March: Spring Break- Legoland and Sea World

Unfortunately, I don't have a great memory. Honestly,  I can barely remember this trip we took to California for spring break back in March... sad, right?! My bad memory is why I need to blog about things as they are happening or soon after!

Once we got to California, we stopped right away to let the kids burn off some energy at the beach. 

It was so cold for us Arizonians! I guess we are spoiled with water that is bath temperature...

We found a cool little hole in the wall pizza joint to eat at for dinner.

 It was yummy, but we were all freezing! That wind coming off the ocean was not even close to warm!

The next day we went to SeaWorld! Seeing Shamu poop underneath the water seemed to be the highlight of the day. 

Justin and I rode The Manta rollercoaster, which was super fun! The kids were super bummed that neither of them were big enough to ride it.

Mason was there too! He fought his nap for the majority of the day and finally gave up and passed out.

Ellie was star struck and SO excited to see Elmo. She loves Elmo.

They had this huge jelly or water- filled jumping area for the kids and they had SO much fun wearing themselves out in there. That's Ethan face planted onto the mat. 

We finished out the day by riding Atlantis like 6 times! Ethan loved it and it was good bonding time between Justin and him. 

We stayed in a WorldMark using Justin's parents time share. We love staying in those things.... so convenient!!

Our last and final day, we went to LegoLand!

Our kids are fearless when it comes to rides. Ellie always puts her hands up and says "woo-hoo!" for the whole ride!

It's pretty impressive what they can build with Lego's now-a-days. 

New York and vegas were especially impressive!!

I don't remember what ride this was but it looks like it was fun!!!

I love how gigantic I look compared to everyone else...And I'm sure that people think I'm really strange since I scream and throw my hands up just to make it more fun for the kiddos. I'm sure Justin is so proud to be seen with me too :)

I think we stayed in Cali for 4 days and I'm pretty sure we wore our kiddos out! it definitely makes for easy car rides back home with sleeping kiddos!

Sunday Cookin' With the Kids

 Once up a time, before our ward split back in May, we had 8am church. Yes, 8 o'clock in the blessed am.... As hard as that was with a baby that was still loving his morning naps, it did have a benefit of leaving us that whole rest of the day to hang out and do things together as a family. Church was over a  by 11am, and that was so nice! We kinda started a tradition of baking with the kids every Sunday afternoon. Mom Smith bought Ethan a huge box of baking mixes for Christmas, which Ethan unfortunately thought was a lame gift at the time, but I thought it was a wonderful gift!!  I will always have sweet memories of baking with these two cuties!

 Baking mixes are the best with kids helping out. They can seriously do everything and they feel so proud of themselves. Not only that, but there is hardly any clean up!

 Ellie's favorite part is licking the beaters, of course!

 Mom Smith actually started the idea by making something with Ethan every Sunday evening when we would go over for dinner. I guess stole the idea and took it back to my house :)

 Did I mention that Ellie's favorite part is licking the beaters?? Here's another picture to prove it!

Unfortunately, we now have 12pm church which means I haven't made time in the mornings to continue on our tradition. I think I still need to make time for it though...I love those memories!!

Gymnastics Fun

I don't remember what the special occasion was but there was one day in April where the kids had an early release day and so my neighbor, Angie, and I decided to bring our kids to this really cool gymnastics place for open gym time. The kids had a blast!

Tripp and Ellie are just two peas in a pod and usually spend the majority of their time together. They had fun jumping into the pit and it was funny watching them work themselves out of it!Talk about a work out!

 Swinging off the rope with help from Angie...

 This sweet guy was content to just sit there and watch the chaos around him. 

 Ethan found some friends and had fun dunking the basketball.

I had forgotten about this place until I saw these pictures and since it is now approximately *460 degrees outside, I should take the kids here again! :)

Daddy Son Date and Bicycle Rides

And here begins my attempt at getting all caught up on our lives! I've told myself, no painting furniture, no house decorating, no novel reading and no more late night projects until I get caught up!

These pictures are going back to February. I just downloaded all of Justin's pictures off of his phone and found some gems! 

Justin tries to take Ethan out on a Daddy, Son date (or a Daddy Sun-day as Ethan accidentally calls it) whenever he can and on this particular date they had a blast going to Golf Land and doing all the activities there. Racing go-karts, putt putting, and arcade games...what more could a little boy ask for?! 

 I know Justin would love to take our children out for one on one time more often than he does, but unfortunately his crazy travel/work schedule doesn't allow it too often. I guess when he is home he wants to take me out and let's be honest, usually by the end of a week home alone with 3 kids...I'm always ready for a date night! I know that Justin treasures these special moments he gets to spend with them... he is such a good daddy and these kids just adore him. 

This has nothing to do with a daddy/son date but these pictures of Mason , also taken in February, were just too cute to not post. The weather here is so beautiful during the winter that we always like to pack up a picnic, grab and blanket and head to the nearest park to spend out days outside. At first, Mason hated this bike trailer and could be heard screaming through the neighborhood when we would go on bike rides. Luckily, he got used to it after about 20 trips and decided that it wasn't so bad....

 Who could resist that cute face?! I sure can't!

So Frustrating!!!

 I had the best of intentions of catching all up on my blog tonight but I was reminded as to why i havent been blogging much anyways...Turns out, my mini mac computer is painfully slow. Really, it is painful. I was searching for the phone photos that Justin put on my computer before he left for his work trip this week and I made the mistake of trying to open up a word document. Oh boy, huge mistake! I waited 40 minutes for my computer to get a grip and unfreeze itself. Seriously, 40 minutes. So now I am writing off catching up on things tonight and will save it for later when I either a) get a new compu or b) de-junk whatever is bogging it down. Dejunking sounds like the much cheaper option. 

But for now, here are a few pics from China... just to hold you over.

Forbidden City- Beijing....

 The Great Wall- Beijing

 The Bund- Shanghai

This could be a really cool picture if I knew how to use photoshop! Oh wait, my computer wouldn't be able to handle the program anyways :)

It's Been A While!

Since the last time I blogged we have been to China, Arkansas and DisneyWorld. I think it is about time for me to catch up on all those special memories!

Does anyone else feel like having 3 kids makes it near impossible to sit down and take the time to blog?? Seriously,  I'm even lucky to get a bit of mascara on these days. These precious days will pass too quickly, I know. I really am enjoying my time these cute little kiddos. 

Well,  I guess instead of catching up on my blog, (or exercising, or taking a shower, or sleeping) I should probably go get my tired, cranky baby out of his crib since he is refusing to take a nap. Don't they know that mommy's need a nap too?! :)