Friday, March 25, 2011

3/25/11

As I mentioned in a previous post, the heating element in our oven exploded a few weeks ago. I was only without one for a few days, as Ben was quick to get me a new one. Here's a picture of our poor old oven. Kiersten was quite concerned to see it leaving the kitchen. But happily, it was replaced with this one. Not too huge of a difference looks-wise, but the best thing about it is that it works. Yay!
On St. Patrick's day, Kara spent all day looking for leprechauns, talking about leprechauns, and making green pictures to lure them to our house. When Ben got home from work, he spotted one outside, so we all went out to try and catch him. He was gone, but he left clues all throughout the house, which eventually led us to his delicious pot of gold. It was pretty exciting.
She cut out letters to spell "leprkon" some of the letters are backward.
on tuesday, the girls wanted to do a project, so Evie got to sit in the highchair and eat some num nums.
Jackie sent both girls little treasure boxes for their birthdays. They got to paint them and decorate them. They loved this activity! Thanks again, Jackie!

Of course, Kiersten had to paint her face as well.
The finished boxes. Ben was underwhelmed, but I think they did a great job. They might look nicer if I'd painted them myself, but how would that be fun for the girls? Kiersten's is the flower, and Kara's is the butterfly one.
the girls were in the playroom yesterday, and Evie wandered in. I don't like her playing in there because of all the things she could stick in her mouth. So after a minute, I went in to check on her, and they were all playing so nicely. So I watched her play in there for a few more minutes until lunch time.
She was so happy to be included by her sisters.
Kiersten loves holding Evie, and Evie HATES it. She doesn't want Kiersten to hold her for even one second. It's kinda sad, actually. I don't even know how many times a day I have to say, "let her go, Kiersten".
That's how she got this little boo boo on her head. Kiersten trying to hold her a few days ago, and Evie trying to get away. She got knocked down and hit the bottom of the coffee table.
and that's what we've been doing this week.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Can't pinch us...


Happy St. Patrick's Day!









Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Disneyland and Universal studios

If you don't care to see tons of Disneyland pictures, then this post is not for you. I had over 600 pictures on the camera when we got home. A few of those were from Kiersten's birthday, and some were duplicates or fuzzies, but we still got so many fun pictures. Here we are arriving at Disneyland. We drove from San Diego, and Kara got carsick twice, and threw up all over herself both times. Kiersten threw up in a cup also (I think for attention). So we started out kinda slow, and the girls were grumpy at first. Luckily, we were somewhere that makes it impossible to stay in a bad mood! It was great to just check in our luggage, and go straight to the park while our room was getting ready. It was also nice to be able to go back to our hotel as needed throughout the day, and then right back to disneyland when we were ready. they had to stop the Dumbo ride while we were on it, and then they couldn't get it started back up for a while. So we got an extra long ride. most people were complaining, but the girls loved sitting there.
Thr girls wanted to meet Mickey and Minnie every time we saw them.
brother bear
Kara could go on almost every ride. Kiersten was sad to be left waiting several times.

Grandma Van Sickle loves everything Micky themed.
Evie got her Minnie ears, but they're still a little big. She loved getting breaks from the stroller.

Evie and I watched the others ride the matterhorn, and dreamed of the day when we go back and Evie can ride too.We took the girls to Ariel's princess breakfast on the day we celebrated Kiersten's birthday. She got announced to everyone, and called up to the front to introduce the first princess. This picture didn't turn out well, but I still wanted to share it because of the look on her face. She was so proud to be a birthday girl.
she absolutely loves sleeping beauty. I think other than Ariel, she was most excited to meet her.
Evie didn't care much for the animal characters, but she LOVED the pricesses. She wouldn't stop smiling and reaching for them. Since she was missing a shoe, Belle said she was just like Cinderella, and the girls ate that right up. Kara made a point to tell her that last time she wore a yellow dress like hers.
Evie's first cantelope
Kiersten sure loved being dressed like a princess. When we were at lunch, Rapunzel walked by us and stopped to say Kiersten looked like her twin, and told her happy birthday. Of course that just made her day.
We went swimming every day at the hotel. Every time we asked Kara what she wanted to do next, she'd say, "go swimming at the hotel".

We also did the critter breakfast one morning. Evie actually let a few of the characters get near her without crying.
We went to Universal studios the same day as we flew home. I was worried we wouldn't have enough time there, but they don't actually have many rides that the girls could go on. We ended up staying mostly in the kiddie area.
meeting Dora
meeting Shrek. We went to the Shrek 4D show. It wasn't quite as good as the ones in Sea World and Disneyland.
Jaws about to get my baby!I found spongebob to be sort of annoying. maybe because it was the end of our trip, and I was tired, or maybe he was trying to act annoying, like spongebob is supposed to be in the cartoon. The girls liked him a lot though.

Monday, March 14, 2011

San Diego

For the first few days of our trip, we were in San Diego. Our hotel was right next to Sea World. That was nice to be able to get there in a 5 minute car ride, and for Ben a few times, a 15 minute walk. The girls loved being in a hotel. They wanted to go swimming every day. They also liked eating and playing out on the balcony. We got in later than we expected on thursday, so we decided to just explore San Diego, since Sea World closes at 5 anyway. I loved it when we were walking across a sandy parking lot, and Kara asked, "do they call it San Diego because it's so sandy everywhere?" We had lots of fun in "old town". We mostly walked around the Fiesta de reyes.
Ben forgot to bring a hat, so he was looking for one to buy. Kara really wanted him to get this one, but he declined.
The next pictures are from the San Diego Zoo. It was pretty fun. We don't have african animals at PDZA, so the girls were exited about those animals. We took a bus tour to see a lot of the animals, and then walked around to see as many more as we could. It is a huge zoo.

We all loved this hippo and her little baby. He was sure a cutie.
Here we are at Sea World with Penny the penguin.
Vicky on the raft ride. We all got soaked on this one.
The orcas were my personal favorite. Kara liked them more than Kiersten did. I was worried about Evie because we sat in the "splash zone" both whale shows we went to, but we were high enough that we didn't end up getting wet afterall.


This was the best ride at Sea World. We could see it from our hotel, and Kiersten kept referring to it as "Kara's waterslide", because she had gone on it twice.
the sea lion show was entertaining for all of us.
Kara absolutely loved the dolphins. Kiersten liked them because there was a princess story line to the show.
The kids were excited to meet big bird and elmo.