The Jedi Training Academy

This just deserved its own post. For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to experience the Jedi Training Academy--it is high on my list of absolute MUST-DO's at Disneyland. First of all, it is hysterical. They pick random kids from the audience and put them in Jedi robes and give them "training light sabers" and teach them how to fight. The Jedi Masters that "teach" it are so funny--all the adults are laughing the whole time. Well, all three of our kids got chosen this year (Isaac on Wed. and the girls on Thurs.) We were so excited!! (I think I may have mentioned that we like Star Wars around here.) When the trainer chose the girls he said that hopefully twins would restore balance to the force. None of the kids cracked a smile the entire time--it was pretty intense.



At the end of the training, Storm Troopers come running in and all of a sudden the floor pops up and here are Darth Vader and Darth Maul ready to fight! Each kid takes a turn fighting one of the bad guys. Can you imagine being four feet tall and seeing this guy coming at you?! I'm surprised that none of my kids took off running.

Isaac took on Darth Maul and did quite well.
The girls each took a turn with Darth Vader who said that the force must be strong in our family. They were throwing out twin jokes left and right ("You have a twin sister"...If you aren't familiar with Star Wars then it wouldn't make any sense to you.)

After all the fighting is over, the young Padowans successfully scare away the Dark Side and they are each presented with a special certificate. This was certainly a highlight of our trip!!

Day Three

We decided to put our "Park Hopper" tickets to good use on Wednesday, starting out the day in Disneyland and then hopping on over to California Adventure in the afternoon. We got to the park bright and early because there is really nothing to do in a small hotel room once you are all ready to go. Well, we were so early we were the first ones lined up at the gates and we got chosen as the honorary family to open the park!!! They gave us each "Honorary Citizen of Disneyland" buttons to wear and we got to sign our names in a special book that said, "We opened the park!" A few minutes before the opening, they snuck us in the gate and announced that the "M" family from "D, C" (obviously I'm not spelling it out for security reasons...) was opening the park. Then we had to count down from ten and we shouted, "Let the Magic Begin!!" It was very exciting and we felt awfully special!

From there, we totally broke the rules and ran as fast as we could to the Finding Nemo ride and got on it right away. All except for me and Lincoln--the Disneyland worker decided to exercise her authority and refuse to let Linky on because he didn't have on socks and shoes. Not that he can walk or anything. Okay...

Well after some more fun, we headed over to California Adventure where the girls and I had a special treat. We decided to splurge and we went to the Princess Lunch. The girls donned their princess finery and we met up with some good friends there and spent a small fortune on a gourmet meal sitting out on the lake. It was beautiful, relaxing and absolutely delicious (until I got food poisining later on that night...but you don't need to know the details about that.) The girls got to meet a few princesses as they came and visited us at our table during lunch. They loved it!

Here they are with Ariel (Chloe, Audrey, Ariel, Avery and Briar)

And Chloe's favorite princess came out at the end...

The scary thing was I actually recognized the Alice in Wonderland from last year. Maybe I am a bit too Disneyland obsessed or something!!

The boys had fun without us as well, and then we met back together for some more Grizzly River Run. First the men took the older kids while Kayla and I watched the little ones play. Then we took our turn and since the line was so short we took advantage and went twice. We played and played until the park closed and loved every minute of it!!

Day Two

We spent most of Tuesday morning in Fantasyland, revisiting all of our old favorites (I will always love Peter Pan.) The girls had a bit of a hard time on this day, probably because they were tired. I decided to buy them Grumpy charms for their charm bracelets because that about sums up the morning of day two for them. They fought over the strollers so much that we finally had to lay down the law and all three older kids walked for the rest of the trip. Things became much more pleasant after that.

Here we are on our annual attempt to pull the sword out of the stone. Maybe next time we will get it out!

In the afternoon we headed over to Critter Country mainly to ride Splash Mountain as many times as we could. Those who weren't taking their turn on Splash Mountain got to ride the Winnie the Pooh ride. And that is where Lincoln fell in love. He loved the ride. He loved the giant Winnie the Pooh walking around. He didn't want anything to do with Tigger, but he loved Pooh Bear. When I got off Splash Mountain after my turn, Ryan was standing there holding Lincoln, who was holding the new stuffed Winnie the Pooh Ryan had bought him. He carried that thing around the rest of the time we were there. It was so sweet!!


