A Name Change

I forgot to mention something in the previous Disneyland post. The Thursday morning we were at Disneyland Tyler woke up and decided he would like to change his name. Normally when Tyler changes his name he changes it to Sirductor. Interesting I know :) He came upon that name because the Conductors name on Thomas is Sir Topham Hatt. So he puts Sir and Conductor together and comes up with Sirductor. So we are accustomed to calling him Sirductor at times instead of Tyler. However, Thursday morning Sirductor would not do. He changed his name to "Water"! Yep, that's right, Water. He would respond to nothing other than Water. And if we tried calling him a different name he would remind us his name was Water, or else he just wouldn't respond until we called him Water and then he was very attentive. That actually lasted most of the day and it wasn't until late afternoon that he decided he would go back to Sirductor. We just had to chuckle! How in the world did he come up with Water?!?

Easter

We got back from Disneyland just in time for Easter. The Easter Bunny must have known that we were tired from Disneyland because he decided to keep things easy and small. On Saturday night the Ashlie and Tyler decorated eggs. Sari decided this year that she was too old to decorate eggs and so she was in charge of the camera. She was not however to old for an Easter Basket :)

We had a wonderful Easter morning. The kids woke to Easter Baskets with a bit of candy. Thank goodness there wasn't too much in there because Tyler ate all of his for breakfast. The Easter Bunny has made it tradition to also leave them each a new toothbrush. After Tyler had eaten all of his candy he took all of the plastic Easter Eggs the Easter Bunny had given him and stacked them all together and created a "Stripey Butterfly". We included a picture. He kept it long enough to even show Grandma the next day.

The previous week during Family Night we had a lesson on Easter and the Resurrection. The girls seemed to really enjoy the lesson. Tyler pretty much enjoys causing disruption during our lessons so it was nice that they were still able to get something out of it.

After church we went over to my sister's house for an Easter Dinner with the family. After eat way too much yummy food we had an Easter Egg hung. Sari once again was too old to do the hunting but was thrilled to do the hiding. Papa had helped with the egg coloring at our house and had made a special egg that was worth $5 to whomever found it! Ashlie spotted the egg first and received the $5 prize! Tyler just enjoyed running around grabbing the eggs and chucking them (literally) into his basket. Ashlie ended up with 26 eggs and Tyler ended up with 24 cracked eggs. They all had a good time.

I was thankful that we were able to remember Christ during the Easter season. Unfortunately, Easter is becoming a lot like the retailer's Christmas season. There are a ton of different Easter Egg hunts and spending crazy amounts of money on Easter Baskets. I think it is so sad that most people don't even get the reason why we celebrate Easter. It is just another way to celebrate and spend money. I am thankful that I was able to help celebrate Easter this year with my family in a way that honored Christ and all that he has done for us and for me.

Our Disneyland Trip

During the week of Spring Break we snuck out of town for a couple of days and headed to Disneyland. We had so much fun. The girls have been several times and so they had their rides all mapped out before we even got there. Tyler was there about a year ago but he didn't really remember the magic of Disneyland.

Even if you have never been to Disneyland I am sure you can relate to the long lines, demanding people, and those who feel like they are entitled to something better than the rest of us. I find that I get frustrated easily at these types of people, then my family suffers through my frustration. So I decided this time around was going to be different. We were going for no other reason than to have fun. We were on no time schedules, we went with just our immediate family so we had no other schedules to conform to, and there was no set agenda we had to adhere to. I decided that I was going to have a good time regardless of what the rest of the Disneyland population was doing. And it worked! We all had a great time :) Craig helped by designating each day to a different theme, like one day was the day of love, another the day of kindness. We had to make sure that everything we did or said followed that days theme. It really helped keep us from getting grumpy when we got tired or bored from standing in line.









Ashlie discovered roller coasters this year. She had gone on a couple last year but wasn't quite sure if she really liked it or not. Well this year was entirely different! Even Sari bailed out of going on Tower of Terror but not Ashlie! She went on it and loved it! She hit every roller coaster there was and a couple of them she got to do twice. It was so cute to see her so grown up. Sari still loved the roller coasters but she was a little more cautious. Tyler loved the trains. I bet you couldn't guess that could you :) Everywhere we went in Disneyland we caught the train to do it. Even if it was closer to walk we would go back to the train station and ride the train. He was a little upset because he wanted to ride Thunder Mountain Railroad but was too short. We had hoped that he would meet the height requirement of 40" because the majority of the rides have that as their minimum. But his head just slid under the mark. We even tried spiking his hair just a bit straighter but they said spikey hair didn't count! Oh well, Craig and I took turns with the girls and Tyler. It all worked out and we all had lots of fun. And there were several rides we still all got to do together.









Usually when we go to Disneyland we spend all of our time riding rides. This time though we took some time and went to some of the shows. The first night we made a point to get a good spot on Main Street and watch the firework show. We always see them but we rarely make a point to actually watch the whole show. It was really good and the girls loved Tinkerbell. The second day we hit two different shows. First we went and saw 3D Muppet Show. They gave us all 3D glasses to wear and Tyler wasn't too sure about that. He watched the first couple of minutes without them on and then I kind of forced them on his head and he was amazed. He watched the majority of it with them on. Occasionally he would take them off and look around and then put them back on. At the end of the show it looks like they blew a hole in the side of the building. All the way out of the auditorium Tyler kept saying that they needed to fix the building. After the Muppet Show we went and watched a production of Aladdin! Wow! That was amazing. If you make it to Disneyland while they are doing it you should definitely see it! Tyler was completely captivated which says a lot! And the girls were going crazy. Sari loved the personality of the Genie and of course Ashlie loved Jasmine!













We all had a great time. We upgraded out tickets to an annual pass so we are already scheduling our next trip. Here are a few pictures. Between Craig, Sari, and me we had tons of pictures so here are just a few of the better ones.

Catching Up!!!

So it doesn't really seem like it has been THAT long since I last posted but so much fun stuff has happened. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of much of it so I just stuck a couple of older pictures on just for fun.

The last week of March Craig's parents made a trip from Idaho out to see us. We had soooo much fun!!! We ate at In-N-Out for lunch 3 different times :) We spent time at the mall, reading, napping, and of course Facebooking! Jeri and I also made it to get a pedicure! Very fun stuff! Ashlie was so excited to Grandma & Grandpa she could hardly wait. She had been counting down the days for almost 3 weeks. Tyler taught Grandpa how to play trains so they had lots of fun together! This is a picture of Grandma & Grandpa with the kids last summer when we went to Idaho.

While Grandma & Grandpa were here visiting Sari got an award at the school assembly. Her award was in Language Arts! It was probably one of the most pleasant school assemblies I've been to in a while. That would be because Grandma & Grandpa stayed home with Tyler and Craig and I got to go by ourselves :)

It was amazing how quickly our time passed with Grandma & Grandpa here. Before we knew it, it was time to take them back to the airport and say goodbye! We were sad to see them go so soon but we know we get to see them in just a couple of months. Craig was able to take several days off while his parents were here so it was really nice to actually be able to relax a little and enjoy each others company too! However, with the house back to ourselves our regular routine quickly took over once again and everyone was back to work and school and all of the other wonderful things we do each day.

On Friday, Tyler's preschool took a field trip to the zoo! We were learning about the letter "z" and what better way than a trip to the zoo. He loved seeing all of the different animals but his favorite was the Lemur. You are probably wondering why in the world he liked the lemurs!!! He has discovered the show Zaboomafoo on Sprout TV and one of the main characters is a lemur named Zaboo! Tyler instantly spotted Zaboo the lemur at the zoo and ran crazy for several minutes all around the lemur area screaming about Zaboo. The trip was made completely worthwhile with this one exhibit :)

After we made it back from the zoo, Ashlie had her first track meet of the season. She decided about 2 months ago to join the track team at school and so she has been practicing for quite some time. Our school was hosting so I went to help be a timer. Being our first track meet, neither of us had any idea how intense this was going to be. Luckily I had decided it best to leave Sari & Tyler at home since Craig was working. I couldn't even keep up with Ashlie and her events let alone try to watch Tyler & Sari too. Luckily Craig was able to come over after he got work and helped with Ashlie. Ashlie competed in the 100 meter dash, the long jump, and the 1600 meter run. She did very well in both the 100 meter dash and the long jump. The 1600 meter run was a bit more difficult for her! All of the kids went off to quickly in this run and they soon started paying for it! Ashlie came in last in the race however, she did finish it! In the older group some of the kids quit before they even finished the race! We were very proud of her and her willingness to give it everything she had! She was a great sport!!! She is already gearing up for her next track meet in 2 weeks!

So besides all of our many comings and goings we do sometimes stay at home! Sometimes!!! Over the past few days Tyler has made a few little funny comments I've been chuckling about so I thought I would share. One day this past week Craig, Tyler, & I were out and about running some errands and while we were driving around we turned down a street that Tyler didn't think we should go down and so he told me, "You're going down the wrong aisle! This is not the right aisle to go down!" So funny, I had not heard him use that term before but Craig said that he says it quite often. So now I am on the look out for him to use that phrase. When he plays with his trains he always says, "They applied the brakes!" So funny, what 3 years old talks about applying the brakes??? And then just tonight, of course while playing trains he says, "They went through a beautiful meadow!" I was just waiting for him to say they applied their brakes in the beautiful meadow!!!

Kids are so funny!!! So now I find myself constantly listening to every word to see what funny new phrases he'll come up with :)

Another fun conversation I got to have was with Sari. After watching the 2nd session of conference I asked her what was one thing that she had learned from conference so far? She thought for a few minutes so I told her about one of the talks that had stood out to me. He said, "We do all of these wonderful fun activities with our kids all of the time but if we don't teach them about faith and how to gain a testimony then we have failed." That really made me think because we do tons of stuff, but am I teaching them enough about building a testimony and having faith? So then Sari told me that she had been really touched by the talk about living your life so that you can return to your Heavenly Father and see all of your family. Then she told me, "There is so much in my life that I could differently so that I could return to Heavenly Father. Like, I don't HAVE to fight with Ashlie as much as I do!" So cute, just like she forces herself to fight with Ashlie because that is her job or something. It made me feel really good to know that she had gotten so much out of it and that maybe I am doing something right with my kids.