oh what a wonderful morning...

We have had the opportunity to attend not 1 but 2 temple open houses this year as a family! This morning we attended the 8 am tour so that Travis wouldn't have to miss too much of the work day! Oh how grateful I am for the blessing of the temple! I know without a doubt that because of the promises and covenants that Travis and I made the day we were married almost 9 years ago in the Salt Lake Temple that my sweet family can be together forever! That I can be surrounded by my family for eternity brings such amazing peace to my soul! What a great morning!

yummo...

I made up a batch of these yummy Oreo truffles to take to our neighborhood mother's lunch. This picture is actually from my very first batch a couple of weeks ago. I have since figured out how to make them look a little less gloppy! They taste amazing and are super easy to whip up!

First decorating attempt...pretty gloppy...I didn't use the makeshift icing bag instead I used a spoon to drip it on...not too pretty!

after a few times...it gets easier every time...I am not much of a decorator!


1 pkg regular Oreo cookies
8 oz. cream cheese
1 pkg white chocolate chips
1/4 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips

Place oreo cookies into a gallon size ziploc bag. Crush with rolling pin. Place crushed cookies and cream cheese into mixer and beat together. Roll mixture into small bite sized balls. Melt white chocolate in microwave until they stir smooth. Place melted chocolate into a quart size ziploc bag and barely cut the tip of one corner off. Squeeze chocolate in circles over each ball to cover top. Melt semi sweet chocolate. Place in a ziploc and cut the tip off again. Squeeze zig zag pattern across the top of each ball. Place in the fridge for a few hours! Enjoy! They are best right out of the fridge!

ouch & missing...

Did you know that the sun can reflect off of sidewalk? I guess I did know, but I didn't even think about it...while we were at Lego Land I kept Max covered pretty well. I kept his stroller canopy over him the whole time and stuck to the shade whenever possible and yet my poor baby looks like this...the little baby skin under his eyes are just fried! The picture doesn't even do it justice...he looks like he has been slapped in the face...poor kiddo! Another funny fact is that Noah has some pretty funny sunburns himself. I use the spray on sunscreen and when I spray their faces they scrunch up their eyes and hold their breath...well guess where he got sunburned? On the little bit of skin right around his eye lashes...you know...the part of the skin that would be hidden when you scrunch your eyes shut! It is peeling now and looks really funny!

Also, is it bad that I am missing the yummy hotel breakfast this morning?
Some how cereal or a slim fast doesn't quite cut it!

california day 5...

Home again, home again, jiggity jig... We made it home! We woke up this morning at around 5:30am, finished packing the van, ate another amazing continental breakfast (seriously the breakfast was fabulous! They had anything you could possibly want: waffles, sausage, biscuits, pastries, cereal, fruit, 3 kinds of juice, toast, bagels, omelets, etc...), and got on the road. We really didn't run into any traffic and we made good time.

My sister gave me the great idea of packing each of my kids their own snack bag. Each one of them had a large ziplock bag with about 6-7 snack size bags filled with different snacks. Every 2 hours or so they could pick their own snack to eat. It worked perfectly! Although about 8 hours in they were getting kinda snacked out! (do boys ever really need a good reason to take their shirts off? mine don't...they said it was because we were in the desert!)

Max took a few naps...

Bailey girl took a nap...and Noah was pretty good too...and then...

The hard part about a long drive at the end of a vacation is there wasn't anything for the kids to look forward to...just plain ol' boring home! For the most part they were pretty good...then our lovely Zach had what we call a Zach attack! First it was a round of poking and hitting Noah, then it switched to pestering about when we were stopping for lunch...then finally just after we passed through Cedar City it turned into the life or death need for another drink! (the blue dot on the map is where we were when it started...right before Panguitch...)

Zach couldn't really decide whether to laugh or cry harder at me taking a picture of him...I think it just bugged him more...

I love that they have upped the speed limit most of the way to 80mph!

We all enjoyed the lovely desert rain storms we drove through...

I'm pretty sure that Trav knew that I was taking the picture...; )

Now to the endless piles of sand crusted laundry I have waiting...oh it is good to be home!

california day 4...

Our next vacation adventure took us to the Sea Life Aquarium attached to Lego Land. (we bought discounted hopper passes at Costco in the spring)...It was pretty cool...much like the aquarium that we have here in Sandy, UT...nothing spectacular...we went to the aquarium in Georgia and it was AWESOME...so we had the bar set pretty high...I probably wouldn't pay full price to go in, but since we pretty much got the tickets for free it was a great morning outing! The kids always love looking at fish and they had some pretty amazing rays that would get right up against the glass. Also, because it is attached to Lego Land they had tons of things built out of legos in the tanks...submarines, scuba diver guys, etc...

Once again Max was such a great boy and didn't mind being in the stroller most of the time!

The kids really liked this one tank with the huge shark and rays.

Bailey and the jellies...

