Disney World: Animal Kingdom

I'm going to try and only highlight our trip to Disney World, but with over 1000 pictures I think I'll do this in sections!  Whew!  Let's get started!

 

 Here we are safe and sound in the Orlando airport with Grandma & Grandpa to greet us.  The kids actually did fairly well on the flight.  Brandon had loaded plenty of movies and games onto our Kindle, Nexus, a borrowed iPad and his laptop.  I packed lots of snacks and we were set!

 

 Grandpa got each family their own little condo for the week.  They were by far the most comfortable accommodations we've ever stayed in as a family.  Thanks, Grandpa!  Grandma had dinner all ready for everyone as they arrived which was a very welcome sight!  Grandma thought of everything and gave each family an arm load of necessities for the week including laundry detergent, lanyards, and a bunch of other practical stuff to make our stay more comfortable and easy.  You're amazing, Grandma!  All of your worrying paid off!

 

 Our 1st day we spent in the Animal Kingdom.  We've got some pretty excited kids here!

 

Here's our whole group in front of the Tree of Life.  This was the only day we had Kristen with us before she had to go back to college.  Bummer! 

 We all started together on the Animal Safari!  It was pretty cool to get so close to the animals.

 

 Sarah & Jacob enjoyed the animals too!

 

 The little kids loved playing in the sand at a Dino dig.  Here's Grandpa "watching" the kids.  Hmmm . . . I seem to remember Nathan getting lost about then!

 

 Nathan would have played in the sand all day!

 Grandma, Pooh, Jonah, Grandpa & Nathan

 

Jacob, Mom, Sarah & Dad enjoyed the dinosaur ride.  I don't think Sarah saw any of it because she was hiding behind Dad the whole time.  Ashley's family is right behind us and I don't think her girls stopped screaming the whole time.  It was hilarious!



The next day was Sunday.  We went to church with some old friends of my parents, looked at the Orlando temple (the gates were closed and locked so our look was from afar), and had dinner at an awesome, HUGE condo Brittany and Rick got for us to have some large family gatherings in.  It was nice to have a Sunday to adjust our body clocks and get ready for the rest of our exciting week ahead!

Christmas!!!

Whew!  I'm almost done with 2012!  On to Christmas!

 

 On Christmas Eve we had our fancy dinner.  Looks like I forgot a table cloth this year.  Oh well!  The kids love eating on my china and drinking sparkling cider out of goblets.  They feel so special!  We had ham, funeral potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls and Christmas jello.  I think we just had sugar cookies for dessert.  It's hard to make dessert when there's so many sweets around from neighbors.

 

 Jacob, Nathan, Sarah and Jonah opened their Christmas pajamas!  Then we read a Christmas nativity book and some other Christmas stories, played a game and put the little 2 boys to bed.  We played a few more games with Jacob and Sarah before they went to bed too.  They love Jenga!

 

 I guess I was wrong about Blogger.  Grrrr!  Nathan thought he was supposed to WEAR his Christmas stocking!  He, he!!!

 

 Christmas morning the kids were led on a little scavenger hunt with clues that led them to THIS sign!  Yahoo!  We're going to Disney World!  And we're going with Grandma and Grandpa and all of our cousins!  Yep!  We had a family reunion with my side of the family in Orlando.  (More on that later.)  We've never taken our kids to Disney Land or World.  They tell us all the time how all the children in the whole world have gone and they haven't.  Yes.  We're mean parents.  We've been planning this trip for 2 years, and it was a hard secret to keep that long.  Grandpa was so excited he slipped up and told Jacob one day.  Luckily he did it on April 1st so when Jacob questioned me about going to Disney World I just said, "April Fool's!"  He totally bought it!  Whew!  That was a close one!  Needless to say, the kids were SO excited.  Jacob was dancing like crazy and yelling, doing the worm on the floor.  Nathan didn't know what it all meant, but everyone else was excited so he was too.  It's gonna be GREAT!

 

 The trip was their main gift, but they got a few other things too.  Jacob got the skateboard he'd been wanting along with a tie and a new deer calendar.  Jonah gave him a new BYU sweatshirt too.  The kids each got a Disney t-shirt, hoodie sweatshirt from Grandma and a water bottle to take on the trip.

