Santa's Present..FINALLY!

Our trip from Santa was planned for over Leap Day and it was almost everything we could hope for. I say almost because Mom always wishes and dreams that we will be one of only 100 families at the park instead of one in 1000 or more!

The end of February finally came and the family picked me up early from school and we hit the road!

The Carl's Jr at  Stateline has a play place, but for some reason the air wasn't working and it was
RIDICULOUSLY hot inside!

Sam was a surprisingly good sport for being only four months old and subjected to his car seat for so long. We stopped twice on the six hour drive to Grandpa Quaife's house. We were all so excited.

We arrived at the beloved house on Brittain street and hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Quaife for about an hour before we jumped into bed barely able to contain ourselves! It was going to be an early morning. The park opened at 8 am and we wanted to be there by 7:30 am!

Sam was having none of it.

But he eventually perked up!

Walking from the parking structure! We had already cracked open the suckers that Grandpa Quaife had given us.

Waiting for official entry into California Adventure!

Mom had made us new ears especially for this trip. She knew that I was going to want Star Wars ears and so we bought fabric and things to do it. We loved them.

Sam learned how to eat on the go quite well.

We didn't manage to get pictures of it, but we started our day with Dad taking Cara and me to ride Goofy's Sky School (Cara was finally tall enough!) while Mom grabbed fast passes for Racers with the two littles. Sam's first ride ended up being Ariel because Mom knew that Iva would LOVE the ride...and she did. It was the only ride she would ever request by name!

It didn't take us too long to get over to the other side of Paradise Pier and get me on California Screamin' for the very first time. I am finally 48" tall!!! I was pretty scared, but Mom wouldn't let me back out. 

Mom was pretty sure I hated it for the first 45 seconds of the ride because I was screaming "OH MY GOSH!!" in such a manner that it didn't sound fun. Well she was wrong. I LOVED IT. I just asked to wait a little bit before going on it again. Haha!

Mickey's Fun Wheel is always a favorite of ours, but unfortunately Iva didn't love it and so we only made it on the wheel once during our whole trip.

Bugs Land was more of a happy place for Iva. She liked the Chew Chew Train.

And Flik's Flyers.

Here we all are on Heimlich!

It's our customary thumbs up pictures. Unfortunately Sam couldn't ride so we are missing his thumb and Mom's.  

We managed to score an immediate visit with Anna and Elsa. NO WAITING. It was awesome. Iva loved them.

Speaking of Iva, she also got good at naps on the go.

Sam and Mom were wearing matching shirts!

Picture with Oswald! This is actually the first time we have met him and gotten a picture I think.

We made it over to Disneyland during the afternoon and checked out the new Star Wars stuff in TomorrowLand. They have lots of stuff even though Star Wars Land itself is probably a year or more off.

My ears had these two ships on them!

Iva was being quite silly while waiting to meet Chewy...whom she refused to go near!

We also bumped into Cinderella's Fairy Godmother!

And met Aurora next to the wishing well!

This was a Saturday so the parks were kind of crazy and full so it became a game of picking which ride we didn't mind waiting for. We had to get on Indiana Jones because it was closing for refurbishment on Monday, but other than that it was just about having fun. We stopped for lots of pictures.

This was one of the only times we rode the carousel as a family!

Busy days sometimes lend themselves to random short lines though and Mom was able to get us in to the princesses once again with almost no wait. Maybe five minutes!

IVA LOVED MEETING THEM ALL!!

She was most excited when she saw Belle though. She has been watching Beauty and the Beast and was so enchanted.

Siena tried to get away with being carried at one point. It didn't last long.

Sam really was an amazing baby all day. He was happy unless he was hungry or tired which turned out to be fairly easy to fix.

We earned our nighttime meal. Cara and I downed this plate of spaghetti.

Here was our failed attempt to ride Racers with mom. I say failed because we never made it on the ride.

Unfortunately they had a circuit breaker blow and I don't think they ever opened back up. It was so sad, but we had fun talking together. 

We even managed to go on Tower of Terror instead. (Much scarier at night!)

We stayed for World of Color and to get on Soarin, but man we were all quite tired. We left the park at about 10:15 pm. A FULL DAY.

5ks and Obstacles Courses

The weekend after President's Day, our friend, Jayden, had a 5k thrown in his honor. The local high school picked him as their Mr. PVHS. Dad and Mom ran it with Sam and Iva in tow.

We were supposed to run it to, but we went and slept over at Grandma's with Lexi instead. I was kind of bummed that I had missed it.

Right after running this 5k, Mom got lucky and was able to participate in an Obstacle Course clinic at Summit where she works.