They had mirrors mounted in this fish tank. When you waved your had it would make the entire school of fish change direction!

We also hit the beach right after the aquarium. The kids just LOVE the beach! This time a HUGE wave came and got all of our towels and our blanket wet. Wet towels+beach sand=sand cemented into the towels for the rest of the trip... Seriously out of the entire line of people on the beach it only got our spot wet...oh well...I am just glad it wasn't on the first day!

california day 3...

Day 3 found us finally at Lego Land! What a fun place! The kids loved it! Having gone now there are definitely things we would have prepared for had we known...like just dressing the kids in their swimsuits from the beginning! So many rides get you wet! We got there right at 10am and didn't leave until after 7pm. We were all so tired, but there was so much to do. We didn't want to miss out on anything! Because we didn't come with any other adults besides Travis and me it made things a little difficult. There were many rides on one side of the park that Bailey and for sure Max couldn't ride. Then there were the rides that everyone could ride, but if you were under 48 inches you had to ride with an adult (which was all our kids except Noah). It was a little complicated, but we did our best to get all the kids on as many rides as we could! I think it is a "must do again" park in about 4 years when more of our kids are taller! The weather was beautiful and mild! Perfect for being outside all day!




Mini land was amazing! They built entire cities out of Legos. In this picture they kids are looking at San Francisco!

Pirate land was probably the funnest! We came prepared to get wet...and get wet we did! Bailey is in the white circle up above. She probably stood on this one water spout for 30 minutes!

They had the cutest little gocart ride for kids 3-5. Bailey just loved being able to drive her own car!

In Dino land they all got to ride the Coastersaurous!

All throughout the park they had zillions of things made of Legos including this funny short tourist with 5 cameras! We saw Spongebob, Darth Vader, Thomas the train, Indiana Jones, Batman, and so many more...

california day 2...

Day 2 began with the plan being to go to Lego Land...so we show up at the gate at 9am and find out that the park doesn't open until 10am. So we thought we would drive down the the beach which is 5 minutes away and let the kids look at the ocean. Little did we know that that decision would change our plans for the entire day. We parked and walked out onto the beach...one thing led to the other and pretty soon the kids were all getting their shorts wet and as we were herding them out of the water Bailey looses her balance in the small wave and goes down. Straight onto her back...clothes soaked, hair full of sand, and scared out of her mind! The kids were pretty excited about the beach so we decided to switch our plans and go to Lego Land the next day. Because of Bailey's wave scare she refused to go into the water the rest of the day. She was content to play in the sand all afternoon. The boys, however, didn't come out of the water ALL day long! They LOVED playing in the waves. I was a little nervous at first, but slowly realized that they were just scared enough of the undertow that they stayed pretty close to shore!

I don't know what is going on with Zach's swim trunks...I can't seem to get them to stay up! The kids bum is hanging out in half of the pictures and the front...well...at least he is covered!

Max has been an angel this whole trip! He was great on the long drive and at the beach he was pretty content to sit in his stroller or on the beach towel eating sand! We brought our costco beach umbrella, 2 camping chairs, and a blanket! The perfect set up for being there all day! We packed a lunch in the cooler and ate there too!

california day 1...

Day 1 was spent driving driving driving! We didn't have to turn on the DVD players until Cedar City which is 3 hours away! Noah and Zach shared a DVD player and Bailey watched a movie on the computer. We made great time and our hotel in Carlsbad is soooo nice! We enjoyed a nice swim in the hotel pool before bed!

lets compare...

Here are all my kids at about 8 months old...who looks like who?

bathtime...

first hair cut...

Before...

After...

This is one of the faces that Max likes to pull right now. It seems like as soon as I pull out my camera he likes to squish up his face! Too cute!

the 4th...

We had a great 4th of July! Our day began with our annual trip to Provo to see the parade. The kids just love watching and the temperatures were so mild and perfect for sitting outside that long! Next we headed up the canyon to Bridal Veil falls for a picnic lunch and swimming in the falls. The falls is a new discovery for us and the kids just LOVE it! Then we headed to my parents house for even more swimming and a yummy BBQ dinner. To top the day off we headed to Thanksgiving Point to watch the fireworks with neighbors, my sister, her room mate, and her friend Bismark.

I loved doing the flag background photo booth! It was also fun to experiment with my camera's night time settings and shutter speeds. I was able to capture my sister writing the word LOVE with her sparkler. I think it came out pretty neat! All I had to do was flip the photo in photoshop!

rachel's baby girl...

My sister Rachel had her baby last month! I offered to create her baby announcements. I figured I would post it because tons of people don't even know that she had her baby. I just wish that I lived closer to hold and squeeze her! Isn't she a doll?

funny...

I just finished scrapbooking pictures from Mother's Day and had to share. I love how Zach looks exactly like the kid on my card in the bottom right picture! Bailey looks a little "special" in her picture too! Haha!!