VIP

Maren is the VIP this week in kindergarten.

In church on Sunday, I had a few different people tell me how they enjoyed watching Maren in the primary program.  One friend told me (speaking of Maren), "I don't know what it is about her, but I just love her."

Very special, indeed.

We sure love you, Little Miss!

Enjoying

 Here are some things we are enjoying:

Daisy snuggles:

 She squeals.  It's hilarious.  She has discovered her hands and is constantly playing with her fingers and holding her hands like she's an angel.  It's really cute.

Fall leaves:

This girl lighting up the room with her smiles:

 What a sweetheart, snot nose and all.

Happy play:

His "mad" face:

 I don't think it has quite the effect that he is looking for.  It just makes me laugh.  :)

Dress ups:

 I put all the dress ups away several months ago when I was constantly picking up bead necklaces and stepping on fluffy skirts.  The girls love it though, so I finally caved and pulled them back out.  They have been busy all weekend long using their imaginations, and they love to take Lainey and dress her up too.  It's worth the mess, right?

More enjoying fall colors with this little darling:

Drawing with Grandpa:

Making orange popcorn balls with Grandma:

Eating orange popcorn balls:

Other things we are enjoying?

*The annual primary program at church.  It is always highly entertaining and spiritually uplifting.  Those kids sound like angels.
*Lainey copies everything the big kids say and do.  Why is it so funny to watch a tiny person doing what big kids do?  I don't know, buy it's hilarious and brings a smile to my face every single time, admittedly, even if it's naughty.  ;)

*Nick running a half marathon in a morphsuit.  Yep, it happened.  I'm trying to convince him to dress up again for Halloween, so hopefully I can snap a picture.

*9th Anniversary (Really?  Nine years?).  Went on a date, and although we had Daisy in tow, it was a wonderful evening.  I love my Nick more each day.

Baby Girls

 I have at least 26 things that are on my to-do list for today.  It is Monday, which is my 'put the house back together after taking the weekend off' day.  However, I've decided to take a few moments and share these cute photos with the world (or at least the six of you that check my blog regularly).  Blogging is something I do for me - my one indulgent creative outlet.  And I need to do things for me, especially these days where I could easily get swept away in the million demands of my small children and completely lose myself.  So here's to 10 minutes where the kids can get on without me and the dishes can wait.

Dee Dee (as Lainey calls her and has caught on around here) is three months old.  I was thinking about when she was in my belly, and I was so uncomfortable, but loving that feeling of life within me.  Feels like that was forever ago, and just the other day all at the same time.  Time is weird that way.  Look at me waxing all philosophical.

Anyway, isn't she sweet?

 I took two year photos of my other baby, Miss Lainey Mae:

 She's cute too.

I had to snap a photo of this sweetness:

 She's all snuggled with a baby and her daddy.  What more could a girl possibly need?

And baby girl wasn't happy with me when I went chasing her down with a camera for this one:

She loves herself some Nutella.  I think she got more on her face than actually made it in her mouth, but ya know, that works.  ;)

Day Seven (Eight and Nine): Goodbye, Beach

 Happy 2nd Birthday to LuLu!

Friday, we spent another wonderful day at the beach.  I didn't take photos of all the sand playing and boogie boarding we did, but we did.  :)  And it was fun.  The weather wasn't quite as perfect as Monday, but it didn't stop us from having a grand time.  After cleaning off all the salt water we came back to the beach for one more sunset.

 Oh, we love the beach.  We'll be back, you can put money on that.

We had brownies and ice cream for Lu, and then she opened a present - more Legos!

 Everyone loves Daisy!

Oh, smooch those cheekers!  And those eyes, seriously...

Saturday morning, Ellie and I took one last walk along the beach, and then we packed up and headed out.  We drove to St. George that day, which was a long, long drive.  The kids all conked out for the first three hours of the drive (we wore them out pretty good).  We stopped in Baker to feed the baby, and in Vegas to feed ourselves at Round Table Pizza.  Driving with babies is not fun (I think Daisy screamed the entire two hours from Vegas to St. George).  When we finally got to the hotel, Nick and I were feeling a bit frazzled, but my sis soothed everything by whisking all the kids away to the pool, even though it was 9pm.  See?  Awesome.  

Sunday morning we finished our drive home, stopping to spend some time with my parents before our final leg home.  We survived the drive!

Oh, vacation, I love you!  It is hard to come back to real life.  I love spending time with my family with no distractions, and spending time at the beach, one of my most favorite places, is a huge bonus.  I look forward to doing it again.

Day Six: Legoland

 On Thursday we went to Legoland.  It was only open from 10 to 5, so we tried to get the most of our day, but we still didn't even make it to one section of the park.  It was a fun day.  My one annoyance was that the height requirements for the rides were a joke.  There was only one ride that the entire family went on, and plenty that it should have been okay.  Why can't they all be like Disneyland?  :)

 Dad waiting with the babies...

 ...while we went on this ride:

Looks really dangerous for little ones, huh?

I think my favorite part of the park was Miniland, all made out of legos.  Here we are in Las Vegas:

 

 We were all pretty exhausted at the end of the day.  Most of the kids were asleep before we even left the parking lot.

And what do you do after a day at Legoland?  Play with Legos, of course:

 Reason #134 why my sister is awesome:

She read to the kids like this every night, and my kids LOVED it.  I remember her reading to me when I was a kid.  Oh, and notice her cooking in the photo above?  That's reason #175.  If my sister hadn't joined us on this vacation, we still would have had a great time, but having her there was just wonderful.  I may have to take her on all of our vacations from now on.  ;)

Day Five: Oceanside

 Nick's Birthday!

Wednesday was a cloudy, rainy day, and we enjoyed doing not much at all that morning.  We got dressed and drove up the coast to Oceanside, where we had vacationed a year ago.

 We walked along the pier: 

 This guy had a bag of fish that he was offering to kids to feed the pelican.  Most of the kids wanted nothing to do with it, but not my Maren.  She wanted a go.

 We went and played at the playground on the sand for a bit:

 And then we had fish 'n chips on the Harbor, Nick's birthday request:

 And then the rain came pouring down.  On our drive home, we stopped at a Farmer's Market:

We were just a bit wet.  Didn't stop us though.

That evening my sis sent us out on a date while she watched the kids.  We found a Mexican restaurant we wanted to try online, only to discover that they were kind of a take-out kind of place.  We didn't want to go searching, so we waited for our food (a popular place with a wait of at least 30 minutes), picked up utensils at the condo, and then ate in the car with a crying Daisy in the backseat.  So romantic.

We had strawberry shortcake and sang Happy Birthday to Nick.

Lainey loved her big cousin and was her little tag-along: