California - Day 3

Tony waiting for the train to come.

Josh is also waiting for the train, should be fun.

Allie is happy to be out of the stroller and to have a bottle.  She was supposed to go to sleep on the train, but she did not.  It was too much fun to sleep.

Tyler, Brennen, and Matt waiting for the train.  They look super excited.

Cortnie, Megan, and Gabe waiting for the train.  Gabe actually looks excited.

Grandma and Grandpa having a little too much fun by the train.

Our whole Steenblik group.  Probably can't see everyone, but they are all there.  So much fun!

Awe, the kids trying to pull out the sword in the stone.  You gotta try every time you go to Disneyland, it's tradition!

Better luck next time kids, keep on trying.

Josh is so cute on his horse.

There's Tyler.

Allie, Tony, and Megan on the horse.  One of Megan's favorite rides.

Allie really liked sitting on her own horse.  She's getting too big.

Matt, Lydia, Josh, Megan, and Tyler all in dumbo.  He's fun to play in while you wait for the train ride.

Tyler, Josh, Cora, Amy, Nate, Matt and Lydia - a bunch of monkeys in their cage.

Mom and Megan on the train ride.

Allie relaxing with Daddy on the train ride.  Nice and smooth ride.

Megan is having so much fun at Disneyland.  She LOVES it!

California - Day 2

Today has been more of a laid back day.  The kids all woke up pretty early, so we decided to get ready and go down for breakfast.  It didn't officially start until 7:00 am, so we had to wait a few minutes to get the hot food.
After breakfast we went back to our room where we let the kids play until it was time to get ready for church.  I forgot to bring my church clothes, so we decided to have me stay back at the hotel with Allie while the rest of the family went to church.  It was a good play because Allie went to sleep and took a really good nap while they were all at church.
She was still asleep when they got back so we all just hung out playing games and watching a show.  Allie woke up to us eating some popcorn and quickly joined in.  She sure loves popcorn.  The others went to Disneyland to pick up the tickets for tomorrow so while they were out we headed to the store to pick up some more of the things that I forgot to bring, i.e. toothbrushes for the kids.
After that we came back to the hotel and waited some more for the others.  We decided to just meet them over at the fair ground where they were having a swap meat.  It wasn't far from the hotel and we got there fast.  After parking we were off to join the others and start looking for some sweet deals.
The kids all got hats, except Allie because she kept taking them off her head.  Tony got some t-shirts, sun glasses, and a new wedding ring (his is a little small for him).  Grandma bought Tyler, Brennen, and Gabe skateboards as part of their Christmas presents.  They were very excited about them.

After all the shopping we just had to stop at Costco.  We bought a couple more snacks, you never can have too many, and then went back to the hotel where Nate and Amy's family had arrived.  The kids were so excited to see each other, it was adorable!
The hotel had some nachos, cheese, and fruit out for people so we ate some of that before having some subway sandwiches for dinner.  We just ate in our hotel rooms so we wouldn't have to go out for the night.

After we ate the kids just played in our room and watched a show.  Then I bathed the kids and we put them to bed.  Allie fell asleep first and then Megan.  Tyler and Josh were resistant about going to bed, claiming to not be tired.  But they have finally gone to sleep now.  Tomorrow we go to Disneyland and we are going to be so tired and our feet are going to really hurt, but man are we going to have fun. 

California - Day 1

We left our house early this morning to start this exciting journey to California.  We had the car all packed and woke up the kids and headed out.
Koda was already at the Kunzler's house so we didn't need to worry about him.  We are so lucky to have such amazing neighbors, though I fear we may have a hard time getting our dog back after this vacation.
We met up with Tony's parents and Tim and Suzanne's family in St. George at Nana's house.  We visited for about an hour and then headed back on the road.  We sure do love Nana.

We then drove to Las Vegas where we got gas and lunch.  After that fun we were back at it.  It was about then that Allie had enough time in the car and started crying/screaming off and on until we got to our hotel in California.  The other kids did really good.  Even Megan did good, much better then 3 months ago when we went to Oregon.

We checked into our nice room and got all our stuff brought up and put away.  They had some nachos and chips out for the guest, so we had some of that before it was pool time.  I forgot to bring swim diapers, but I lucked out and found that I had one in the car.  Good for me that I like to be prepared - usually.  So we all went swimming together.  The pool was a little chilly, but not too bad.  The kids all loved it and had no problem hopping right in and having tons of fun.  One bummer thing was that Megan and Tyler both cut them selves in the pool somewhere so we had to deal with that.  Megan's tip of her toe got sliced open and Tyler got a cut on the top of his foot.  Being the prepared person that I usually am, I had band-aids for them in the room.
They were all really tired after the long day so after showers they all went to sleep pretty fast.  We are excited for this fun week of Disneyland, Sea World, and Lego Land.  A big ole THANK YOU goes out to Tony's parents for sponsoring this awesome family vacation!

Josh Lost His First Tooth

Josh has had a loose tooth for a couple weeks now.  He also has had his new adult tooth growing in behind his baby teeth.  We were getting a little worried that we were going to have to get his tooth pulled because Josh didn't like wiggling it.  But luckily it got loose on it's own.
I wiggled it a little this morning a little too hard and it started bleeding so while I was cleaning up the blood I decided to try and pull it out.  One tug is all it took.  He said it didn't even hurt.  So exciting to see my kids having these new experiences.

