The Beehive State- Part 6 of Our Trip

The fun didn't stop! We were able to attend Puddin's very first dance recital and she was wonderful, of course. We loved seeing all those girls twirl and tumble across the stage. E was mesmerized. She really enjoyed the gymnastics, which reminded her of the Olympics. "I'm gonna do that too someday, right?"

Slip and Slide. There wasn't much slipping, nor sliding going on.

Don't you love the mohawk Cupcake is sporting?

"Mommy, look at me!"

These boys are always on the move.

The girls really liked sleeping in the same room together.

The dads decided to take the girls out 4 wheeling. Um...E? This the same child that will run inside the house when our neighbor across the street starts his weed whacker. We made sure to start the 4 wheeler before she came out of the house. Surprisingly, she did fine. I think it helped that she was sandwiched between the guys. They went out about 2-3 times getting dirt kicked up in their faces, looking at dead animals, and collecting a ton of colorful wildflowers.
Stay tuned. We're just not done yet!

The Beehive State- Part 5 of Our Trip

A Little Mermaid Party ! It was Puddin's birthday (her cousin's blog name) and she invited several friends over to join in the fun. While friends arrived, the Little Mermaid movie was playing. If you remember the story of E and her sensitivity towards movies, you'll know that The Little Mermaid is off limits for now. It played for just a few minutes and within that short time, E was showing signs of anxiety.

Oh no! Ariel's not in her shell? Where is she?

Freeze Dance to Under the Sea. A few funny things going on in this shot.

Painting sea creatures.

Other games included Mermaid Races, Sharks and Minnows, and a Treasure Hunt. The Treasure Hunt was a hit and a half. "The Little Mermaid" gave us the map herself and the girls used it to find treasures for her. At each site on the map, there was a human item the girls collected for Ariel (brush, shoe, candle, fork, mirror, book). A hidden treasure chest containing the party favors was hidden in an armoir full of balloons at the end of the hunt. The girls opened the doors, balloons fell out, and the elated screams of 4 and 5 years olds filled the house and probably could have been heard down the street. As the girls grabbed the treasure chest and tore it open for treats, E was dancing among the balloons with just as much excitment. "Balloooons! Balloooons!"

This was her highlight of the day.

Not the highlight of the day was O plunging head first into the armoire. It was horrible. I held him while applying ice to his forehead. He's so strong and he was really upset, so it was exhausting to keep him still. He was close to stitches, I'm sure. He had a huge purple egg on his forehead with a cut in the middle. It was pretty nasty. He's still struttin' the mark.

The Beehive State- Part 4 of Our Trip

Up to the mountains! We had an exciting time at the family friendly Vivian Park where the landscape was picturesque as the sun glinted off the water and cotton blossoms lightly danced in the wind.

We all experienced fishing together, even Miss E.

She got into it. She even realized the reason why she wasn't catching any fish...her cousin was splashing the water, scaring the fish.

She looks great! Oh, and dear family, have you found her hat? We miss it terribly.

A fantastic train rides through the park and E was beyond thrilled to see it so closely. Everyone waved hello!

But when the train blared its horn just a few yards from us, it wasn't so fantastic for E. She was quite startled during lunch. I love how she's holding onto lunch as she tries to cover her ears with her arms.

We ended the day with a few games.

Stay tuned. More fun times await.

The Beehive State- Part 3 of Our Trip

The next day we went to Lehi Aquatics Center, which was a lot of fun. E was so amazed by the gigantic bucket that rang a bell before dumping tons of water below. As you can guess, we didn't go in that area. But her brave cousin did!

Boy, E loved the little waterslides. She slid over and over and each time she splashed into the pool, she would clap her hands and cheer.

W was content just sitting there most of the time, which is not like him, but it was a tad cool for his liking. He doesn't have much insulation. Daddy did make him go down the waterslide once...it was fun for us.

O, on the other hand, was everywhere! Walking, crawling, dunking...He really loves the water.

