Disneyland 2010

This year for Spring Break we went to Disneyland. We took Kaylee's BFF, Mallorie, and also went along with Kory's brother, Kerry and his family. We let Kaylee and Mallorie go off on their own so that they didn't have to do all the 'baby stuff and wimpy rides' that we were doing, so we don't have too many pictures of them.

Here's Josh, Sophee, and Audree with Tigger:

Audree bought an autograph book last time we went and filled it half full with character autographs, this year she was on a mission to fill the rest of the book. So as soon as we saw a character that she didn't have, we stopped to get pictures and autographs.

Shopping. This was Sophee's favorite part. She kept saying, "I don't want to go on anymore rides, I just want to go shopping". That's my girl :-)

On the tram to get to the park. This was our first ride in and the last ride out. Here's Kory and Josh:

In the boat for 'It's a small world' ride. They recently updated this ride by adding many of their characters (such as Cinderella, Mulan, Timon and Pumba, Peter Pan, etc) as puppets. The kids had fun pointing out all the characters they recognized.

Sophee and Jared holding hands so they don't get lost, even after we were already standing in line. It was just too cute:

Kaylee and Mallorie decided to 'grace our presence' on the 'It's a small world ride' since we happened to bump into them on the way over:

Cousins in Toon Town:

The well right outside of Minnie's house:

Roger Rabbit's ride, Sophee and Hannah:

Audree and Zach:

This was the end of our first day. Kaylee, Mallorie, Audree, Josh, Jared, and Sophee:

Sophee, Hannah, and Audree waiting for the Pixar parade to start:

The "A" in the California Adventure sign. Audree, Zach, Josh, Sophee and Hannah:

Kaylee and Mallorie:

Waiting in line for the 'Nemo' submarine ride. Sophee, Audree, Jared, and Hannah:

Heading over to the California Adventure park, half way through our last day there. Sophee was getting very tired of walking and needed a little lift from Dad:

Audree and Josh in a cage on the 'Casey Jr.' train ride:

Josh, Audree, and Sophee just outside of 'Mr. Toad's wild ride':

For lunch one day we went to the Rainforest cafe. It was super yummy food, with super large portions. Here's the Volcano Brownie cake Amber ordered for dessert. She shared it with all of us-it fed 11 of us!

Speaking of large portions, Mallorie ordered the Nachos. We had previously told all the kids that they needed to eat all their food, so they would be full until dinner. Then they came out and set this in front of Mallorie:

Kory and I about died laughing. Her eyes about popped out of her head at the thought of having to eat all that. Fortunately Josh and Kerry helped her out-and there was still some left!!

Cutie Patooties:

Not feeling so cute after spending the entire first day in the park (waiting for the tram):

They made the most of every minute there, got a little sun, and their feet were hurting badly at this point. Poor girls.

Sophee showing off her Mickey ears. They light up:

A self portrait of Soph taken while waiting for our pizza to arrive (I kinda' think she looks like her cousins Jessica and Lacey in this pic):

The little girls wanted to go see the princesses and get autographs and pictures with them. Amber and I went and stood in line at least a half an hour before they even opened just so that we wouldn't have to wait around all day. (Last time we went I stood in line, in the middle of the day for over an hour-not fun). Here's Aurora with Sophee, Audree and Hannah:

Cinderella:

Snow White:

Jessie:

Kory also ran into Buzz lightyear while I was off shopping with Kaylee and Mallorie. Of course Josh wanted to stop!

The last morning of our trip we took the kids to Goofy's Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel.

It was a buffet, with really good food, and entertainment for the kids. Every half an hour they play music and let the kids go dance with Goofy in the center of the restaurant. They also have a hand full of characters that will come right of to the table to talk with you and let you get pictures with them. The kids were so impressed that they actually came to us, and we didn't have to stand in line to see them!!

Audree giving Goofy a high five:

A group picture with Goofy:

Us and Pluto:

Belle:

Chip:

No Disneyland breakfast would be complete without Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes:

Kaylee and Mallorie dancing with Goofy:

Mulan:

Josh joining the girls on the dance floor:

Wahoo for Goofy!!

