Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

For the past few months, we have been planning a family reunion in California with Lainey's parents, and most siblings.  We decided to surprise the girls mostly because it would be fun and partly because we knew that if we told them, there would be very little sleep at night until the event actually took place.  Curly and Lou knew we were preparing for a trip, which assumed was our summer visit to Utah and Idaho, but they were surprised when Fisher came home from work on a Wednesday and said, "Let's hop in the van and go on a trip!"  They spent the first 15 minutes excitedly discussing where we were going and then fell sound asleep.   At the hotel we had a connecting room to my brother's family, so in the morning, Fisher told Curly to knock on the door and see who was there.
After the girls discovered their cousins, they began to chat excitedly and a few minutes later, Curly came to me and said, "Mom, Lettie's going to Disneyland today, Can we go too?" She was shocked and excited when I said, "Sure, that sounds fun!"

We had been in the park for about an hour when the cousins looked up and saw Grandpa, Grandma and Aunt JG approaching!  Squeals of excitement and delight!

We enjoyed a day together and were able to go on almost all the rides on our list, watch the parade, and see Fantasmic.  We were all exhausted and crashed in bed early.

Baby girls getting reacquainted

K-Rae and Baby - both lookin' cute

Grandma arrives!

Curly, Lettie, Gracie, and Lou in Goofy's car

Baby loved Minnie's nose... I hope she was the first baby to try and eat it, but I doubt it

JG, Lainey, and K-Rae on Minnie's couch.  We have the same picture plus Paisley from Disney World 10 years ago.

The crew on Goofy's boat

Waiting for the Dumbo ride

T-man with the almost lost little girls on Small World

Grandpa can sleep anywhere!

JG soaked on Splash Mountain

Monkey's on Casey's circus train

We love Space Mountain!

Lettie loved Toon Town and we spent our evening free time exploring there.

Sardines squashed in for Fantasmic

Worn out!

Friday morning we headed to San Diego.  We had a picnic lunch at the beach and played on the beach and in the very cold waves.  We headed into old town San Diego to the Mormon Battalion Center.  It is newly remodeled and a very cool experience.  The adults and the kids all enjoyed it.   We walked a few blocks from the center to a quaint plaza with a Mexican Restaurant and little shops. After dinner, we headed to the Davies (old family friends) to stay for a couple nights.

Beautiful San Diego Temple

T-man, Lettie, JG, Lou, and Kendra getting sandy!

Bathing beauties - Curly and Lettie

The girls dressed up as soldiers and a laundress

Panning for gold.  Lainey's cousin-once-removed Elder Woodbury handing Curly a nougat

Dancing to the live music while waiting for a dinner table

Grandpa got to sit at the girl table.  "Girl trapped!"

Ready for ice cream at the Davies

On Saturday we had a slower morning and then headed to Sea World.  In the evening a few people braved the cool pool.

The girls loved "practicing" in the Davies' music room

Ancient Shark Jaws at Sea World

Mesmerized by the show... and the heat!

Why is it that kids could care less about how cold the water is?

 On Sunday we packed up and went to church before all parting our separate ways.  T-man and his family to northern Cali, my dad and JG home to Utah and Idaho, and our family plus my mom and K-Rae back to Arizona.  It was a wonderful trip full of surprises that we will remember for a long time!

A goodbye Squg

The Biggest Party of the Decade!

With Curly's and Lou's birthdays a week a part and many of the same sibling friends, it made sense to have a joint Birthday party.  The theme, per Curly's pronouncement was cupcakes.  So we decorated cupcakes, played lots of games, and ate cupcakes.  The only complicating factor to the equation is that we had 22 guests under 6 and it is too hot to have an outdoor party.  So, we moved ALL of the furniture out of the family room, planned more games than we thought we would possibly need (and we did need all of them), recruited three tween girls to help and braced ourselves.  The party was fun, crazy and wild at times, but very fun!  Fisher was an awesome ring master and we could not have done it with out the help of our sweet neighbor girls.

Parachute Time was a hit!

The theme of most cupcakes was to see how much candy you could fit on top.

