~ February 2013 ~

- February 2013 Highlights -

*  Spent a week in California on one very fun and memorable family vacation!
*  Trey had no school on the 1st because he had Parent Teacher Conference.
*   Jeremy and I went to Parent Teacher Conference for Trey.  Mrs. Elise Bown gave a good report for Trey's leadership and academic skills.  So grateful he loves school and is just a good kid!
*  I had to teach the Relief Society lesson on the first Sunday.  We couldn't leave for Disneyland until it was over!
*  McKenna had no school on the 11th, lucky for her it was Parent Teacher Conference.
*  I got sick and missed work on the 22nd.  Haven't done that in a long long time.
*  President's Day gave everyone but dad a day off!  Fun just hanging out with nothing planned.
*  Had Grandpa and Grandma Okerlund, Grandpa and Grandma Taylor, and Great Grandma Loraine over for dinner to celebrate Allyson's birthday.  So lucky to have family close and what a fun way for Ally to celebrate!
*  Allyson's 5th Birthday was on the 25th.  It was fun celebrating the day with her and watching her glow with excitement.
*  Valentine's Day was simple, yet fun.  Had a nice dinner with the family who I love so much!
*  Took Allyson to the dentist in Spanish Fork for her first cavity.  Not a fun experience, especially for Mom!
*  McKenna was invited to Young Women's week night activity.  She can hardly wait to turn 12!
*  We had fun watching the GVHS boys play basketball at the State Tournament.  Thanks to technology, we were able to watch their games all from my laptop.  Friday's game with a buzzer beater was fun to watch over and over!
*  Both McKenna and Trey had spring pictures taken at school!
*  Little Lottie loves to be outside with her Dad.  Likes to help feed the baby calves.

Allyson's 5th Birthday Presents

Allyson's 4th Birthday Presents

* Presents *            * Princess *

* Laughter *        * Smiles *              *Giggles *

* BIRTHDAY WISHES *

Tonight we celebrated Ally's 5th birthday with Grandpa & Grandma Okerlund, Grandpa & Grandma Taylor, and Great Grandma Loraine.  We started off with a nice dinner and anxiously went to opening presents.  Ally got some really cute clothes, matching pajamas for her Brave doll, Ariel doll set, and money.  We saved a few of our family presents so she would have something to open on her actual birthday.  After she opened her presents and had fun visiting, we enjoyed cake and ice cream.  She loved the things she received, but even more, she loved all the attention she got!  She loves to be the center of attention.  

Happy 5th Birthday Allyson!

What a Cute Birthday Girl!

   

I love this picture of my dad and Allyson for several reasons!  I love those great smiles, it took me several shots to get a good one of the two of them, especially for all the giggles.  The first picture that I took, as soon as the flash went off, Allyson looked up at Grandpa and said, "Grandpa, did you smile?", and tell me how did she know that he didn't smile in that first shot.  So several shots later, I finally got a good one of each of them smiling.  I think at this point, Grandpa was still laughing at Ally's funny comment.  Another reason I love this picture is the meaning behind Ally's pajamas that matches her dolls pjs.  When I was little, I would always have to put my dolls in their pj's before I went to bed, regardless what time of night it was, I guess I was pretty persistant.  So when Grandpa and Grandma went shopping for Ally's birthday, the first thought that crossed Grandpa's mind when he saw these cute pajamas was "Pay Back!"  

Happy Birthday Allyson!  Can't believe you will be 5 tomorrow!

~ Valentine's Day ~

Happy Valentine's Day!

Jeremy and I love these kids so much, they mean everything to us!

~ Heart Attack! ~

Since we just returned from a week in California, Jeremy and I decided to keep Valentine's Day simple this year.  We thought that it would be fun for them to know the real reason why we love them, so I put together a Heart Attack.  This turned out so much better than I expected, in all honesty it was a hit!  

I cut 14 hearts out for each child and then Jeremy and I split them up and put down our own reasons why we love each of them.  Much to their surprise, they woke up to this Heart Attack on their bedroom door this morning.  McKenna and Trey were really appreciative of it, and for Allyson and Tyra, they liked it but didn't quite know what to think other than they liked the hearts all over their door.

I hope my kids will know how much we really love them and that sometimes the simple things mean more than the big things! 

Happy Valentine's Day Kiddos!

