CALIFORNIA VACAY 2014

Long Beach California, 2014

COUSINS!!!

In early May, a few days after Easter, we packed up and drove West to Cali for a much-needed and awaited vacay. An extra perk about visiting CA these days is that we get to see Steven, Kylie and Jack!

So sad I somehow missed getting a picture of all three, but here are the boys. Steven landed his dream job there in Cali working for the USC Athletic department in sports licensing. I'm sure there' s a better description of his job, but it's something like that. :) They moved into a darling house in a nice area of Long Beach last January after graduating from San Diego State's MBA program and are official Cali residents!

I think we stayed four total nights at their place (I forget!). The kids LOVED seeing their cute cousin Jack and spending some time with them. Jack and Lexi are 9 months apart and are the cutest together, and Emmie loved "mothering" Jack the whole time, leading him around. She's pretty cute with little kids (most of the time). 

On Sunday we went to church with them, then headed to Long Beach where we rented this awesome beach bike. It was sooooo fun - I think I laughed the whole time we rode it. Chris got quite the work out towing all 8 of us on that thing.

Jack and Lexi were so dang cute in the little basket up front. Everyone kept pointing and laughing at them as we drove by. I just wish I had gotten a better pic! It was so windy!

We took a break halfway through our bike ride and the kids loved running on the beach! It was pretty chilly out there!

The next day we entered the Happiest Place on Earth. Call us Disney nerds, but we totally love this place. 

Of course, it was the hottest day of the year and hit 95 degrees! & we thought we were being smart to avoid the hot weather by going in early May. We spent 5 days there (& CA Adventure) and of course it was blazing hot every day and our beach days were freezing! But we didn't want to go to Disney on the weekend because of crowds when it was cooler, so we just had to deal with it. 

 Kylie and Jack left halfway through the day for Jack's nap, but returned that evening with Steven after he got back from work. This Pixar Parade in CA Adventure is my favorite!!!

Emmie was super excited to drive! This was our first time finally making it on the new Cars ride - we LOVED it!! 

Our second day at Disney we checked into a hotel - the Anaheim Fairfield Marriott. It's right across the street and down maybe a quarter of a block. It was SO close (took 7 minutes to walk to Disney's front gate) and at the same time NICE- not easy to find those two things in a hotel that close to D-Land! We usually love the Anaheim Marriott Suites which are further up the road, but that requires us to take a shuttle which is soooo not convenient with a big stroller packed full of stuff that has to be folded up. We always just ended up driving when we stayed there in the past. This one isn't quite as nice or spacious but because of location we will definitely stay there again! It was great to be able to take Lexi back for a few naps without it being an ordeal!

 I was 11 weeks pregnant and so nauseaus, but thanks to Zofran I did pretty good on this trip. I remember feeling like such a chunk - I always gain around 10 lbs in my first trimester (but hardly any in the second so it evens out)...it's like my body goes into starvation mode and stores away fat or something! I never stress too much about it because it all comes off post pregnancy (knock on wood) but I hate that stage of pregnancy. Sitting here now however with a big prego belly as I write this I'm thinking I don't look as chunky as I felt, lol! Perspective! :)

 CA ADVENTURE PARK! Chris and Parker went on Tower of Tower a zillion times and also CA Screamin (upside down roller coaster). Emmie wasn't interested in either (especially after Chris dragged her on Tower of Terror last year and she was traumatized!). She later declared her favorite ride of the trip to be Big Thunder in D-Land.  Being pregnant, I had to sit most things out this trip. The saddest part was that some of the better low key rides that I could have ridden, like Pirates, Finding Nemo, Small World and the Ariel ride were all closed! Oh well-still fun though! I did cheat a little and went on the new Cars Ride. It was too tempting! My Doctor said however that it was fine!

Meeting the characters!!! We didn't stop for too many this trip but were able to get our fill on Wednesday at Goofy's Kitchen...

