Picture Day:Long, but funny read-you will laugh!

Oh friends and family! I usually consider myself pretty on top of things. I rarely miss things I am supposed to do and tend to over organize our schedule on multiple calendars where all can check and see what is going on. So, imagine my surprise when on September 14 Solace came home from school just upset and devastated and said "Mom, you forgot picture day." I though she was teasing so I asked Ender and he said "Oh yeah-you missed it, you missed it good!"

WHAT?! How did that happen?! I wrote it on the calendar...on September 21. Oops. My bad.

Well, I should mention that this had been a particularly poor morning. We had very few clean clothes as our washer was in the process of breaking down at the time and I was sick of fighting with it. So, picture that the kids are basically down to their worst clothes. And, we woke up late that morning (I hate mornings anyway and when I am pregnant, it is all I can do to get out of bed in the mornings...). So, the kids were in charge of quickly washing their own teeth and brushing their own hair. Solace actually ran out the door that morning brushing her hair as the bus honked for her out front.

Needless to say, it was not a great looks day for my poor children. So, when they got to school and discovered it was picture day, Solace was really frustrated. I may not have mentioned on here that this year for the first time, Solace's teacher is a man. We love him-he is great! But, I did learn that there is at least one downfall to a male teacher. When Solace was upset about having to go take pictures, she told him that she was upset that her hair was not brushed enough or fixed as she would like it. To which her teacher replied "that's ok, just go in the bathroom and wet it down."

Trusting her teacher, Solace did just that right before going to wait in line for pictures. According to Solace, her hair was wet and a bit drippy but starting to dry when they took her picture.

To make it worse, Ender had been told a recess that day "Do not play on the slides today-they are wet and muddy and we have pictures right after recess." He forgot. He got all muddy, so they sent him to the nurse to get something not muddy to wear. Sadly, all they had for him was clothing 2 sizes too big. So, he took his picture with muddy skin and clothing 2 sizes too big. Awesome.

Wes told everyone at work that our children will look like a wet puppy and a homeless man in their pictures.

Now, as I forgot about picture day and did not order, I have not seen these (and likely will not unless they end up in the yearbook...), However, I expect they are not good.

Fast forward to today...picture retake day. I had great intentions of baths and curlers (for Solace) last night and perfection this morning. Nope, late night out practicing a song for the upcoming program for church and we did not get home for all that.

So, this morning we woke up early enough to clean, curl, and make cute. We had picked out outfits the day before, but Ender would not let me see his until this morning ("It will be a great surprise mom") So, he came in my room this morning and yelled "Surprise!" He was wearing a nice Sunday button up shirt with tie and ripped up old jeans with his favorite shoes-ripped up old camo shoes. I asked him if he wanted to maybe wear pants and shoes that matched his top better and he laughed. Laughed and laughed. When he got his laughing under control he said "Oh mom, these pictures are only from the shoulder up-I will be lucky if the tie makes the picture!"

Solace had the same idea and wore her lovely dress she chose, we curled her hair a bit, and she looked lovely from the shoulder up-under her dress she wore these crazy capris that sort of match and she wore tall socks and Ender's other pair of camo tennis shoes (she couldn't find hers and they wear the same size). She told me, "Well, I need to look great for the picture part of me, but the rest of me needs to be ready for Gymsic today." (Gymsic is a combo of Gym and Music that the 2 teachers do together each Wednesday.)

Well, I cannot wait to see how the pictures turn out, but I swear to you, if they come home today and say, "Mom, I forgot to tell my teacher I needed retakes, here is your check back," I think I will scream...

Sunset Beauty!

So on our walk home from the park, I took some pictures of the sunset from up on the trail while Wes and the 3 oldest kids were down looking in the lake. In a few pictures you can see them on the bottom right side of the pics. It was too beautiful and my pics turned out too well not to share! Enjoy the beauty and be grateful for those beautiful details in nature! I am!

