california trip 2016 - part 2

so yes, our california trip continued. here is a video recap that amber made of the fun week we had...

well the day after we went sightseeing, we decided to enjoy the house while claire got over a little sickness of her own. we swam, we played games, we went and enjoyed some olive garden, and we finished the day with a movie night. the next day, the family decided it was time for a beach day. we put on our swimsuits, packed up some toys, and then headed over to laguna beach. the kids built some sand castles while we attempted to ride a boogie board with very little success. it was a great day.

after playing on the beach, we got changed into some nicer clothes and my sister-in-law was kind enough to take some family pictures. we sadly didn't get a great one of the three kids together, but we're pretty happy with how they turned out. it was a great end to a great vacation.

california trip 2016 - part 1

it's been years in the making. a lot of planning and replanning was involved. year after year we continually had to say, "maybe next year". but, after all the delays and changed plans, we finally made a bryson disneyland trip happen! while it wasn't quite the huge family reunion we originally hoped for as it was sadly missing so many loved ones, we finally got a good group to commit to a week in california and made it happen. the vacation officially started, at least for us, sunday afternoon. after church, we packed the car up for our week in paradise and headed down to my brother's house in spanish fork. we wanted to hit the road nice and early so we all gathered for a fun little sleepover. but everyone was pretty excited so it was less of a "sleep"over and more of a "stay-up-and-talk"over. 5 a.m. came pretty quickly and we were all loaded up and began our trip. we stopped at a fun little park in las vegas for lunch and let the kids stretch their legs at a playground while we all enjoyed the company of an angry mob of geese. 

we then were back on the road and, after a short 10 hours of sitting in a car, we were at our destination. in lieu of a slew of hotel rooms, we decided to rent a home a couple miles from disneyland. it was so perfect. we had our own little pool to enjoy. we had a game room complete with ping-pong, air-hockey, foosball, and pool tables, as well as a ton of toys for the kids to play with. we were even able to save some money and cooked a few meals in our kitchen instead of eating out every meal. and, best of all (well the kids would probably say the pool was the best part), instead of us all being separated into our own hotel rooms, we were able to all pile on a couch and just be together.

well we hit the sack so we could all get up early and make the short drive over to the "happiest place on earth"! we had hoped that by going on a tuesday in the middle of october, we'd find the park a little less crowded than normal. i guess there is no slow time at disneyland because it was still really busy. but disney has mastered the art of line-waiting and we were still able to do nearly everything on our to-do list. it was a magical time. the kids experienced their first true tastes of real roller coasters. while the big thunder mountain railroad was a big hit, i think the haunted space mountain might have been a bit much for them. everett did disappear into the countless throngs of people for a couple minutes, which left mommy and daddy with mild heart attacks, he was found quickly and we were all okay. all in all, everyone loved the day.

the next day, the rest of our group took on disneyland for another day, but we decided to try to go take a tour of amber's hometown of mission viejo. unfortunately, amber was under the weather, so we spent most of the day relaxing and enjoying the house and pool, which was great after the busy day we had before. amber was feeling a bit better later, so we went and looked at some of the beautiful beaches that dot the landscape before we called it a day.

Labor Day

Wow, time flies... We've had some fun family adventures though, like on Labor Day. First thing we did Labor Day morning was go to a neighborhood breakfast we were invited to. 

Then we got ready, headed down to meet up with Ken's family and headed to the Grotto, but first made a stop at the Lotus Temple. It was fun seeing all the animals they had there. It was not so fun cleaning the poop off of some of our shoes.

After gathering back into cars we went and did the Grotto hike which is really a very short, easy hike, perfect for young kids. :)

 So much fun! :)

Seth's First Birthday

With the first week of school and Everett's birthday right before, we didn't go crazy for Seth's first birthday. The day mostly went by as normal with Claire going to school and Scott to work. The boys stayed home with me. I still planned a cake smash. I baked him a giant cupcake and let him go at it. He was my first to really get messy with it. He mostly just ate the frosting, but he liked it. :) He got a bath while we cleaned the mess up and then we opened presents. We got him toothbrushes since he always wants to brush teeth with the other kids. He loved them. And then we sang and let him blow out a candle - well, let Everett blow out his candle for him. :) It was a fun day. I can't believe he's one!

10 Facts about Seth

1. Seth is ONE year old! :)

2. He is 23 lbs 5 ounces and is in the 80th percentile for weight, and he is 30.5 inches putting him in the 76th percentile.

3. Seth is my sweet, cuddly little boy. He's in a bit of a clingy stage and wants to be held a lot of the time, but he's always leaning into me, wrapping his little arms around my legs or attacking me from behind when I'm sitting on the floor or at the computer.

4. Seth has a really cute "oooh" face. Like the picture above, he makes this face a lot, when he gets excited or sometimes right before he gets upset. It's so cute.

5. At the time of his birthday he was cruising along the furniture everywhere and he could take an occasional step or two between furniture. He was crawling up on his knees and he'd still do his army crawl around also. It's only been a few weeks since, but he's now walking everywhere pretty well. :) He's also a pretty good climber. For the longest time he could climb up but couldn't get back down. He'd start crying at the top of the stairs or standing up on the step stool in the bathroom just crying for us to get him down. One of his favorite things to climb is the ladder to the bunk bed. I have to remove the ladder during the day so he can't climb it. :)

6. Similar to Everett at this age, Seth loves balls. He gets super excited when he sees people playing with a ball at the park. He points to them and makes his "oooh" face. :) He also has a pretty good arm. He throws balls to us and seems to love the game catch and throw. Although we're still not sure he's meaning to, he says "ba" a lot of the time while pointing to round things making me think he might know what he's saying. :)

7. He barely got his first tooth maybe a week before his birthday. The second tooth was not far behind. I felt like he was teething forever. :)

8. Seth has not been my best sleeper. He wakes up often and I've gotten really relaxed and usually give in to him pretty easily by nursing him back to sleep or bringing him into bed with us. I've tried a few times to sleep train him, but he's pretty persistent and will cry forever. And right now with our new school schedule, it's so much easier to give him what he wants so we all get more sleep. :)

9. He's a pretty good eater. He loves blueberries, bananas, graham crackers, and ice cream. He also is pretty willing to eat whatever baby food I spoon to him. He does not like beans. When he's done eating he starts throwing food (where do they learn that??). He's a pretty big eater. I feel like I'm constantly feeding him.

10. He has such a sweet relationship with Claire and Everett. He can't quite play with them yet, but he loves to try. He likes to position himself around wherever they are and play with toys with them. He'll sometimes get on top of game boards if they're playing on the floor and he'll grab game pieces, which drives them nuts but he just likes to do whatever they're doing. :)