We love this character dining restaurant in the Disney Hotel! Totally a splurge but always a highlight and the food is good. Chris is a huge fan of buffets and this one has just about everything you could dream of! Lexi was soooooooooooooo excited to meet Minnie Mouse. I couldn't decide what pic to use so why not all of them? Their interaction together was so so cute!!!

So cute to see the kids faces meeting all these guys. My favorite line of Lexi's was after Pluto walked away. He didn't see that Lexi had put out her knuckles for him to punch and she sadly turned to me all dramatically and said in her adorable little voice, "Mom, Pluto didn't even give me bones!". Needless to say, she was pretty into meeting her new friends. 

All three of the kids climb onto our double stroller to be taxied around the parks. We couldn't survive there without that thing! Five days straight at Disney is so exhausting!! We feel like we totally get our money's worth this way however since upgrading from a 3 day to a 5 day pass is such a small amount more and this way we feel like we can really take our time in the parks. We love it!

We ended our trip with a day at Seal Beach. It was cute little beach town and the kids loved playing in the sand and the surf. Chris and I don't love CA beaches... not gonna lie. But we stand a few days because hey it's free family fun for our kiddos! :)

We had such a great vacation and really cherish that sacred family time with our kids! We've never been on a vacation that we regretted. So many good memories made and so much quality time spent. We can't wait to go back!!

Easter 2014

A few days before Easter weekend I went down to the basement to put something in our spare room to find that the hallway and bedroom had been flooded. Ugh. SO not something I was wanting to deal with with the holiday weekend upon us and our trip to CA the following week. As if I didn't have enough to do, thanks. ;) Come to find out the city had just turned back on our outside water, and sometime over the winter or early spring the kiddos (we're guessing) turned the valve all the way up & the sudden pressure caused the pipe to burst when it was turned back on. Dry wall & insulation had to be ripped out, of course all of the carpet...it was just a big fat mess. And it took a good 7 weeks to get it all resolved because of our trip right in the middle of it all and working with contractors, the insurance company, etc etc. It reaffirmed for us how much we love our basement which holds our playroom and movie viewing area and my beloved treadmill. It couldn't be used for that entire 7 weeks with all the contents of the flooded room being haphazardly thrown into the Family Room by the 1800FLOODED guys. Half of it was wet and sat on tarps among our other belongings already in that room and we had huge fans on it all for days...tons of it we just had to sort through and toss. The family room basically looked like something out of that Hoarders show on TLC with all the furniture and junk stacked in there. What a nightmare...! 

Anyhow, I had to document.

 Back to Easter....

The kids woke up to a small Easter egg hunt. I'd much prefer to do this on Saturday but it's hard when Chris works all Saturday and doesn't get home until the kiddos are just going to bed. They got a few small gifts including the Rainbow Loom (which they both wanted - it's a bit of a "thing" around here for both boys and girls), some flip flops and sunglasses for summer (and our upcoming vacay)... but the biggest surprise was an egg revealing to them our big news that Baby #4 was on it's way.  They looked a little stunned after Parker read the card...we filmed their reaction... it was pretty funny. It took a few for it to sink in, but even then they were oddly complacent about it. Throughout the course of the day they seemed to be more excited though. I was 11 weeks and totally showing, so we felt like we had to go ahead and tell our families that day as well as we made the Easter rounds. I was a bit nervous, I'm not going to lie, knowing it might be a little controversial what with our crazy year last year with me being sick, and I think for some it was, but overall it was great to get the news out!

After our hunt and Easter baskets, we got all spruced up for church. Should have taken a family pic but of course were running out the door like usual...;)

After church we were off to Mimi's house, where I think I've spent every Easter afternoon of my life besides just a few due to being out of town.

She always has a big egg hunt in her home. I'm so glad my kiddos have been able to carry on a tradition I had at Mimi's growing up my entire life. Always loved those big egg hunts!

Next stop was the Hansens, for another egg hunt of course and a yummy Easter dinner. I was apparently exhausted by the events of the day and only snapped a couple pictures. :)

Spring 2014!

Look I'm blogging about Spring & it's not even Fall yet! 

