Utah Trip

Janel was going through the temple for her first time, so Shaun and I headed to Utah for the weekend. We decided to bring Miley with us for a couple of reasons. 1)She still flies free. 2)She never gets one on one attention from us. That's just what happens when you are the third kid! 3)It would make Grammy's weekend at our house a whole lot easier!

She was a crack up at the airport. She did not want to be carried, and she HAD to drag her backpack everywhere. If we even touched it or looked like we were going to pick it up a fit would ensue! 

She LOVED the moving walk ways. Our flight was delayed a bit so we burned about an hour of time walking on them. She would get about half way down one and then turn around and start walking the opposite way on it. Everyone who passed us commented on how cute she was and we even had people getting out of their seats at the gate to come and tell us! She was being so funny!

Her first steps on a plane!

Daddy caught up on his Juan Pablo gossip! I'm not kidding, this is his man crush!

Once we got to Utah and got settled in, we put Miley to bed and played games with family! We stayed up sooo late and then Miley woke up coughing and didn't really get back to sleep which means I was up almost all night. That made doing a session at the temple the next morning, uh, interesting!!! Oh well, it was nice to be there to support Janel.

Mt. Timpanogus temple!

 After the temple, we headed to a luncheon at Hannah's parent's house and played some more games.

Then we headed back to the hotel to swim. She loved having her Daddy all to her self!

On Sunday, we headed to church with Hannah and Norah and then hung out at Ryan and Hannah's apartment since we had to check out of the hotel. We played some more games while the girls napped! 

(Can you tell we like to play games when we get together?)

Miley and Norah are saying goodbye to each other. They didn't really love each other, but give it another two years and they will be BFF's!

Shaun got to eat at Cafe Rio one more time, (for his second time in 2 days)

And then we boarded our plane to head home! I was excited to see the big kids!

When we walked through security, Gage came running up to me and gave me a big hug and said, "Oh, Mommy! I thought you were never coming home!" Talk about making a mom feel guilty for leaving her kids. Ouch!

And on the home front, these were the only 3 pictures that I got from Grammy all weekend!

Gage has been pretending to be a baby for a couple of weeks now and has been begging me to let him sleep in Miley's crib. This was the perfect opportunity for him since Miley was gone. He slept in there both nights! What a goof!

Maisey had her first basketball game!

Learning to dribble!

January - Week 2

 Movin on up! These two moved up to new primary classes this week. Gage is now in CTR 4 and Maisey is in CTR 6, and she just happens to have the best teachers ever, ahem, Shaun and I!! :) 

 And Miley wasn't about to be left out of the pictures! Love these three!!!

 Daddy's are the best for horsey rides!

 Gage's meltdowns have really slowed down in frequency since he has started at his new school. I'm not sure if there are a lot more kids in his class and he sees how they behave, or if his teachers do things differently, or if he is just growing up, but I've definitely been pleased with his progress. BUT, when he does have one, he is still out of control and this week was one of those. And it was SO.EMBARRASSING. We were at the Target Pharmacy and there were like three people in front of me in line. So I pulled out my stash of smarties from my purse and gave a pack to Gage and Miley. Gage dropped one of his smarties on the floor, and excuse the language, but all hell broke loose! Seriously, over a smartie!! People were starring as he was thrashing around in the basket, punching things, and screaming at the top of his lungs! When it was finally my turn at the counter, the pharmacy technician took FOREVER to check me out. Seriously, do I need to verify my birthday, address, and phone number when I've only ever had to do one of those? No I don't want to get a flu shot when my four year old is out of control. And, No I don't need to talk to a pharmacist about a medication I have been taking for the last EIGHT years!!!! Just get me out of here! Ok, rant over.

He had snapped out of it by the time we got home, but it just put me in a sour mood all day.

 This girl is seriously such a sneak! 

We had a fridge lock, but it only lasted 2 days before it broke! :( 3

 Sometimes she wishes she was a big kid and could join in the big kid fun! 

 My little cookie monster helped me shop for treats for the weekend.

I taught art in Maisey's class! We made name snowmen. They were very cute, but took a ridiculous amount of prep work. I will definitely remember this when planning future art projects! :)

The big kids got to hang with Grammy all weekend while Shaun, Miley and I headed to Utah. 

That post is coming up!

Great Wolf Lodge

 On our way up to Great Wolf Lodge we stopped in downtown Portland to get Voodoo Doughnuts! That was a great learning experience for both kids. We parked on the street and before we knew it, Gage had opened his door (on the street side) and had hopped out of the van! He was ready for his doughnuts!!! He didn't realize there was a car coming, which made for a very scary few seconds! EEK! And Maisey had her first encounter with a homeless person and asked lots of questions!

