Frozen Fun!

What would you do if you had annual passes to Disneyland and you found out that they were opening an all new Frozen Fun zone on a Wednesday after the holidays? Exactly what we did. You skip school and drive to Disneyland toot sweet!

Mom found out about the opening of the new Frozen land in California Adventure and let Cara and me decide whether or not we should go. Duh, we said yes! We even asked Aunt Angie and Lexi to join us! And fate was smiling on us because Lexi's awesome Aunt Kenzie let us borrow her sweet minivan so we could all drive together! Wahoo! So Tuesday afternoon, they picked me up from school in our new ride and we hit the road for California!

It was so fun! We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Great and got geared up for our fun. We were a little disappointed to find out that some of the LA schools were out, but oh well. Our dreams of 5 minute wait times have long been large fantasy anyway. I swear, there is no "off season" for Disney anymore.

We tried to make it to park opening but we missed it by 5 minutes. Not a big deal. We still got plenty of stuff in.

We were so excited to see that they had added Arendelle to the Storybook Land! We never actually rode the boats we always just viewed it from the Casey Jr. Train.

Trying to patiently wait for Dumbo. Iva really is incredible for a one year old!

We eventually headed over to California Adventure where the new Frozen Fun zone was actually located. It was a mad house, we opted to skip it for the day and wait until Thursday morning.

Bugs Land and ice cream. We were happy campers. It was actually 82 degrees! It was awesome.

Iva loves carousels. She holds on to the handles and hops up and down!

We were quite the girl crew. Two mommas and four and half girls! (Aunt Angie is pregnant...we will just assume that she's having another girl since that's what we do!)

We are quite silly together...

Seriously...the best one year old in the park. She even props her head up to sleep like a grown up.

Our moms surprised us by fulfilling a life long dream of Cara's and mine! A DISNEYLAND BALLOON! The life size Olaf was so fun. We liked giving him warm hugs. (He enjoyed wapping other guests in the face when we pushed our stroller at break neck speeds!)

One very happy surprise for us was that some of the holiday stuff was still up and that included "It's A Small World Holiday" and wait for it..."HAUNTED MANSION HOLIDAY!!!!!!" Our absolute favorite. We were thrilled.

2015 in with a sled!

2015 started out GREAT! We were up in SLC hanging out with our cousins and playing in the snow. We were so excited that the 20 degree weather didn't bother us a bit. 

Iva even got in on the fun although she reminded everyone of Randy from A Christmas Story every time she tried to walk.

Iva is always the favorite with our Preslar cousins. It's okay. We know they like us to, but they ADORE Iva. Even the 12 year old Chase. Actually, ESPECIALLY the 12 year old Chase.

We did a lot of just playing around the house, but we did make it out to some new sledding hills. Popperton park is officially a favorite place now.

(That's me, Siena, on the sled with Daddy. It's kinda hard to tell in snow gear!)

Iva had been asleep in the car for most of the sledding, but she woke up to give it a try.

Daddy kind of wrecked at the bottom and Iva HATED it. In her defense, she was sick. She could barely breathe and she had woken up in a car all by herself! She liked this more tame sleigh ride a little better.

And then we hung out at the house some more which led us to seek out another outlet for our energy which ended up being Aunt Rachel's empty church! We ran around and played a little ball and best of all put on plays for our parents. This was our parents' favorite part... Cara and Emma were playing Daddy and Mommy and were kissing anytime they were alone. It was hysterical at least to the grown ups.

It was a long delightful weekend. We had five days up in SLC. It was hard to pack up the car and head home. (Mom kept cheering for temperatures above 40 degrees though!)

Guest note from Mom: Saturday night I stood with Rachel in 25 degree "heat" and waited to get us the most delicious and fantastic "Cupbop". It is a Korean food truck and it stood up to Rachel's hype. Surpassing it even. And "I don't typically hold with foreign food." (Nerd alert...that's a movie quote from The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers)

2014 out with a bang!!

Guest post by Mom:

I think for the last five years probably I have done an end of year sum up of what the last 12 months has brought us individually. Well guess what. I'm too tired. That third kid must have knocked me for a loop. (Actually I think it's because that third kid is a 13 month old bent on suicide or self injury and has been sick FOREVER.) So instead I will just do a small reflection on the year and post some of our final photos of the year.

The weekend after Christmas was totally chill. The stupid stomach bug took it's run through the ENTIRE family and it was special. Aunt Becca came up on Christmas day though and we enjoyed lots of time with her because she stayed at the house with us and the girls loved it!

My grandparents came down for a little Larsen party and Cara had fun singing while Grandma played the piano.

Here my darling husband has chosen to model all of the girls knew bows! Hahaha!

I didn't seem to get many pictures of the party. It was probably because I was slightly down with the yucks.

We finally delivered our neighborhood presents with two days left in the year! The girls dressed up very festive!

And this monkey decided to get tricky! Actually, she's done this since she laid eyes on this horse, but now she's adding the tongue out and it's hilarious.

We snuggled up and watched It's A Wonderful Life..well the kids watched part of it and Pete's head exploded from trying to explain the economics of the film to them.

We decided to ring in the actual New Year up in SLC with Pete's family. We held a little hot cocoa party and exchanged some presents. This is quite possibly one of the best photos of Iva's belly ever. She was playing with her new toy. I love that I captured some of the Preslars' tree in the background.

We played games with their friends up at the church and made in home just in time to ring in a central time zone New Year's.

And this was the temps in and outside the house at midnight. I laughed. We drove up to where it never reached above freezing for more than an hour (and on our last day) and missed the snow fall in St. George. Oh well.

2014 was a good year to our little crew. Our extended families had some hiccups (mostly my mom and her THREE surgeries for three different injuries) but we feel really blessed. Pete's mom is continuing to decline with her Alzheimer's but she still recognizes us and loves us and that's what counts right now. We could have spent less and saved more, but we still came out on top. And I think we were all healthier at the end of the year. Our eating habits have improved and my girls are active. We are going to call it a win!

Christmas Morning Finally Came!!!

You would think with how excited we were that Mommy wouldn't have to wake us up. Well that wasn't true. She did. She came crawling into our igloo at 8 am! We asked her if Santa came, which of course he had, and then rolled over and told her we would wait until Daddy is awake! She was flabbergasted.

Look...Mom put on all her presents at once. A dress, a shirt, a bag, a jacket, a bracelet and new workout pants!

Our loot!

Family movie time.

We hung out at Grandma and Grandpa's house again with Uncle CJ and played games.

Somehow Mommy didn't get a picture of Iva and her presents but Iva enjoyed them we promise. It was a great Christmas.

Christmas Eve Festivities

Yay! Christmas Eve finally came! I celebrated Christmas Eve Eve Eve and Christmas Eve Eve. We were so happy. We ate pizza at Grandma and Grandpa's. Followed by hot tubbing and presents!!!

I got awesome presents!

So did Cara even though she was having the worst Christmas Eve ever. (She and daddy had the yucks!)

Iva loved her presents from the boys!

Grandpa thought he was being funny and wrapped up a bunch of climbing gear for everyone to open up!

It was a very FROZEN Christmas. We got lots of Frozen loot!

Pajama time!

Mommy surprised me with the jammies she said they didn't have anymore!!!!