The Mischievous Miss

Our Miss Kate is becoming more and more mischievous every day. I find her doing some of the craziest things. -She climbs up on everything- none of my other kids did that.
-She is always taking her pants off and finding different things to put on instead.
-She sneaks pacifiers out of her crib and comes down giggling with them in her mouth.
-She goes in the laundry room and tries to hand fed Penny (the cat) her food.
-She pushes kitchen stools into the pantry to try to get out snacks.
She is totally one of those kids that if they're too quiet then you know they're up to no good! I don't know what I'm going to do with her! It's a good thing she's so darn cute!

The sick house- UPDATE! And Another- UPDATE!

That's our house right now. 2 of my kids now have strep throat- Anna and Kate (the oldest and youngest). 2 down 2 to go right? I really hope it doesn't spread any further! But more than that- I really hope I don't get it. I can take care of sick kids, but no one takes care of a sick Mama! Keep your fingers crossed for me...

2/19/10: Well- add one more to the list because Ellie's now sick (and Anna woke up with a fever again!) I guess it's time to DEEP clean my house!

2/21/10: Anna has it again and now Tyler has it too. Well actually he's probably had it for the past few weeks. He was sick about 3 weeks ago with a fever and stomach ache- no sore throat and it went away after a few days. Well, come to find out, a lot of kids never have a sore throat with strep- they have a stomach ache. Who knew?! When I took Anna in yesterday to get tested yet again, I had them test Tyler even though he doesn't have any symptoms and he was positive. Growing up, my sister was a carrier of strep. We would all get sick and test positive but she would be the one without any symptoms. So maybe he's a carrier too. Anyway... Hopefully after this round of amoxicillin we'll all be better. The doctor even gave me prescriptions for Bryan and myself (which is a good thing since I'm feeling rotten now too)!

The Big "D"

Of course that's code for Disneyland- I mean really, what bigger D is there! As most of you know, we surprised our kiddos with a trip to Disneyland for Christmas. It was a hard secret to keep seeing as how we planned the trip in October. I'm still surprised that none of them found out early. I was worried that the parks were going to be crazy around Christmas, so I planned for the worst so that I wouldn't get my hopes up. And it worked! The first day we were their (Dec 28th) we spent only in Disneyland (we had park hopper passes), and by the end of the day it was packed- standing room only! The second day we spent at California Adventure and it wasn't nearly as crowded. And our final day (the day of rain!) we went back and forth between the two doing the things we liked best.



I did learn a few things on our little trip:
1) don't leave the ponchos (you know, the ones you purposely brought with you just in case it rained) in your hotel room, because the ones in the park cost $7.00 each!
2) if you don't want to wait an hour to ride on Dumbo, go to Fantasyland first thing in the morning. You can ride all the little kid rides without waiting in long lines.
3) if you get motion sickness- DON'T ride the teacups!
4) don't expect your baby girl who loves Mickey mouse and carries his doll around everywhere to LOVE Mickey mouse in person! Life-size mouse = kind-of scary!
5) try not to wear a white polo with tan colored pants because you'll get asked more than once where the bathroom is or where someone might be able to get a hot dog!

We stayed one extra day in CA so that we could go to the beach. Now granted it wasn't really beach weather- it was still fun. It happened to be the warmest day of the trip (high of 70). We drove down the coastal highway and ended up stopping at Crystal Cove State Park. The kids had a lot of fun playing in the tide pools and exploring. They found 2 star fish, hermit crabs, and lot of other sea creatures. And yes, we touched them all even though you weren't suppose to! We had a great Christmas and a Fantastic trip! I don't know if we'll be able to top it next year!

Christmas!

Only a month late...but better than never! We had a great Christmas. On Christmas Eve Eve (so the 23rd!) my sister Stacy and her family came over for a fondue party. YUMMY! The kids loved it. That night the kids slept under the Christmas tree like they do every Christmas Eve Eve. It's a Haymond family tradition. Christmas Eve we did a little house cleaning cause Santa can't come to a dirty house! And then we did out traditional Christmas Eve dinner at Pizza Hut- dine in! This is something we've been doing for the past 3 years or so with Bryan's sister Jen and her family. The sad this is that I don't have pictures of any of those traditions! Next year I'll have to remember to get out the camera! We opened one present on Christmas eve- jammies, left some cookies for Santa, read The Night Before Christmas and the story of Christ's birth, and went to bed.Here are the kiddos waiting to head downstairs to see what goods Santa brought them!
Kate got a kitchen, Tyler got Cars Race-o-rama for the Wii, Ellie got an Our Generation doll, and Anna got a docking station for her iPod.

When all the presents were opened and everyone was happy, we brought out some cards for them to open. Inside was a photo card with a picture of all 4 kids and a little poem that said "You kids are the greatest, you're really number 1. So go pack your bags becasue DISNEYLAND here we come." That was their main gift form us this year. A surprise family trip to Disneyland. They were all really excited. This was our first time going. So stay tuned for a post all about our trip.

Almost there-

Yes, I'm still catching up. But I'm almost there.
The Monday and Tuesday before Christmas I went up to Logan with the kids to visit my family. My sister just happened to have her baby girl the day we got there. Lucky me! Welcome Miss Eli Jane-We also made cookies and decorated some gingerbread houses (but those just don't compare to a darling new baby girl!)
Here's before-And here's after-

Fun times with some cute kids!