Disneyland 2012

We took our annual family Disney vacation at the beginning of February. We were planning to wait to go in the fall after the new Cars ride opens, but Adam found such an amazing deal to go in February that we couldn't pass it up.  We usually have Adam's parents or my parents come with us, but since neither could this year, it was our first time going to Disneyland without extended family.  It's so nice to have them there to talk to and help with the kids, but we kind of enjoyed being on our own and being able to do whatever the kids felt like and not having to worry about everyone else.
We made the decision to drive to California for this trip, which we'd never done before.  We were both so worried that we almost bought plane tickets a week before. Our kids have never been very patient or good long-distance travelers, so we had reason to worry.  But it ended up being a great car ride. 
We packed a bag full of surprises (little dollar store toys, candy, new DVDs to watch) and every hour they would get a new surprise if they'd been good. The boys didn't even whine or complain about the long drive, it was amazing!
The first night we left after Adam got off work and drove to St. George, where we stayed the night at my in-laws house.  We left early the next morning and got to Anaheim by that afternoon.  We stayed at the Paradise Pier, which we liked a lot.  After getting settled in there, we walked over to the Disneyland Hotel pools.  They have the cutest Monorail water slides that our kids LOVED.  Austin is obsessed with the real Monorail, so he was in heaven. 

The next morning we used our early morning entry pass and got a few rides in before the crowds arrived.  Well, the crowds never really arrived because February is the absolute best time to go to Disneyland.  The place was deserted.  And we got lucky and had perfect weather the whole week, highs around 70, lows in the 50's. 
My boys were soooooo brave. They were willing to ride all the scary rides, including Tower of Terror. Ethan's favorite ride was California Screamin' and he made us ride it with him over and over. He was also obsessed with meeting every character he possibly could. We spent a ton of time in line to meet characters and getting autographs, but it was a lot of fun. Austin is so scared of people dressed in full costume like that, but by the 3rd day he finally overcame his fear and took some pictures with them. Sweet little Austin rode all the scary rides and even kept his hands up on Space Mountain the whole time, just because Ethan promised him more "points" if he did it. Austin will do anything Ethan tells him to do. His favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean, which we must have ridden at least 10 times. Kylee was a trooper and loved all the rides she was big enough to go on. Her favorite was probably the Little Mermaid ride at California Adventure. 
Austin was soooo excited to ride the Monorail.  And I just love how cute they are in their Mickey hats.

My favorite classic: Haunted Mansion!

Here's Kylee riding the ferry over to Tom Sawyer's Island (I think the new name for it is Pirate's Cove?). I found out that Adam had never been to Tom Sawyer's Island.  He always talked about how dumb it was even though he'd never been.  So I made him go and he actually liked it.  But I'm sure he still thinks they'd be better off building a new thrill ride on that piece of land.

How cute is he??????

Austin is kinda obsessed with all castles.  He did the walk through of Sleeping Beauty's castle several times, pretending that he was in Bowser's Castle.

So brave!

Kylee loved all the characters, except for Sully.  Love this picture!

Kylee spent much of her time on the carousal!

DAY 2!
Day two we spent another long day at the parks, though mainly at California Adventure.

By day 3, the kids (and the adults) were exhausted.  We decided to take it slow that day since we'd already ridden everything several times.  We spent all morning at the Disneyland Hotel pools.  Then we spent a nice afternoon at Disneyland. 

After meeting like 20 characters and having Austin hide every time, I finally grabbed him and forced him to come meet Donald.  And he loved him!  From that point on he was over his fears!

Adam's favorite childhood movie was Mary Poppins.  He was soooooooo excited when we ran into her.  He even got an individual picture of the two of them (on my phone, so sorry it's not included here!)!

While I was in line with the boys for Peter Pan, Adam spotted Cinderella and sprinted over so Kylee could meet her.  Kylee is NOT fond of strangers, she screams if anyone outside her immediate family so much as touches her.  But when she saw Cinderella, she ran to her and just hugged and hugged.  She was in HEAVEN!  Adam said that Cinderella absolutely loved her.  I was bummed that I missed the whole thing, so I decided it was worth my time to wait in line to meet the princesses.  There she got to meet Snow White, Cinderella again, and Ariel.  She hugged all of them and was sooooooooooooooooooo excited every time she spotted a new princess. 

Snow

We've gotten pretty much no snow this winter, and I couldn't be happier about it.  We've had lots of warm days (by warm days, I mean 50 degrees or so) where we can actually be outside.  Plus, we've only had to shovel the driveway one time!!  This has been the strangest Utah winter I've ever lived here for, but I'll take it!
We have had a couple snow days so here are some pictures.

Pictures

We got family pictures taken last fall, which I loved, but I wasn't very happy with the pictures of the kids.  Specifically, in the one picture the photographer gave me of Austin, he had his eyes pretty much completely closed.  Plus, she didn't include any of the pictures she'd taken of all 3 kids together.  I emailed her and asked if she had taken any with his eyes open (because she took at least 20 shots!). She responded that yes, she did have some, but I'd have to pay more money if I wanted another.  I kinda thought when you hired a photographer that they'd give you the best pictures that they took, and yet I was being asked to pay more just to have 1 picture with his eyes open?? It was at that point I decided to find someone else.  My wonderful usual photographer that I've used for years has "retired" from the photography business, so I ended up taking the kids to Fotofly for the pictures this time.  They turned out cute and am happy to have some of all three kids and some of Austin with his eyes open!

