Disney on Ice

A few months ago Tralee came across an ad for Disney on Ice.  She watched over and over and over and over again getting more and more excited as she watched.  She wanted to go SO BAD!  We told her if it came to town, we would be sure to take her.  I checked online and didn't see any performances in our area, and got a little disappointed.  Then, miracle of miracles, I put on the TV (we just have regular free television and hardly ever watch it. . . we're Netflix people) and the first thing I saw was a commercial for Disney on Ice. . . COMING TO OUR TOWN!!!  I think I was just as excited as Tralee!

Here's a commercial for what we couldn't wait to see (one of our favorite parts of the show was the Tangled part. . . especially when her and Flynn Ryder flew through the air on her "hair"  AMAZING!!!):

I didn't wait, but went out the very next day and purchased our Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream tickets at the box office.  We got pretty good seats, and then we just had to wait for it to come to town!

This last Thursday was the day!  Jim and I took the kids out to dinner, and then made our way over to the performance.  The place was packed with lots of little princesses awaiting the magic.  We found our seats, and watched the magic unfold.  I actually had more fun watching Tralee than the show.  She giggled, smiled, clapped, and danced right along with the show.

Here's a video of Tralee at Disney on Ice:

After it was over, Tralee kept saying, "Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you for making sure I could go to this!!"  Thank you!!"  Jim and I beamed with how grateful and appreciative Tralee was.  Hunter was asleep at this point, but seemed to enjoy the show up until his snooze.

Overall our Disney on Ice experience was totally worth every penny!  I hope things like this keep heading in our direction!!

Zion National Park

We made it to our first destination, St. George, UT late Friday night.  We checked into our hotel, got settled, and slept in until the kiddies woke us up Saturday morning.

Saturday was kind of a hang-out day.  We took the kids swimming at our hotel's pool, ran some errands, and went running.  Later on Jim's sister, Adrienne took me out to a delish Indian/Asian restaurant.  My mouth waters every time I think about it.  I need to go back to St. George, just so I can eat there again -- the company was fantastic too! 

Sunday we all piled into Adrienne's car and drove to Zion National Park.  It was stunning.  We drove through some tunnels, went on some hikes, and ended our night at a yummy pizza place and then candy/ice cream shop for dessert.  I even found some candy cigarettes I used to get on road trips when I was a kid.  I totally bought them, then offered my nieces some ciggies - the bubblegum variety.  I felt like such a rebel!  Next thing you know, I'll need a bubblegum patch to wear to stop my cravings for blowing bubbles. 

All in all, our day in Zion was heavenly!

Just about to drive through a mountain

You can't tell me that that's not beautiful!

The start of our hike

Heading up the trail

Hunter makes a weird face when we tell him to smile for a picture.  Everyone tried to copy it -- even Hunter.

This is the end of the Narrows hike.  Jim has done this hike a few times with friends.  I would be too afraid of flash floods to hike between two mountains, but I'm glad I got to see a bit of it.

Tandra and Cassi, some of my favorite gals in the whole world!  

Tralee was playing Rapunzel in the picture on the left.  She's just being a dare-devil in the one on the right.

Jim skipping rocks, Cassi by the water, and a branch/root Adrienne found that looks like a woman.  Anyone else see it?

Tandra, Jim, Tralee, and Hunter at Weeping Rock

Hunter watching the drops of water fall

drip drip drip

Family photo

She smiles!

Adrienne, Tralee (being forced to smile - she was hungry at this point), Hunter, Jim, Cassi, and Tandra

Yummy ice cream and candy shop.  I bought some salted chocolate covered caramels that blew my pants right off they were so amazing!

"Hey kids, fancy a Lucky Light?  All the cool Aunts nostalgic for their days of youth are chewing them!"

The Road to Thanksgiving

We left last Friday the 16th of November to head towards smiling faces and warmer weather.  Our final destination was Las Vegas.

Lucky for us, the wee ones are pretty good lil' travelers.  

The kids stayed happy for most of the trip, their dad buying them get ice cream at a gas station helped.  I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of my kiddos slurping down dripping ice cream in the car, but everyone else thought it was a grand idea.  I just went with it.  Everyone was happy, so what's a little melted ice cream on the clothes (and car seat and seat belt and face and hands) anyway?  

I also saw some Hostess snacks at a gas station.  This was right after their big shutting-down announcement.  I was thisclose to buying some, but decided I've not had any of those things in about 10 years, so why now?  Isn't it funny that once you know you can't have something, you want it all the more. . . even if you haven't had it in years, and even if you know how incredibly bad they are for you?  I decided to let the Hostess items stay on the shelf, and let some Hostess addict pining after their loss snag them.

 We stopped in Bountiful, UT to surprise our niece Tandra.  She was competing in a swim meet there, so we decided to stop in and surprise her.  It was also a good place to let the littles stretch their legs.  Tralee and Hunter were super happy to see snow.  Tandra was super surprised to see us.  Her expression was priceless!   

We kidnapped Tand for a bit and took her out to dinner.  Then we delivered her safely back to her swim meet; without a hair missing from her head.  Kidnapping her was pretty easy, if I do say so myself.