Here he is on the ride. We took him on it at least nine times!
Here he is asleep with his new little friend.

That night we finished off with the Parade of Dreams. No one does a parade like Disney!! (Notice the glow sticks--I brought them from home! They sell them there, but I, being the cheapskate that I am, planned ahead and only spent a dollar!)

Day One

Our original plan was to spend our first day in California at the beach. After all, we were only like 30 minutes away from the Pacific Ocean. But we got to our hotel, directly across the street from Disneyland and the excitement and anticipation started to build. I love Disneyland. I didn't want to go to the beach--I wanted to go to Disneyland. I could see it, I could smell it, I could taste it in the air! So on Monday morning, we woke up and trotted on over there and upgraded our tickets to four day park hoppers instead of three. I'm glad we did, too--now that are kids are all tall enough to ride most of the rides (besides Lincoln, obviously), we barely had time to fit it all in!! Next time we are going all the way--FIVE DAYS, BABY!

Here are the girls wearing their 3-D bug glasses before we went into the "It's Tough to be a Bug" show. I had heard that it was somewhat frightening for young children, so I guess I should have been prepared...the girls ran screaming from the theater just when it started to get really fun. I guess we will have to try that again next time. Although, I'm not sure the girls will--they were truly terrorized. It was hilarious!



Here is the rest of the family on one of my all-time favorites--Grizzly River Run. SO FUN! Lincoln is still too small so we had to do it in shifts. We probably rode it at least eight times while we were there.
You can get pretty wet--luckily it was hot!
Lincoln loved the carousel! He had an awesome first day at Disneyland!

I'll continue with more tomorrow so as to spare your eyes from all the reading.

Where do I begin?!

I guess I'll start at the beginning...here are the kids on day one of our incredible journey through five states and back all in search of the happiest place on earth! The two day drive was long, but bearable thanks to a DVD player, plenty of brand new movies the kids had never seen before, lots of fun kids books on cd and (WHY did we never think of this before?!) HEADPHONES for each kid!!! Yes, it was a nice quiet drive.

Okay, so some of my stress may be self-inflicted...

They sell these bad boys at Disneyland for $3.00. Yes, you read that right. It's a Rice Krispie Treat for $3.00. That's one of the cheapest food items you can buy at the happiest place on earth. So, being me, I decided there is no way on earth I would ever shell out $9.00 to get my kids some Mickey Mouse shaped cereal. I want my kids to experience Disneyland to the fullest without having to pay full price. So this was my little project for tonight--I maybe spent $2.00 to do it all. And now, I am going to be late for my meeting. But I was so tickled with the finished product, I just had to share!

Madness!

I wonder if anyone has ever calculated the enormous amount of time that planning and organizing a family vacation for six takes. It's been like a full-time job. Seriously--the hours and hours and hours I have spent just getting ready for this trip...I think it is starting to take its toll. I haven't been sleeping at all, which is not like me. I'm going crazy!!! STRESS!!! It would be doable if I didn't have all four kids home with me this week. But I still have to take care of them too! Just today we left at 8:45 to take Lincoln to the Dr. for his nine month check-up, then we ended up getting everyone flu shots (that went over well, let me tell you...), then took the girls to preschool, rushed home and packed, packed, vacuum-packed our clothes into the suitcase, tried to clean the house, got all of the kids distractions prepared for the two day road trip, ran to pick up the girls, went to the post office (should have thought to stop my mail while I was there!), hit Sam's, got gas and came home. Now I am blogging when I should be doing one of the other seven million things on my to-do list, before I go to my presidency meeting tonight (the primary program that I am in charge of is right around the corner--that is not helping the stress factor.) AAAACCCCKKKK!!!!!! It doesn't help that Ryan has some huge thing going on at work and has been getting home late every night this week--AND that he is already working on some big project for his semester that started, what? two weeks ago? I really hate being a single parent.