Impressive. ;)

There is no perfect word to describe our Spring...it was filled with ups and downs (I hate to say more downs than ups but it is what it is) but it was definitely craziness around here. Honestly, I'm glad it's behind us!  Between fighting morning sickness and the woes of early pregnancy (yep, it's happening!), Lexi having bouts of pretty scary breathing issues and sickness, our basement bedroom flooding & having to put our sweet dog of 10 years down....I can't say it was a great Spring but definitely one of change and moving on with things. 

ROXY....

We adopted Roxy from a no-kill animal shelter shortly after we moved to Arizona for Chris to attend Midwestern University's Pharmacy School in the summer of 2004. That was a great year for us of new beginnings....moving away from Utah for the first time ever (besides Chris' mission to Louisiana) was a great experience and one that I treasure. We had no kids at that point and had just purchased our very first home in Surprise, AZ (I think we paid just $140,000- our house payment was like $600-700 a month!) and were loving life! We were SO excited to be on the path to a real career for Chris and to have made it to this next phase. Not to mention it was so exciting to live in a brand new place. I really, REALLY wanted to get a dog to share our new life with and was thrilled when Chris (who had never owned a dog before) picked up Roxy at a shelter while I was working (at a neurosurgeon's office - WHICH I HATED...haha!). Anyways, I am waaaaaay too wordy here so feel free to skip (I'm talking to my one lone reader out there) but I gotta document! :) I remember that Chris picked her up from the shelter just had to leave her alone in our empty house and run back to school, so I came home to find my new best friend. The poor little thing had kennel cough and was soooo sick. She would just sneeze and sniffle and goop out this white stuff all over our couch. It was disgusting and I wondered if she had something permenantly wrong with her and wondered if this was even such a good idea. It took a week or two but she got better and her sweet personality shined through. We just LOVED her. She was so gentle and affectionate and would follow us everywhere... and she never made a peep!  She especially loved Chris in the beginning... we think it's especially because he rescued her. Over the years she proved to be the most loyal little being I think I've ever known. She was our first baby... yes, we were totally those dog people (who after I had kids I began to roll my eyes at). We took her where ever we could and she always traveled back to UT with us, in her luxury dog bed, wearing a seat belt of course. When we went to CA for a weekend to meet up with my Dad we had major anxiety over leaving her but we researched and found this little dog sanctuary where she wasn't locked in a cage all day. We were so excited to pick her back up after our trip and were quite the proud dog owners to find out that she was so well behaved while we were gone and that the owner's had in fact fallen in love with our Roxy baby too. How could they not? Our hearts swelled with pride. :) She truly brought us so much joy and we LOVED those years with her!

2 years later....

Our 2 red heads! (P was red-headed for the first 10 months of his life!)

In 2006, things changed a little for our pampered little pup. Not drastically, but she was definitely knocked off her pedestal with the arrival of Parker. She now had to share attention with this new creature, and even though she was wary about it, she was never ever aggressive with this new family member and was still so happy to have a place in our family. The following year,  2007, Chris graduated, and with some trepidation, we packed up and moved back to good old Utah. Arizona was an amazing time for us. We began our family there, become first time home owners there (in an adorable house that we LOVED), Chris acquired a doctorate degree there that would give him a great, stable job that he loves for the rest of his life, and, of course, we adopted our sweet Roxy there (to name just a few of the fabulous things that happened to us in that desert).

