California Adventure

This week we took the kids to Disneyland!!! They were so excited and I'm not gonna lie I was too! Maybe more than them haha. Grandma and Grandpa Clayton came with us too which was awesome! The first day we spent in California Adventure. The girls really wanted to meet Ana and Elsa and wore their Frozen inspired shirts..

I know Lydia doesn't look excited in the picture but she really didn't ant to take a picture. We headed into the park to the area where they cut the rope to get fast passes to meet Elsa and Anna. People started being people and cut in front of us. Its amazing how some people act in the happiest place on Earth. All of the sudden a cast member comes up to us and comments on how much she loves Easton's Olaf shirt and took us right in to see the princesses!!! Woohoo! It doesn't pay to cut people ;)

Easton was mesmerized  by Elsa's dress and Anna joked that he had a crush on her. They were so cute with the kids and Anna jibber jabbered non stop it was pretty funny. The Frozen sing along was super cute too and the girls sang through the whole thing.

Sophie loves to draw and so we made sure to stop by the animation class to draw Olaf. 

Lydia and I drew one together and Sophie drew hers all on her own!!! We have a little artist on our hands.




I convinced the girls to go on Tower of Terror which may or may not result in therapy in the future haha. I kept explaining how it was all pretend but they didn't like it at all and resulted in Lydia of being terrified of pretty much any ride that wasn't out in the open....oops.

But to her bravery she did ride them all! Even if it meant her eyes were closed and she was hunkered down in my lap.


With our package we got to go to Ariel's Grotto for lunch. Right before we were seated we met Ariel herself.

Then while we sat and ate a Prince announced four princesses that would walk around to our table. The Prince hinted that one turned a beast into a prince. Lydia got so excited and said "Belle!!!!" I thought she was going to fly out of her seat she was so excited. Belle is her favorite.

Rapunzel and Cinderella came to our table too!

When Tiana came Chad asked how she liked being a frog. She said she didn't like it too much but it fine since at least that's how she met her husband.  She then asked the girls if they would kiss a frog and Sophie immediately said "eww no!" and Tiana replied that you never know because that's what she thought too.

The kids all loved going on rides and Easton did so well the whole trip. He was such a little trooper taking naps in the stroller and staying up late.

He absolutely loved Carsland. He met his favorite character in the whole world Lightening McQueen!!

In the words of Easton "McQueen Ka-Chow!!!"

He also met Red the firetruck which he thought was pretty cool.

 He was too little to ride the main cars ride but he thoroughly enjoyed riding Mater Junkyard tractors several times.

His favorite ride the whole trip was the carousel. They had one in California Adventure and Disneyland. When we walked past it he pointed at it from the stroller and said "Mooooom! Mooooom!  Mooom!"

We rode rides until the park closed the first day and Lydia ended up falling asleep waiting for the Toy Story ride.

I sat her next to me and she literally slept through almost the entire ride even with us spinning around. She woke up the last minute of the ride.

The next two days we spent at Disneyland......

Life Recently

Our family has really enjoyed hiking and have gone out quite a few times. We found some really awesome pamphlets that help you identify cactus, birds, and butterflies which makes it fun too. Easton is doing better but still gets distracted by rocks, holes, dirt,..... But he carries backpack pretty much the whole time.

Sophie is loving school and is doing really well. Ben's Bells is doing a tile mural at her school and one student from each class gets to help make the tiles. Sophie was picked and she was so excited. We took her to the Ben's Bells workshop to paint and Lydia and Easton enjoyed the rain.

Sophie is getting really good and reading and loves to read on her own. She is also extremely excited to have 4 loose teeth (All four front teeth).

Lydia has become obsessed with playing card games. We play for hours while Sophie is at school. Easton and her have become little best buddies and their favorite game is one they made up. The falling game consists of them both sitting side by side on the arm of the couch and then falling. The downside is that Easton has discovered their is an arm to the bench at church.

Easton would love to live in the garage. Every time I go out to change laundry he is right behind me. He walks around and sits on Eleanor happily.

The other day I went back inside to sit the basket down and then went back out to get Easton and found him all relaxed.

He has started talking a lot recently and putting several words together. He has also decided that he is going to call Dad "Pop" we have no idea where he got it from but Chad is now Pop.

For Valentines Day Chad took us all out in Eleanor. The kids were so excited to go for a ride.

We went to Sonic for dinner and enjoyed eating on the tailgate.

Aunt Sarah was awesome and took them for a sleep over Friday night. They had so much fun and Chad and I had a fun date mini golfing!

Happy New Years

On New Years Day we woke up to a little bit of snow!

We thought about taking the kids up the mountain to play in the snow but decided it would probably be crazy so we went on a hike instead. Easton would stop at every single patch of snow.

The kids had fun making as many snowballs as they could in the little patches of snow around.

Then we made it to a point on the trail with a tall cliff...and there was a bunch of snow! The kids were so excited and we had to have a snowball fight! Easton picked up on this game quickly and would get two inches from you before throwing it at your legs.

We had to tear Easton away from the snow. His hands were bright red but he didn't care.

A few days later we took the kids to Home Depot to build little wooden sleds.

We hung out at the store for a bit until it warmed up a little and then went on another hike! The girls loved finding baby saguaros under trees and looking for wildlife through their binoculars.  We love our new family hobby!

Hiking and a Little Drive

The day after Christmas we had to try out the kid's new awesome backpacks. We headed over to Saguaro National Park West and enjoyed hiking a trail there.

The girls did awesome! We went further then we have ever gotten with them before. Apparently they just needed their own backpacks with water they can dink whenever they wanted. New family hobby found!

Easton loved every minute of the hike. He did slow us down a bit as he wanted to throw every rock in sight and play in the dirt.

Chad would keep him going though by chasing him until he found another pile of rocks and dirt to explore.

Sophie, Easton and I hiked about a mile and a half while Lydia wanted to continue with Chad. They hiked over 2 miles and we met them in the car at the end of the trail. I know this doesn't sound very far but with our girls this was a feat indeed.

The next day we headed to the East part of Saguaro National Park this time with Eleanor. We found a 8 mile driving loop through the park. We got all bundled up for the cold ride over.

It ended up being a fun little road to drive with some awesome sights of the desert.

There was a stop where you could climb these large rocks which the kids loved.

Who knew the Saguaro National Park was so cool? We have been driving past a gem all these years. They have a ton of hiking trails we are going to try out too!

We also wanted to try out our new dutch ovens! We invited Sarah over for dinner and cooked both dinner and desert outside.

Apparently rice was a bad idea. Dinner turned out okay but a little crunchy with the not totally done rice. Haha You live and learn. Poor Sarah was probably regretting her decision to come over. But we redeemed ourselves with a yummy pumpkin dump cake. Guess we need to practice some more!