Disneyland, Part Two!

Our second day, we went to California Adventure park, and all the new Cars land stuff was so cool!



Here are all the boys standing awkwardly in front of Mater:



This is the new Carthay Circle Theater restaurant, which we did not eat at because it is super expensive. But it was beautiful with the fountain and the bougainvillea trees in front.



Another new guy we had never met before is Dug from UP.





Possibly my new favorite ride was Luigi's flying tires, which I rode with my best buddy Ethan. He loves me, I can tell by his face.





Another awkward picture in front of Red.



I found this cool display of costumes from my for-the-time-being favorite show, Once Upon A Time.





Family shot!

Disneyland Picture Overload!!!

We decided to take a quick trip to Disneyland before Eric starts his new job and doesn't have any more time off. So we tacked on a few days to our already planned trip to Vegas, and flew to California.

Before we even went into the park, the boys were SOOO excited to be there.





We spent the first half day in downtown Disney. Then on our first real day, we went to the Disneyland Park.



It was not crowded at all, and we loved not being packed in or rushed.





We met Merida, who the boys call "Brave," and she showed them how to shoot a bow. They will still tell you all the right steps if you ask them.





In Tomorrowland, Will and Luke both virtually got to be Ironman...



...and we met Thor.



Here is a super awful picture of me and the boys in front of the castle. I really need a haircut.



Luke and Dylan were little best buds in the park, and held hands in a lot of the lines.





We sent the boys with their Aunt and Uncle on the teacups ride, because neither Eric or I like to be dizzy. Thanks guys!



And we sat and watched the show in the Golden Horseshoe, with a giant ice cream sunday, which I have always wanted from there.

My Mother's Day Present to Myself

We got our pictures taken right after we got back from our trip to Costa Rica by Brody Dezember Photography Studio. I thought they did a great job and I 'm so happy with how they turned out!











These are the five that I chose to get the file of. There were actually tons that I would have loved to get, but had to narrow it down somehow.

They boys also got me some lilies to plant around the fire pit for Mother's Day.

Annual Cousins Easter Pictures

I think this has become an annual thing because everyone looks so nice in their new clothes. This year we did not get new clothes for our boys, so we are more casual. Or we just ruined the picture for everyone else. Sorry! Here are my favorites.

There is not a single one where everyone looks good, but that's what you get with this crowd. I love Will's face where his smile is very saggy, and looks a lot more like a grimace.

Train Sunday

We went into Toys R Us on saturday and found out that the Cars Wood Collection was being discontinued. We love these toys because they fit with the standard train sets, and we already have a ton of track pieces. We've been buying these cars for like a year now, whenever we see a cool one or they go on sale, and then save them for a holiday or a reward. Well, since we knew we wouldn't be able to find them anymore (and they were all 40% off), we spent all day on Saturday driving around to different Toys R Us stores to find all the sets we still wanted. We finally hit the jackpot at one store that was not cleaned out yet. So after all that hard work, we built an extensive track with our new fun toys.

The track stayed up for a few days and the boys had a ball playing with it.

Luke was like a Babyzilla, knocking down pieces of track every time he moved. He needs a wider-spread track.

This one is one of our new scores: Tow Mater's Yard. Wills had Mater catching the bad cars and putting them in jail. I think it's a little crowded in there.

Don't worry, we only gave the boys a couple and the rest are saved for birthdays or good boys.

Family Reunion 2011

I just realized when looking in some old draft posts that I never posted these pictures from the family reunion in August. So without further ado, here ya go.

The boys favorite thing to do is go down to the river and throw rocks in the water.

You should not hold peanut butter crackers under you arm while walking in hot Idaho, or you will end up with an unwanted cracker wrapper mark on your arm.

This is Wills. Kinda reminds me of this lovely self portrait, but with a shirt on.

Some things I want to remember about our trip this year:

Instead of bringing a tent, we decided to stay in Eric's parent's trailer. When we got out a black sleeping bag for Wills, he said, "Don't put me in the trash!"

He would talk about the sun being up or down to decide if we needed to be awake or asleep. Every morning, the second he woke up he would announce, "The sun's up!"

On the drive home, he noticed a lot of mountains with letters on them, and he told us there needed to be letters on this mountain that say camping and that mountain that say home.

Wills had his own little bed and Luke slept in the big bed with us. In the middle of the night, I vaguely remember him rolling all around and pushing against the side of the tent trailer. Then all of a sudden, he started crying really loudly, and Eric calmed him down and we all went back to sleep. In the morning, I found out that the edge of the tent trailer is not actually attached to the bed, just held in place by elastic, and with Luke pushing against the side, he actually fell OUT of the trailer onto the ground. Eric just reached his arm through the hole and dragged Luke back up through the hole into the bed again.

Christmas 2011

Our Christmas was off to a rocky start this year. Luke didn't want to be awake, and the only thing that got him to stop crying was the promis of candy in his stocking.

Here he is excited about the candy.

I don't want to bore anyone with tons of present opening or a list of what we got, but it was a good year. The boys were very spoiled with all of their loot.

Our living room tree that we decorated with gingerbread men.

Merry Christmas!