The Birthday party

Well, I have more pics from Armour's birthday, these are from the party. I tried to post a video of him "eating" the cake, but couldn't get it to work-I'll keep trying. He had his party combined with Isaac who was also turning 1 on the 26th. You will see them both in the pictures. I made 2 Mickey Mouse cakes for them, and Jessica, Isaac's mom, made cupcakes for everyone else. My cakes sucked, but they were just to be destroyed anyway, right?! When we gave them the cakes, they just stared for a while, but then they both got into the cakes pretty well. Admittedly, Isaac got a lot messier and ended up getting into both cakes, while Armour ended up overturning his cake into the grass multiple times...Here are some pictures.

Horrible cake #1

Horrible Cake #2Isaac and Armour watch the candle lighting "A little messy, but mom and dad didn't take pics of me at my messiest-silly parents!"Ah...the overturned cake on the leg...

What the cake looked like when Army was done with it.

Isaac wasn't done with either cake for a while...

Still picking at the cake a bit, with my stick...

In my cute outfit from XiaXia, Papou, Mel and Spence...Don't I look cute?

One last cute shot...Solace put my hat backwards!

Happy Birthday Baby A!!

Well, today is Armour's first birthday!! What a big big boy he is! I cannot believe a year has gone by so quickly, and now I have another toddler on my hands...Ah...life!! Above is a picture of him in his new borthday outfit that he got this morning! It is a camo/T-Rex outfit (picked out by he big brother). Below is him first thing this morning (he slept in a diaper only as it is so hot at night in his room!)
This is mom and the birthday boy...
This is the other two. Yes, they got new outfits too!
"Now that I am one, I thought I would start practicing for the terrible 2's...I laid on the ground and pitched a fit for quite a while after mom tried to take a picture of me-can you believe she tried to make me smile?!"
Happy Birthday Armour!!!

Just some Disney Pics...

Here is a little bit of our crazy Trip...

This is actually our most recent family pic-taken at Manito park by Mel before we left Spokane.

I may be sick, but I will still smile for the camera.Mom, I hate this place...(little did he know this was just the beginning...)Sick in the car.At the hotel in PrimmSoaking Wet!

XiaXia and Papou (and a Mickey pretzel, of course)

XiaXia Drives Cathy around.

Oh man-Uncle princess?!

Prince and Princesss (and mommy in back)

Character Breakfast

Character breakfast

Teenage Trio of Trouble!! :)

Teens with Aunt Cathy

Teens with Aunt Kris The kids ride with their uncle
Splash Mountain-they loved this ride!

Well, When there's nothing else to do...
Not happy to be STILL in the car...At least she looks comfy...The traffic we were stuck in for hours...

To Disneyland and back again...

As I have mentioned, I went to Disneyland with my kids. Most of you that would read this probably already know that about 4 months ago my aunt Cathy was diagnosed with brain cancer (melanoma in her brain). She was given a pretty grave diagnosis, and so she began to plan the things she wanted to do while she was still feeling up to doing them. One of the big ones was to go to Disneyland with all the family, more specifically with the little kids. So, we obviously couldn't/wouldn't miss that. My sister Melanie flew into Spokane to help me drive there. On Tuesday, June 26th we Mel, the kids and I) drove from Spokane to SLC. The kids and I slept at my in-laws house that night, BTW-it took us about 2-3 hours longer than the estimated 10 hours (estimated by mapquest) because of some construction through the mountains in Northern Idaho. The next day I was told we were aiming at leaving between 10 am and noon to drive to Primm, NV where we would be spending the night. I assumed, knowing my family that this really meant noon...actually it meant like 2...So, we drove on that afternoon/evening, stopping for potty breaks for a couple of cute little boys in the other car a few times. The next morning, we wanted to be up and out early so as to avoid the hottest heat in the Mojave desert, and to get to Disneyland that day. It shouldn't have been too long of a drive (like maybe 5-6 hours if I remember), but here's the hitch-my oldest 2 kids spent the early, early morning hours barfing all over our hotel room, and I got very little sleep. So, I knew it would be a long brutal day-especially know it was supposed to be well over 100 degrees the whole day. We did manage to be out of the hotel by about 7 am (or something like that), and get going, but I had to call my mom and sister in the other care shortly after beginning cause one of my kids had thrown up. To make a long story short, my kids kept throwing up and we kept having to stop. At one point, we were stuck in 110 degree heat in construction traffic in California somewhere with Melanie holding two little bucket of throw-up, one from each of my kids. This disgusting situation lasted about an hour before we could get out of traffic and to an exit to clean up. Needless to say, getting to Disneyland was not a fun or easy experience. But we made it!!!

