Beach Day in Santa Barbara

A few weekends ago we headed out to Santa Barbara for the day to have a little birthday get together for Leah, with my Aunt and Uncle. My Aunt knew of this really cute little park right by the beach. We hung out and had hamburgers, played at the playground, and then walked down to the beach to play in the sand a bit. It was a gorgeous day and the kids all had a great time. We'll definitely be heading out there more this summer, to escape the heat of our Valley.

We had Ashlyn's best friend Grace come along with us. They had a great time running around together and being silly.

Don't really know what Jim is doing right here. He just plopped face down in the sand and laid there for a while. Probably just relaxing for a bit.

Brandon plopped himself right down too. And got busy playing in the sand with his new toys from Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Jim. He didn't much care to look up at me so I could get his picture. He was concentrating.

Jim dug a big hole in the sand and Ashlyn let him bury her legs.

Only thing was, she had a hard time getting back out.

Grace had to have a turn too.

Which meant we couldn't leave Leah out.

And to prove Paul was indeed there, here is a rather pathetic family photo taken with my camera phone, since my Aunt's camera battery died half way through the day and I forgot mine.

So Sweet Siblings

Sometimes they fight.....and sometimes they don't. Then sometimes they do things like this and it makes you realize that maybe, just maybe, they really do love each other. And that makes a mom VERY happy!

For the memory book

I was telling this story to a couple of friends today and they told me I should write this down for the memory books. It's a pretty funny, yet embarrassing story, that shows quite perfectly the personality of my little Leah.

Leah has been going to a ballet class for the last ten weeks. It was a class I signed her up for through the Park and Rec program because she kept asking/begging me to take ballet. The class started and within a few minutes I could tell this was NOT going to be the class for her. She has WAY too much energy to be poised and dedicated to the art of ballet. The first class ended and she had barely listened to her teacher the whole time. I shrugged it off to being the first day of class and hoped the next week would be better. It wasn't. In fact, she came out of class telling me her teacher asked her to "listen better next week". So the count down began. Every week Leah would ask me when her last ballet class was and when she could go back to taking gymnastics. Every week I told her and said that she had to at least finish it out because I had already paid for it, and I didn't want her to quit just because it wasn't "her thing". She did after all, BEG me to take the class. Well the blessed day finally arrived this past Tuesday. And boy did Leah know it. She was SO happy to go to ballet that day. All she kept saying all day was that it was her last day of ballet and then she could start gymnastics (I wasn't going to enroll her in two classes at once). So I thought, fine, let's just go to class, get it over with, and she'll start gymnastics the next week. Well, we get to class a few minutes early. Leah prances on in to the room and begins dancing around and singing. What is she singing you ask? "This is my last day of ballet. This is my last day of ballet"(in a very sing songy happy voice). Her teacher looks at her and says, "Are you happy it's the last day? Because I'm sad". Leah looks at her quite confused, and then continues her little dance and song around the room. Her teacher looks at me, and I try to come up with some lame excuse, but really I was just embarrassed and wanted the class to hurry up and start so I could sit back and not talk to her anymore.

So ballet finally ended. I immediately called up her old gymnastics studio, signed her up for class, and took her in this afternoon. She was ecstatic. And I'm just happy that she is finally happy about what she is doing. Gymnastics just suits her so much better. And that is okay. I think she'll be fantastic.

Conversation with Ashlyn

On the way to school this morning,

Ashlyn: "Mom, you didn't have paper when you were a kid right?"

Me: "Of course we had paper. How old do you think I am?"

Ashlyn: "Oh, I thought you didn't. Okay, well I don't think you had phones".

Me: "Yes, we did have phones."

Ashlyn: "Hm....Ok, well, I know you couldn't pause TV".

Me: "You got me there Ashlyn. No we couldn't pause live TV. BUT we could pause the VCR".

Ashlyn: "What's a VCR?"

hahahaha.......

Another trip to Disney

Ashlyn was out of school for the day, so we decided to make good use of our passes and head down to Disney. Now the plan was to be back in time for Ashlyn's ballet class that night at six(and a friends bday dinner at seven), but when it took us almost three hours to get from the door of my house to the gates of Disney, we soon realized our evening plans weren't gonna happen. Tina and her kids came along too and I must say I DEFINITELY loved the company. It just wouldn't be near as fun without a friend....even it if did more than double the amount of kids (hehe). I was again surprised at how well everyone did. Toward the end of the night, everyone was tired and wanting to go home, but we knew we'd just sit in hours of traffic, so we decided to get some dinner while we waited it out. We went to a yummy mexican place in Downtown Disney. There was about a 30 minute wait, but the kids had fun running around the fountain while we waited. Once we sat down, a couple leaned over to Tina and said, "Are all those kids YOURS!??" I guess you get a little bit of attention when you sit down at a nice restaurant with 7 kids under the age of 9.

Love this little man!

This lady cracks me up too!

SO excited for "It's a Small World"

Brandon couldn't get enough of everything he saw. He has NO fear when it comes to rides, even when went on "pirates of the carribean", which is WAY more scary than I remembered it being. Maybe because last time I went on it, I did not have kids. Having kids completely changes the way you view "scary".

I actually hate my profile, but I thought this was such a cute picture of Ashlyn snuggling with me, that I had to include it.

We totally scored on the Nemo ride. There is usually at LEAST a 45 min-1 hour wait for this ride. We got lucky because earlier in the day the ride had been closed. We sat down close by to watch the "jedi" show and half way through realized they opened Nemo back up. We quickly dashed over there and only had to wait about 15 minutes to get on. It was awesome. The kids really liked this ride....well Brandon did. The girls were a little scared when all the lights went out. I could barely look out the window though because Brandon had his little faced smashed up as close to it as he could.

Tina was smart and got a family photo before we left. I will have to remember to do that next time we go...in June, right Tina!

Happy Thursday

It's been very busy around our house this week. I kept feeling like it should be later in the week than it was. But alas, Friday is almost here and Ashlyn has no school tomorrow. We are heading to Disneyland for the day to enjoy our annual passes.

The kids have been real into playing with the pillows and blankets lately. Mostly throwing them into a big pile and then jumping off the couch onto them. Tonight they are snuggling in them and pretending they are on a pirate ship floating in lava. It's cute to see them play together. All are happy and everyone is having a good time (wonder how long it will last? haha)

Why Brandon doesn't need words

My little guy doesn't say much. Not besides the normal, momma, dadda, uh oh, and wow, type stuff. He signs some words like more, please, and thank you. But besides that he just doesn't seem too interested in talking. This is probably why.

Yesterday morning as I'm getting ready for church, Brandon walks into my room with a cup of melted ice water from a restaurant we had gone to the night before. The straw was gone and the lid was all smashed up. I looked at him and said, "Where did you get that? You can't have those types of cups upstairs". He looked at me, handed me the cup and then took my hand. He led me down the hallway to the girls room. He walks into the room and pats his hand on top of the lego tupperware box. I said, "Is that where you found the cup?" He shook his head yes. I said, "who's is it?" He pointed up to the topbunk where Ashlyn sleeps. I walk back down the hall to my bedroom where Ashlyn and Leah were laying on my bed. I said to Ashlyn, "Did you take that cup upstairs last night and leave it in your room?" With a concerned look on her face she says, "sorry mom".

So there you have it. The boy does not need any words. He fully communicated and even TOLD on his sister without so much as saying a single thing. I had to laugh.