worked our tails off until about 6:15. Some stayed later, but I had to get back for a wedding reception. We did stop for a lunch that my uncle Skip made. Delicious! Paula did make the salad which was incredible, too.



Overall, it was a day of fun, work and creativity.

(Doesn't it look like we worked hard?!)
It was really, really fun to do something creative again--it's been WAY too long and made me realize just how much I miss it. Now I've got to get cracking to finish the rest of the project. Thanks, Mom, for having a birthday so we could celebrate!

Farm Field Trip

Last Monday, Ellie had a field trip with her preschool. Brian's mom watched Ruby so I got to take Ellie and Hattie. The weather was so perfect and nice. They got to "pick" vegetables, see some animals, learn about corn and walk through the corn field, play and eat.



They totally posed like that without any coaching.
These pedalcarts were SO fun. It was probably the most fun part of the day. I want to by them for around the neighborhood!