Disneyland Trip

This was kind of our first official family vacation with the kiddos. We have of course traveled to Utah for holidays and other family reunions but besides Utah, I would consider this our first big vacation together. And it was a TOTAL blast!! It was awesome to be there with my parents and siblings too! We seriously had so much fun and I feel like there was so much that we saw and did that I can't even record it all. But a picture says a thousand words, right? So here are a TON of pictures from our trip to Disneyland, California Adventure and the beach!

On the ride to California, the kids slept a ton and did great!

Stretching at a rest stop.

Almost there!

We saw Cinderella first thing after walking
through the gates! Kimbri was star-struck!

Jungle Boat Ride

Meeting Alladin (Side note: Olivia had a serious
crush on this Aladdin, hahaha!)

They were giving each other loves but it looks more like she was
strangling him, but I promise it was mostly love :)

I think this was the closest Garrett got to any
of the characters. He was definitely NOT a fan!

Dad an Kimbri riding the train around the park.

Worn out after a long day and walk back to the hotel.

She loved meeting Ariel!

StoryBook Land ride

California Adventure

We waited in line to see Anna and Elsa foreeevvver! Luckily they allowed one person to hold a spot for the whole family so the kids were able to go on rides while I waited in line but it was still a looooong wait! So worth it though because of how excited Kimbri was. And they really spent a lot of time talking with Kimbri, asking her questions, even doing silly faces with her (as you can see in a couple of the pictures) and Kimbri was so excited! Rick took a video of the whole thing and also a ton of pictures. It was too hard to choose just one or two so here is several:

Zach got Kimbri and Garrett cute Mickey ear hats.

Meetin Tinkerbell!

Cars Ride

Waiting in line for a ride in BugsLand

Grandpa sharing ice cream with Garrett

He loved it!

Tired, sweaty and worn out!

But not Garrett! Haha. Playing peek-a-boo
with everyone :)

The Little Mermaid Ride

He figured out how to escape his pack-n-play!

We spent half a day at the beach. It was a little overcast but still super fun. The kids thought the beach was awesome but it got crazy at the end when they were wet and felt cold and were covered in sand! 

The pictures from the parade:

Blowing kisses to the parade people. Haha!

He actually gave Mickey a high five!! And
ran away right after.

Toon Town!

Blowing kisses again :)

World of Color show

25th Birthday

Well, my birthday was actually a while ago but we've been so busy that I haven't found time to blog till now. I'm finally 25! Rick rubbed it in my face for the whole 3 months that he was 25 before I had my 25th birthday :) Rick had to study most of the day but it was still a fun day! 

We had just gotten back from Utah the day before my birthday so there was bags and suitcases and just stuff everywhere! All over the house! But I didn't want to have to do laundry or unpack or anything like that on my birthday... so I didn't.

Since Rick had to be at school I decided to take the kids with me to get some free birthday stuff. Bahama Bucks (an amazing sno cone place) gives you a free shave ice on your birthday. So we all shared a strawberry banana sno cone and it was delicious!! 

Then we decided to drive around and get some more free birthday stuff. My visiting teacher had told me about a few other places that give free things so.... we went to those places too! After all, what else was there to do? Rick was studying so we were just hanging out until Rick got done anyway!

Next on our trip was Kneaders. They give you a free dessert on your birthday. I chose the cinnamon roll. It was sooooo tasty! I handed the kids back pieces as we drove to our next destination. They got super sticky and sugary but they sure loved it too :)

By this time it was around 4 in the afternoon. We arrived at a place called Liberty Market which gives you a dessert to-go or if you dine-in you get up to $10 of free food. So I decided that I would order dinner for the kids at this place (because later on I got my free dinner with Rick). So we ordered pizza and then sat down. Kimbri and Garrett loved the pizza! I ate the side salad that came with it and we hung out there for a little while. 

Garrett cracks me up with his cute faces:

And Kimbri was enjoying her food but was being very serious about it all. Haha!

I missed getting pictures of the other places but after that I ordered to-go from Joe's Real BBQ (they also do up to $10 on your b-day but you can get it to-go, so that's nice). I picked up the food, which I was really getting for Rick because by this time is was almost 5 and Rick was about to get home from school. We picked him up on our way to Joes' Farm Grill where we also got some free birthday food to-go. I got their amazing pesto chicken sandwich with extra pesto. Ah! I love that sandwich so much!!! It is seriously the best chicken pesto sandwich out there.

We took our to-go food home and since the kids had already eaten pizza they played in the living room while Rick and I ate our free food. Woot Woot! We basically ate free food all day long! 

Then as we were finishing dinner Jessica texted Rick and offered to babysit so we could go out on a date. That was so nice of her! Since we had not planned on going out we were kind of at a loss of what to do. So we ended up just going to JcPenny to look at shoes (Rick reeeallly needs new shoes) and we just walked around with out kids, getting to hold hands and just talk. It was awesome. 

On our way home we stopped at Goodwill. We like to stop there occasionally and look through their games because they always have way good deals on them and we love to play games! So it's perfect! We bought Connect Four, and the kids have loved it. They obviously don't know how to play but they sure love putting the coin type things in and watching them slide down.

