Happy Easter!

From two of the cutest kids around
and
the Easter bunny himself!

Five on Friday

1. On Tuesday I got out our new camera to take Peyton's 11 month pictures. For some reason it would not work at all. I hadn't spilled water on it, dropped it, or even let my kids play with it, so I had no idea what was going on. I messed with it and stressed for a good hour while I waited for Rog to get home. I wasn't too worried because we purchased the accidental damage protection plan, so basically if anything happens to it, it's covered. But you have to send it in, wait for it to be fixed, and sent back, so I'd be without it for at least a week, if not more - which isn't ideal. So Rog gets home. I show him that it won't work. He takes it from me and boom, it magically starts working. What the crap? Still don't know what was wrong or what he did, but it has worked fine ever since then! Apparently he has the midas touch.

2. Also on Tuesday Rog grouted our back splash. He still has to seal it, so it's still not 100% done, but it's pretty dang close. We're so glad we went with the green grout - it really makes it. (My idea, thank you very much!)



3. The past 2 weeks yogurt has been a good price at Macey's, so I've been buying it. Corbyn loves it and would eat it all day long if I let him. I have to fight with him to get him to eat anything else. It's good because he hardly drinks any milk and needs more calcium, but there's so much sugar in it! I wish I could just get him to understand that he can have one a day and no more! I've decided that after it's gone, I won't be buying more (at least for awhile) because it's just too much of a problem. Sigh.

4. Yesterday we had Corbyn's play group for the first time in about 2 months. Before Disney World we didn't have it because I didn't want him to get sick for our trip. And then after he's been sick almost constantly and we needed to figure out a new time because our ward scheduled a play group at the church at exactly the same date and time we used to have our play group. (We can't attend the one at the church because it's right during Peyton's morning nap, but the other 2 kids we do our play group with can.) It had been a long time since Corbyn played with kids, so he was in heaven!



5. Last night Bill and Mariah watched Corbyn and Peyton, so we could go to the temple. We did initiatories and unlike last time I went, we were both in and out with almost no wait. We stopped for drinks at Sonic on our way home and came back to find that our kids were perfect angels while we were gone. It was a perfect night at the temple!

11 Months

I can't believe it is only 1 month until this little girl will be 1 year old! These 11 months have seriously flown by. I'm already mourning the loss of my baby. She's so grown up!

PJ at 11 months:

*Loves looking through books on her own (especially little board books), but doesn't really like sitting still while I read books to her. (Probably because she knows that means it's time for a nap or bed.)
*Waves whenever we tell her to say hi or bye. She has the cutest princess wave.
*Is definitely a mama's girl.
*Dances to music.
*Gives us things if we ask if we can see them.
*Can climb up onto Corbyn's bed without any help.
*Loves wearing her sunglasses. They don't stay on too long, but she'll bring them to us to put on her.
*Is sleeping through the night. Looks like our training last week has stuck - hopefully for good!
*Can go up and down the stairs. Although we're still nervous to let her do it without close supervision.
*Gives high fives.
*Points to things and makes a (pretty cute) whiny sound meaning, "I want that."
*Likes to load things in buckets or baskets.
*Finally got her first tooth - the bottom right middle tooth. It's still working on coming in, but I can feel it poking through when I rub my finger over her gums.
*Loves her baby doll. She likes to carry her around, push her in her stroller, and give her a bottle and binky - don't know how she knows she's supposed to do that as she has never had a bottle or a binky in her life!









11 months looks good on you little girl. Next month we'll throw you a party!

Seven on Sunday

1. Rog's parents, Irving, Kenzie, and Jaxon were here for a few days this week. We took advantage of Mike's expertise and had him help us put in a back splash while they were here. We decided we wanted mint green grout and we had to order that online, so it's still a work in progress until that comes in a few days. I can't wait to see it when it's finally done!





2. While Rog and Mike were working on the back splash, Phat Tony acted as a punching bag for Corbyn and Jaxon. It's good practice for the little boy he has coming.



3. Because Easter is early this year, I got out my Easter decorations this week. (St. Patrick's Day totally got gypped this year!) I was most sad about putting this easy new decoration I added to my St. Patrick's Day collection this year. I found the printables here, but tweaked them just a little to make them how I wanted.



