Saturday, November 5, 2011

Family Trip to Disneyland!!

This past month Brandon had to do an audit for work in Australia. He was scheduled to fly into Los Angeles on October 20th so we decided Aiden, Josh and I would fly and meet him then play in California for a week. We got really great airfares through Allegiant Air, bought our Disneyland tickets and were set to party!! This is a picture of us heading to Disneyland for the first day -- Josh was SO excited!

It was really fun to go to Disneyland during the halloween season. They had pumpkins and halloween decorations everywhere. This is a picture of the halloween display above the main entrance gates.

Aiden had a really fun time riding any ride he was big enough for. While Josh and Brandon rode the bigger rides Aiden and I had a lot of down time. We stopped for a snack on a bench when I took this picture of Aiden. "I'm innocent mom!"

The Haunted Mansion was transformed for the season into the Nightmare Before Christmas Mansion. We rode this ride A LOT since all of us could go on it - and we love Halloween and Christmas!

Another ride that we frequented was Star Tours. I rode it twice with Josh and Brandon rode it probably 8 other times with Josh. Aiden got to ride Buzz Lightyear a lot while Star Tours was being ridden. It is now a 3D ride so Josh and I had some people take a picture of us in our hot glasses before the ride.

Aiden was big enough to ride Autopia so we were car driving maniacs. The problem came when Aiden tried to stand up while driving around the course....we'll have to work on that.

Josh was finally tall enough to go on Grizzle River Rapids; he and Brandon rode it quite a few times. I don't love to be wet so I hung out with Aiden and waited. While we were waiting to get a picture of Brandon and Josh in the raft I took this cute picture of Aiden.

And here are the boys in their river raft.

We headed to Huntington Beach one of the days of our trip. It was supposed to be around 90 degrees in Disneyland (probably the hottest day) so we were excited for a warm beach trip. Ummmmm.....we were quite wrong. It was FREEZING! The boys liked to play in the sand and water anyway but we only lasted about 2 1/2 hours. Next time I'll take our jackets and things will be much more bearable.





We played really hard while at Disneyland. We rarely went back to the hotel for naps therefore the boys were very tired every night. (They sometimes took a short nap while in Disneyland but it obviously didn't cut it). This is how Aiden fell asleep one night. He was just too tired to care.

Josh always likes to knock on the White Rabbit's door. Too bad he is never there to answer.

Brandon thought we would waste important time that should be devoted to rides to stop for pictures with the characters. Aiden and I lucked out to get a picture with Tigger and Winnie the Pooh while Brandon and Josh were riding Splash Mountain.

Another ride that requires 3D glasses is the Toy Mania ride in California Adventure. We were all able to ride together which was really fun. Aren't these boys cute?

We took time to watch the Pixar Pals presentation in California Adventure. Josh was selected with a few other kids to be a "hero" with the Incredibles. He was probably the youngest kid out there but since he is so tall for his age he fit right in. (He is wearing his jacket because his shirt was so wet from Grizzly River Rapids - we took the shirt off to dry!)

He got to shake Mr. Incredible's hand while waiting!

He felt pretty important!

This is one of two pictures with our whole family we had taken on our trip. Pretty cute with halloween Mickey in the background huh?!

While we were at Disneyland they had Mickey's Halloween Party. We bought tickets for the special event and the boys dressed up in their pirate costumes. We went trick or treating and enjoyed more halloween fun. They put out trick or treat paths throughout the park with 3-5 stations per path. That added up to a lot of candy!! Each path had a glowing Mickey ghost at the start which served as a pretty good signal of where to head next.

Josh asked me what I was dressed up as.....I informed him I was the mom. :)


We got a picture of Brandon, Josh and Aiden dressed up by the Mickey pumpkin at the front of Main Street. They were a good looking crew.

After riding the Haunted Mansion (which we conveniently called the Halloween Mansion to avoid any possible scaring) Josh was a big fan of Jack Skellington. We stopped to talk to him and get our picture taken. Josh loved it! Jack was so nice to Josh and said some silly things to him - Josh still talks about how silly and nice Jack was.

On our last morning we had a photographer take our family picture in front of the carousel. She had Josh pose with his muscles - looks pretty strong to me!

This just happens to be the second of two family pictures we had taken during the week. We had a really fun family vacation. Josh is already asking when we can go back!!

When we got home we weighed all of the candy from our trick or treating at Disneyland. Brandon also spread it out and laid by it to show just how much we got. This is a pretty good representation of our 17 pounds of Disneyland candy!! Crazy huh? We could have got more but we got worried we wouldn't be able to get it all home.

We had a great week together as a family visiting Disneyland. It's taken almost a week for us to catch up on sleep - we definitely partied hard!!

A Pirate Halloween

We carved pumpkins before Josh and Aiden headed to bed one evening. Here they are proudly showing off the pumpkins they helped daddy carve. (Josh's is Jack Skellington from the Nightmare Before Christmas) We had a fun time carving pumpkins together.