Before leaving the Aquatics Center, the Dads decided to take the girls on the green giant of a waterslide that happened to be pitch black on the inside. You see it in the picture when you visit the link. Yeah...my child...down that slide. E willingly went with Daddy up several flights of stairs, not knowing what awaits her. Well, maybe she'll like it if she's with Daddy. E's cousin and uncle went first. I watched the slide exit as they literally shot into the water like a bullet, legs and arms flailing everywhere. OH NO! She's NOT going to like this! All of a sudden, another shot into the pool and A was trying his best to keep E above water. She was screaming with hysteria. She screamed the entire way down, clinging for life. She made it! However, she made it very clear that she did NOT like that ride and she didn't want to go again. To this day, she's still talking about the big, green, scary slide.

Once we got home (as well as everyday) a great deal of time was spent on the swing set.
Fabulous fun for everyone!

A little baseball in the evening.

The look of concentration...eye on the ball. E just kept swinging...on the swing set that is.
She also sang a few songs for us.

As far as the boys, they didn't last too long outside. Either they were in danger of flying swings or they were eating plants and rocks. It was difficult to keep up with them while trying to have conversation. Here, I captured O shoving a giant rock in his mouth. Yum.

Stay tuned for more!

The Beehive State- Part 2 of Our Trip

Our first full day in Utah was spent exploring Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. We started off by eating lunch. E didn't quite have an appetite. Her face seemed to tell it all. It was scrunched up in disgust half the time. "What is that smell?!"

That's ok...I didn't really want her to eat that sandwich she placed on the table. She was so consumed with the smell that she missed the 3rd saying of "Keep your sandwich on your bag or napkin." Oh well.

Lunch for the boys.

We saw a baby horse that was only 1 day old!

It took a few minutes, but she finally did it. She touched the cow!

The goats were a little scary for E. They liked to jump up and get personal, begging for food.
As if they needed it...they were pretty fat goats.

Look at that face.

After watching her cousins feed the goats, she relaxed and gave it a try.
She ended up laughing at all the "silly goats."

Of course, she was shy about riding a pony, but she picked the smallest one and daddy held on beside her. That made her feel better.

The second time around. She chose a bigger horse and daddy walked beside her.

For the final rendezvous, she chose the biggest horse and Daddy watched from the sidelines.

Back home and ready to eat more yummy food.
Thanks Aunt Saucy Chocolate!

The boys finished the day with some shooting. I think this was the highlight of their day.

Stay tuned for more adventures in the Beehive State.

Our Family In Flight

We've been saving for this trip for quite awhile now. We thought we would go in September, but the stars aligned and May turned out be a great month to visit family. Yes, we flew. Yes, we had an early flight. Yes, we took all three carseats plus luggage. Yes, we knew it was going to be crazy. Regardless of how well I thought I was prepared...I wasn't.

We stayed the weekend with my parents to make our early morning trip to the airport a tad shorter. The alarm sounded just 2 hours after I fell asleep...2am. Not a good start. We packed up the van and painfully woke the kids from their slumber to buckle them into their seats. I hate to wake a sleeping baby. We kept them in pj's hoping the long ride would lull them back to sleep. Nope! All three were wide awake as if things were perfectly normal. We were running late (about a half hour later than we wanted to get to the airport) and as we were dressing the kids, frantically unloading luggage from the van, and bagging our carseats... we saw the sun beginning to rise. Way too early for us.

We easily checked our suitcase and carseats, sailed through security, and almost ran to our gate. Whew! As we board, we see the faces of everyone on the plane and know what they're thinking..."Oh no, I have to listen to those babies the whole flight!" Yeah, that's right mister! You get the pleasure of listening to my three sweet angels from heaven the whole 3 hour flight! I didn't actually talk to anyone. I was all about getting A to get the flight attendant to get us some warm drinks for our boys. As I got the bottles out of the backpack, I'm thinking I need a snack for E, sanitizing wipes to clean our space, and oh my word, O is so extremely heavy. Just then our bags are whisked away because we were in the first row behind first class, therefore, no seat to store our things. But wait! I need to sanitize! Oh well. I felt the pressure of the entire plane waiting on us. The flight attendant placed our bottles in a pitcher with warm water in order to warm the milk . She then placed it at our feet so we could get it out to feed the babies. Two seconds later another flight attendant picked it up, gave us the milk, and practically ran from us. But wait! I need it warm! Oh well. The pressure, everyone's eyes. I'll just be quiet, and hopefully, my kids will be too. I was soooo wrong.