In our little caravan, I had myself, Melanie and my 3 kids, and the other van had my sister, her 3 kids, my mom and my brother. When we got there, we met up with XiaXia, Papou, Cathy, Mary, Brooke, Tiffany, Lina, and Kris who had already been there a day (lucky kids got to fly out...) We went to Disneyland that day and had a great time. We did cut it a bit short as my kids were really still getting over whatever bug thay had. That was Thursday when we arrived. My dad flew in the next day. We were at Disneyland the whole day on Friday. It was a lot of fun and we got to spend a lot of time with the family. Friday night, Wesley's flight was supposed to arrive in LA at 11:3o PM, but had delay after delay, and my parents ended up going o pick him up at about 3 AM. At 7 AM, on Saturday June 30th (Wesley's 28th Birthday), we were back at Disneyland to take advantage of our early admission passes. We had already done this special little ToonTown early admission thing the day before, but this was our overall park early admission. So, we went in with all the kids and just did all of Fantasyland in about an hour, then was had to head over to a character Breakfast at the hotel by California Adventures. THe whole family, as in ALL of the family that was there had a reservation to eat breakfast together with the characters (another thing Cathy really wanted to do), and after which we took a big family picture. Thanks goodness for the newlywed couple standing outside the restraunt waiting for their table (they took all the pics for us). That is the picture you see at the top. We finished out our day at Disneyland and were all set to return home the next day.

I had planned to caravan back to SLC and then on to Spokane (according to mapquest it was only about 30-45 minutes difference tim-wise to go that way instead of just going straight up through Cali/Oregon way back to Spokane), but I had decided at that point, that saving an hour would be a big deal. So, I decided to drive home the omore direct way. Big Mistake! Driving out of Anaheim was ok, but as soon as I got past Six Flags, traffic got HORRIBLE going through this uphill part of this mountain range. It was practically stopped most of the time. So, we were stuck in this traffic with no exits anywhere, nowhere to really pull off if there is a problem as it was a canyon, and it was 115 degrees and we were close to overheating. I am sure any of you that have ever owned a car that had to be nursed through know that if you are close to overheating, the first thing to do to try to cool down, is turn on the heater, which I did. So for HOURS, we were stuck in 115 degree heat, with the heater on (windows unrolled-forcing liquids on the kids the whole time), going up this canyon. It took us over 4 hours to gor 90 miles. It was miserble, and my poor husband and dad who were still in LA area awaiting their flights home. I kept calling them in tears, freaking out that I needed help when really there was nothing they could do to help me. It was so bad. But, we made it through, got to our hotel VERY late that night, and eventually made it home the next evening, Monday July 2. Wow-talk about an adventure!


Was it worth going? Yes!!! We had a great time at Disneyland and we may never get the chance again to go do something like that with the whole family. It was great! And the coolest thing was to see Cathy doing so well and enjoying herself so much as one of her dreams was coming true to have so much of her family with her in the place she loves most! It was like she was back to normal! Look at what a blast she is having!

Would I do it again? Not in a car! This is the real kicker of the whole craxy experience. The day we left Spokane, Wes was telling one of the doctors he works with about our plan, and the doctor couldn't understand why we didn't just fly. Evidently there is an airline here in Spokane that only flys to like 4 places (one of which is the Ontario airport RIGHT near Disneyland) and is cheap! We could have flown us all out for less that the money we spent on gas! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!