 

It wasn't long (a year) after we moved back to Utah that Roxy's attention had to be divided yet again with the arrival of Emmie. Once again, Roxy took it like a champ. She even handled 2 year old Parker during those days pulling her tail and not always treating her very gentle (to put it nicely) with grace. SUCH a good, sweet, patient dog.
As the years rolled by and stress with little ones and chaos in the home increased, I am sad to say it became harder to give Roxy all the time and attention that she once had, but she was still an integral part of our family. In AZ we had health insurance for her, but once back in UT and with money and time now going towards our kiddos, she rarely got check ups or time at the groomers... but I promise we still loved her! We had many good years with her here in Utah. Our neighbors knew and loved her too and those that might just be passing through might have thought there was a fox on the loose, because that's what our "Foxy Roxy" resembled. :) In the last few years of her life, she had arthritis and had a harder time getting around, had cataracts and had a hard time hearing. Old age was really getting to her and not to mention the life long seizures she would have periodically since we got her as a young dog sometimes plagued her terribly.  Last summer around the same time I got sick, she started bleeding on her belly and developed a fast growing tumor. I was so busy dealing with my own medical issues and basically just in survival mode in our home with taking care of the kids because of it that sadly I didn't have time to worry about her issues. (Which makes me feel so bad!) 

Oh, the circle of life.... I hate it sometimes.

 We definitely knew we needed to do something to put her out of her misery, and after months of knowing this but not having the courage to do it, we finally took her in this last Spring to have her put down. It was such a sad day- harder than I thought it would be. Knowing how loyal she had been to us all those years, even through tougher times for her, I didn't have the heart to just leave her body there with the vet. I knew she'd want to be close to us, as she always was, so after the horrible trip to the vet we buried her in the backyard. Emmie was at dance and then a playgroup, Parker at school, but we took Lexi with us. 

 

Here she is with her pals, on her last night with us. Emmie started to bawl and scream right after this pic... she was probably the most upset about it of the kids. You can tell Roxy just looks sick in the picture... it was definitely her time to go.

 Funny how the right thing is sometimes the crappiest thing. 

It's been three months and I still really miss her...I miss her sense of relief in unison with my own as Chris would be working a late night shift and she and I would finally get to sit down in solace after she "helped" me put the kids to bed. I think she really loved having me that last hour of the evening to herself as she would cuddle at my feet at the end of my bed without the chaos of the kids swirling around us. It was finally our time to bond in the day in recent years.
I know she's a dog and after having kids I definitely appreciated animals (sad to say) less, because I know that people are way more important ... but they still have a place in our families and more importantly in our hearts.
We sure love our Roxy and feel honored to have spent 10 great years with her!

Well, that was depressing.

 In other news, THIS happened in late winter...

Baby #4 12 week Ultrasound

We knew it was risky for me to get pregnant after health issues I experienced last year, but after December I was feeling much better and couldn't shake the feeling that we had another boy up there... and let's face it, I'm not getting any younger. I really wanted to do this and get him here or move on from the baby phase and close that door... so after telling Chris it was now or never... we went for it and this happened pretty much immediately. I was pretty sick for the first 5 months (however not as sick as I was with my girls)... but Zofran was a huge help in easing the dreaded nausea and is still helping me out (at 24 weeks).

At 20 weeks we found out that in fact it really IS A BOY! I really felt like I knew this all along and was glad my intuition was correct. I've always wanted 2 boys and 2 girls, so I feel super blessed that this is really coming to fruition. I am due on Nov 13 and we're excited to get this little guy here. I'm sooooo happy- probably most happy,  to be giving Parker the gift of a brother!



In February Lexi got really sick really fast and I knew by the retraction in her chest (because my good pediatrician has taught me when to really be alarmed) that it was a big deal and that she needed to get into the doctor asap. I brought her into the office and with one look at her in the waiting room several nurses just flocked to us and ran her back and immediately started breathing treatments on her. Her oxygen stats were too low but the treatment helped to raise it a little. Poor little thing was so sick and also had a high fever among other symptoms. They sent us over to the hospital for chest x rays to rule some things out. This was our first of four excursions like this in the last 5 months. The second one actually turned out to be pneumonia and over the months we have come to be experts at breathing treatments and even the same drill of running to the hospital for chest x rays. She starts wheezing and is so out of breath to even say one word, it's pretty scary. The most recent one was over the Fourth of July.... she was so SO sick. She started some steroids and they really helped her out over the course of a week but I hate watching her struggle to breathe. The littlest cold or bug turns into something major for her in her lungs and can be really dangerous. She doesn't have asthma-like issues at all otherwise. Needless to say, she'll go to nursery (at church) for the remainder of the summer, but once Fall hits, she won't be going. It's too risky plus with the new baby coming I just can't handle the stress of all the germs nursery provides. I usually don't send my kids much in the winter anyhow because the repercussions of 2 weeks of illness and doctor visits shared with the family is so not worth it to me, so this isn't all that different I guess. :) I think we're going to be missing A LOT of church this winter between her and the new baby coming.