4. I washed Peyton's sheets Friday afternoon because she had a blowout during her morning nap. I put them back on during bath time and inevitably a jumping-on-the-bed party broke out. They both had so much fun! It was hard to get them to calm down for bed!



5. Early this week Peyton had a fever from a combination of a pretty minor cold and finally getting her first tooth. After 4 of the worst nights of sleep she has had in her whole life (waking up every 2 hours and usually ending up in our bed before the end of the night), I just had to let her cry it out. The only way I can calm her down and get her back to sleep is to nurse her (rocking her and putting her back down without nursing her only makes it worse) and I didn't want her getting used to eating that often in the night  - so she had to learn to put herself back to sleep! It only took 2 nights of letting her cry it out to get her to sleep through the night last night! I'm just hoping tonight is the same story - It feels amazing to finally get a good night of uninterrupted sleep!

6. Because Wednesday was the first day of spring, we had to have a classic Utah spring snowstorm. It started snowing Friday afternoon and didn't stop until late Saturday morning. Fortunately it has already melted for the most part and this week is supposed to just get warmer every day.

7. This week we signed up to run the Electric Run this September. It looks like it should be an awesome run. I'm looking forward to it already!

Celebrating

We have a lot of March birthdays in our family, so we spent last weekend celebrating. On Friday night we went to Zupas with the Ririe family to celebrate my Uncle Kevin's birthday on the 4th, my birthday on the 5th, and Kiera's birthday on the 18th.

On Saturday my parents watched the kids while we went to see Oz the Great and Powerful for my birthday date. We both liked it - especially the ending, but the middle was kind of eh. And that night we went to Mimi's with the Ford family to celebrate my grandma's birthday on the 7th.

I made myself Pink Lemonade Cupcakes for my birthday cake. We had them on Sunday when my parents stopped by for lunch on their way back down to St. George. Corbyn helped me blow out my candle and even sang to me.



That night we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with Rainbow Waffles.



Ours didn't come out quite as pretty as the ones in the picture...



But Corbyn gobbled them right up and they were pretty fun!



We also fit in some errands and a much-needed garage cleaning.



I'd say it was a pretty great weekend!

27

Like I said before, Rog tricked me to believe my birthday would be like any other day (although I kind of thought he might pull something because if it was really going to be a regular day he would have seemed more sorry). I didn't expect him to take the day off, but I thought maybe we could go out to breakfast and he could go in a little late. But he kept saying it had to be a regular day, so I resigned myself to that just in case it really was. I even defrosted chicken the night before for our dinner.

Of course I woke up and found that he was taking the day off! (He has lots of days saved up and with him leaving to go back to school, he might as well use them! A lot of the people he works with were at a conference anyway, so there wasn't a lot going on at work that day. And he most likely won't be able to take the day off next year because he'll be in school.)

We went to breakfast at Kneaders (YUM!) and then I got ready for the day.

We did the grocery shopping for the week because it needed to be done. We let Peyton help push the cart around. What a cutie!



Then we went on a surprise activity. I honestly had no idea where we were going until we pulled up at Jump On It.



We all had a blast - including Corbyn and Peyton! Rog was thinking of having Mariah watch the kids, but decided to bring them along and I'm so glad he did. It was fun seeing their reactions and playing with them.



Peyton was absolutely fearless.



And of course Rog was a total monkey!



We picked up my birthday present (Wreck-It Ralph) on the way to dinner. It came out that day, so Rog couldn't pick it up beforehand. It was on sale and we had a coupon that made it super cheap (for a Blu-Ray anyway).

We had dinner at Applebees. I got a free birthday treat, but they didn't sing to me because our waiter thought it might scare the kids which was totally fine with me!



We stopped at Krispy Kreme to get my free birthday donut and then headed home to put the kids to bed.

After they were asleep, Rog put a candle in my donut and sang to me. And then I opened my present. This is my, "I have no idea what this is... Oh wait, I was the one who bought it" face.



It was a great day! I wasn't totally excited about turning 27 (getting too close to 30 and it's an ugly odd number), but it hasn't been too bad so far!

10 Months

This is just a little ridiculous. Peyton is almost 11 months now. She turned 10 months while we were in Disney World and while I made sure to take these pictures soon after we got home, I am just now getting around to posting them.