I snapped a few pictures of the sun setting with these cool-looking clouds on our way home. It was a fun birthday! And now I'm one year older and hopefully wiser too ;-)

End of May

I can't believe how fast the month of May flew by! Wow, it's almost June. That means a lot of fun things are about to happen! Trip to Utah, Utah Valley Half Marathon, Rick gets out of school, Olivia coming back to Arizona with us, and a trip to California! Wahoo! I'm soooo excited :)

Here are some pics from this month that I wanted to have on our blog so I figured I'd wrap up the month with the pics I haven't blogged about yet:

We are often in dress up clothes around our house... and by "we" I really mean Kimbri. She loves to play dress up.

And Garrett loves to read! He is slightly obsessed with the Finding Nemo books we have and could probably look at them all day long. Here he is chillin' on the couch reading his book:

The last couple of days he has been wanting to sit on my lap and have me read books to him all day long. He's always loved for me to read books to him, but would usually sit and look at them himself sometimes too. But not recently! He will bring me a book, hand it to me and start to walk toward the couch, looking back over his shoulder to make sure I'm following him so that I will read it to him. Haha! He is so funny! And did I mention he gets super mad if I can't drop what I'm doing at the exact moment he wants to read? He will literally fall to the floor in tears. And it's not that I don't read ALL THE TIME with him... because I totally do! This little guy could just read and read and read forever and never get sick of it :) I love him!

Another favorite thing around our house is raspberries!

Here is Garrett, shoveling rasberries into his mouth! 

And while I was taking these pics of Garrett, Kimbri was busy putting them on her fingers! Haha! I guess since she does that with olives she figured, why not do it with raspberries?!

We also went to our friend Tessa's birthday party last week! She's about to turn 4! They had tons of water toys and a blow up pool that everyone loved! And the moms got to sit outside and relax while the kids all played. It was the perfect party for little kids! 

And Garrett was the only boy :) But he still had tons of fun! And he looooved the cupcakes.

And the little slide. It was the perfect height for him!

And for a couple last pictures to wrap up the month of May... the kids love to play in the backyard. It was kind of more like a forest this particular day since the lawn hadn't been mowed in a few weeks! But they found a stick and were being totally entertained by it for quite a while. Kimbri was reaching up and sticking it in the tree and probably making pine needles fall all over them :) I am so glad we have a backyard! We love it!

Happy May!

Walks

I was looking through the pictures I just loaded onto my laptop and there were quite a few pictures from when we went on some walks. A lot of times these walks happen when Kimbri won't go down for her nap, but I know she needs to because she's being really cranky. So we go on a walk and she is out in no time! 

And then there is Garrett who looooves going on walks, for the most part. Sometimes if we are out on a walk when HE is the one that is supposed to be taking a nap, then walks make him cranky. Sweet little Garrett just likes to be in his nice comfy crib to sleep. How doesn't love to be comfy when they sleep??

I love walking down this road, with all the
trees and shade!

And Kimbri totally fell asleep like this one time on our walk. She was leaning over the front part of the stroller keeping track of when we were in the sun and when we walked into the shade. When we walked into shade she would say, "Shade" then we walked into sun and she'd say, "Sun" and on and on, going back and forth between shade and sun, with a random, "Pinecone" when we would pass over one of those, or "Rock" etc etc etc...  It was pretty funny! And then all of the sudden she was quiet and not saying anything anymore. She had totally zonked out in the middle of it all! Hahaha!!

Playdoh & Painting

Kimbri and Garrett have had a blast with playdoh recently. Garrett will walk over to his chair and want to be buckled in and then grunts and points to the playdoh. He loves playing with it! 

See how excited it makes him?!

Kimbri is also super into painting. I think she would paint all day long if I let her! One day she painted while I was cooking and probably painted 10 pictures! Then I guess she got bored with painting coloring book pages and started painting her arm orange! Haha! 

It's funny because she's done this a couple times now and she'll turn to me and say something like, "Uh oh! There's paint on my arm!" - as if it was a total accident. Ha! No, no. Pretty sure she totally paints it on her arm like her arm is a picture to be painted. Haha! She cracks me up!

We decided to hang some of her favorites in her room. I obviously helped her with the hand prints one but the others she did all by herself! I think we have a little artist on our hands :)

Another Park Day

This day at the park was actually a couple weeks ago when it wasn't soooo hot! But I forgot to post the pictures. So here it is. We took Kimbri and Garrett's ball to the park with us along with a bunch of sand toys and the kids had a blast! Kimbri and Garrett loved running around the big open field, kicking and chasing after the balls! 

Garrett & Pearl swinging.

He kept throwing his ball and being so excited about it!

More recently our park days have been super limited because of how hot the sand and playground equipment gets. I guess now we are on to the pool days of summer!! That sure is where we were this morning with our friends! Yay! We love playing in the water!

Crazy Hair!

There was this one day that we decided to try some crazy hair styles on Kimbri.... she thought it was pretty funny! So did I! Her hair is finally starting to grow a bit more and it's fun to try new things with it. We also tried painting her toe nails, which she loves! But I am terrible at painting her toenails. Maybe because she doesn't get the concept of "don't move" or maybe it's just because she is a  two-year-old! Either way, we had tons of fun! :)