 

 Sarah got an Easy Bake Oven.  She loves to cook.  Santa also left a little recipe book so we don't have to go buy all the expensive mixes.  In preparation for lunch with the princesses Sarah also received a new Rapunzel dress from Nathan since she hasn't had a new princess dress for a couple of years now.  Jacob and Sarah loved their new Tooth Tunes.  Hopefully it helps them brush their teeth longer!

 

 Jonah got a trailer truck with new Matchbox cars to load onto it.  Jacob gave him a green Transformer Rescue Bot which came with a DVD and has since become a favorite show and toy of both the younger boys.

 

Nathan got a Playmobile Fire Truck from Santa.  Sarah gave him a little Micky Mouse wagon to pull his stuff around in.  Little did she know how appropriate that gift would be!

 

We had a wonderful Christmas and feel so blessed to have so much and the opportunity to spend time with family.

Christmas Festivities

Thanksgiving was just the beginning of our holiday festivities this year!  We ended up hosting a number of parties in our home.  We're so grateful for our home and that it allows us to entertain so many friends and family.  Now if I could just get it decorated so it looks nice too!

 

 The kids got their ornaments for 2012.  I try to pick something that represents their year a little or something they really like at that age.  Jacob became a hard-core BYU fan this year!  Ahh, he takes after his mother!

 

 Sarah got a Tangled ornament since that was her favorite movie and princess this year.

 

 Jonah was all about his "super speedy bike" this year so I found a little red bike ornament.

 

 Nathan was sad he wasn't allowed to play with his ornament so he did NOT want his picture taken.  I looked high and low for a lawn mower ornament because he was absolutely obsessed with mowing the lawn with his daddy.  Winter was a sad time for him when no mowing happens.  He begged Daddy EVERY DAY to "Mowner lawn, Daddy?"  Brandon likes a nice looking yard, but evey day is too much mowing even for him.

 

 We got to visit Santa.  Nobody was scared this year!

 

 We saw the lights at Temple Square!

 

 One of our parties was Brandon's work party.  Kimber and I convinced our husbands to allow us to have it catered this year.  Olive Garden dinner was enjoyed by all.  We saved a little money by getting cheesecakes from Sam's Club instead of the expensive cheesecake from The Olive Garden.  Yum!

 

In addition to a New Year's Eve and some football parties, we also hosted a neighborhood culd-e-sac party that I failed to get pictures of.  I was REALLY unhappy about doing that party.  We fed dinner to something like 50 people, visited, and played a game.  Hopefully our turn is fulfilled for many years.

 

 We had our annual family nativity FHE as well.  What a cute bunch!  I don't know if you can see it but 3 of my nieces in the back on the right used their long hair to make beards so they could be the 3 wise men.  Hilarious!

 

 Shauna filled the role of Nanny this year in reading the children Christmas stories.

 

Sarah made a snowman!  I love that girl!  It was a fun and crazy month.  Just looking at these pictures makes me grateful for spring and summer.  I need a little time before winter comes around again.

Black-Eyed Jacob

One day in December Jacob was tossing a football around with some friends after they got off the bus.  He walked in the door holding his head saying that he and Blake has collided as they both ran at full speed for the ball while looking at the ball and not where they were going.  He then took his hand off his head and I about fell over.  There in the middle of his forehead was the BIGGEST goose egg I had EVER seen!  I immediately laid him down and put ice on it while double checking my parenting book and the internet on signs for a concussion.  Then Blake's mom called to check on Jacob while on her way to the ER.  Blake got 7 stitches in 2 layers since he got hit right on the eyebrow and the cut went all the way to the bone.  Jacob seemed fine but I tried to keep him down with ice for most of the night. 

 

