Girls Camp Fundraiser

Jumped straight into this bad boy the second we got home from Disneyland. Literally the second. It sure does keep me busy, but the outcome is always great, and this year I had a lot of people tell me its their favorite ward activity out of the year...aww! I also had good advertising from a girl in Boston's primary class inviting all her friends at school haha! It was nice to get some good feedback this year. Its been hard for me to take on all the responsibility of being in charge of big events like this especially because I feel the need to stress over every little detail, but i'm learning a lot, and it is getting so much easier!

We serve the ward a spaghetti dinner (pasta, salad, garlic bread) the ward donates items and services to auction off, and the young women waitress tables and bake desserts to sell. We don't ever charge $$ for the dinner (so we don't leave people out of the activity) but we have NEVER hurt because of it. I feel like our members are always so generous in their donations, and we always have an abundance of items to auction off to make up for the cost of the food. 

Our cute Young Women in front of the dessert table

Photo Booth

I spent a lot of time making these cookie dough stuffed cupcakes, (including cookie dough frosting) to sell at the dessert table and hardly anyone bought them haha. Lets all play that Price is Right bummer sound effect....I'll insert the video below if you don't know what i'm talking about. 

Rylee 10 Months

 Oh my heck, this chubby little thing has me wrapped around her little finger. She is the smiliest, cutest little ball of chub. She is so happy and so much fun to have around! We love her! Rylee turned 10 months on the way back from our Disneyland trip. She was a CHAMP in Disneyland, especially when we pulled 16 hour days in the park. Are we insane? Yes. Yes we are. She happily sat in her stroller as long as she had food :-) She freaked out one time, but I wasn't even with her, so sorry to everyone else! 

Rylee can put herself into sitting position on her own from crawling or standing, can click her tongue, wave hi and bye, can make a kissing noise with her mouth (and sometimes gives me kisses) likes to flirt (she will smile and duck her head into Jeff or I at pretty much anyone over and over again) She still only has 2 teeth, I love seeing them every time she smiles. She loves Boston and Ellie, and squeals when she sees them first thing in the morning. She loves when Daddy comes home and loves to be held and cuddled (for short periods of time) She loves the independence she's gotten from crawling. I love watching her go from place to place wondering what she's thinking about all this new stuff she can get into. Rylee is a JOY to have around!!

Disneyland - Spring Break 2018

Down to the last chain!

Can't believe our trip has already passed! I felt like it took forever for our trip to get here and now its already over. We are all suffering some major post-vacay blues. I'm going to warn you right now, I'm about to blow this post up with pictures.

The kids did awesome in the car right up until the last hour outside of Vegas. Ellie and Rylee had fallen asleep, and Ellie woke up completely out of it, not knowing where she was, and decided to scream non stop for an hour. Rylee of course started screaming because Ellie scared the crap out of her. And that is a part of our trip I would like to forget.

We got to Vegas about midnight, the kids woke up at 6, and we were back on the road!

                                          Parking Garage at the hotel...do you see all the shoeprints? I was so confused.

We got to California after noon, and headed to Legoland! My brother and sister in law were there earlier this year, and didn't use the last day of their passes, so they offered them to us. Thanks Tyler and Jessica! Neither of us had ever been or known much about it, so it was fun to check out something new. The rides were all fun and the lego buildings were crazy! 

Can I just say how much I hate California traffic? Lots of time in the car....

Disneyland Day #1 

The park was SO busy this week. I swear every single person on the planet had to have been there. But it was still fun. We got our fastpasses on our phones so we didn't have walk as far, and avoided the really long ride wait times. We got to go with just Grandma and Grandpa today. Our first ride was Pirates!

I love the pic on the bottom left. Sisterly love haha. Ellie has been really smothering Rylee lately. She'd had enough!

Included in our max pass was free downloads to any pictures the photographers take in the park, as well as downloads to the pics taken on the rides. That was pretty cool...so pictures like this we get to keep...

I am SO proud of Boston. He was SO brave and went on every single ride we went on. I didn't tell him anything about the Guardians ride, hoping to scare him to death (against my mother-in-laws judgment (that's what parents do, right?! scare their kids to death...not go against their mother-in-laws haha)) Every time I looked over at him he had his hands up and was laughing! I honestly thought he would cry and be mad at me....he surprised me! Way to go Boston! 

We stayed like 16 hours. The kids were so worn out and missed the ice cream and fireworks. Bummer!

Beach day! The water was SO cold. I stuck my foot in and it went numb. It still didn't stop the kids from running and splashing in it though! We ate at Ruby's diner, before getting stuck in more traffic trying to get back to the house. 

Watching Conferece...what a neat conference this was!

Disneyland Day #2 - We met Mickey Mouse! And lots of princesses. The kids were happy to have some cousins with them today!

Hanging out at the pool....this was definitely a highlight of the trip. We had a heated pool at the house we stayed at, and kept the temperature up to around 90+ degrees haha. SO much fun! In the middle of the week between Disneyland visits, we spent probably 75% of the day in the pool. No one wanted to get out haha!

Disneyland Day #3 - We spent a good chunk of the day in California Adventure. We rode toy story, cars, grizzly river run, and saw Frozen! That show is awesome! We also Captain America. Boston didn't have his shirt on (darn!) but he still thought that was so cool!

Disneyland Day #4 -

We had our whole group together today! It was so fun to have us all together. So many strollers and lots of bathroom breaks, but it really was the best! The cousins love being together! We rode lots of kid rides today, and of course saw more princesses. The Tangled and Beauty and the Beast shows were fantastic! So cute and funny. Also, I swear the Belle the played in the show was the real deal. She looked and sounded exactly like the Disney animated movie. 

Disneyland Day #5 - Our last day! We rode all our favorite rides, found some characters we hadn't seen yet got some more pictures, and took it all in one last time.

Yeah, more pictures of Boston on this ride. Sorry not sorry! Everytime we got lined up to enter the ride, the adults around us asked if he was scared. He was like, um...no? 

We got in line to see Anna and Elsa, and then found out that Olaf and Christoff were there too! Then we got to the front of the line and they told us Anna, Olaf and Christoff had to go take care of Sven. Seriously? At least we got to see Elsa and a bunch of other characters before we left, including MOANA!! She was so beautiful in real life, I almost pushed Ellie out of the way to get a picture with her.

Last thing we did on our way out. Ice cream!! Goodbye delicious ice cream!

Homeward Bound - we spent the last night in Vegas. We took the kids to the Disney outlet, M&M world, and got a sprite at the Coca Cola factory. Our parking garage had an indoor walkway the led right into the M&M factory. I was worried the kids would pick up or be exposed to something, so I was super grateful for that tunnel! Our hotel had a huge jetted tub, so the kids got to take a "swim" in the bath and watch tv....at the same time. They thought that was pretty awesome!

We feel pretty lucky we had the opportunity to go to Disneyland, and grateful for Grandma and Grandpa for getting us such a cool place to stay! The kids are already asking to go back, and Boston went to bed and woke up crying the first couple days missing Disneyland. I feel ya buddy! This is a trip we won't ever forget :) Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Tree!