A Serious Case of BedBugs...

We found Oaklee a Toddler bed for an awesome deal at a yard sale - it has small-ish rails on the sides to prevent her night time roll-out issues. We put it up in her room and she was all excited about it until we moved the crib over to Dayton's spot and she realized he'd be sleeping in it. She cried. I tried cheering her up by making her bed, putting her blankets and pillows on it, and her 'mouse' - Eventually she warmed up to the idea.

The next morning I could here her giggling and talking (in her bizarre foreign language) so I went to get her out of her room and I found this:

How stinkin cute is that?? Apparently she climbed onto the toy box and then up the railings into his crib. She had all the blankets thrown on the floor. And where are his pants??? Oaklee can be found with him almost every morning. She's now figured out that she can throw toys in before she climbs in and then they'll have plenty of entertaiment.

Kid Quiz

This was a note on facebook I did - I though it appropriate to post here as well:

I did this 'kid quiz' with Kyndi who's 4:

1. What is something mom always says to you? - Get Dressed

2. What makes mom happy? - Cleaning up your room

3. What makes mom sad? - That you don't clean your room

4. How does your mom make you laugh? - Tickling me

5. What did your mom like to do when she was a child? - Watch TV

6. How old is your mom? - 15

7. How tall is your mom? - 14 inches, Am I right?

8. What is her favorite thing to watch on TV? - American Idol

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? - Eat breakfast, eat lunch and eat dinner

without me

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? - American Idol

11. What is your mom really good at? - games

12. What is your mom not very good at? - Monopoly

13. What does your mom do for her job? - Help Tyson Morrissa and me and Tate

14. What is your mom's favorite food? - Cereal

15. What makes you proud of your mom? - That she helps me

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? - Blues Clues

17. What do you and your mom do together? - Watch TV

18. How are you and your mom the same? - We both have hair

19. How are you and your mom different? - because she has different clothes than me. I have

little kids clothes and she has grown up clothes

20. How do you know your mom loves you? -Because she says you're the cutest girl.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad? -(We did Kamron): His "muh-staticky" hair

and they draw in the dust on the tv together

Twinkie Eater...Sort of.

So it was snack time at our house (3pm). Dayton sat on my lap and watched as all the kids got their snacks and started to eat them. Suddenly he got completely jealous of all their food and started kicking and making some odd noise (Like a mix between a grunt and a tiger). It was obvious he wanted them to share. I put him in the high chair and gave him a Twinkie thinking he would just gnaw on it for a while. I was wrong. He took it with both hands, smashed it to smitherines (sp?) - the cream was oozing between his fingers. He didn't even make one single attempt to put any in his mouth. He just kept smashing it more and more in his little fists. Suddenly his finger went to his mouth... you could see the look of realization on his face... "This tastes good" ... He has now been licking his fingers for the past 20 minutes, and the twinkie remains on his tray, now completely forgotten.

The Case of the Missing Child

My two babies share a room. Dayton sleeps in a playpen type bed and Oaklee has a crib. We recently converted her crib into a miniature daybed by removing the rails off of one side. I had decided she was big enough to try out the "big girl" style.

She was all excited about her "new bed" got in, jumped around and settled down to sleep. A few hours later, Dayton was crying so naturally I went in to check on him. I got him settled down and turned around to check on Oaklee and this is what I found:

She was no where in sight!! I checked everywhere that I could think of to no avail. I started feeling panicky - not real logical, I know, since she was obviously somewhere... And then I heard a soft little breathing sound and look where I found her:

So stinkin funny!! How does one roll out of bed without waking up, and then continue to sleep peacefully under the bed?? At some point she must have woken up and discovered her crazy spot, cuz by morning she was back in her bed.

The Rest of the Best

Here is our Splash Mountain Picture... Notice Kyndi's face! (With Kamron in front, Kyndi took on a lot of water, and because she's so short, she got it all in her face - I covered her eyes for the splash of the big hill and my sleeve was soaked!)

The 'A' in California Adventure

Not sure what ride this was... Maybe Thunder Mountain Railroad...

Tarzan's Treehouse

Captain Kyndi Sparrow

Aladdin and Jasmine...

These last 2 pictures were taken while we waited for the rest of the clan to go on Indiana Jones (she was too short for this ride) The previous two pictures were taken while waiting too... (I forgot to mention before, every stinkin ride we went on, Kyndi had to be measured and re-measured, the rides require 40" in height, she's barely 40. Glad she grew a few months ago...)

And there you have it, the best of the Pics we took.