Happy Halloween 2015

My cute trick-or-treaters!   Tony started out with all four kids, but then after a while he came back to drop off Allie and Josh said he wanted to stay too.  Josh had tons of fun handing out candy to other kids. 

Megan is an adorable Minnie Mouse.  She didn't want to wear the ears so I tried to make her hair look like mouse ears.  She loved trick-or-treating.  Her and Tyler went out with Tony a little longer and they got some good candy.  I was surprised how many full sized candy bars they got this year, more then ever.

Allie girl was Tigger.  She didn't really like wearing the hat.  She had fun trick-or-treating for the first time.  Tony said it took her a little while to realize what was going on, but once she realized she was getting treats she got really excited.  She definitely has a sweet tooth.

Tyler on a cop motorcycle.  I took him and Megan to a Halloween event at the new hospital clinic on Tuesday and they had emergency vehicles for people to check out.  Tyler only wanted to sit on the motorcycle.  Megan didn't even want to do that.  She really just wanted candy.

Pink Eye Sucks

We have been battling the dreaded pink eye at our house.  It all started with Megan on Saturday.  While she was at grandma's house her eyes started getting swollen and red around her eyes.  At first Margie thought maybe she was allergic to something, but by the end of the night it was pretty clear it was pink eye.  She said that it didn't hurt or bother her at all, so that was the good news.

We called Dr. Uncle Nate and he told us to keep the eyes clean of the goop and wash everything she touched.  He also said that it's probably viral, so no eye drops needed.  The next day Allie woke up with one of her eyes super red, swollen, and full of goop.
Uncle Nate, being the awesome guy he is, came over Sunday morning to check on the girls to make sure it was viral.  He said it was just viral but did give us some drops just to keep their eyes lubricated.  This is when the washing of the sheets, blankets, and pillows started and didn't stop until Tuesday.
Megan looked better Monday and was well enough to go to school on Tuesday.  Allie was still pretty goopy.  As soon as I thought we would be close to being done, Josh got really goopy eyes Tuesday afternoon.  So then the washing of the laundry and the house started again.  This time geared toward everything Josh would have touched.  It hit both of his eyes, red and swollen, pretty hard and they were so runny and goopy that he even had a hard time sleeping that night.
This is the same day that Tony also got pink eye.  Just in one eye and it wasn't too goopy, but really red in the eye.  He had to call in sick to work for the next day, can't have pink eye at work.
The next day Josh was looking a little better and then by Thursday he wasn't goopy at all so I let him go to school for his Halloween party.   Tony also looked better and was able to go to work on Thursday.
Allie was feeling a little better on Thursday and was playing with the Minnie ears putting them on her head and she loved them on sideways.  I thought she looked adorable!  Even though Allie still has a small amount of goop, I think we may now be close to being done we this horrible virus.  At least I sure hope so. 

BYU Game

Brother Barker from our ward gave us two tickets to the BYU game.  Margie was so kind to watch our kids for us so that we could go.  Tyler had his last soccer game and then we left right after to go to the game.  The traffic wasn't bad and we found a pretty good place to park.
We had so much fun.  The weather was perfect!  BYU totally blew out the team 70-6, but we still had a great time.  We bought a couple shirts and a football for Tyler.  We stayed for the whole game and loved it all.
After the game we went to Teagan's apartment to pick up her and her boyfriend up to go to dinner.  We went and got some pizza from Pizza Factory.  Tony and I really like their Alfredo pizza.  It was super fun to chat with Teagan and Zach.  After dinner we drove back home and got the kids from grandma's.  They had a great time at grandma's (like always).  It was a fun day!

Tyler's Last Soccer Game

Tony and Tyler's team had their last game today.  They have had a rough season.   A lot of kids on this team haven't really played before and were very inexperienced.
Tyler had a good time playing and enjoyed his teammates.  Even though they didn't play very well they were good kids.  It's nice that the season is over and now we can have a break from soccer for a while.  I do love watching my little soccer player and my cute hubby coaching his team.  Good times!

Family Pictures at the Farm

 

 

Picking Pumpkins at Dibble Farm

We were going to have a Halloween party with cousins today, but little Cora got sick so they had to cancel the party.  It was really sad and we hope that she gets better super fast.

So since we didn't have the party we decided to go up to Dibble Farm.  We went there last year to pick out pumpkins and had a tractor ride so we were excited to go again.  We invited Grandma Margie to come with us this time and she joined us for the fun.
Grandma picked us up and we drove up to Layton.  I knew that I wanted to try and take some family pictures while we were there so we came prepared.

I took some pictures before we went to pick out our pumpkins.  After the photo shoot we went to find our treasure.  Megan picked hers out first and then Josh found his pumpkin.  Tyler took a long time to find the perfect big pumpkin but ended up choosing two big ones.  Josh found a cute little one for Allie to hold (chew on) and she really liked it. 

After everyone chose their pumpkins we let the kids sit on the tractor for a few minutes each.  They like feeling tall and big on the top of the tractor.  Allie was super happy to be playing driver and probably could have stayed a lot longer.

After we took to pumpkins to the car we took some more pictures.  The kids got some dried corn on the cob from Ken, Tony's co-worker.  They are very excited to get it off of the cob and try to pop the corn.  Ken said it might still be too dry so we may need to let it dry out.

The kids also saw a horse, played on the play ground a little bit, and played with some of the other kids by the farm house.  We all had a very good time at the farm and we even got some pretty good pictures out of it.