HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Lauren lost another bottom tooth this week and now looks like a Jack-o-lantern.

HaPpY HaLLoWeeN!

Psycho

Or otherwise known as Fall Break at Disneyland with little kids.

And we didn't even take the three year old. It should have been a breeze with only three kids, right? Disneyland was festively decorated. From the giant candy corns, to the fall colors lining Main Street.

Even the big letters that spell California outside of California Adventure were the colors of candy corn. Which reminds me of the quirky catch phrase Kirk conjured up:

"The Candy Corn Colored California is Kinda Cool!"

Clever.

The second day, we had VIP seats courtesy of one of his MBA classmates for the parade. We had big bench seats right in front of the Railroad Train ride and had a great view!

These were our seats:

And this was our view!Heck, even our hotel went all out for Halloween! Not really, but they were painting the hotel these candy corn colors while we were there and will probably feel pretty cool every October!

The Haunted Mansion was completely redone to the theme of A Nightmare Before Christmas. While it wasn't worth the 1 hour waits, we did get some fast passes and did it a few times. It was pretty cool..............

I have to confess that of all the times I've gone to Disneyland over the years, I have never once stepped foot into the Innoventions Building. It turned out to be one of the kids ( adults included ) funnest places to go. Lauren loved the karaoke stage and rocked out to High School Musical and Lion King songs. Jack loved putting together a virtual skeleton.

Aside from not sleeping in his stroller or napping for a whole week, Ian's favorite rides were the Toy Story Mania and Buzz Lightyear.

Guess what else we saw? All over Disneyland? The whole week?That's right! Arizonans, Mormons and sometimes both Arizona Mormons. E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.! The pictures I took were just the ones I spotted as we were leaving the park. Pretty much every one in line we talked to was from Gilbert or Utah. Even Jessie from Toy Story was LDS. Seriously. We were at the Toy Story Halloween show and afterwards, Jessie gestured to a family next to us asking where they were from. They said, "Utah". ( shocker! ) She then started clapping the rhythm to the BYU fight song. They of course didn't get it until she started using her fingers and writing the letters CTR on her hand. You know, the secret code word for "I'm a Mormon too!" The even funnier thing is the day school started after fall break, Lauren told a friend of hers that Jessie from Toy Story was a Mormon. BWAhahahaha!

And in keeping with our Disneyland tradition, we always run in to a person we knew from our past. This time was no exception. Kirk went on the Rapids ride and ended up sitting in the same raft as an old friend, Ron. What are the odds? Even funnier odds? He's from Arizona ( notice the Arizona shirt ) but he lives in Utah. I know.......shocker again! He fell into a separate category from the Arizona/BYU/Utah/Mormon groups walking around Disneyland to a new subgroup called the former Arizona but now Utah/Mormon.
After five gloriously long days at Disneyland, we headed down to Escondido to meet up with my parents and Erik who they so graciously offered to watch for us. We spent a few hours at the beach in Carlsbad. Just long enough for me to realize a beach and an 18 month old isn't a super fun combination. Unless, you like sand in your sodas and food.....which I don't.

While on the beach, we saw a bunch of dolphins swimming around. See the black speck on the right side of the picture? That's a tail. Fascinating picture, eh?

We spent another day at the Wild Animal Park. Lauren liked to pet the dear.

And Ian tested my nerves.

I honestly don't know how we managed flying cross country with 4 kids one being 7 months old to DisneyWorld last fall break. We made it home safely. Kirk and I realized that it has been almost 5 years since we've taken a trip together............alone............sans kids. I'm looking forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary in a few months........going, you guessed it............back to Disneyland!

Lassie's Great Mystery

Ian has suddenly started to speak in "sentences". At least as far as inflection goes. It sounds like he his saying complete sentences, but I have no clue other than an occassional, "bup" or "ack" as to what it is he is trying to say.

One such conversation which lasted several minutes with him speaking and gesturing towards the kitchen had me thinking what it must have been like for Lassie when he was trying to talk to Timmy.

Ian: "Gah. Blah blah blah Gah." ( randomly gesturing )

Me: "You want something to drink? Something in the kitchen? Something on the counter?"

Ian: ( shaking head and now wildly pointing ) "Blah blah babble babble boo boo boo gah!"

Me: "Someone fell into the pond? There's a fire on the mountain and a boy is stuck in a pool of quicksand? A cougar is about to attack Mr. Johnson's sheep? Obama might be our next President?"

Ian: unphased by my attempted at humor.......

Me: "You want a toy? Some milk?"

Ian: Nodding and smiling with excitment.


Luckily no one was REALLY stuck in a pond or quicksand or on a fire-ravaged mountain. Maybe Lassie could leave Obama a fragrant gift on his lawn though.............

I don't mean LITERALLY.....

We're still potty training Erik. He is specifically the reason I refused to adopt one of my parent's new kittens. I wasn't about to potty train a cat at the same time. Although, the cat would probably have been easier. Thank goodness I only have to do this one more time. In the whole process, I've gotten lazy as evidenced by the fact that one day while we were working outside and he needed to go, I took his pants off and told him to pee on the rocks. That cool new idea set us back a few days trying to "undo".

A few weeks ago as we were getting the kids to bed, I called Erik over to put his "britches" ( pull ups ) on. He threw a huge fit saying, "NO! I don't WANT to wear britches to bed! I want to wear BIG BOY PANTS!"


Wow. Ok. I wasn't quite prepared for that kind of response. I was still struggling with the foul rituals of the day time accidents. I wasn't quite prepared for the night time noxious sheet changing. Not without a little more warning. I needed time to stock up on some more Resolve and Febreeze.

But we went for it. I tried to explain to him that if he's going to wear his big boy pants to bed, then he'll need to make sure he goes "pee pees" in the potty. I then put a towel on top of his sheets ( again, not prepared and didn't want to make the effort to make his bed with a mattress pad ). I told him that the towel is there just in case he has an accident in the middle of the night and pees and that the pee will go on the towel and not his sheets.

See where this is going yet?

It was evident that I used too many literal words in my explanation because when Kirk went to check on him the next morning, he was standing next to his bed............

peeing on the towel.

Kirk asked him what ( on earth! ) he was doing. He exclaimed that he was peeing on the towel so it wouldn't get on the sheets.

Boys.

Hawanna Hava Hula Party

I promised Lauren I'd let her have a birthday party after last year's fiasco!

We squeezed in the date between Kirk's weekends at school and her baptism day. We put together some invitations.

We ordered a plethora of party favors and decorations.

We booted the boys from the house.

Then we partied Hawaiian style!

We decorated flip flops............

I thought it would be fun to give the girls "hawaiian" names to wear on name tags but realized half of the girls already had hawaiian sounding names. Eh......oh well. So much for creativity.

And opened presents.............

Made an attempt at a ukelele cake with a lei draped on it.

Then we ate it.............

It was a whole lot of fun!

Hau`oli la Hanau Lauren!