This will be worth it. If we all live through the preparations, I'm sure it will be worth it.

Gingerbread Thingys

The girls are learning about bodies in preschool and today they brought home gingerbread bodies. Audrey even made twins. I love how much the cookies look like the pictures that the girls draw of people.

Track off and away we go

Well, we are three days into our first track off of the year. Yes, while most of you are posting pictures of your childrens' first day of school, we are into our first vacation. Things have been going okay. I'll admit, I've been highly distracted trying to get us all ready for our humongous vacation just around the corner, but we have been finding a few ways to keep entertained in between packing and cleaning and organizing and thinking of all the stuff I need to do. We are on a huge Star Wars kick around here, so the kids have been finishing up the original trilogy on DVD and playing Star Wars a lot. The trampoline has been invaluable in helping me keep my sanity!!

This morning the girls made these fancy hats out of pipe cleaners. They came up with that all on their own! Then today, despite the overcast weather, we headed to a park with some friends and were surprised to find that the splash part was open! The kids didn't seem to mind the cold too much.

Here is a cute picture of Laynie, Angie's little girl. Don't you love her shirt?! Angie makes them and we will be selling them at our home Gift Boutique coming up in November and December! Stay tuned for more info on that!!


And what post of mine would be complete without a picture of my adorable little angel child? He didn't get in the water at the park, but loved the swings!

Roughin' it

The plumber we hired to work in the basement has turned out to be somewhat unreliable (as in he still hasn't shown up and the work was supposed to be done on Wed.) So today Ryan decided to just do it himself. Which means we have spent the entire day without water. That explains my previous post and my attempts to keep us out of the house as much as possible. As evening came on, I kept hoping that he would be done before bath time but it is now 7:22 and still no water. The thought of putting my kids to bed dirty absolutely disgusts me, so we decided to do sponge baths. I set up a little station in the kitchen and each kid had their turn behind the privacy shield I constructed. I heated water from our food storage on the stove and soaped them down--it helped clean the kitchen floor at the same time (I love it when I am resourceful!) The kids loved it and loved saying, "I'm taking my Spongebob Bath!!"

Fall is in the air!!

What a beautiful day! The air is crisp and cool and it makes me so happy. Lincoln, too.

This morning we stopped by the local farmers market and had such a fun time! It seems like most farmers markets I have been to in the past have been nothing but hand-made jewelry, new-age crystals and weird feathered wall hangings, but this one was an honest-to-goodness farmers market--abounding with home grown, freshly-picked produce. Of course I didn't have my camera or any cash with me, but we enjoyed plenty of delicious samples (fresh peaches!!) and the girls got their faces painted. We are going to have to get over to that place more often!!
After Lincoln woke up from his nap, we went for a long bike ride/walk (the girls rode their bikes, I pushed Lincoln in the stroller and Isaac rode his scooter.) We didn't really have a destination in mind and just kept going and going--we even off-roaded it for a while. We ended up being gone for over two hours! I was so proud of the girls! It was 65 degrees! BEAUTIFUL!!!

Luke and Chloe

We are watching Star Wars while eating popcorn and hot chocolate to celebrate Isaac's track off starting today. A few minutes ago, Chloe looked at me and said, "Mommy, that guy whines."

Observant, isn't she?

Or maybe she has just found her soul mate.

I love having little girls!

With Disneyland right around the corner I have been in bow-making mode, getting ready for the girls to have a different set of bows for each day we are there. We are going with a Minnie Mouse theme this year. I will be making our t-shirts tomorrow. Yes, I am a fanatic!

Hey Mom, look what I can do!

Lincoln has been pulling himself up like crazy lately. Poor guy, today he kept pulling himself up on unstable things and falling over. But he keeps on truckin'! Before we know it, he will be walking. Honestly, I would love it if he could pull that trick off before we go to Disneyland, but somehow I don't see that happening! Isn't he stylin' in his little red track suit?

My poor, deprived children

When we decided to close up our loft to turn it into Lincoln's room we knew that we would temporarily be out of a playroom. We didn't think it would be that big of a deal, as we would be finishing the basement soon and then they will have a playroom like no other. Just a few months with no playroom...