~ Making Valentines ~

One thing the kids look forward as Valentine's Day draws near, is making out Valentines for each kid in their class.  This year I bought them the package of nerd candy and cards.  Trey's teacher sends the list home with everyone's name on the list and Trey goes through and picks out that special Valentine out for each person.  Where as Allyson, she just had to write her name on the card of who it was from, that way it is easier for the teacher to pass them out.  I felt bad that McKenna didn't get to do this for Valentine's this year for her classmates, but as least she was good help to get Allyson's done!

Here is Allyson's and Trey's finished products!  They are both so excited to share them at school!

~ Trey's Valentine's Day Box ~

After a lot of deep thought on what to do for a Valentine box this year, Trey finally decided on making Spongebob Squarepants.  I was so glad he picked this out, because I knew it would be lot easier to make than some of the ideas he had seen.  So with a box, two lids, a little electrical tape, some paper and tape, we got it all made!  So here are the before and after pictures!  

 He turned out so cute!  Trey was so excited to take him to school this year to show him off!  Here is a picture of Trey on the 14th, all ready for the big day!

- Day 7 ~ Disneyland and Homeward Bound :( -

Today was the last day of our California Vacation. We started off in Disneyland. We were hoping to do a lot today but by the time we hit the opening gates we were squished with people, it was crazy! Most of the lines were 2-3 hours long. We know now that next time we will do Sea World and the beach on the weekends, that way our last day at  Disneyland we can do more rides. But even though it was busy it was still way fun for our last day. 

First thing we decided to go do is see Merida from the movie Brave. Ally and Maddie were way excited to see her, that by the time we finally got to her, they were going crazy! Merida told us her brothers names and what they stand as which are, Herbert (the leader), Hemish (the quite one), Harry (the hungry one).  Merida was so cute and she talked just like she does in the movie, and she was really good at speaking like her too! 

After Merida we decided to go find Tangled, but the wait time was 90 minuets. So sadly we walked away from Tangled:( , so instead we decided to go see Minnie and Mickey and tour each of their houses.  Wow, they really do put lots of work and detail into those houses! The funniest part of seeing Mickey, was Tyra gave him a kiss on the nose as we told him good bye!

After Toon Town we all decided to let the kids pick out their souveiners.  We left Disneyland and went to the World of Disney store.  McKenna got a Mickey mouse necklace and Minnie and Mickey figurine collector dolls.  Trey went to "Build Your Ride" store and got to build his own remote control car.  Allyson got a Merida doll, and Lottie randomly decided to get a Thumper bunny baby doll. (even though it is cute, she picked the bunny over a princess.)

It was about 2:00 when the last souvenir and treat was bought, we loaded up the cars to head for home.

We ended up getting home at 2:00 am and since there was a snow storm it made the ride longer.  We are way excited to go in 3 years!!!!

                                    We LOVE Disneyland but there is  no where like home.

                    

-Day 6 ~ Disneyland and California Adventure -

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day!!! Holy Cow was it raining! Today we started out in California Adventure, to get first dibs on the Cars Fast Pass.  We then headed out for our rides, the first one was Toy Story 4D. We waited in line for 45 minutes to get on this ride and the ride itself lasted 5 minutes!!  I can't really complain too much though, because this was the longest we had to wait the entire trip.  After we got off the ride, we hid for cover because it was raining whales and elephants.  Lucky for us, the Toy Story gift shop sold ponchos, so we were all able to take cover.  We waited a little longer for the rain to die down the head out for everything else.  The little kids and myself headed for the carousel while everyone took their turn riding the California Screamin'.  Then Jen, McKenna, JoAnn, Rod, and Trey, went on Mickey's Fun Ferris Wheel. I don't know why they call it Mickey's FUN Ferris wheel because they said it was scary.  All of them talked so big about the Ferris wheel not being scary, but they were the crazy one's thinking they would dare attempt the swinging chair versus the non-swinging.  So needless to say, after they swung around twice, they were ready to get off and knowing that they will never do that again.

That afternoon while Jeremy and I took the little girls to get them out of the cold, hoping they would nap back at the room, (funny thing is that the only person that napped was Jeremy) the little girls just played and watched a little TV.  Meanwhile, Jenna, JoAnn, McKenna, and Trey headed to Disneyland to ride Space Mountain.  I guess the line was long, but they held out and rode it out.  Luckily for them, they were able to get a fast pass so they rode it twice.  McKenna and Trey loved the ride.

We ended up catching up with those four, spent some time riding a few rides in Disneyland before we headed back to California Adventure.  We timed it just right to watch the World of Color water show.  It was amazing, water, music, and animation on the water, it was truly awesome.  After the World of  Color show, we all headed back to Cars to use our Fast Passes for Racers.  I took Ally and Trey, while Jeremy and McKenna stayed back with Lottie.  We used the baby pass, so this gave us two more fast passes.  By this time, Lottie had completely had enough, so Rod and JoAnn took her back to the room so we all could go one more time together.