PJ at 10 months:

*Walks like a pro. It is her primary mode of transportation (other than being picked up and carried).
*Waves and claps.
*Likes to unroll toilet paper and play in the toilet.
*Gets so excited whenever she sees ice.
*Loves rice - regular, spanish, coconut - doesn't matter what kind, she'll devour it!
*Loved Disney World!

And I'm sure there's more she was doing at 10 months, but I can only think of things she has started doing since then. That's what I get for posting so late!







We love our cute little walker girl!

Magic Kingdom

I saved the best for last - Magic Kingdom! We spent by far the most time there - it was the first park we went to and also the last. And it was where we went if we still had a few hours in us after finishing up one of the other parks.

It's the Disney World equivalent of Disneyland and there's just the most to do there. Many of the rides are the same and the layout is pretty similar. Splash Mountain was closed for "enhancements" which was a bummer because that's one of our favorites.

We went on the Magic Carpets of Aladdin first. They don't have that one at Disneyland and it was added since my last visit to Disney World, so it was a first for all of us!



"It's a small world" is always a hit.



A (now) funny story. After we rode "it's a small world" on our first day, we could not find our (brand new) stroller where we had parked it. The employees are always moving strollers around, so we weren't terribly worried until we found some of our stuff on top of a garbage can and a stroller identical to ours (but with other people's stuff in it). We were waiting for one of the employees to get security when we saw a family walk by with our stroller! Roger stopped them and asked if they had lost their stroller. They replied, "Yeah, so we just took this one..." We were all pretty dumbfounded that they actually thought it was ok to just take another stroller because they thought theirs had been stollen. All is well that ends well, but we were pretty nervous for a few minutes there. I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't gotten ours back!

Corbyn loved Peter Pan's Flight, but his favorite ride was definitely Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. (No surprise there!) We'd go at night when there was no wait and ride it over and over and over...



One of the times we rode it my gun was broken. Every time I shot it my score went up by about 100,000, so it didn't take long for me to reach the maximum score.



The first night we were there we took Corbyn to meet Buzz (for the first time). The whole time we were waiting in line we told him to give Buzz a hug and then look at us and smile for a picture. When he got up there he gave him a huge hug and would not stop looking at him for anything. He was just in awe at meeting his hero!



One of the nights we ate at Casey's Corner (serving American baseball favorites like hot dogs, fries, and nachos). I didn't really want to go there until I saw something on the menu that I knew I would absolutely love - a hot dog with pulled pork and coleslaw. It was so good - surprisingly one of my favorite meals of the trip!



They had a guy playing ragtime tunes on a piano outside where we were eating. Corbyn kept imitating him - it was so funny!



With the notable exception of Space Mountain, we made it on almost all of the classic rides - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion (Corbyn was fine because he thinks ghosts are funny).

We caught the firework show a few times.



And camped out for the Main Street Electrical Parade one night.



Of course we had to meet Mickey Mouse!



Over the course of the trip we spent a lot of time waiting in line to meet characters for Corbyn, so we figured we should meet some characters for Peyton too even though she doesn't know who they are or care. Aurora, Rapunzel, and Cinderella were all together, so we went there.



Corbyn was very excited to meet Cinderella and it was the cutest thing ever.



We also met Tinkerbell and yet again Corbyn was much more excited than Peyton.



New Fantasyland just opened up. We were very excited to see it (and so was everyone else at Disney World). It was always packed, but magically the last night we were there all the Half Marathoners left and it cleared out just for us. We were able to get in a lot that last night.



Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid. Such a cute little ride - very well done.



Mad Tea Party.



Dumbo the Flying Elephant.



And the Barnstormer (Corbyn was able to ride - it was a lot like the Flight of the Hippogriff at Universal, but not as intense).

When we went to Disneyland with the Phillips back in 2009, Dixie got a sword and a shield in the castle. Corbyn loves playing with them when we visit, so we knew exactly what souvenir we should get Corbyn (and Rog). They each got a sword and we got one shield for them to share.



Peyton got an Eeyore stuffed animal ball to match Corbyn's Pooh ball he got at Disneyland in 2011. I got a Paris magnet at Epcot and Rog also got a hat (to add to his growing bald guy hat collection).

It was truly a magical trip! Many many thanks to my parents for making my dream to visit Disney World in February (when it is less hot, humid, and crowded than the summer) a reality! We made memories that will last a lifetime!