More Disneyland Pictures!

I've never uploaded pictures this way before, I'm not sure if it will work. And if you click on it, it might take you to a random cloud website where there are ton of pictures from Aaron's phone. Or it might not. I honestly don't know. But Aaron got some better pictures than I did. And both of our phones died halfway through the second day, so we only have pictures from the first part of the day. Such fun times.

Disneyland 2014... Pictures!

Nathan had a rough first day. He really wasn't feeling well. He threw many fit. We just kept reminding ourselves, "At least his ticket was still free!"

And he still managed to smile and have a good time for most of the trip.

It's Tough To Be A Bug... most terrifying show at Disneyland!

Olivia asked Brer Fox where Brer Rabbit was, and this was his reaction. Along with rubbing his tummy. 

You can't hear Eliza's terrified scream, but it's there.

This is the closest we got to a family picture. I got these cute outfits with the idea that we'd take a family picture in front of the castle for our Christmas cards. Yeah, didn't happen.

Nathan LOVED the characters this trip.

What a stinker!

And don't let this one's smile fool you. She kept us up ALL night, before our last day in the park.

Olivia got to "drive" on Indiana Jones, and she was SO excited about it.

It was a very spontaneous trip, but I'm so glad we did it. We had so much fun and the kids are still talking about it. We stuffed Nathan's shoes with extra socks and spiked his hair the second day, so he was able to go on all the big rides. He LOVED it. Except, I'm pretty sure he thinks Space Mountain ACTUALLY takes you to outer space. He keeps asking me if I remember when we went on a rocket to outer space. His favorite was definitely Thunder Mountain. He didn't want to get off. Olivia's favorite was Indiana Jones, and Abigail's favorite was Cars Racers (Which Nathan DIDN'T get to go on! We hadn't properly padded his shoes that day, so he was a hair too short. SO MANY TEARS!")

Sometimes you have a day where this isn't even the worst mess you clean up. Yes, that's hot pink lip gloss and it was my favorite of all time. And now it's all over my laundry, including my third favorite shirt, and Nathan's brand new church shirt. Fortunately, the rest of the clothes I don't care too much about. It was towels, and some jeans that were past their prime anyway. And you probably just learned something new about me, no I do not separate my laundry. I never have, and I've never had a problem. And I'm lazy, so that's how it goes. Unfortunately, due to that laziness I never check pockets, and maybe some day I'll learn. Because I'm really sad about that lip gloss.

But this was just one of many messes I cleaned up on Tuesday. The first was a result of Eliza getting her diaper off during nap time. I'll spare you the very disgusting details, but just know this. I smelled it before I saw it.

Also not pictured, a gallon of grape juice, an entire happy meal, and every other every day mess that you know is just part of life with four kids.

It was a rough day. Just so many frustrations in such a short period of time, and it happened to be on a day where Aaron was working a 13 hour shift. Not fun!

However, through most of it I just laughed. I was frustrated, but not paralyzingly overwhelmed. At one point I did think, "Heavenly Father I have been praying SO much lately. And I've been reading my scriptures EVERY DAY, and I'm serving people like all the time. So c'mon, where are those blessings you promised me??" And then I looked around me and realized how incredibly ridiculous I was being. I looked at my home, and my wonderful children, and thought of my hard working husband and I realized how blessed I was. And that by doing all those things that I should be doing, I can realize these as the blessings they are. I can have an eternal perspective and know that all of these frustrations are so temporary. And in that they are so much easier to bear.

And for the record, the past two days have been much less frustrating.

Life lately update

One time I was really ambitious and decided, "It's 4:30, I don't feel like cooking dinner, let's all bike ride to the park." And that was one of my worst ideas ever. Olivia is barely proficient enough to handle it. Abigail really wasn't ready. And Nathan didn't make it to the end of the street. So now I'm cajoling along Abigail, telling her to just keep pedaling, stop getting off her bike to examine ants, and just ride her bike, while pushing a double stroller that has Nathan, Eliza, and Nathan's bike. And Olivia is riding too far ahead for my comfort so I'm having to constantly yell at her to slow down and stop at the corner. And then she fell, and gashed her knee open on a rock. But by the sound of her screams you might have thought she lost a limb. And she didn't want to turn around and go home, she wanted to keep going, so we went. Though she never stopped complaining about the pain. Very loudly. Then we had to cross a fairly busy street. We were in the crosswalk, crossing the street when a car came. It stopped at the stop walk, it had a stop sign, but Olivia just froze. And stood there in the middle of the street. So now I'm screaming like a lunatic, and she finally moves. It was very stressful. But in the end we made it all in one piece to the park. And it was worth it (maybe) because I got these awesome pictures of Abigail and Eliza.

A friend gave me a bunch of g diapers. I don't think I would have ever used them if she didn't give them to me, but I love them. I feel all fancy and like I'm saving the earth, plus they're super cute. Eliza liked showing them off.

My kids were horrible about throwing away their candy wrappers. Eliza loved finding wrappers with little bits of candy still stuck to them. Here she found a lollipop that was basically gone, but she enjoyed the last little bit of sweetness on the end of that stick.

Abigail and I got to do some birthday shopping. She got a butterfly garden, a dora plaything, a doc mcstuffins play thing, and this little kitten with a bed for her dollhouse. Money well spent. We had a great time. I love this little weirdo of mine.

And just because Nathan is seriously under represented on this blog, here is a picture of my sweet boy riding one of the stick horses I made for Abigail's birthday. But really you're just looking at my messy house, aren't you? I hope it makes you feel about yourself. Or is that just me? I don't know how you moms do it, with your clean houses and your clean kids. That happens about once a week around here. I should take more pictures on that day.

Abigail's birthday was fun. And now we're planning Thanksgiving festivities, and then we'll be planning Nathan's birthday, then Christmas, and then Eliza's first birthday! I LOVE this time of year. Who doesn't? 

Because what's the point of throwing ridiculous parties if you don't even blog about it??

I posted most of these on Facebook, but I wanted to put them here for journaling's sake. 

We rented two real live ponies to come give pony rides for an hour. Costs about the same as renting a bounce house, yet I think much more memorable! The kids had a blast.

My attempt at fancy sugar cookies. They tasted better than they look in this photo!

Dollar store cowboy hats.

These were quite the labor of love. Stick horses made from socks, stuffing, a 99 cent stick from JoAnn's, and yarn for a mane. I started out making them way more complex, and the last 10 were just very basic and simple.

This is what they would have looked like if I had unlimited funds and time.

I love that my sweet Abigail is growing up into such an amazing little girl. She is a blessing to have in our family and brings joy to everyone who knows her. A funny recent story about Abigail, to perpetuate the legend of her being an animal whisperer... The kids were playing out front and running around when a medium sized, crazy dog came out of no where started chasing them. Olivia was running for her life and this dog was biting at her heels and growling and barking. I was pretty scared myself and Abigail just stopped, looked it right in the eye and put her hand up and said, "CALM BOY. CALM DOWN." And the dog stopped being crazy, and just stood there. Then our neighbor came out running after the dog and grabbed him. She seriously has super powers. She's also super into video games and tv, and pbskids.org. She sneaks candy when she knows she's not supposed to have anymore, and sometimes this little stubborn streak comes out and surprises me. I guess that's called being a kid! Sure love my Abigail and am so grateful for the last 5 years I've had being her mom.