After Josh and Aiden went to bed Brandon and I carved our pumpkins. Then we put candles in them for a spooky picture.

We had a costume "trying on" party a few weeks before Halloween.

And then again the Friday before Halloween to go trick or treating at Brandon's work. His building decorated with the pirate theme so our family fit in really nicely.

My mom and I took a few pictures before heading out to go trick or treating around the neighborhood (compare these pictures to the actual trick or treating picture....we had to modify costumes a bit for the weather!).


It was so cold and windy that I put Josh and Aiden's fleece pants and jackets underneath their costumes before going outside to trick or treat. Brandon was really good and took them to every door while I sat in the warm car. They had a lot of fun even though it was FREEZING outside. Happy Halloween!!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Growing Up

My boys are growing up so fast! Josh started preschool this fall and loves it. He was so excited for his first day - he could hardly hold still for a picture. He has been looking forward to preschool for at least a year, though he was put out that he wasn't riding a bus and mom had to drive him!

Of course Aiden had to have a "Josh's first day of preschool" picture too! I think Aiden is enjoying Josh being at preschool as much as Josh is enjoying going to preschool. He tends to follow me around the whole time reminding me that all of my attention should be his.


One afternoon Josh told me he wanted to go outside while Aiden was taking his nap. I took Josh to the window and showed him it was raining and he replied "Then let's put on my rain boots." Simple enough, right? We got him dressed in pseudo rain gear and he played in the rain for at least 30 min.


Josh was really nervous to ride his bike for a long time but has become really good at it. He is such a big kid that the 12" bike looks nearly miniature but there was no way he was going to be brave enough to ride a bigger bike to learn.


Aiden is obsessed with shoes. He often brings me his shoes to put on him....because he knows he has to have shoes on to go outside. He is also pretty good and knowing whos shoes belong to who and helping that person "find" their shoes. One day I came into the kitchen and found this.....he had put on Josh's old tennis shoes and was pleased as could be. Look at that adorable smile!



I can't believe how fast Josh and Aiden are growing up! It's really fun to watch them grow and accomplish new things. I love you boys!!

Anniversary Weekend

A few years ago Brandon suprised me for our anniversary and took me to a Josh Groban concert. Well, my sister called and told me Josh Groban was coming back to SLC and wondered if we wanted tickets. The concert conveniently fell on the weekend of our anniversary again! Since Brandon's parents were coming to Utah for a missionary talk we had a babysitter for the boys the night of the concert and they got to come play with us for the rest of the weekend.

We headed out to the Hogle Zoo to see the dinosaurs they had on display. They were aweseome - huge and very real looking. Josh got nervous at first because the dinosaurs moved (Brandon had to hold him still for the picture).


Aiden just looks plain nervous!


Josh and I posed for a picture by the waterfall....we had to smile quickly because we were getting pretty wet.


And here is a random picture from our concert. Josh Groban is a great singer but also a really good entertainer. It was a great concert! Happy 7th anniversary Brandon! I love you!



The Fire Station

Josh has been impressed by firefighters for some time (he was a firefighter last Halloween). Brandon and I have tossed around the idea of calling a fire station to see if we could visit with our family. Well, Brandon has a coworker who is a volunteer fire fighter and he made all of Josh's dreams come true. We told Josh where we were going to visit and he asked Brandon one night at bedtime, "Dad, what does it take to be a fire fighter?" He was about to find out.

When we first arrived Josh got to sit in the fire truck and he was SO excited (little did he know that he would be going for a ride in it later).

Brandon's coworker (also named Brandon) let Josh try on his hat. Also very cool, right?!...and WAY heavier than you would think.


Once he had the hat on he might as well put on the rest of the gear! What a cute firefighter.


Aiden really wanted to try on the helmet too....it was so heavy that I had to support most of the weight with my hand. Seriously - can this kid get any cuter!?


Brandon J. took us around the station and showed us all of the fire trucks, explaining what the different ones were used for. He then asked Josh if he wanted to go for a ride in the fire truck. This was his mid-ride expression. Do you think he liked it?



Here are all of the boys after the ride. We all had a really good time touring the fire station and going for a ride in the fire truck. It was fun and educational for all of us!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Randomness

I had the camera out one day for some reason or another and Aiden plopped down right in front of me saying, "Cheese!!". Well here he is just as cute as can be!


I make smoothies sometimes to go with our dinner. Josh loves them and Aiden is learning to as well. I usually serve them with straws but we were out....can you tell? Josh loves them with or without a straw.

Brandon loves peas and we planted 2 1/3 long rows of them in our garden. (2 1/4 rows are sugar snap and the other row are shell peas.) From our first picking, we obviously should have picked sooner, I podded this 8 c. tupperware full of peas. Wow! It took a LONG time. I told Brandon I hated picking peas but would shell them.....I think he got the better end of the deal. (FYI the second time he picked I only had 6 c. of shelled peas). They will be great this winter!!