With our childrens' bellies full, and their legs tired out from playing in the snow, we left Bountiful and drove to our first destination: St. George, UT.

More to come.

School Night at The Farmstead

A few weeks ago Tralee's school sponsored a Family Fun Night at The Farmstead.  We got a screamin' deal to get in, and had a great night together (minus Jim who was in Alaska).  Tralee saw some of her friends and classmates, and even got to watch some teachers kiss a pig.  

Actually, Tralee missed the pig-kissing even though she was sitting in the FRONT  ROW!  The crowd even counted down from 10.  She was screaming the numbers right down with the crowd.  Then, after the pig-kissing event was over (something Tralee had been talking about for weeks), I walked over to her and said, "okay, lets go do something else."  Her response was, "That's it?  But nobody kissed the pig!"  I was like, "Uh, yeah they did.  Three teachers kissed the pig.  You were sitting RIGHT in the front row.  It happened right in front of you."

Blank confused stare.

She missed it.

I don't know how, but she missed it.  I was like, "What were you looking at?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you think everyone was counting down from 10?"

"I don't know."

I explained that next time people are doing a countdown, it means something exciting is about to happen, so start looking around until you see something that looks exciting.  Silly girl.

Anyways, she wasn't too disappointed about missing the pig kisses.  I lured her away from tears with promises of hot mini donuts sprinkled with powdered sugar from the donut vendor.  They were freshly cooked and oh-so-yummy.  Tralee actually ate so many from the first batch, that Hunter was sad he didn't get as many, so I bought a second batch with sprinkles just for him.  We all shared, although I made sure the mini-donut consumption was even between my kids to avoid a meltdown.

We did pretty much everything The Farmstead had to offer.  I even coughed up the dough for Tralee to ride a pony, and walk through a giant lizard maze.  The only thing we missed, was taking a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins.  It got too late and too cold to go on the hayride, so I told the kids we might go back some sunny fall day to check that off our list.

All and all, our night at The Farmstead was great.  

The only thing it was missing was Jim's company.  We sure miss him around here.  October will be a long month without him!

Keeping busy helps us not miss him as much.

Which is why we'll probably take another trip to The Farmstead before the month is over!  It's kinda fun!

School Picture Day

Tralee's VERY first school picture day was last week.  Before she left for school, we did our own little photo shoot.  Here are some of my faves:

I took a few pics of this little guy, just for good measure!

I can't wait to see how Tralee's school picture actually turned out!

Sleepyheads

Oh how I love them!

Happenings

We've been busy around here. Thus the lack of blog posts. Jim's been gone a lot, so I've been rockin' the single mom lifestyle as of late. He did manage to fly in for a day and half, and take our favorite girl to Donuts with Dad at her school early Friday morn. She was SO excited to show off her school to her daddy! I was SO grateful he made it home for this!

Before leaving for Donuts with Dad

I've also been channelling my inner Martha Stewart. I not only visited an orchard with my new friend and neighbor (she's super awesome AND we trade babysitting services! Double awesome!), but I also froze, canned, and dehydrated my way through over 60 lbs of produce. I'm totally an official domestic diva now. Move on over Martha, there's a new homemaker in town - Booyah!

My produce

A pic my friend took of me at her place being all domestic-y and stuff

Hey fellow moms, do you ever get so caught up juggling through all your jobs/hobbies that sometimes you neglect your most important (and cutest) responsibilities a bit, and then feel guilty so you put on your I'm-a-fun-mom metaphoric shoes and plan a super fun/messy activity to do with your lil' pretties to appease the guilt of said semi-neglect? Then do you shamelessly post your super fun/messy mommy-and-me craft project on instagram/facebook to convince the world (and maybe yourself) that you are an awesome mom all the time. Me? I NEVER do this, but if I did, my super fun/messy activity of choice might have been painting rocks with the wee ones. And they might have turned out a bit like this:

In other news, Tralee, my social butterfly, is the "it" girl in her class, so I've been told by other moms. There have been boys fighting for her attention, yeah, I KNOW! Crazy! I don't hear I word about it from her either. I get all my info from talking to other moms in the school yard. When I ask Tralee about what I hear she just giggles or blows it off like it's no big deal. Silly girl! Stinks also joined a play group, and loves every second of it. As soon as I drop her off all the girls announce to each other, "Yay!! Tralee is here!  Tralee is here!"  She is such an outgoing, friendly, kind-hearted little girl that she makes friends fast, and always has a grand ol' time wherever there's fun to be had.  I'm so glad!

My kids and my friend's kids watching The Little Mermaid

Hunter and I have been enjoying our one-on-one time together while Tralee is at school. I have to say, it's quite nice to have a little time alone with my favorite lil' boyfriend. He's such a fun, silly, happy, sensitive little boy. Oh, and he sure LOVES his momma! He loves me so, and I feel like the luckiest lady in the world!

I really am a lucky lady! I love our new home and neighborhood. I have a hot hubby who gets me, and still loves me when I act a bit crazy. My kids are adorable, fun, smart little cutie pies! And even though I have my anxieties/stresses/bad-mommy moments on a daily bases I can still find joy in the things that matter most (most of the time).  Life is rad.

I LOVE(!!!!!!!!!!!) this girl!!!!!!

That's all.