W was quite distraught with not having his morning bottle warm. The crying began.

E loved flying. Everything seen out the window was pure amazement. She laughed and clapped with turbulence. The oj was such a treat. She loved everything until the descent, which is when the pressure hurt her ears. A painful cry began. I tried to help her with several different tricks, but she wasn't going to do a thing...but hold her ears and cry.

Here's A doing a fabulous job trying to make W somewhat happy, but nothing worked.
He cried and cried and cried.

Just before descent, we had a bit of relief. W discovered the sanitizing wipes and formed a close bond. He enjoyed chewing on them for several minutes. This seemed to make him happy so we went with it. We also knew that W wanted to be free, not held. So placing him in an empty seat made him happy too. However, this didn't make the flight attendant happy...and she let us know. O fell asleep for about 30 minutes and E watched a little bit of "Cewee and Bob Gamato" (Celery and Bob Tomato, which is Veggie Tales).

Corralling the kids.

We had a 40 minute layover in Dallas, which meant run as fast as you can because you will most likely miss your flight. After getting all our gear into our stroller, we found out that our next plane is 4 concourses away! What! It's the same airline! We briskly walked down our concourse, took the elevator up a floor, and walked back down the concourse to catch the shuttle. After seeing most of the airport, we take another elevator, and practically run to the gate. Lots of people, confusion...Las Vegas? What? Our flight had been canceled. Arg! This was the beginning of a nightmarish 3 hour layover in Texas.

I packed food for the boys, but only snacks for E. So we paid a fortune for a morsel of food. Feeding the boys in the stroller wasn't pleasant...food everywhere. Then the bathroom with the self flushing toilets was sheer pleasure. Imagine E wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist refusing to go anywhere near this loud monstrous toilet."No mommy! No! I don't want to! I don't have to go!" I don't know why I didn't think to cover the sensor! But my extremely sensitive child survived as she clung to me for dear life.

Corralling the kids was a difficult task. A went one way with W and I went another with O. E divided her time between looking out the window and roaming with brothers. This quickly became stressful when I had to watch our luggage, E in various spots, and O all over the place. Not to mention the fact that it was distressing to see all the kids touch everything...fall onto the ground (including faceplants), roll themselves on the floor, attach themselves to the windows, or pick things off the ground to eat. Yuck!

How cute! Literally, a few minutes before our next flight, W fell asleep. Drats. Now I have to wake a sleeping baby and he'll be awake for the entire flight. More crying. Not cute.

The next flight attendant should be fired by how she treated us. She was so rude as A tried to get answers to his questions, she was annoyed by having to deal with us, and then she got angry because we had two children on laps. She actually told us we couldn't get on the plane and drug us back up the ramp. She practically yelled at us, had a heated discussion with another employee and then threw our tickets back at us. "Just get on!" We kept our cool, but had a few words for her. She separated us, which made passing toys and snacks a little tricky. Thanks to those sitting between us, we were able to make it through another flight.

We arrived in the Beehive State safely, sleepily, and with our nerves tied up in knots. It was so good to see the smiles of family to greet us.

Stay tuned for more.

We're Back!

Boy, oh boy...we're back from our trip. Babies, airplanes, screaming, a really fun time with family, yummy food, and a serious lack of sleep. Great memories. It's a good thing we're already laughing at some of our nightmarish moments. Ah...maybe we'll do it again...SEVERAL years from now. I'll post details soon.