Disneyland vacation in major picture overload

Well, we had a fabulous vacation to California in October.  Emma was thrilled that we were actually in Disneyland on her birthday!  We drove and barely made it there.  We had to have our spark plugs replaced (which made the ride home much less stressful) and traveled home in one day!  Everyone actually did remarkably well.  We went with our wonderful friends, the Huff's, and rented a vacation home within walking distance to the park.  We spent 4 days in Disneyland, 1 1/2 days at the beach and also took in a dinner show at Medieval Times. It was record breaking heat the week we were there.  102 in Disneyland....and I didn't even pack shorts for myself!  Most of the pictures are of Kate, because she was the one that wanted to meet all the characters.  Everyone else was too busy riding rides!  I also threw in some pics of the house we stayed in.  It was nice to be able to cook our own food and be so close to the park.  Well....I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

Love that blue kitchen.  There were ants every freaking where.

 Oh yeah, we had our own private pool too.  Fun but freezing!  

 Emma got to wear a special Happy Birthday button so everyone could tell her Happy Birthday!

 The teacups, which I refuse to go on.  I just can't handle them.  How pathetic am I?

 Grant and Landon on Small World.  I have a picture of them in this exact spot when they were 5 years old.  Aw, so cute!

The awesome Lego store in Downtown Disney.  Yes, those are all legos!

 Love these kids! They all had so much fun at the beach.  And it felt so good because it was soooo hot!

Landon and Daniel especially loved body surfing

 Emma and Kate loved finding shells and Emma loved playing with Richard in the waves.

 Kate and Willa having an absolute blast!

 Love this picture at Medieval Times.  Just look at everyones faces!

 Emma was SO delighted to have received a flower from the Knight.

 This is a picture of our shower.  There is no door- just a big step down.  The shower curtain covers a window, but we thought it was extra cool because it was all rubber duckies!   And that is Kate in the picture with her princess hair she bought as a souvenir.

 Alice and the Mad Hatter

 I love taking a picture here with my girls, because I took a picture here with my Mom 5 years ago.

 Handsome boys!

 Jesse, Kate and Emma are BFF's

 Kate and Willa with Sleeping Beauty

 On the last day in Disneyland the Dad's and the 6 oldest kids wanted to go back to the beach.  They did and had so much fun!  The Moms and the little girls stayed at Disneyland and had the BEST lunch.  The monte cristo sandwich at the New Orleans Cafe.  It was worth every penny and calorie.  It was a big highlight for both us.  The girls really liked their macaroni and cheese too!

 Of course we had to meet Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

 ......and Tiana

 .......and Pluto

 .......and Mulan.  Kate never complained about waiting in line to meet the princesses.  I figured I'd better let her, since princesses are literally her whole world right now.

 This is the entrance to our cute and very colorful spanish villa.

 The entryway.  We only rented the lower level.  I wonder what it looks like upstairs.

 The front room.

We had a wonderful time!

Peace and Joy

I know, it's hard to believe that I have actually done a blog today.  And I'm even going to do more this week....with  pictures.  I just wanted to do a quick blog to say that I spoke in Stake Conference yesterday.  It seems better to say it here than on Facebook.  When I was called in to visit with the Stake Presidency, I panicked for a day, but then I knew they were going to ask me to speak, so I was prepared when I went in. They did not, however, give me a topic.  I was allowed to choose my own and had only 10 minutes to get all deep and meaningful and spiritual and thought provoking.  I spoke on the two gifts Christ has given us, the Atonement and the gift of Eternal Life.  I also focused on two words, Peace and Joy.  I was very pleased with how it went and was happy to have my heart stop beating out of my chest when it was over.  The presiding authority happened to be Richard G. Scott, so it was kind of a big deal.  When I finished my talk, he made it a point to say loud enough that I could hear him, "well done!"  I wanted to shake his hand afterwards, but he was quickly escorted out of the chapel right after the meeting.  The "well done" was sufficient for me!  I'm glad that it's over and I really was grateful for the opportunity, especially to focus more on the true meaning of Christmas instead of all the other crazy that is happening from day to day for the rest of the month.  Stay tuned...I think I'll even finally post about our fabulous Disneyland vacation!