In all our running around today, we were only able to catch up with Flik, in the Bug's Life.

Today was successful in the amount of rides we rode.  They were Tower of Terror (which after a six churro bribery, Trey finally went on it once) Space Mountain, California Screamin, Toy Story 4D, It's Tough to be a Bug, Flik's Flyers, Ladybug Boogie, Tuck's Ride'em Boogie, King Tritons Carousel, Mator's Junkyard, Cars  Racers, Little Mermaid, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, Snow White, Pinocchio.

- Day 5 ~ California Adventure -

On Thursday morning we got up at 8:00 and got ready for another exciting day in Disneyland.  However, today we decided to just stay in California Adventure.   As soon as the park opened, we could see the line for the fast passes on the Cars Racer ride was quite long.  We debated back and forth on whether to get in line now or wait til later, but the line seemed to be moving fast and we thought get it now while we are here, that way we can go on and move to other rides.  Plus, Eric had security after him with his pocketknife.  While he was at the entrance of Disneyland, the employees saw that he had a pocket knife so Eric was asked to remove his knife and take it back to our room. Not only were they serious, they had 2 guards follow him out of the park! After a while, we called him and heard his story we just decided to go on without him.  So then Grandma JoAnn decided to go stand in line, and much to our surprise our passes were good for the Cars Racer ride between 6:45 to 7:45 pm that night.  So glad that we got them when we did, or else we would have had to wait in the regular line, which would have taken forever.

First thing we did was went to the Bugs Life 3D movie.  This is so cute and it just is amazing how they are able to create such a show that seems so real.  Tyra didn't care for this, especially when the spiders dropped from the ceiling and Ally was afraid of the bugs that ran on the seats, but we all walked away laughing.  After this, they decided to go hit the "scary" rides while the lines were short.  They decided to started at Tower Of Terror. I do not do good with those type of things so I stayed back with the Trey, Ally, Maddie, and Tyra and took them on the little kid rides in Bug's Life, while Jen, McKenna, Eric, Jeremy, Rod, and JoAnn went on Tower Of Terror. They wanted to keep going on the Tower Of Terror but it was after noon and the girls had their princess lunch scheduled for 1:00, so there wasn't enough time to do it all.  

Jen, Maddie, McKenna, and Ally, were the ones that went to the princess lunch.  I am so grateful that Jen made these reservations so the girls could have a chance to meet and greet with Ariel, Cinderella, Snow White, and  Sleeping Beauty.  While the girls were eating their lunch at Ariel's Grotto, Trey and I went and met up with a couple of characters like Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Donald Duck, and then he rode King Titon's carousel.  It worked out good that he and I were together so Rod, JoAnn, Eric and Jeremy could go get in on the Screamin' California ride.  I have to say that I got some funny pictures of those four on the countdown before the ride blasts off.

After the girls were done they decided to catch up on all the rides, so they went on Screamin' California once again with everyone else. After that, McKenna, Trey, JoAnn, Rod, and Jen went on Mickey's Swinging Ferris Wheel. This ride was crazy, they sat in a swinging cart versus the non-swinging.  They were all really really glad to get off, in fact, Jen said that this was the worst ride that she had ever been on.   

We spent the rest of the day in Cars Land and Bug's Life.  By now it was nearing 5:00 pm, so we decided to go to Buena Vista street to watch the Pixar Parade. I just love the parades that Disney puts on.  The music, the dancers, the characters are all so cute.  Even the light post spray bubbles to add to the atmosphere.  We ended up grabbing a little bite to eat and then went and got in on our fast pass for Cars.  This by far was my favorite ride.  It puts six of you in a car and takes you through Radiator Springs; it feels like you are right in the movie.  Before you know it, they have two cars lined up and you are racing up and down through the hills of Radiator Springs.  It takes your breathe away, but I loved every minute of it!

Today we were able to ride the following rides:  Cars Racers, Screamin' Californina, King Triton's Carousel, Monsters, Tower of Terror, Heimlich's Chew Chew Train, Lady Bug, Maters Junkyard Jamboree, Soarin' over California, Goofy's Sky School, Jumpin' Jellyfish, Little Mermaid, Mickey's Fun Wheel.

 We were able to meet Ariel, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Buzz Lightyear, Donald Duck, Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale.  All so fun!