Oh man Disneyland

I know. We do these posts a lot. You almost have to wonder how Mommy can still take almost 200 pictures when we go to Disneyland? We probably have picture in EVERY spot you can have a picture at Disneyland, but hey we are kids which means we change daily! Plus we have never been to Disneyland with Lexi! We did a girls trip because both Daddy and Uncle CJ couldn't be there on Thursday! Boy, did we pick a funny weekend to go though! It was 104 degrees on Thursday. Not kidding. We got to Disneyland at about 9:30 am and look at how hot we already were!

Beat red faces and we had been there for 30 minutes. We knew we were in for it!

I got to ride Big Thunder Mountain after having it be closed for over a year. We LOVED it. The new effects were fun!

Mommy and Aunt Angie had to figure out how to handle the three little kids on their own. Mommy did it better, but only because Iva cries like crazy for anyone else!

The binki babies!

She was such a great baby! We didn't even sun burn her! Yay for Mommy!

We were starting to die just a little bit by the end of the day. Lexi and Angie had gone home almost three hours earlier and we were still trucking!

Then on Friday, Mommy decided to go with just us four girls. We had a GREAT time. We basically played in California Adventure and never made it over to Disneyland itself! And besides it was a whole 10 degrees cooler it was only in the 90s!

Turns out our new favorite ride all together is the swinging gondolas on the Mickey Mouse Fun Wheel. WE LOVE IT.

I got to ride on Jumpin' Jellyfish by myself because I was tall enough and I am "seven". Plus Mommy could see me the whole time so she let me go!

Video highlights of our day!

And after spending the morning and most of the afternoon at Disneyland, we headed inland to Riverside to help watch Lexi while her mom and dad went to a beautiful wedding. They were staying at the Mission Inn which is a beautiful historical mission from the earliest years in California. We played in the pool where Lexi and Daddy bonded and then watched a movie up in their room. Kinda fun! The traffic was a BUGGER though!

Cara's Preschool Graduation

So we decided to get away to Disneyland really quick before school was out. Now, I had a random week off, but Cara didn't. In fact, we scheduled our trip directly over her preschool graduation. The good news, she's not actually done with preschool. She's going to do another year! But Mommy felt bad because Cara kept talking about all these cute songs they were practicing so she snuck in to a rehearsal and filmed it! Here are the best highlights!

Mommy also let us go to a new kids only salon and get our fingers and toenails painted in preparation for Disneyland!

My FIRST tooth!

My first LOST TOOTH that is. A couple of weeks ago, I came running out of kindergarten with the best of news for my Mommy. My tooth was loose. She suspected for the last few months that it was coming because my teeth kind of looked like they were starting to move and separate. It still almost reduced her to tears. Teeth gross her out, but she secretly admitted she also just wasn't prepared for me to hit that milestone. Kindergarten finishing up and grown up teeth. It's just too much. I LOVED wiggling it. Mommy hated watching me. I showed it to everyone. 

Then on Mother's Day of all days, the tooth really loosened up and Aunt Becca was in town and we JUST KNEW TODAY WAS THE DAY. We got to Grandma's and Aunt Becca grabbed the floss. Mommy refused to even be in the room. It was just too disgusting. She kind of hovered in the background listening to us attempt to get this tooth out. We have like TEN videos of our attempts because we just knew this time it would work. We tried two different types of floss, pulling out with fingers, pulling out with a tissue, Becca, Daddy, Grandma, etc and then finally they grew tired of trying and thought maybe today wasn't the day. In marched Mommy, whom we thought was cowering out of a queasy stomach, but turns out was just dying over how we were DOING IT WRONG! She sat down next to me, grabbed a tissue, gave one hard twist and BAM out came my tooth! Big day for BOTH of us!

And of course the next morning, I had a sparkling dollar from the tooth fairy. The dollar was covered with fairy dust!

Just a quick note from Mommy about Mother's Day:

I had a great Mother's Day. I was so spoiled on birthday that I was specific that for this Mother's Day I didn't need presents. I love being a mom to three girls. I always thought I wanted boys. This has been WAY BETTER. (I probably would say that if it were reversed to because they are MY KIDS!) I was able to relax on Mother's Day and Pete held the baby as much as possible which was awesome. I love that chubber, but man she gets heavy!

Ooo and look she rode her first carousel the day before Mother's Day...funny enough she'd been on Pirates of the Caribbean with it's waterfall drops, but not a carousel! Hahaha!

GAAA. Love those girls!

And we've started REAL FOOD! And the mashed up stuff too!

Let's talk about Cara

Can we just take a minute and talk about this goofball?!

