Christmas 2009

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, when I was younger I think it may have had something to do with my birthday being in December... But now, it is to celebrate the joy of family.  2009 has been a very interesting year for us, we have had many life changes (and challenges) and are learning to roll with the punches.  Christmas time this year was so special to me because I had the time to get everything done, and still have time to spend time together as a family. 

I have to admit, I had a very hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year because we had just returned from vacation and it just didn't feel like it was that time of year yet! 

Austin had elected to spend Christmas with his Dad this year, and that had me going through more emotions than I care to admit. He has always spent Christmas with us and this year he chose not to. I couldn't sleep Christmas eve, Tim and I went to bed around midnight, and I found myself lost in thought about how this Christmas was going to be so different without Austin.  When the girls came in at 4:00 a.m. I had barely fallen asleep, but got out of bed and decided we would make the best of just the 4 of us.

The girls excitement woke me right up and I enjoyed watching their little eyes light up as they discovered they had both got what they had asked for, an iPod.  Santa also brought them jackets that have ear buds in the hoodie strings, they loved them! 

We went and picked up Austin Christmas morning, and out of all the gifts (with the exception of the Xbox 360 he got at his Dad's) I think his favorite was a bright green swimming cap! 

Who would have thought!

Every year we take the kids shopping to get gifts for each other, this year the gifts they chose were:

Austin purchased a 3 liter of Cola for his Dad, a Disney jump rope and little toys for his sister Leanna, he bought a drink cozy for Tim, goofy string and a Hannah Montana folder for Kaysie, goofy string and a beanie for Shailyn, a new bed for Navy, new bowls for Precious, a dust pan, and a coat rack for me.

Shailyn bought Austin and Kaysie a dream catcher, a lantern for her Dad, Precious and Navy special "Cesar" dog food, gripping pads, a butter holder, and a case for my glasses for me.

Kaysie bought her Dad new pajamas, Shailyn earings and a make up kit, Austin a whoopie cushion, and a shamwow, poinsetta flowers, a bath back scrubber, and a spatula for me.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we spend with my family every year, and we have a lot of great memories that come from these parties, here are just a few of this years:

Making Gingerbread houses...

A talent show, This year Shailyn played her trumpet, Kaysie sang the 12 days of Christmas, and Austin played a dvd of his school performance.

And then of course, opening presents! 

The grandkids are always first, and Grandma and Grandpa are always last.

Thank you Mom and Dad for such a wonderful tradition!

Christmas Programs

This year Shailyn kicked off the Christmas programs with her band concert December 16, 2009.  She started playing the trumpet the beginning of the school year.  Listening to her practice has been far from enjoyable for all of us, but she now has learned to play the notes which has made practice time much more tolerable.  It was so fun to go and listen to her play.  

Austin's school did a Holiday boutique this year and had all of the grades perform a short song.  Austin's class sang Jingle Bell Rock.  The entire song he was searching the crowd to see who came to support him, thanks Chelsey for taking the time to come and see him (especially since you were having contractions)!  It meant a lot to him.

The girls school did their annual sing around and they both did great. 

Kaysie sang the song Hot Chocolate from Polar Express along with My Christmas Tree. 

Shailyn sang Silver Bells and Skateboarding Santa, I wish the school would revise the Christmas program so we could have actually seen the "skateboarding Santa!"

Thanks Mom and Dad for supporting the girls in their performance!

Maiya Rose

Congratulations Chelsey on such a beatiful little girl!

Born: December 17, 2009

Weight: 6 lbs 15 oz

Height: 19 inches

Day 8: Sea World

The first thing we did was went to the "Believe" show with Shamu, still amazes me how they are able to train these animals!  The kids really wanted to get wet so we all sat in the soak zone, but we only got a few drops on us.

The kids favorite show was with Clyde and Seymore, it was hilarious!  The kids were laughing through the whole show!

We fed the sea lions, and this crazy little creature (left) was yelling at Tim for feeding a different sea lion than the rest of us.  We all were laughing so hard because he was just so funny!  The one that Tim fed was just a baby and wanted to play with his food!  He caught it and threw it in the air and caught it again and again!  Such a great time!

Since we were there during the holidays, we were able to see the Clyde and Seymore Christmas show!  We met Mom and Dad there and the kids laughed through the whole thing! 

It was another fabulous day!  A great way to end our vacation!

Day 7: Thanksgiving!

California Adventure, Thanksgiving Dinner and Disneyland

We started out having a relaxing morning and slept in, then around noon we headed over to California Adventure. We were able to do everything we had missed the day before plus had time to go on the California Screamer one last time.

Mom and Dad made reservations at 4:00 PM for Thanksgiving dinner at Buca Di Beppo, so we headed to dinner, which was fabulous! Thank you Mom and Dad for making this Thanksgiving such a memorable one!