The next day he went to school, still with an enormous bump.  By the time he got home his eyes were starting to turn black and blue.  Since that was one of the signs to watch for a concussion I started to worry and called the doctor's office.  I talked to a nurse who asked if the bump was getting soft at all.  I felt his lump and sure enough it was soft.  She panicked and told me that was a sign that he had a skull fracture and to take him immediately to the ER.  WHAT!?  The whole time I kept thinking of what happened a couple of years ago to that reporter who ran into a tree while skiing and ignored the symptoms and later DIED!  I told the nurse he didn't have ANY other symptoms and to please talk with the doctor first.  The doctor said it was no big deal and Jacob should be fine.  Well, after having 2 such conflicting reactions I didn't know what to think.  I decided to get another opinion and the next day took Jacob into a different doctor who ordered a CT scan just to be safe.  It came out fine and Jacob was indeed healthy!  Whew!  Maybe I'm paranoid but peace of mind is worth a lot when it comes to your kids.  Jacob looked a lot like that guy from Star Trek for about a week because his head and between his eyes was so swollen.  The bump did become soft and drain into his eyes, and his eyes turned dark black and blue.  Apparently if you get a bump right in the middle of your forehead like that you get black eyes.  Good to know for anyone else out there with boys!  He really looked terrible for about 2 weeks.  He was embarrassed to go to school, and people at the stores gave me dirty looks - like I would do that to my sweet son!  Good grief!  These pictures don't even come close to doing his face justice.  The camera just can't capture all the discoloration and the dimensions of the bump and swelling.  He looked at least twice as bad as it looks here.  We're glad you're okay, Jacob!  Way to be tough!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hosted Thanksgiving at our home again this year.  We love having it at our house!  We had 28 people and it was so fun!  One of the great things about hosting is that everyone is so willing to lighten your load they'll do ANYTHING to help!  I delegated out A LOT of the food . . .  even the Thanksgiving turkey (thanks, Shauna)!  Here are a few pictures of our day!

 

 Look at this!  Blogger is turning my picture right again!  Hurray!  Here's our Thanksgiving table ready for feasting!  Everyone walked in, took one look at that LONG table and said, "Are there really that many of us?"  YEP!!!

 

 Here's a place setting.  I know a lot of you may think it's lame to use paper products on a nice dinner like Thanksgiving.  Some people have very strong feelings about it!  But for one, I don't have enough dishes to feed that many people.  And even using paper products, there's still a lot of dishes to wash!  I found the cute pilgrim hat ideas from Pottery Barn, but your buy them for way too much money.  I thought, "I can make those!"  They were easy!  I filled them up with popcorn and candy corns.

 

 Because I delegated out so much of the food I decided to make my own pies this year completely from scratch!  Again, I know a lot of people do this every year, but I don't.  I made an apple, razzleberry and chocolate cream.  Shauna brought some banana cream pies as well.  I used the crust recipe from Our Best Bites and they turned out very yummy!  Very flaky crusts!

 

 Now on to the feasting!  Here's Justin, Amy and little Caleb!  Amy made TONS of REALLY yummy food!  What would we do without you, Amy?!  You make all of our tummies happy!

 

 Nathan with his best bud - his dad!

 

 Sarah with Annie and Naomi!  Such cute girls!

 

 Jonah wanted to show off one of his preschool crafts, a cute pine cone turkey.

 

What a wonderful day of eating, visiting, playing games with cousins, watching movies, and more visiting!  We hope we get to host next year!

Halloween!

We had another Happy Halloween!

 We made our yearly trip to the pumpkin patch with Brett's family.  The kids had fun in the maze.  Can you see the dust in the air?  It was yucky!

 

 Then it's back to our house for donuts and hot chocolate!

 

 We actually had our own pumpkin patch this year in our garden!  We over-planted the pumpkins thinking some wouldn't survive . . . but they all did.  We were BEGGING people to come take pumpkins!  Here's Jacob on his choice of pumpkins! (Dang Blogger!  Turn my pictures back!)

 

 We donated 45 jack-be-little pumpkins to Jonah's preschool and STILL were begging people to come take more!  We probably had over 100 little pumpkins!

 

 Nathan loved the "punkins!"

 

 Sarah, Emma and Annie scout out their pumpkins for the year!

 

 Carving time!

 

 I've always wanted to make dinner in a pumpkin and since we had SO  many extra pumpkins this year I did!  It was yummy!  We'll do that again!

 

 Jacob the spooky skeleton!  Jonah and Nathan were NOT fans of this costume.  They don't do scary!

 

 Sarah the Indian Princess.  My mom sewed this costume for me and I wore it when I was 7.  Now it's Sarah's turn.  My mom tried to find a picture of me to put next to this one of Sarah but no such luck.

 

 Jonah was Woody!  I don't know how many more years I'll be able to talk Jonah into wearing Jacob's old costumes.  It sure is a nice money saver!

 

 Nathan the cute little lion!

 

Here's Nathan, Sarah, Jonah and Jacob with the jack-o-lanterns they designed themselves.  They got TONS of candy this year.  The sight of it made me sick to think of them eating all that sugar!  I sent a gallon bag of it to work with Brandon and put another gallon bag in our food storage.  There was still TONS left.  I'm sure it'll only get worse as they get older!