Disneyland

Our family on the ferris wheel

A highlight for Parker - meeting Buzz Lightyear - His costume really was very cool and real looking

Grayson absolute faves were the carousel and the Winnie the Pooh ride

The only picture Mark and I took together - copied from the ride on the roller coaster at CA Adventure - lame - why do we not take more pictures together?? Thank you to Aunt April for keeping track of all three boys so we could ride this together!!

Our family with Buzz and Billie

Family Picture at the main gate

Parker in Toon Town

Davis in Toon Town

We spent this past weekend in Disneyland celebrating my mother-in-law's 60th birthday with most of Mark's extended family. The boys remembered a lot and anticipated certain things because they were there for the first time last fall so it was super fun to see them so excited to go back. Davis loved the Matterhorn again. Parker said that the Matterhorn was his favorite but you should have seen how opposed he was to going on before we road. Glad he left it with good memories. In reality - I think his fave was Dumbo (he repeated asked for that ride and the line was SO SO long) and meeting some of his favorite characters - Buzz, Woody, Chip and Dale. Grayson didn't love the characters as much this visit. He was much more afraid of them but he LOVED the carousel. We definitely go our money's worth on that ride. He seriously probably rode it more than 50 times in the course of the trip. He also started saying a new word. (He only has about 6 consistent words - they are reserved for things he really loves - "mom, dad, eli, papa, davis and all done"). I didn't realize what he was saying at first but then the sign language helped me interpret . . "RO RO-O-O" was begging for another churro. Ah yes, a child after his father's own heart for sure. My husband brings cash specifically designated for his churro consumption. Another particularly great treat of the trip was the amount of time we got to spend with April. She flew in to surprise Billie and was without kiddos in toe so she spent most of the time trooping around with us. My boys loved the undivided attention from Aunt April :) In a group that size we didn't get to really see other family members as much as we had hoped but I think everyone had a really great time. Our little crew definitely did!!

Papa

watching Papa work on his taxes :)

Grayson had some pretty sweet bonding time with my dad this week in CA. He has been super attached to me as of late (even more than usual:) so it can be a little difficult to pull him away sometimes. My dad was persistent and won him over. He even started saying Papa really well - he says something more like "BaaPoh" which sounds really cute to me. He doesn't say too many words so I like hearing him start to say things that people other than me can understand. We are so blessed to have times like this to spend with my mom and dad.

Who could say no to that face :)

This is a stance I see about fifty times a day - he wants to be held :) And I couldn't possibly love him more than I do so I hold him - most of the time. So what would one try when they think that their crying baby is keeping everyone up: (I didn't realize what I was setting myself up for on the last post because nursing him didn't cross my mind - obviously it crossed most of your minds - some how I managed to peg myself as the woman who nurses forever . . not too sure how that happened, but I don't really care - I did love to nurse my babies:)

- I gave him multiple cups of warm milk (back fire on the throwing up issue)

- I jammed myself in the closet that he was sleeping in to rub his back and sing to him

- I tried to get him to lay down on the twin bed I was sleeping in but he was only willing to lay on my head not on the bed - so that was awkward and uncomfortable

- I paced around the room holding him

- I read him books

- I finally put him in his bed and when he started to cry again, I resorted to telling him that crying was disobeying mommy

See - and you guys had it worked up as something so much worse :) I guess I was feeling like a push over for letting him attempt to sleep smashed against my face. It was a mixture of pressure to get him to stop crying and love for my sweet boy AND he was kind of sick.

Vacation???

I had to start off with a very cute picture of the boys doing what my boys love most . . playing/digging/running on the beach. This is a reminder of why we endure things like the night before. It was so eventful it is pretty much comical - thus I thought it was blog-worthy :)

8 pm: All 5 big boys go to bed peacefully and quietly with any complications - babies go right to sleep too, in their respective pack-n-plays of course. Wow that was easy!! (stupid mommy)

8 pm - 2 am: Watch a totally lame movie with Liss and then proceed to play Scrabble with each other on our phones until 2 am (WHAT was I thinking . . . . . )

2:15 am: Troy comes out with a look on his face that you can certainly picture if you know him - it is a combination of WHAT the screw are you two doing and at this hour and why am I the ONLY one who hears Grayson screaming his head off. (Oops sorry Troy - thought you could sleep through a hurricane and G cries for an hour every night - yes people - it is true)

2:15 am - 3 am: Do everything I can think of to try to get G to go back to sleep without letting him cry and disturb everyone else - this is the worst. You don't even want to know what I tried.

3 am: Grayson starts coughing really hard - it looks like he is going to gag from the coughing - he starts vomiting his entire dinner and multiple cups of milk all over me - AWESOME. Clean him up - clean the bathroom up - bag all the nasty clothes - change Gray.

3:30 am: Gray is just finally getting settled from the episode and finally falling asleep in my arms. Enter Davis who needs to pee.

3:35 am: Re-enter Davis who now needs to go #2 and be wiped and YES I'm still holding a baby who is finally.almost.asleep - aaahhhhh. Bummer. Now Gray is back up.

4:00: Gray is finally settled and back in bed. Does it sound like I hear something? Yes it is Eli and Davis sitting up talking. I walk in and Davis just casually looks up and says, "Um, Eli says that I can go to High School next year even though I'm five, will that work?". WHAT?!?!?! It is the middle of the night. Pull Davis out of the slumber party room. Set him up to sleep on the couch. Tell E to go back to sleep. Finally I fall asleep on the couch for about and hour and a half.

5:45 am: Enter Logan. Just casually walking around the family room. Checking it out. "What are you doing Loges?". I send him in to find my sister but Davis is already awake and now wants to stay up. I try to convince Davis to try to go back to sleep.

6:15 am: Do I hear something again? Yes, Melissa fell asleep and Loges thought she was boring so he headed back in the room with the boys and woke up Parker and TJ. I'm guessing Eli was sleeping through this since he was up chatting at 4 :)

And with that, the day officially begins. Vacation? I learned my lesson. Do not stay up and play iphone scrabble all night!!!! Even running on no sleep - I loved seeing the boys enjoy the beach today. More fun pictures coming. Good times.

For Jenn :)

I can't believe that it has been a month since I posted anything to my blog. Sad, I'm sure I have failed to write down things that came to mind. I haven't been able to find my camera cord until I committed to finding it for California so I have a lot of catch up to do. Until Jenn brought it to my attention, I had no idea it had been so long. While I start to work on the back posts, here are a couple "Parker-isms" that have made me smile:

Picking Parker up from Sunday school:

Me: What did you learn in your story tonight?

P: Ummm, mostly it was about Uncle Matt.

Me: Huh?

P: Yeah, they just kept saying Matthew. (Sure enough the take home paper said the story came from Matthew Chapter 27 - guess the first few seconds really made an impression:)

While I am getting ready to go out:

P: Here mom, here, here . . (forcing something toward me)

Hands me a funky object.

P: It is my booger. It came from my nose.

Parker LOVES all things super heros. It is kind of his thing. His personal favorites are Supergirl and Superman. He hauls them around everywhere!! I particularly love that he says, "my super-herios" (said like Cheerios)

The other day he was bringing me a shirt and asking me insistently to change the shirt he had on (which is sometimes an hourly occurrence) so I was not wanting to change it. He kept telling me the same thing over and over to justify his need of a new shirt but I couldn't understand what he was saying. Finally I said, "what is it you are saying?" and I realized that he was saying, "I have ahh-choo on my shirt". He had sneezed on himself and that was the only word he could think of to describe his snot. Made me laugh :)