 Towards the end of dinner my Dad told the waiter we were also celebrating Austin's birthday, which Austin disputed and told the waiter his birthday was the day prior. Luckily the placemats stated if your birthday was within 7 days of your visit you could still celebrate so after Grandpa pointed that out to Austin he was excited to have a special birthday dessert. 

After dinner Kaysie wasn't feeling well so she and Tim stayed back at the hotel while Austin, Shailyn and I went to Disneyland.  We felt so bad that she couldn't come with us!  We didn't get back to the hotel until around midnight, and Kaysie was sound asleep but she was at least feeling better!

Happy Birthday Austin!

Day 6: Austin turned 14 in Disneyland and California Adventure!
Happy Birthday Austin!

 

Austin's 14th Birthday started at 11:30 PM last night! We were just getting ready to go to bed when he informed me it was already his birthday in Utah (Too Funny!) so we went ahead and opened presents before we went to sleep. We got him a cell phone and he was SHOCKED!!!

 

He told us he wanted to be at the park when it opened which was at 8:00 AM so we all woke up early... He decided he didn't want to be rushed, and after all it was his day so we went along with whatever he wanted. We didn't get to Disneyland until about 9:00. First thing we went and got his birthday fun card which had $72.00 for him to spend on merchandise in the park! Disneyland gave him a badge that said Happy Birthday Austin and he wanted to make sure we all had one too, he asked the worker for 18 "I'm Celebrating" badges so everyone knew we were celebrating his Birthday!

 

Next, he wanted to do was go to Mickey's Toon Town, the kids all enjoyed playing in the character's "houses" and then we headed for Splash Mountain. After that we headed over to California Adventure and went straight to the Tower of Terror.

I cannot believe it has been 14 years since Austin was born!  He has added so much to our lives and is always trying to make others smile!

 I hope you had a great birthday buddy!  I love you!

Day 5: Universal Studios

This was our first trip to Universal Studios and we were all very impressed! The day started out with going through a haunted house (I can't remember the name), and proceeded to the Simpson's ride, the Shrek show, the Jurassic park ride, the Waterworld show, Backdraft, Terminator 2, and the Mummy ride (possibly more) and then we went shopping! It was fabulous!

Kaysie was so excited to meet Spongebob, she ran up to him and gave him a great big hug!

I also got a picture of my parents with Marge and Homer Simpson...

I had to laugh because as a child they wouldn't let us watch the Simpson's!

Shailyn got to meet Marilyn Monroe! 

Austin only wanted to meet Jaws while we were here, luckily there was a statue that we were able to go to.  Then he spent the majority of his money on 2.5 lbs of blue raspberry Jelly Bellies that cost him over $30.00!

This was one of our favorite days!  We all had such a great time here!

Day 4 San Diego Zoo

The Zoo was a more relaxing day. We stayed with my Mom and Dad most of the day and did a bus tour of the animals.

We went on the skyride and it was terrifying, it made horrible noises as it started going and it was higher than any sky ride I have ever been on. The San Diego zoo had some exotic animals like the koala bears, they were so cute! I wish we would have had more time there to see more of the zoo; we will definitely have to go back!

 While we were there Kaysie bought herself a necklace and had it engraved with her name and my phone number just in case she got lost. Yesterday's event of losing Austin had an impact on all of our kids, and all in all I think it was a good learning lesson.

After the zoo we went to La Bella's, one of my Dad's favorite Italian restaurants in San Diego.  We all enjoyed dinner then drove back to Anaheim to the hotel.

Day 3

Day Three:

DISNEYLAND!!!

What a wonderful and very frightening day all in one!  The first thing we did when we arrived at Disneyland was went to the hat shop and bought all of the kids crazy hats to wear for the duration of our time in Disneyland!  This was Tammi and Bryon's idea and it was a brilliant one!  We have a total of 10 kids on the trip with us and it adds to the fun to see a group of ten crazy hatted kiddos running around Disneyland!  The evening of day three was very frightening for me... For the first time ever I lost Austin!  It was horrifying not knowing where he was but luckily it turned out okay.  We had just come off a ride and were going down a path, when we reached the restrooms we noticed Austin was GONE!  I am so thankful for everyone who helped us look for him, and made sure the other kids were all safe. I am so thankful to Bryon for finding him!  Austin was terrified, but did the right thing and found a worker at Disneyland and let them know he had lost his family.  I am so grateful he knew what to do, I hope to never experience anything like that again!

Vacation... Days 1 - 2

This year my Mom really wanted to go to Disneyland to see it all decked out in the Holiday decor, so what better way to spend Thanksgiving than with my family! (minus Kim's family, wish you could have been there)!

Day one:

We drove to Primm, NV and stayed at Whiskey Pete's.  We left after Austin got home from school (about 2:30) so we didn't arrive until around 9:00 PM.  The kids were AMAZING during the drive!

Day two:

We drove into California, the Suburban died on the freeway... Luckily Tim was driving and somehow managed to get us to the side of the road without being hit by any of the crazy drivers out here!  Also, we were very lucky she restarted and got us to the Hotel, now I am just praying we make it home okay... but I am on vacation and am trying not to worry about such things :).  We are staying at the Hampton Inn, in a one bedroom suite, something we have never done before and I must admit I am loving it!  We have a kitchen, front room and a bedroom so the kids have all the space they need!

Once we got settled in it was too late to go to the beach like we had planned; so instead Tim and I took the kids swimming at the Hotel, then left the kids behind and went to an all adult dinner!  Tammi suggested we go to the Pike, which of course we were all for.  However when we got there, my Mom's face was absolutely priceless!  She looked completely terrified... The area surrounding the restaurant was what my Mom would call "a bad neighborhood" and it didn't help that all of the servers were covered in tattoos and piercings... Priceless!!  It all turned out wonderful, the best fish and chips I've ever had!

2009 Reflections

2009 Reflections, Beauty is...

Shailyn's Entry in photography:

This year Shailyn wanted to enter a picture into Reflections... 

The theme this year was "Beauty is" and Shailyn wrote a about how she finds beauty in nature. 

The above picture was taken by her this year up at Donut Falls towards the end of September.   

She was so excited when she found out she had won an "Honorable Mention" ribbon! 

Frightmares!

Today I took advantage of having some time off from work and took the kids to Frightmares! Let me just start by saying I absolutely hate anything scary so I have never had the desire to go there but the kids really wanted to ~ so I gave in.

Trying to get into the spirit of Halloween, we started the day off by going on the Haunted house and then the Terror ride. As if those weren't bad enough, they had 3 more Haunted houses I had to survive through. Austin is not shy when it comes to gooey looking creatures and I think he got a thrill out of my reactions. He would try scaring all of the employees before they scared him so we had all kinds of creatures following us around trying to get him back... Unfortunately, it was his weak mother that had to pay for this and Austin would laugh every time one would scare me. Shailyn surprised me in the haunted houses, she laughed at more characters than she screamed at. She was definitely stronger than her Mom! Kaysie on the other hand was more like me, her and I both had to get a drink afterward because our throats were so dry from screaming! This trip I let each of the kids pick one ride they absolutely had to go on and then we went on all the rides on our way to that ride. Shailyn picked the Colossus, Kaysie chose the Dragon (Not sure the official name of this one) and Austin wanted to keep his a surprise (Come to find out, it was the swings... the one ride I can not stomach, so unfortunately I didn't join him and Kaysie on this ride). As much as I dreaded going, I really did enjoy spending the time with the kids. They are growing up so fast and recently I decided I am going to jump on every opportunity I can to make their childhood more memorable.

Donut Falls!

Sunday Tim and I decided to take a trip up to Donut Falls with the kids, Shailyn is doing photography for Reflections this year and wanted to get some pictures of the mountains with all of the leaves changing, it was just beautiful and Shailyn got some amazing pictures!

Once we made it to the falls, both Tim and I were shocked~ apparently about 2 years ago there was a rockslide and the path up to the falls was blocked off.Now you have to climb up the slippery rocks to get up there, and since my ankle is still in a brace we didn't make it to the top but Tim did take the kids a little bit farther than I could go.

There really wasn't a good place to have a picnic near the falls, but we made do by eating on some large rocks. With the exception of Austin who found laying in the mud more comfortable.

We met up with Aaron and Becky after we were done with lunch, and let the kids play for a while.

Unfortunately our time was cut short because Kaysie fell and sliced her knee open. Poor girl! She is not one who tolerates blood very well, especially when it is on her own body. Once we got her settled down enough to see her wound Tim declared she needed stitches... (My thought was, of course she does... we don't have insurance right now! and this would be the third thing in the last 45 days that needed medical attention and we are responsible for 100% of the bill!) Luckily, when Tim stated this a lady named Modge declared she was an EMT and could take a look at it for us (Amazing Lady I might add!). She looked at the cut, and although it is very deep Kaysie didn't injure anything but skin. She could've used a few stitches but Modge said a butterfly closure would do just as well. So we hiked back down the trail very slowly, and finally made it back to the parking lot. Aaron was much wiser than I was and had a full first aid kit on hand, we were able to get Kaysie's wound closed and elevated her leg in the car. Kaysie is one tough cookie! After the blood was gone, she was fine to go down to the creek to do some fishing. Once we got there however the hill was too steep so Kaysie and I stayed at the top with a few of Aaron and Becky's kids and made our own fun. Kaysie kept us entertained by doing a one legged dance while Tim, Austin and Shailyn headed down to the fishing hole.

We had a wonderful time! I am just hoping one day we can have an adventure without an injury!