Alisa's Blessing

We blessed Alisa Danielle on April 18th in our ward. We had an excellent showing of friends and family-taking over the chapel! We had Alisa in the same beautiful blessing dress as Amelie (thanks again, mom!) and it will be worn on any other girls we may have. :) It came with a bonnet that I actually liked more than I thought, but my sister-in-law is a master bow maker, and she made a beautiful (and perfectly matching) bow that she wore for the actual blessing and through the day. We had a baked potato bar at our house afterward. I spent week cleaning and the night before wrapping 100 potatoes in foil and arranging them in the oven just so, so they'd all cook and Sunday morning wouldn't be frazzled. Excellent plan and good job for me... except that I forgot to turn on the oven before I left for church! I remembered out of nowhere about 15 or 20 minutes before sacrament ended so I rushed home and got to work. NOT awesome, but the real troopers stuck it out and had killer potatoes. (Plus my brother took off with the many many drinks and desserts my mom had made... he made it back with a few people there.)
During the mingling time, I got out a photo book with pictures of Amelie's blessing day, and my oh my, they look like identical twins at that age!! We couldn't believe it, because they really don't look much alike otherwise. Cute!

Wonderfully for us, there is a woman in our ward who writes shorthand, and she surprised us with a transcription of Amelie's blessing. We gave her a warning that it was coming and she said she'd do it again for us. Awesome! We love having it, and I know the girls will, too. (We'll have to have all our babies in this ward for that reason...)

The girl of the hour, patiently waiting.






Long day.

Rambo!

Mommy's Shoes

Amelie still loves wearing any and every shoe she comes across-no matter the size, gender or owner. I caught her walking adorably in my biggest, clunkiest heels the other morning.

Sadly, the lighting in my house is just horrible, but her face is cute and you can see the shoes in the video.


I don't know why there's no sound, but you can see she's saying "walk" over and over. Walking and going on walks is just about her favorite thing ever.

Part 6 - Easter and ride home.

We decided to have an Easter egg hunt on the beach Saturday before we left town, so we did and brought a little Jack-in-the-Box lunch. (If you know Steph, say chees-BOO-gerr next time you see her.) It was pretty cute and all the kids seemed to really like it. Even though Jeff and I were trying to urge everyone out, we hung out there for awhile longer (a bit too long it seems-Steph's car got a parking ticket and Dave's almost did! Not us-we were pushing to go. Then there's the getting home-more on that later.) After seashells, bubbles and a little sunburn (poor Amie!) we finally headed out. We went toward San Diego to hit Wild Animal park on our way out of town... but no one told us that on top of admission, you have to pay for pretty much EVERYTHING else there except one ride. We're talkin $6 for a short 3d movie, or $70 to zipline!!! So after an hour wait for one (cool) safari ride and two hours walking, we left. It was however 6 or 7 by then and we knew in our car that we'd never make it home in one shot (we're not good night drivers and we were exhausted after our week.) Jeff and I talked about it all along, but no one else wanted to think about it until that time. So we tried to find a condo for that night again and again, but nothing. We ended up reserving a hotel in St. George. But after hours of driving, it became clear that even that was gonna be too far. I talked to the lady at Best Western and she had mercy on us and let us cancel penalty-free. We got a cheaper (but better) hotel in Vegas and 10 of us crammed in one room. Some didn't even change their clothes or anything. We had a nice free breakfast and set out again. Finally, closer to Utah we started to get conference on the radio and we heard only half of the last session. :( (I think that was the first time I didn't hear every talk except when I was little.) We stopped at my parents' on our way home just in time for Easter dinner, and we had lots of fun there.


Ever seen an Easter egg hunt like this?

Took her a minute to figure out what was going on.

She kept wanting to stop, open and eat instead of continuing to look. :)



Score!

Daddy jacked the kids' bubbles.

What a cute little munchkin!

Aw.



My favorite!

Alisa throughout.

I don't know about this face...

We decorated Easter egg cakes at my mom's! Amelie's is the one with lots of whipped cream and says Amie, mine is all decorated with whipped cream on the side and Jeff's is... gone.


One last story from the trip. On our first Disney day (right at the veginnig f the trip) mt wallet was stolen... Yeah, and of course, ALL the cash we'd been saving for many months for the trip was in it. We gave it a bit of time to allow for generous people to turn it in, but no one ever did. Nothing ever even got charged to any of my cards or anything, guess they got enough cash. :( Oh well, someday I'll learn.

Part 5 - Universal Studios

Friday we went to Universal Studios, and we had decided to get the all-day meal pass, so we headed out early. Turns out that none of the places on the list served breakfast, so we didn't eat until 10:30 am. But then we ate well through the day.
This was another place where I really didn't get to ride many rides or anything, but part of it was poor planning-I didn't know the park was only open until 7 til I went to go on The Mummy ride at about 6:50 and it was closed. Sad! I'd been wanting to go on it forever! Still fun, though, of course.

