4th of July Weekend!

We had a great 4th of July Weekend over in Willow Creek! We spent most of the time at my in-laws and went over to Ron's Aunt and Uncle's one day to hang out with them and Ron's grandparents.

Jocelyn is 3!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday on June 2oth to my little Princess! Hopefully three will be better than two! She has so much personality which can be a good or a bad thing but I love her lots all the same! Some things about her....She loves anything girly, hates getting her feet dirty but doesnt seem to care about her hair. She loves to go in her room for a couple hours and completly entertan herself (which I love!). She is doing great riding her bike, knows all her shapes and colors, we are teaching her to spell her name and number and letter recognition. She has no desire to swim or even get her head wet but loves to go to the river or pool to just toodle around in her vest. She is into makeup and painting her nails and likes to do it by herself when no one is looking. Recently she took an entire container of lip gloss and smeared it in her hair. Everywhere we went for the next couple of days people kept asking if she had just been swimming because her hair was so greasy and wet looking! Finally after several days and showers it washed out! Happy Birthday Sissy Bear!

Disneyland!

The happiest place on Earth! Back in January Ron informed me that he had a conference in Aneheim in June and it would be so neat for all of us to go. Then again,anytime he travels for work outside of his regular site visits that he does, he says" I wish you guys could come, it would be fun." I didn't really put to much thought into it. Of course would would like to go places with him all the time but it isn't realistic with my job and finiacially. Well the along came April and we got a larger tax return than we expected so I started looking into flights and pawning the thought of it over. It actually would be about the cheapest time for us to go. Since Ron was working we would only have to pay for part of the days of the hotel, pay a couple days for the rental car, and his food for the day would be paid for part of the time too. Then came the next big issue, Ron would be working everyday so I would have to have someone with me (another adult) to help with the three kids. The trip was the last week of the school year so both our moms were out. I asked my sister Jen to come with us and she said yes! So here are just a few of our pics. We had the best time we spent 5 days there!

Another slideshow by Smilebox

Check out my tips below if you are planning a trip!

Tips for Disneyland!

Here are some time and money saving tips for a trip to Disneyland!
1. Stroller and backpack are a must. We kept valuables (cameras/wallet) in backpack and took on rides with us.
2. You can bring any food and liquids in the parks, (except alcohol). Microwave popcorn/fruit rollups/ fresh fruit. Food isnt that expensive in the park but we tried to only eat one meal in there a day so we could spend more money on souveniers. You go through ALOT of water so we bought water bottles, then bought the large gallon containers of water and refilled the water bottles. Buying the flavored water packs was also nice to mix it up a little!
3. Buy most of toys/clothes/souveniers on your way out of the park so you are not stuck carrying them around all day. Our kids liked the idea of getting to go pick stuff out then play with it on the way back to hotel. There are stores EVERYWHERE!
4. Stay until midnight! There is no point in going to the park right when it opens @ 9a.m. It is a mad rush. The schedule we used was this. Took our time in the morning, ate a good breakfast, packed lots of snacks, went to park stayed there until 3 or 4 p.m., got a late lunch outside of the park (there is a ton of different choices right outside park, subway, pizza,....)had kids take a nap, went swimming, repacked snacks (sometimes swam before nap), ate dinner (usually at park), and stayed until closing (midnight) when you stay late the lines are soooooo short and you can do 4 rides in 20 minutes as compared to daytime when the lines can be as long as 2+ hours. Julian who doesnt nap anymore also took naps so he was able to stay up late w/out meltsdowns!
5. take advantage of the fast pass system it is free! And there is a parent swap too ( if you are with a child that is not big enough to go on a ride you only have to wait in line once, dad can go while you wait then you get to go when he gets back!)Julian benefited the most because he would go on a ride with Ron or Jen, and I would wait with the girls, then he would get to go AGAIN with me while they waited with the girls!
6. Depending on the time of year you go, sunscreen and those spray bottles with fans are outrageou$ in the park so we brought both from home.
7. we had five days and the park and still didnt get to do everything, toontown (in Disneyland) and Bug's life (in CA adventure) are good ones to do during the day because there is fun things but not a lot of waiting.
8. Tennis shoes or really comfortable sandels, you walk and are on your feet a lot ( that is when the stroller comes in handy even with older kids) If you do stay late bring a sweatshirt and pants, it does cool quiet a bit. Hats and sunglasses but hold onto them during rides!
9. Depending on how important it is for your kid....we didnt do they autograph books. If there was a character that the kids really like we would wait in line to have a pic with them but otherwise you are standing in line for a while for a pic/signature and we felt it was better to stand in line for rides then to waste 30 minutes for a signature. there was times we lucked out and had good timing and didnt wait too long but for the most part the lines got long fast for the characters!
10. Walmart makes name tags necklaces. We had the older kids (2yrs and 6) wear them at all times. They included their names, our names and both our cells. That way if we were seperated it would have been easy for someone to contact us immediatly! They even have a mickey mouse tag (which is what we got!)
11. Take a trip to walmart or Kmart before you go to buy clothes T-shirts with Disney on them. Before we left, I bought a cute princess shirt at Kmart for $7.99 and we bought her a princess tshirt at Disneyland for $28.00. Another example is when Jocelyn went to the princess dinner I bought her dress for $20 at and they are $65 there. They also had princess swimsuits that were less than $10 for both.
12. If you decided to do anything else why you are down there google "coupon code for ________(name of place)". We went to Medieval Times one Night. Adult meals are $55 kids $35 and I was able to order them online ahead of time with a coupon code that gave us buy one adult entree get one free. We paid for an upgrade so we could sit in front which was not included It was only $10 more per person, worth it!Either way we saved $$$$ over $100 with the coupon code.

Idaho!

We drove to Idaho in the end of May to celebrate a close family friend's HS graduation. We are so very proud of Colton! The trip started off rough, both girls had horrible coughs and ear infections. I was able to get them into the doctor the day we left, but later ended spilling the antibiotics, getting it filled again, then spilling again....  long story but lets just say I almost lost my marbles after the second spill!

I love Idaho, the Phillips family always make us feel so welcome and Gale is the greatest host ever! There is lots for the kids to do. Julian has found a very good friend in Austin (Colton's little brother) and was very sad to leave.  We did quite a bit of stuff besides the big graduation celebration including going to parks, boys went fishing, Boise Zoo, Carrie Underwood concert...... here are some pics!

The ride over, the kids stayed in their PJ's for about from 8 pm thursday night until 2 pm Friday!

Colton's Graduation and Party

The Boise Zoo, Discovery Museam and various parks

Jocelyn was pooped at the end of the zoo day ( BTW that is Sammy's bottle :) )

Carrie Underwood was AWESOME!

Thanks again to the Phillips!

Shoes

I had to post a picture of the girls' shoes because it is so out of control. They have so many from hand-me-downs from girl cousins and I buy some and my mom too. This is almost even a bit embarassing to admit, but there are even more that aren't pictured here, because they are scattered around the house and in the car (both girls take off their shoes when we go anywhere!)

Backyard Photo Shoot

So, for Sam's birthday she had a custom made hot pink and leopard tutu with matching onsie. Ava of course had a zebra one! We ordered the outfits from threelittleprincesses.com (via etsy.com). I took quite a few pictures at the party but also took a few extra that I had to show off! Enjoy!

Did I mention that I take a lot of pictures? This doesn't even include more pictures that we took with her cousin Ava in her backyard :) !