It was hard and she had bruises and rug burns. Her arms were sore for quite awhile. I think she will do it again though. You could tell she felt empowered.

President's Day Visits

One of our favorite parts of President's Day weekend is that it has turned into an annual visit from the Preslars! In fact, I think this was their fourth consecutive President's Day trip. Maybe only three, but we might have gone up there for the fourth.

The weather was absolutely beautiful. Warm. Almost hot. We made sure to spend almost all of Saturday out in the sun. So much so that we might have sunburnt a few of our Preslar cousins. Sorry guys!

We went on a fun hike that could have just gone on forever, but we were getting hungry.

We took them to the infamous Romney stairs in the St. George tabernacle. These stairs were actually built by our great great great grandpa, Miles Romney! He was one of the men vital to the building of St. George and it took us four years of living here to actually go visit the stairs and find out just how instrumental he was. Also one funny note, he is known as the first man to ever stand up to Brigham Young and it was in relation to these stairs.

It was just warm enough to put our toes in the splash pad and maybe our bums. Okay most of us ended up naked in the car because our clothes were soaked.

There was Swig involved in our weekend too. Sam was willing to be guard!

We love these people. They are our favorites. We are both in a period of transition and we all hope that it ends with us still able to visit and see each other often.

We have taken to visiting this water tower and eating lunch as a farewell each time. It's delightful. 

Sam at Four Months

Poor Sam has still struggled with being sick! Once he got better from his croup, he picked up RSV almost a week later. He's pretty happy for how often it seems like he can't breathe!

We aren't great at giving him tummy time so he hates it, but we are getting there.

Sam loves to give Mom HUGE smiles in the morning when she is finally willing to turn on the lights and let him stand up and talk to her.

He's a cuddle bug though and likes to fall asleep on your shoulder.

He has discovered his hands and how delicious they are. He is not really interested in binkis and will take one on the rare occasion, but he will suck on his hand. His whole hand. This makes him drool a lot.

He has been weighed a couple times over the last two weeks and it's safe to say he is 14 lbs which puts him entirely middle of the road in percentages. 43% in fact. His length was just over 24 inches and that also put him in the 43% for height, but he was remeasured at a different appointment that just put him at 24 inches which makes more sense because he is a little chunky.

The last week he has been overly clingy and does not tolerate putting him down more than once a day. He has probably cried more over the last two weeks than the entire three months before! He's still a pretty good babe.

We aren't really rolling over yet but that's mostly because he doesn't want to lie down by himself long enough to try or be motivated! Iva has taken to really loving on him lately and giving head bonks and trying to lay with him and Mom spends a fair amount of her time trying to save Sam!

Sheri, Personal Trainer

Look what my mom did! She got her Personal Training certification! I don't think she really thought she was going to pass the test, but she did it!

Mom loves being an instructor at Summit Athletic Club. She even took Dad and Sam to their party which they like to do in January instead of December. It ended up being a long night, but they did win some prizes!

Look at the cute custom chocolates! They have Summit's logo on them!

The Potty Training Demon

Iva has been pretending to potty train for around six months. She has always seemed aware of when she needs to use the bathroom and even was waking up dry. None of that translated into using the potty, however.

She does like to be naked and sit and watch her movies on her potty. Sometimes she's kind of cold though and we end up like this.

We have had a terrible development in this department though. Iva is terrified to poop or pee in the potty and now even terrified to poop in her diaper. She screams like you decided to boil her in oil. She begs to sit on the potty, but can't figure out how to release it and then full on panics once it starts coming. You almost can't cheer for her after because she is so traumatized. It's awful. We can't wait until this phase passes.

She really makes you think she's going to go!

Iva has been growing up though. She has transitioned to using binkies only at nap times and bed times which has made it easier to put her down for those most of the time. She is also in the process of dropping her nap. Somedays she REALLY needs it and others she doesn't. If she falls asleep too late in the day, we are in trouble at bedtime though. We are also getting her to sleep in her own big girl bed for longer stretches of the night. Pete will go in and sleep with her when she cries out, but we are seeing a slight decrease in the need.

One thing that I don't know if we ever mentioned on the blog was Iva's obsession with buckles. If there was buckle anywhere near her she HAD to buckle it. People would know that she was around because they would go to put their babies in car seats and it was buckled or all the straps on your backpack. She's kind of outgrown it now and we wanted to make sure we even remembered it was a phase!

Valentine's Day Fun

Mom has been enjoying doing "heart hair" for the month of February.

We also got a surprise visitor the Wednesday before Valentine's Day. Rapunzel came with a rose for each of us!

Cara was so surprised by the visitor she started to say her name was Cora and had to correct herself!