Pictures as Promised

Here are some pictures for everyone's enjoyment:

Mr Toads Wild Ride:



Sword and the Stone

Toon Town - not quite strong enough...

All in Jail

Minnie Mouse...

Mickey Mouse...

Kam's piano talents

Buzz Lightyear

Pluto

Stitch (Lilo & Stitch)

Teacups (They went on this ride 3 times and begged for more!)

More pictures coming later...

Adventures in CandyLand...

Kyndi kept calling California Adventure, "Candy Land". So apparently we went to Candyland and Disneyland.

We had a blast!! The first day we went through California Adventure and rode just about everything - most of the stuff there are Lagoon-type rides, so we skipped a few. But here is a bit of what we loved:

Soaring Over California - this is a flight simulation-type ride, where you soar over various parts of California, and its awesome and oh so relaxing. Kamron called this "the relaxing ride" We rode this about 5 times over the course of the whole trip. (Kamron's request) Oh, back up - I failed to mention that in this ride you are flying over a golf course, pretty low to the ground and someone on the screen hits a golf ball towards you - Kamron ducked. It was hilarious. Everytime thereafter we checked to see if he ducked.

Muppets 3D - not my favorite 3d show - but they seemed to enjoy it - Kyndi loved it so much this is what we found her doing at the end:

(Sound asleep)

Tower of Terror - This was the very first ride anyone attempted and on the first go, Kamron and Morrissa were the only two brave enough. They loved it. Two days later Kyndi and Tyson decided they wanted a try - so I made Tate go too (and me) - Tate was none too thrilled but he went. He was nervous as heck, in the end they mostly loved it. Tate said "I did not like that ride" and Kyndi was crying because everytime we went downward she flew upwards. Not fun for her at all - and all in the dark too.

Turtle Talk with Crush - This is the coolest show ever!! For those of you who have never been, it is a MUST see!! It's Crush the turtle from Finding Nemo, and it's hilarious, and I still can't figure out how they did it...

California Screamin - This is a huge ol' roller coaster that goes from 0 to 45 mph in no time flat. Kyndi was too small so she and I stayed off - but the rest went, and LOVED it. (Too bad they waited until the last day to try it out...they didn't have a chance to ride it again).

It's Tough Being a Bug - A 3d Bugs Life show. Pretty cute. Watch out for the bugs!!

Oh, we also went and found out what Disney characters we were most like; Kamron - Buzz Lightyear, Me - Cinderella, Tyson - Cogsworth, Morrissa - Lumiere (she apparently didn't understand the 'Are you a Sir or a Madam' question), Tate - Jiminy Cricket, Kyndi - Dot (the little purple bug from bugs life).

At Disneyland there are way too many rides to name them all - but here are my three faves:


Thunder Mountain - A roller coaster in a train - Tate was scared of rides so I told him it was just a train ride - he ended up loving the ride! The first time we rode this ride Tate and Tyson were sitting together and right behind them was a special-needs man who kept yelling "Heyaw" every couple seconds (Like he was commanding a team of horses) It was pretty entertaining. The second time on the ride, Kamron did this same "Heyaw" for our entertainment (and everyone else's on the ride). Hilarious.

Space Mountain - A big ol' rollercoaster in the dark. Too much fun. You think you know which direction you'll go and you're always wrong. I was worried over Kyndi on this ride (and many other rides) that she'd be scared to tears, but not so. She'd squeal with laughter on every stinkin ride (Except Tower of Terror of course)

Splash Mountain - I've gotta see if I can scan our picture from this ride on here - cuz its a great one - Kyndi kept getting splashed in the face down every hill cuz she's so tiny (she didn't like that part).

Honorable Mention - Honey I Shrunk the Audience - a 3d show where you get shrunk and there are explosions and loose mice. I mention this show as honorable mention for two reasons. 1 - At some point there is a 3-d explosion in your face and once again, Kamron ducked - even worse this time than before. So hilarious! And even better, there is a point where thousands of mice get loose and their tails whip your legs...twice. The first time it whipped, Kyndi pulled her legs up onto her seat, the second time she screamed in terror and cried. Total Hilariousness!!

The kids all said their favorite was Soaring Over California - but I'm not so sure about that...they requested to go on the BuzzLightyear shooting ride all day everyday. Thats a pretty cool ride - You ride along a track and its like you're inside a video game trying to defeat the evil Zurg. You have a gun and you shoot targets - it keeps track of your score and everything. One time Tyson scored 248,000!! That's a huge score!!

A few things we learned:

*Our boys are HUGE chickens compared to the girls (Kyndi begged to go on everything and was disappointed by the 3 rides she was unable to ride due to shortness)
*Tate has to use the bathroom way more at Disneyland than anywhere else in world! (seriously, like 25 times a day!)

*March is the perfect time to go - mild weather and no lines (we practically walked right onto most of them!)
*Our kids are way too easy to fool!

...More pictures will be posted later...

Wow - We Must Be Good Liars!

Apparently our kids trust us way more than we ever thought they would!

We left bright and early Monday morning, we loaded up the kids with their pillow and blankets in preparation for "the long journey". We had them all convinced we were going to Montana so Kamron could go to a job interview. They kept asking questions about Montana as we drove - such as: "dad, you'll have to drive back and forth to Montana everyday?"(Tyson) when we pulled into the airport, we were sure one of them would notice and say something... nope. It took until we parked and told them to get out that they said, "what are we doing here?"(Tyson) "Are we going on a plane?"(Tyson) "Why don't we just drive to Montana?"(Tate). We get in, gete our boarding passes and head through security. That was a tricky bit - removing all their shoes and jackets and pulling out their ziplock baggies with their liquids... but it went smoothly.

We arrived right as they were boarding our zone on the plane so we went right on the plane. Not one of the kids noticed that we were boarding a flight to L.A. - And as we walked on board at least 5 people asked if we were going to Disneyland. As we were waiting for take off the captain announced it was a flight to LA and I believe it was Tyson that said, "We have to stop in Los Angeles first?" "yep" (They made it too easy, they filled in what they thought was happening and I'd just agree) We watched as they de-iced the plane - that was pretty cool, and finally we took off. Morrissa, Tate and Kyndi were all holding either mine or Kamron's hand out of nervous-ness.

Once landed they asked if we needed to stay on the plane, I told them to follow Kamron. They were convinced that we were going getting off this plane to go board another one headed to Montana. We walked all the way to the bus pick up zone and Morrissa said, "Oh, we have to get on a bus to gete to the next plane?" "yep" The bus pulls up, clearly marked 'Disneyland Express' and they still don't catch on. Finally I say, "Hey Tate, what did the bus say?" "Disneyland Express" I say: "What do you think that means?" "We're going to Disneyland?" "Yep!" Morrissa says, "No we aren't, are we really?" "yep!" Tyson: "But I thought Disneyland was in California" Me: "It is in California" Morrissa: "But aren't we going to Montana?" Tyson: "We're in California?" Kyndi "Yay! We're going to DIsneyland!!" Finally, someone caught on. Then suddenly ten minutes later Morrissa says, "Wait dad, don't you have a job interview?" Seriously, they trust us a little too much.

I've Got A Secret...

I’ve got a secret… We’re going to Disneyland, on Monday, 3 days away – but the kids don’t know it. In fact they have absolutely no clue!! The two babies are going to stay at my mom’s house, and the rest of us are loading up in the car Monday morning (bright and early, 6 AM) – Their suitcases are already packed and in the back of the Suburban. The story will go something like this: “You’re dad has a job interview far away and we don’t know how long it’ll take. We don’t want to leave you all home alone that long so you’re riding with us” We’ll take off in the car and end up at the airport, they’ll freak out over getting to ride in an airplane! The story at that point will change a bit to: “We never said we were driving there!” When we land we’ll be picked up by the Disneyland Express and dropped at our hotel right across from Disneyland!! I think when the bus pulls up a few might catch on, I guarantee Morrissa will still be confused and believing the “job interview” story.
We’ll be there Monday through Thursday. It will be a blast! Tyson and Morrissa have been there before but not Tate and Kyndi. We’ll have tons of fun. On top of all that, I have a mom who attends Disneyland very frequently and was so excited about us going that she typed up a whole list of ‘must sees’ for me, and its all color coded even! Mom loves Disneyland.
And just a side note… My mom called yesterday to let me know she has set up a bedroom for the two babies, with beds and a giant stuffed Mickey Mouse. And she found the double stroller and getting oit all clean and ready... I think she’s pretty excited to have them for a few days… Hopefully she’ll survive it.

My Greatest Apologies

My greatest apologies to all you readers out there. I have been much delayed in writing lately. With my full time school (including a freakin' 25 page research paper on Migraine Headaches), my job, my kids, and my new excercise extravaganza (more on that later) I've had no time left to even think about blogging. Scratch that, I have thought about it, but that's as far as it has ever gotten...

Anywho, Next week I will be MIA on a top secret mission for about 4 days (Read the post following this one for details) - but I will be certain to make time to post about it upon my return.

I also have many other topics to discuss with you... those will hafta come later as well since my homework is now yelling at me to complete it.