A shower, a wedding and a lot of cake balls

One of the fun things that happened this summer was that our niece, Chante got married!  I offered to give her a bridal shower which was so much fun and turned out so darling.  (Couldn't have done it without my awesome sister in law, Emily!)  I also volunteered to make cake balls for the reception.  I ended up making 630!  It was a lot of work, but ended up being so much fun.  One of the days I spent a few hours with Daniel as my helper rolling and shaping the balls.  The next day I spent a few hours with Landon and he helped me dip them all and drizzle them with colored chocolate.  Daniel said, "this is so freaking fun!!"  I really enjoyed spending time with each of them and I think they had a lot of fun helping me and having some good, quality one on one time.  

All these pictures taken on the wedding day are from Emily's blog.  (Thanks, Em!)

Chante and the girls

Davin and Chante

All the boy cousins

Beautiful girls

More cousins pictures!

These are pics of the bridal shower at my house.  The theme was "Eat, Drink and get Married!"

 The fruit pizza bar was a big hit!

 I found all these ideas and printables at the Sisters Cafe blog.  So cute!

 One of my many projects lately....the chalkboard and the beadboard island- I love the gray!

 Kjerstin, Chante, McKenna and Lori

 The darling (and very tasteful) honeymoon basket that Emily put together for the Aunt's to give to Chante.

 Just one of the many, many batches we worked on!

Believe it or not, I'd be happy to make another batch right now even....they are sooooo good!

End of summer trip

Well, we are leaving on our family vacation to Disneyland in one week!  I have really been terrible at blogging all summer, and I really wanted to get a few blogs in before we go take more pictures that need to be blogged!  It's really a combination of things for me.  I don't like to blog unless I have pictures to go with it, but my camera sort of broke.  The new camera Richard bought me is tricky to transfer to the computer, and I got a new phone that takes great pictures, but I haven't figured out how to get them to my computer yet.  I'm kind of a dummy that way.  However, my new phone makes using Facebook super easy.  But this is my blog, and I really don't want all my memories stuck in electronic devices where no one will ever see them.  Here is my attempt to start catching up a little.  It really will be little by little and probably in some random order, but at least I'm doing something about it!  This post is about the last weekend before school started.  We took a trip to St. George and stayed with our friends in Toquerville.  We had so much fun and they were so wonderful to host us.  They had a movie theater and a hot tub and Gary made us delicious breakfasts and took us boating/water skiing at Sand Hollow.  We also took a hike to a place called "Devil's Hole" and you better believe we could not say those 2 words without my boys laughing their heads off!  We also got to hang out with Heather and Brent for an afternoon and spend time at their friends awesome pool!  It was a quick trip, but we really had so much fun.  Both Landon and Daniel got up on their very first try at water skiing and I was super impressed and proud of them.  They had to show up their mother who gracefully landed flat on her face 3 or 4 times and decided she'd make a better cheerleader!   Here are some of our highlights that we managed to take pictures of on Richards phone.

Ready for a day of boating. 

 The boys loved the tube wild and crazy.  The girls (especially me) liked it calm, slow and safe!

 Such a stud!

 Queen of the water!

 Richard did some pretty impressive skiing!

 Daniel having a blast!

 They also had a lot of fun with the kayak.

 Great view of the lake and the boat.  The water was 81 degrees in the deepest spots, but at the beach we were at in this picture the water was probably 95 degrees!

 Emma having fun watching everyone.  She and Kate did jump in the water every single time we stopped the boat!

Mom and Emma having good, safe fun,

Mom and Emma just chillin'.

The whole family!

Hiking up to Devil's Hole.

Landoni.

Emma.

That's it.  Right there.  It made me sick to my stomach to have my kids on that edge.  You can't tell from the picture, but where we were sitting was very small and narrow and that is a 20 foot drop into that hole.

Hanging out at Heather's friends pool.  (Thanks, Bonnie!)  It has a lazy river that goes around the island.  On the island is the hot tub and a fire pit.  There is a bridge directly behind us that takes you to the island if you don't want to get wet.  Pretty amazing!

Fun times!!