She is hilarious and small. She's only FOUR pounds heavier than Lexi who is not even TWO. One of Daddy's favorite stories about Cara happened on Mommy's birthday. Uncle Troy and Daddy were having a water fight with the kiddos in the backyard with squirters. Cara would suddenly shout out "Don't shoot me, I'm just a child!" all dramatic and make Daddy laugh. Then she of course figured out it was funny and kept saying it over and over, but then it morphed into an attack mantra! "I'm a child! I'm a child!" as she ran around squirting every one else.

For Mother's Day her preschool had a tea party and she dressed up all cute and asked Mommy to straighten her hair and put on make up. 

IronFamily!

How has it been almost two weeks since Daddy has done this and we are just getting around to posting about it?! Oh yeah, we've been busy as usual. But we are so proud. SO PROUD of our Dad. He was like super Dad. We are getting really good at cheering him across the finish line, but first he got to cheer for us!

The night before the 70.3 Ironman series race is the IronKids series race. Both Cara and I were signed up this year along with 1000 other kids! Cara was running the 200m dash and I went for the longer 1 mile distance.

 Mom tried to do the trademark Ironman symbol in our hair!

Off we go!

And then suddenly Mommy was nervous, she was walking along the course and couldn't see me. All the other kids ran by. Mommy started running the course backward. Lo and behold there I was with a couple of orange shirted volunteers. Turns out, I had tripped and fell pretty hard in the middle of the race. I ran and hugged my mommy and she told me that I was so close to the finish line. She ran beside me until right at the very end and I crossed the finish line with  A HUGE SMILE on my face. Grandma didn't even know I was hurt until she found me later. I was pretty banged up. I'll still do it again next year though!

The next morning Mommy loaded us all up, slathered us with sunscreen, and packed in the stroller. We even made signs that Daddy never seems to see!

We cheered him on after he transitioned from bike to run! He still had 13 miles to go in this picture!

Daddy finished in 6 hours and about 43 minutes. It was HOT and we brought him right over to the river and had him cool off. He gave himself a silly handle bar mustache that was kind of creepy!

Iva was Super Baby for being such a cooperative cheerleader!

We love the Iron tradition that has been started in our family! We've been downtown every year since the Ironman series came over five years ago. Our Daddy is amazing for being part of the race the last two years. We can't wait for next year!

Iva is SIX months!

Look at her:

Can you smell her cuteness?! She's edible. Seriously. And pretty happy. Most of the time.

Okay she does a lot of this too:

But man do you see those thighs? She almost doesn't fit in her bumbo.

We have to pry her out of it. Hahaha.

In other news, Iva's list of accomplishments at her six month mark.

She's a terrific sitter. Excellent in fact. Mommy often leaves her on the floor with a bucket of toys and a boppy pillow nearby. She tips over, but man she's getting really good at reaching for toys and sitting back up. She still doesn't love to roll over, but she can. Whenever she's on her back, she still grabs her toes. She loves that happy baby pose.

She has turned into a bit of a mama's girl. She's most happy when our mommy is in her sights and even better when mommy is holding her and one better when mommy is feeding her. She is super interested in our food though. She's gnawed on french fries, pizza crusts, tortillas. She mostly blanches at food once it is put in her mouth and hasn't quite figured out swallowing. We still try. Because she grabs it out of our hands.

She's starting to vocalize! Dadadada, bababa. It's pretty clear she's talking. We love it. Cara and I do everything we can to make her laugh.

The drooling seems to be calming down. But that means she still drools a lot!

She doesn't sleep through the night, but Mommy keeps her tucked in next to her at night so she doesn't notice too much.

And we love to make videos of her:

Just got done with our six month check up. Iva weighs 18 lbs 8 oz which puts her in the 91% and officially makes her the chubby one. She was slated as 25" long, but Mommy thinks she's a little longer because she dropped from the 70% to the 24% and her brain GREW. She jumped from the 78% to the 97% in head circumference.  We are thinking that again there was little error there!

Glorious segway into summer...

Ah May...summer is tangible. You can taste it. And we have already spent a lot of time in our swim suits!

We also took time to clean up our walk to school on Earth Day (okay that was technically still in April!)

Mommy also let Cara and me eat a whole slice of Costco pizza EACH. Blegh.

I dressed up like my teacher, Mrs. Stewart, for teacher appreciation day!

And we've also been staying out WAY past our bedtimes because it JUST DOESN'T GET DARK!

New matching outfits! Thanks, Grandma!

Cara being silly on the red rocks.

Iva vegging way out in the pool. Mom finally picked her up because she was afraid she was going to drown!