how we spent the rest of our trip

On sunday we headed over to Kerry and Lana's for brunch, and to spend the night. The girls talked Papa into saddling a horse for them to ride. Kiersten loved being up there by herself. she was all smiles.

Karalee got to ride without Papa holding and leading the horse. she is getting so big. It's fun to see them doing things like this.

Even Evie got to take a turn.

We had our friends Aerik and Brooke over with their little boy, Chase, who had not been on a horse before. It took quite a bit of persuasion, and a little trickery to get him up there, but he seemed to like it. Afterward he said something like, "I'm 4 and I can ride a horse!" His 4th birthday was the day before.

On monday we drove to Montana to stay for the night. We went to this fun water park called Splash montana. It was perfect for kids. The main pool doesn't go deeper than 3 1/2 feet. I didn't even notice the deep pool with swimming lanes until we were driving away. We had lots of fun here.

Ben and the girls enjoying the lazy river.

Kara was barely too short to go on the big water slides, but she still had fun on the little kid slide.







We stayed in a hotel in missoula that night, and left after breakfast the next morning. We got home around dinner time. Ben and I both showered, and then Ben headed out to get some dinner for everyone. While he was gone, Evie was sitting on the couch playing with some toys, when she stood up, smiled at me, and then just fell off sideways, hitting her forehead squarely on the coffee table. I can still see it in slowmo in my head, and keep wondering, why didn't I jump up to grab her as soon as she stood up? Why didn't I set her back on the floor as soon as she climbed up? I guess because she climbs everywhere, and hasn't ever fallen off the couch, but that's really no excuse. In my head it seems like I had time to catch her as she was falling. But it happened anyway, and she started screaming of course. As I picked her up, I saw she had a red scratch running across her head, that didn't look too bad. But as soon as I noticed it, that red line turned black and popped open, spraying both of us with SO MUCH blood! It was terrifying. I rushed into the bathroom, and got it as under control as I could and tried to call Ben, but I heard his phone ringing from the other room. So I got dressed and got her ready, and looked up ER's in the gps, so I could leave when he got back. He was back within minutes, and I told him what was happening, he saw the bandaid on her head and said it couldn't be that bad, but when I lifted it to show him, he agreed that she needed to go to the hospital. the neighbor came over with a first aid kit, and we got it bandaged better, and off I went while Ben stayed with the other kids. Having always waited hours in the ER, I was prepared for a long night. But show up with a one year old bleeding profusely from her head, and you get taken care of straight away. Everyone there was really nice, and she didn't cry at all. When I walked in, both the receptionists looked at me and said, "coffee table?" I was shocked, but they both just laughed and said it happens to every kid. ( I guess Kara and Kiersten were some miraculous exception) The Dr. decided she could close it with dermabond, so she didn't need stitches, which was great. So the hardest part was just holding her still for the glue to be applied, and I had 2 nice male nurses to help me, so it wasn't all that bad. One of the nurses gave her a soft little teddy bear to snuggle with, and she was happy with that and grapes from my purse. So, it was a scary and sad night, but it turned out the best it could have, I suppose. here she is all glued shut and bandaged up. It hasn't bothered her, unless she see's her reflection in the mirror. Then she picks at the bandages a little.

Evangeline's birthday party

Evie will be turning one on the 13th. Since we are moving next weekend, and expect to have a really busy week getting ready, we decided to have her birthday party this weekend. The girls put together goodie bags for all of their friends who were invited. They were very careful to put girly things and colors in certain bags, and more boyish things in other bags. Most of my cake making stuff is packed away, but we did come across the big cupcake pan I used for Kara's 3rd birthday. So I used that. We have been letting all of our food run low, or run out so it will be easier to move. So I had no sugar and hardly any flour. Rather than go buy entire bags of each, I opted to go with cake mix and canned frosting. The girls put on tons of sprinkles. They were so funny, placing each one by hand just where they thought it was needed. I thought it would look better with big fondant sprinkles, but I didn't want to buy more fondant, when I know I have some packed away in a bin in the garage. But I think the regular sprinkles looked good too.

We had her party at Stewart Heights park. It's a really kid friendly water park. We had lunch and the party first in the regular playground area, and went to the water park after. We got there early to claim some tables, so the girls had lots of time to play.

This spinning toy was fun, but hard for Ben and I to stay on.

After lunch and cake, Evie opened her gifts. Well, she opened the first gift, played with it for a second and then squirmed in my lap while I opened the rest and showed her. she is getting 4 new teeth at once, so I was just glad she wasn't crying at all.

This water park is perfect for kids. They do have a deep end that is sectioned off, but the majority is wading depth and spray toys. I think all the kids had a great time.

I played in the water with Evie for about 15 minutes, before she got tired and went down for a nap. She slept for a long time considering all the noise and people around.

Kara and Kiersten loved playing with the other kids. Kara was even big enough to go on the waterslide this year. She is getting too big.

I had a nice spot to sit with Evie while she was sleeping to watch everyone hanging out in the pool.

As soon as she woke up from her nap, Evie was ready to start getting wet again.

Kiersten picked out this adorable swim suit to give her for her birthday when I took them shopping a few weeks ago. So it worked out perfectly when we decided to have her party here. I'm glad she had this new one, because it fit perfectly. I would have thought her old one still fit, and now I see that she may be getting bigger than I realize.

She still has a couple gifts from Ben and me to open on the 13th, and we'll put her in the highchair to really dig into some cake on her birthday.

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.