At first I tried to put all the toys into the kids rooms, but there really just wasn't room. Slowly but surely, all the toys got transferred down to the basement. But then we started finishing the basement and all the toys got shoved into the crawl space. And every time we needed to store something else, it got shoved into the crawl space in front of the toys (maybe not the best planning on my part!) And this basement project has taken a bit longer than expected. So what? Months now without toys. I mean, there are a few here and there, but not much. One of the girls' friends came over for a playdate the other day and had to bring her own toys because she knew there was nothing to do at our house!!

The kids have become quite inventive though! I have found the girls using silverware like Barbies--they just get different sizes for the Dad, the Mom and the baby. Today they had me drawing pictures of Disney Princesses, then we cut them out and they played with those--they even used their shoes as the Princesses carriages.

And here they are a few days ago, playing with orange peels. Hey, we are just like the pioneers around here! Who needs dolls when you have...refuse?

The good news is, now that Ryan has started school again we are just hiring contractors to finish most of the rest of the basement. So the playroom to end all playrooms will come to fruition soon enough. Then all the toys will be back out of the crawl space and it will be like Christmas morning at our house every day for MONTHS!

"Callipitters" and "Buttafwies"

The girls are really enjoying preschool. It is so cute to hear them talk about what they have learned. They are just finishing up a unit on Butterflies--but both of them have a hard time saying caterpillars and so they've been talking a lot about "callipitters." I'm starting to have a hard time remembering the way it's supposed to be said! And Audrey has difficulty saying her "L's" too--so it's "buttafwies." They painted little egg cartons to look like caterpillars and then put them into their paper bag chrysalis (I don't know how to make that word plural!) Every day we are checking them and any day now (next Thursday to be exact) they will turn into butterflies! (Their teacher secretly sent the butterflies home so we can make the switch.) The picture shows them holding some butterflies they painted today. At snack time, they drank nectar (apple juice) through straws with flowers on them--just like butterflies do! Their teacher is so creative!

Another thing I have loved, besides the sudden quiet in the house every Tuesday and Thursday, is listening to the girls sing. Last night, Audrey laid in bed singing to herself for about an hour. She sang "Five Little Ducks" all the way through and each time the little ducks came "waddawing back" I wanted to burst out laughing. It was so adorable. I wanted to try to sneak some video footage of her, but I knew if she even heard me coming she would stop. I will just have to remember it...which is why I am blogging it! :)

Enjoying the mountain air

Today we decided to head up into the mountains with some friends to enjoy Labor Day. We had a great time hiking and then enjoyed a picnic lunch near a little stream. As usual, I was practicing my budding photography skills. One day I will get a decent family picture of us, I swear!! Here are the menfolk toting the babies. Angie and I had to tote the food and water, so I really think the men had it a bit easier!
Cute Linky loves his backpack!
Ryan and most of the kids before we got started. And yes, I am fully aware that Audrey's shirt is highly immodest...somehow I didn't realize she had grown out of that shirt until we got there! (And I don't get how these girls are identical twins but Audrey's shirt shows half of her belly and Chloe's doesn't!!) The picture shows Audrey, Jacob (Audrey's future husband, as she never fails to remind him), Isaac, little Ryan, Chloe (hiding her face), big Ryan and Lincoln.

Little Laynie crashed halfway through the hike.

The girls being forced to have their picture taken with nature. They really weren't in the mood today. And, as usual, most of the pictures are of the girls because Isaac was running off ahead doing his own thing.

This picture took major bribery!

Here is one of our attempts at a family picture.

At the end of the day...Ryan and I could have kept on going, but the kids had had enough (in case you couldn't tell that by looking at this picture!!)

It was such a fun day! We have decided we need to do it a lot more often to get the girls more used to it! It is not fun having to carry an almost five year old down the mountain...

Dude, I know you are teething but...

Look at what I found today!!! Lincoln just chewed the top right off of his bottle! It's kind of scary if you think about it...major choking hazard! Maybe it is time to wean him to a sippy cup...