 Luckily we made it back to the van safely, with these babies in hand! :)

 A couple of hours later, we were there! Our room was ready right away, so we got settled in and changed and headed to the water park! 

And this is the part where you just have to imagine us going down slides, playing in the wave pool, watching the large bucket dump 1000 gallons of water on the splash pad, etc. We did get a few pics on Janel's real camera, maybe I will update this when she sends them to me.

 We headed to dinner, where Miley scarfed down a plate of mac n' cheese!

 The kids got balloon animals, and in Gage's case, a sword.

 And the big kids enjoyed the clock show and story time while Miley slept in our room with Daddy who was watching bowl games.

 It started "snowing" during the clock show and all of the kids went wild! 

 Photo Op with Rachel Raccoon

 After story time there was a kids dance party! Gage stayed and danced to one song then asked to go back to go to bed. But Maisey stayed longer and got her groove on! :)

 The next morning the kids all wore their swimsuits that Santa brought for them. They were excited to hit the pool again.

 She is all about the food!

 I took a few pics on my phone the second day.

 Gage and Miley both loved the wave runners. They would squirt each other on them.

 Maisey was a good sport and hung out in the kiddie area when there wasn't an adult to take her somewhere else. 

 Janel with the kids! It was soooo nice having a third adult there. The one adult to one kid ratio is really optimal in places like this!

After a full day of swimming, we headed home. Everyone was so exhausted! We dropped Janel off at the airport on our way home so she could continue on her trip. The kids were so sad to see her leave, and so was I!!

We had soooo much fun on our little weekend away! Thanks Santa for making it happen!

January - Week 1

 On New Year's Day, the Salem Carousel had free rides, so we headed down there. 

 The big kids loved it, Miley, not so much!

 She much preferred sneaking the bowl of grapes when we got home. This girl is always in the fridge!!!

We had a nice New Year's dinner with my mom and Kelsey and Brian and then we played games!

 The first was The Game of Life. Anyone surprised? I think everyone has hit their Life quota for the year and it's only mid January!

After we put kids to bed, we started playing other games!

 First up was Telestrations! Best Game Ever! It's a mix of telephone and pictionary. Here Janel drew "Break a Leg" and I had to write my guess down on the next page.

This was my response. I meant Tiny Tim, but didn't realize until the end what I wrote! Haha! We had all sorts of laughs!

 We also played another game called Likewise. We had to draw cards and write down the first thing that popped into our heads and then if we matched someone else's answer we got a point. My mom's answer for weird + dance was twerking! I didn't even know she knew what the was! Haha!

I told Gage he needed his hair cut before Great Wolf Lodge, so of course he waited and waited until as long as he could. He wrapped himself up in a towel and told me I was only allowed to cut the hair that was showing. I don't think so bud!!!

For the rest of this week, see the Great Wolf Lodge post!

New Year's Eve

We (plus Janel, Kelsey, and Brian) went tubing at Ski Bowl New Year's Eve morning, and we had the best time. We may just make that our New Year's Eve tradition! It was a perfect kids activity and a perfect adult activity!

We didn't really get any "in-action" shots because we were all riding together, and you had to clear out from the bottom of the hill before the next group could go down, but we still got a lot of other pictures.

 Before we started!

 Janel and Gage riding the conveyor lift up the mountain!

 Kelsey totally fell Home Alone style and we all had a good laugh!

 Maisey loved riding down the hill with Brian. Neither liked to be very adventerous!

 Maisey and I riding the lift up!

 These kiddos got free rides everywhere! Good thing there were five adults to take turns with!

 Maisey and Janel getting ready for their ride!

 Gage was hilarious because after the first ride, he wanted to go by himself and he wanted to be spun down the hill. He is definitely our wild child!

 It was such a fun day!

 Thankfully Grammy kept the two babes at home! 

The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around until it was time to get ready for our New Year's Eve celebration, which kind of turned into a joke!

We had leftovers for dinner, because we already had dinner plans the next two nights, and then we were leaving for Great Wolf Lodge, so I wanted to clean out the fridge. 

 Then we played The Game of Life

 and roasted marshmallows on our new S'mores maker we got for Christmas.

At 8:30, we pulled out Shaun's laptop to watch the Eastern time of the Times Square celebrations.

 It worked for a few minutes but the connection kept cutting out.

So we decided to You Tube a video of the ball dropping and Maisey noticed it said 2012 in the video. Not about to get gyped on New Year's Eve, she demanded the 2014 version, which took us several tries to find!

We finally found one and sent the kids off to bed.

In the chaos of it all, we may have forgotten our New Year's Eve horns and our sparkling cider.

Like I said, our New Year's Eve was kind of a joke!