Austin's Birthday #5

I can't believe my tiny boy is 5 and will be going to kindergarten next year! He's so sweet and fun to be around that I'd love to keep him home with me another year.


This year Austin was insistent that he have a bowling/Bowser/friend party for his 5th birthday. He is OBSESSED with all things Bowser, but he also loves bowling so we had to throw that in there too. We had his friend party on the afternoon of his birthday. We headed to the bowling alley first. I scheduled the party to be 2 hours long, and I was afraid we'd have lots of leftover time at the end. What I didn't realize was how long it would take 5 4 & 5 year old and one 7 year old to bowl one game. And none of them knew their shoe sizes so I had to take all their shoes off and examine their shoe size before I could even get their bowling shoes. It was fun though. Then we went home and had cupcakes and opened presents.


Here are all the cute guests: Jaden, Ethan, Austin, Drew, Myka, Tiger, and Kylee

I made this cute brick item boxes from Mario to go in the party bags.  I filled them with chocolate gold coins.  The kids loved them!

That night we had a family Bowser pizza party.  Austin had a very specific idea in mind when it came to his cake.  He and I had spent some time googling images of Bowser birthday cakes and he found a picture of a Bowser cake with a castle that he determined was perfect.  I searched for ways to make a castle cake and every example I showed him, he said it didn't look like the real Bowser's Castle.  I was discussing my frustrations with the cake with my mother-in-law, Karon, and Austin overheard us and said sweetly, "It's ok Mom, you can just make me cupcakes. Don't worry about the castle." Just Austin being sweet, as always.  Karon couldn't handle how sweet he was about it so she said, "Jen, I know a lady that does cakes.  I will have the cake he wants made for him. He deserves it." I sent the picture of the cake Austin wanted to the lady Karon knew and she did an AMAZING job.  Better than the original picture.  Austin didn't want anyone to eat the cake, he just wanted to play with it.  The whole castle on top was completely edible.  Austin was in heaven.  The pictures of the cake were taken after Austin had been examining it for a while and he smudged some of the writing and ate a couple of the spikes on the castle.  Still looks amazing though!

All he wanted for his birthday was a castle, and just like the cake, he had very specific ideas about what a castle should look like.  I found this "Melissa and Doug" castle on Amazon and knew he'd love it.  He thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Austin has been deathly afraid of fire/candles for years now, but this was the first year that he actually was willing to blow out the candles on his cake.  Go Austin!

In this picture he's pretending that he's Bowser and eating the spikes off of his castle.

Christmas

Ethan hates reading.  Santa got him his favorite book "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" and he actually sat there Christmas morning and read without being told to for about 20 minutes!

Dry Bowser!  This toy was impossible to find!

Here's Kylee opening her presents a couple hours after everyone else.  Poor gal threw up all over her Christmas eve nightgown and had to wear her brothers' hand-me-down snowman jammies instead

Little sick Kylee felt well enough to open a few presents

I hate tshirts with characters on them, but I gave in and bought them each one shirt with their favorite characters for Christmas.  Angry Birds and Bowser!

New bikes for all the boys!!

Opening their gift from Uncle Cookie

Lara, Kristin, and me Christmas night in Saratoga Springs

Christmas night at my parents

Uncle Eric and Aunt Lara were in town for a few days over Christmas, and the kids loved seeing them.  Eric came to our house his last day in town and spent the whole afternoon playing Wii with the boys. 

On Christmas morning, the boys woke up and came to our room around 7 am.  We would've woken up Kylee to come join us to open presents, but since she'd been up throwing up all night we let her sleep in.  First we opened our stockings, and then I made a breakfast of big cinnamon rolls and fruit salad.  Then we opened our presents.  Austin got his "Dry Bowser" race car set, the only present he asked for besides a watch.  He also got some Legos, a watch, a DS game, a Bowser toy, clothes, and more.  Ethan got a Nintendo 3DS, which he immediately opened and started playing.  He also got some clothes, a game for the DS, Legos, and a few other toys.
Kylee woke up a bit later and we all helped her open a few presents before she lost interest and just wanted to play with what she'd already opened.  She got an Ariel Barbie, The Little Mermaid DVD, princess books, dress up clothes, and more.  We got dressed and headed down to Mapleton, where we met up with Adam's family at church. 
We then went back to the Winn's and ate a big brunch of Ebelskievers (sp?), bacon, eggs, and hash browns.  Then we watched all the kids open their presents, and then all of us opened our stockings.  The kids got soo much stuff, including new bikes and handmade treasure boxes.  So much fun!  Adam's parents spoiled us all, as always.  Poor Kylee didn't have too great of a day because she was feeling so rotten all day. 
That evening, we headed up to Saratoga Springs to see my family.  We opened our presents from them and gave them our presents.  Kylee got a fun dollhouse and the boys got a DS game, Sea Monkeys, and tons more.  My parents gave us a nice new video camera and new lamps for our bedroom.  That night we played games and ate tons of leftovers and desserts.