It was a fun trip. Can't wait to go back again!!

Why didn't I think of that sooner?

When it comes to putting away the clean laundry I have good intentions.

I have a pretty good method in place for the kids clothes. Once the clothes come out of the dryer they are immediately transfered to my giant folding table (a.k.a the pool table), where they are folded and put into each child's individual basket. When the basket gets full, the kids are in charge of taking it upstairs and putting their clothes away. Then they return the emptied out basket back to it's original spot on the pool table for me to fill again the next day.

The problem is what to do with the clothes for me and Kory that need to be hung up. The folded stuff isn't a big deal, I pretty much do the same thing with our folded clothes as the kids do, but when I come upstairs hauling all the 'to be hung' clothing, I usually set those on my cedar chest while I start putting away the folded clothes. Then something inevitably happens, and I'm called downstairs to handle a crisis. Either that, or I'm just in a hurry, and I leave the clothes on the cedar chest 'to be hung up later'. Yah, right. This is what my cedar chest looks like 90% of the time (yes, those are all clean clothes):

This is what is supposed to look like:

Then, a couple of days ago, it all the sudden dawned on me. 'If I could just hang up those clothes as they come out of the dryer then most of the work would be done for me before I take them upstairs'. It wouldn't take any more effort to hang them in the closet then it would to lay them on the cedar chest.

So, enter the cheap $10 hanging system (which my kids already think is a fun, new, 'rolling' toy, and I'm sure it will be broken in a couple of weeks):

Seriously, why didn't I think of this years ago?

So what do you guys do to make laundry easier? My sister actually does a load of laundry every day-then she's never behind. Me? I get a little depressed doing it everyday (I've tried).

It works better for me to have 3 scheduled 'laundry days' a week. Although if I could get it together enough to do it everyday, I might not have piles like this all the time.

Let this be a lesson . . .

Sunday night I got all ambious and decided that the fridge had been sitting in it's disgustingness long enough and that it needed to be cleaned and washed out. Yes, it was Sunday. I was breaking the Sabbath. That was my first clue that I shouldn't have been cleaning out the fridge.

I always try to use just luke warm water when I'm washing the glass shelves. Ideally, the instructions suggest using cold water on cold shelves, but when you have gunk stuck to the shelf it's a little hard to get it off with cold water.

I had gotten 90% of the fridge cleaned when I started on the bottom shelf, you know, the big piece of glass that covers the crisper drawers. It's so big it barely fits into the sink. As I was scrubbing away, I thought to myself, 'Knowing my luck, I'm going to end up breaking this thing-since this is the piece that would be the most expensive to replace'. Not even 5 minutes later this is what happened:
It just shattered-everywhere. Into my hands, down my shirt, into the sink, windowsill, and on the floor.

You think maybe the water was a little too warm?

It kills me. I've been cleaning out fridges since I was 12 and have never had this happen.

So, I drug out the shop vac and proceeded to clean up the mess. Unbeknownst to me, the valve on the vacuum that covers the hole where the air blows out was missing and I ended up blowing saw dust (from my last project) all over the kitchen. That really made this experience all the more enjoyable.

I finally had to have Kory come and hold a wadded up towel in the hole while I vaccumed everything up. *Don't ever loan out your shop vac to your husbands work-it will come back missing pieces.

Although I guess I should just be happy that I got it back!

Once I had cleaned up the fiasco I had to hop in the shower because I had tiny little shards of glass and sawdust all over me. I got a couple little scratches on my hands, and some on my chest, but that was it-thankfully.

Here's the fridge looking all nice and pertty. It's a little hard to tell it's missing the bottom piece of glass, but let me assure you-it is.

I checked online for a replacement piece of glass and it will cost $85. That's without shipping.

I think I will just have a glass cutter here in town do it. Maybe I should get plexiglass?

So, what have we learned from this?

1). It's a bad idea to clean out your fridge.

2). It's a bad idea to clean out your fridge on the Sabbath.