Amie kept wanting to hold her sister... Alisa, not so much.


The classic Studios picture (all cut off-thanks random lady!) I think this is the only picture the entire trip that has all four of us in it together, though!

I guess I was done with the camera by this day...?

Part 4- Sea World

Thursday we went to Sea World, and of course it was the coldest day there.
*I think this is a good time to note that while the trip was amazing and we had lots of fun, everything in CA was smaller than FL and I wasn't expecting that.*
So we we saw some really cute shows (The Shamu show was open but still didn't have any trainers get in the water with them) and went on just a few rides. The crazies all sat in the splash zone at the Shamu show, but even though they gave me crap, I had a TWO MONTH OLD in the cold weather so we sat farther back by ourselves. We tried to find a beach for a fire on our way home with no real luck, so we barbequed dinner back at the condo that night.


The slippery eel ride with Oscar the grouch.

Flying fishes!

They had fun.


We all went on Journey to Atlantis, and Jeff and I took the prize for wettest travelers-completely uncontested, I might add.
Amie was so excited to go on this ride all through the line and at the beginning, then as it went higher and faster she hated it more and more.

Part 3-Family Day!

On Wednesday of our trip, everyone else had tickets to Legoland but we thought we’d need a break from a day at the parks, so we opted to have a little family day. It started with a presentation at our condo (we got $75 gift card out of it) then a little trip down to the beach, where we had a picnic lunch. Amie was super-cute, playing with her little bucket and shovel, but it was really windy so we didn’t swim or anything. She liked playing tag with the waves on the shore until the freezing water got her. :) We walked around the harbor a bit, and then went back to the room to rest. We then headed to do a little bowling, which was pretty fun, then went to our favorite event of the day. We bought tickets to Medieval Times, a dinner show. Kids are free if they sit on your lap and eat your food. We knew it’d be a little cramped with the 4 of us, but weren’t about to spring for $60 on a seat and plate that wouldn’t be used. As they seated our section, we hung back to sit on the end just in case. Well, unfortunately there was another group with a baby and they had a carrier, so they insisted on the end, too. We ended up sitting in a row that was not intended to be used, so we had lots of room, no one was behind us (optimal for fussy-baby-standing-up-time.) They even snuck Amie a few treats for her. If you’ve never been, it’s a blast. We were rooting for the yellow knight, who did really well, but alas, did not win. Our section was by far the loudest and most enthusiastic, though, and that made it really fun. We had an excellent dinner with NO utensils and the girls were actually really good. Amie and Jeff LOVED with a capital LOVED the show. It was a great time. It was probably my favorite day of our whole trip!

What we were SUPPOSED to be doing that morning, but no luck... details to follow.

The pretty harbor outside our condo.

Amie LOVES walking by herself.

That's how windy it was!


Awww

How cute!

She just loved that bucket and shovel!

One of the best dollars I ever spent!

She had this weird aversion to walking over the tracks on the beach.

Go yellow knight!

Random hugs are our very favorite.

Clapping and cheering her little heart out! So fun!

Our hero in the joust.

For some reason, Jeff loved this sign we saw.

Part 2-Disneyland

We left Vegas and ran into HORRIBLE traffic, (Spring Break, I guess) so we ended up all getting to CA late (hours late) and no one wanted to spend more time in the car, so we just moved in and vegged.

The next 2 days we spent at Disneyland, and it was fun! I have to say that it wasn't what I was expecting. Partly because of coming from Florida where it's all bigger and better, but also partly because of my expectations. I actually went on very very very very very very few rides the entire week. It was hard for me to accept it, but I guess that's just how it goes when you have a large group and you're responsible for 2 babies. Someday! Just the same, it was fun and our girls were really very good, considering. Amie got scared on the scary Snow White ride, but otherwise enjoyed going on the things she could. She was scared of all of the characters, but liked the few that she recognized when they were at a distance. She LOVED the parades and did lots of great dancing. :) Lisie did lots of sleeping in the stroller and a little riding in the front carrier. That's about it. :)

Amelie got these sunglasses for Christmas JUST for this trip.

Cheesing it in the stroller on the hottest day there!

Tea time with the girls! (Amie, Grandma, Dayna, Hannah)

Daddy watching on the sidelines.

Dancing - a little conga arm action during the Celebrate! parade.

At Ariel's princess dinner. Yummy food (except for the mushroom soup)

Cinderella

Snow White

Scared of Minnie up close, but Minnie's really her favorite. She named her by name all by herself!


A little candid princess action.


Mom and that little baby.


It's hard to juggle 2 babies... especially when you're standing by a girl that doesn't look anything like Ariel... ha!



Not really sure about this...

Well, if I can have your cane...

Nope, No I hate it.

Fireworks... in more ways than one. Oh!