Another happening this spring was that Parker was in this cute patriotic play that the First Grade put on. There are 150 students just in his grade so it was quite the production! He was chosen to be one of the members of the Barbershop Quartet. It was HILARIOUS! Seriously, it was the comic relief of the show and the audience LOVED it! The choreography was darling but the foursome lip-synced their parts and just hammed it up. It was really really fun and I think a good confidence booster for Parker as everyone complimented him about how funny it was. We were proud of him to say the least! :)


{Not the greatest pics}

I went to both the day production and night. I didn't catch him fast enough afterwards to get him in his costume in the pics on the right. We were grateful that Gpa Todd and Melissa, Grandma and Grandpa Hansen and Great Grandma L were all able to make it out to support him. It was a fun night for him!

And finally, the last event I'll mention in this post is Spring soccer. This season flew by and we had to miss several games due to our CA vacay and Lexi being sick, but Parker really loves this sport and I love to watch him! He is super fast, hard working on the field and has a lot of potential!

Goooooooooooooooo Blue Bearded Dragons!!!

 We went to get snow cones after his last game as a little celebration of a great season. :)

Valentines Day in Pictures

I think these are self-explanatory...! :)

Winter 2014

FINALLY moving on from Christmas. I must be a little OCD about moving out of chronological order with blogging our life events...it's now JUNE and I'm just getting to January... which is super lame and uneventful and really I should just skip to the present but I just can't do it. I am way too ritualistic with way too many things but I just can't help it! & I still feel blogging is the best way to journal for me, or I would have given it up long ago! Luckily, our winter was quite uneventful so I should be done with it within a few posts. And even if it wasn't I don't really remember it too well... so there isn't a whole lot to tell! :)

Here it is!

 The kiddos were SO excited to look out one winter day to find that Roxy had drawn a perfect bow (or according to E a butterfly) in the powder with her little paws. :)

Parker and Emmie off to school... & little sis not quite ready for the day yet. My bed head looks quite similar to hers... (not nearly as cute)

Chris turned the big 36 in January! & of course I don't remember a thing about what we did for his birthday or what he got.... 

This little one cracks us all up. She is so full of sass and personality... we never know what she's going to do next!

This happy girl was a little obsessed with scarves over the winter. 

Parker and his buddy, Cole, having a read-a-thon. Yep, read-a-thon. So cute. They took the Jazz Reading contest for their school super seriously. The schools with the most minutes had a Jazz player come to an assembly, and their school did it! Parker ended up reading over 3000 minutes in just a 3 week period of time! This boy loves a challenge (especially with prizes and weekly drawings involved) and he really worked hard to read all he could! He did awesome!!

More school days!

This little girl loves to "read" herself! She especially loves Look and Find books, and will yell to me, "Read Mom! READ!" if I pause for a second. 

On a side note, this chair is so not in great condition... especially considering that Lexi has colored on it... not to mention it's too bulky for our Living Room...but it was my brother's and I just can't bring myself to get rid of it! 

Happy Trio! Emmie was in love with her Hello Kitty hat that Mimi (my Grandma) gave her for Christmas!

Emmie only had preschool 2 days a week this year, so these two had a lot of time to hang out. They have definitely turned into the best of friends!

As for me... some might call it frumpy, I call it smart.... but I spent much of my winter in these pups...and savored every second of the coziness! I bought these at Christmas time for someone else but ended up keeping them when I found that person another gift... BEST MOVE EVER! :)Thank you Ann Taylor Loft. These were a definite highlight of this year's hibernation! :)