3). Even if you think the water is really not warm enough to shatter cold glass-it probably is.

4). Make sure the cap the covers the blower on your shop vac is securely in place before you start it up-especially when the vac is full of sawdust.

Going Shootin'

I've been married to an avid hunter for 15 years now, I own a gun (a birthday gift from my hubby), and I've never been shooting-until now.

That's my man, looking all professional with his gun (along with my BIL & SIL):
A couple of weekends ago Kerry and Amber (below) went out shooting on one of their dates.
When I heard about that, I figured it was Kerry's idea. But no, it was actually Amber's idea-and she loved it! So, somehow we got invited to go out shooting with them.

*Please excuse the horrifying pics of me below. It's hard to 'suck it in' and show your best side when you're holding a deadly weapon.

I actually did pretty well shooting shot gun shells with this gun-once I figured out how to use the scope. It's harder to hold a gun then I thought. It gets heavy after awhile.

This is Gordon, cheating, by using that interesting little device that holds the gun for him.

Here's Kerry and Kory. Kory's sitting in a little contraption (don't you just love all my technical terminology) that shoots clay pidgeons, and Kerry's getting ready to shot.

And now, the scariest part of the evening, shooting a hand gun:

That baby is loud, and really 'kicks'. If you don't hold on really tight that thing just might get away from you!

So there you have it, my first shooting experience. Not bad. Kinda' fun. Guns still make me nervous.

And now that all the Christmas decorations are put away . . .

I figured it would be a good time to post about our Christmas.

We had a special visitor come to our ward party. Sophee refused to sit on Santa's lap, so here's Audree:

Kaylee also refused to sit on Santa's lap, but we made her stand next to him so I could take a picture. (Note-she's not afraid of Santa, she's just too cool to sit on his lap).

Josh couldn't wait for his turn to ask Santa for a bike.

Then Dad joined in on the fun:

Here are some of the Burgess cousins. Those are Kerry's kids with ours. Sophee figured if she could be at least 2 people away from Santa she would be in the pic.

Christmas Eve presents turned out to be P.J's again. This might be a new tradition for us.

I must say, before we move on, that I am aware that there are a lot of pics of Sophee-Yes, I know. She's the baby. Plus, she was the most willing to pose. I also just realized that the date on my camera was off by a day-so no, we didn't open everything on Christmas Eve.

In our family we recycle all the boxes we can find shortly before Christmas (I'm doing my part to save the planet), then use them to wrap our gifts. Here's Sophee saying, "Capri Sun! It's not Capri Sun!"

Sophee and her loot. Don't you just love the pose? I tried to get her to sit there normally, but this is how she rolls:

An earring holder from Grandma & Grandpa Evans, and a new outfit:

Posing in her new clothes:

More new clothes:

Here's Audree with her presents. Notice the 'Touch n' Brush'. This child asked for that for her birthday-before they came out in stores. I thought it was such a funny thing to ask for, but she was way excited about it.

Cute cupcake earrings from Grandma and Grandpa Evans, and new clothes:

Kaylee in her new clothes, complete with sneaker earrings from G & G Evans:

*And here's the part where I realize I did not get a picture of Kaylee with all her presents.

I know I told that child to gather up her stuff so we could take a picture! Yes, she's a middle child.*

Here's Josh and all his presents. Santa actually came through with that bike. Whew, because Mom and Dad sure heard (non-stop) about how he was going to get one.

Taking the bike for a spin:

Looking good:

And just so that all my kids are represented in this post, here's my 5th child:

We had a nice, quiet Christmas Eve dinner at Kory's parents house-just us and his parents, since all his siblings had other plans. Then we spent Christmas day at home, just enjoying each other, and rocking out to the new 'Band Hero' the kids got. Then, to wrap up the holidays, for New Year's Kory and I left the kids with Grandma & Grandpa Burgess for a couple of days and went up to Vegas with his brother to just hang out, shop, see a magic show, eat lots of good food. It was a great Christmas/New Year's holiday for us.

We hope everyone else had a great holiday too!