Lou held her own in the cupcake contest.

Friends

More friends

Cute helpers

The Prettiest Parade in Town

It's too hot here to do much on the fourth, but the girls really wanted a parade, so we improvised.  We called the neighbors, then pulled out the crepe paper and balloons and decorated their bikes.  Never mind that it was 100 degrees, the girls had a blast riding their bikes up and down the street and throwing candy at the crowd of four cheering parents.  In the afternoon we went swimming and grilled some hot dogs.  We watched the city fireworks display from the Costco parking lot.  We missed having family around to do things with, but had a fun fourth together!

Baby celebrated her 8 monthiversary on the fourth by getting sick :(

Ready for the parade!

Here they come!

Stopping for some candy.

Swimming! and watching the fireworks from the top of the van.

 

 

 

 

 

Lou Blogs about her Birthday

 Lou's Birthday - From her own mouth

I liked to go swimming.  I swimmed in Lilly's pool.  I counted for ten and I swam.  I liked eating cake.  It was a butterfly cake.  I liked eating the cereal from my display.  I chose crepes for breakfast with cream with cinnamon.  Next, I like to ride on my bike with my new helmet.  I liked going on the treasure hunt.  I found some presents.  I opened them.  I liked the new helmet and my own tape and bandaids.  I liked talking to Oma and Grandma on the phone and Aunt Ba and Elyse.

Birthday displays sans gummy bear number 4.Lou got to her candy before we even woke up. 

Birthday dinner - Tomato Soup, Quesadillas and Tortellini Salad.

Butterfly Cake

YUM!

Making a person with new crayons and new tape

How we love our Little Pretty Lou Lou!

A perfect gift for the birthday girl!

Curly celebrated her Sixth Birthday this week.  As a child, I remember being so excited for my birthday and the magic of that day!  As a parent, you hope that you can make your children's birthdays as magical as yours.  

As is tradition, Curly woke up to her birthday display and was very excited to open birthday cards from grandmas, and a few small gifts (a box of band-aids and a new bottle of Aqua-fresh toothpaste).  The toothpaste became even more exciting when she got to decorate it with stickers.  Curly also requested her favorite meals.  She chose sugar cereal for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch, and macaroni and cheese for dinner.  She did not want home made mac n'cheese- she wanted the boxed kind.  I can't decided if I should be offended that home cooked meals are not a favorite or just happy that boxed mac n' cheese is so out of the ordinary for her that it is a treat.  Either way, it made my life easy!

We told her that on her birthday she could do pretty much whatever she wanted.  She chose to stay in her pajamas almost all day and to go swimming.  Our trip to the pool was fun, but short.  After swimming for twenty minutes, the lifeguards all started tooting their whistles and holding two fingers in the air.  When everyone was out of the water, they announced that the pool was closed as there was an undesirable floater in it... so we collected our free swim pass and went home.  Lucky for us, our neighbors gave us permission to use their pool while they are on vacations, so we walked next door and finished our swim.

The finale to the day was the Birthday gift treasure hunt and Ariel birthday cake.  I think this was the first year that we actually got her exactly what she wanted and surprised her.  A week ago when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she began to describe an item that I soon deciphered to be a plastic sheet protector.  She and her friend Heidi each have a "binder" that they always take when they play.  I am not sure what they do with these binders, but their pretend play revolves around said item.  She wanted sheet protectors for her binder.  So I stealthily stole her binder, put in some sheet projectors, dividers, and a pencil pouch filled with her own tape, glue, mini stapler, paper clips, and sticky notepad.  I also added a mini calendar that had been kicking around the house for good measure.  Then Fisher wrapped it with his tasteful brown paper grocery sack stapled closed on top.

When Curly opened her gift, she was speechless for a few moments and as she began to discover the contents of the binder she said, "This....is....amazing!"

It was great!

Good morning Birthday Girl!

Decorated toothpaste - Who knew
it would be such a hit?

Curly and Heidi (the binder friend) with
soccer ball friendship necklaces
(a birthday gift)

Tummy time party

Birthday dinner

Happy Birthday Curly!  We love you!