Eagle Mountain visit!

My sisters Shelly and Angie had baby girls a week apart in september. So I had to run out there for a visit. I took Evie with me, but the other girls stayed home with Ben so they wouldn't miss school. We left on friday and came back yesterday. Angie and Clint came to pick me up from the airport. Makayla stayed at their house with us that night, and watched their kids while they picked us up.
Cute little Kyrie. She's a funny girl, and was happy to have us stay in her playroom. She kept asking me if she could jump on the bed. Angie and I accidentally stayed up talking til 7 am. So we slept in a bit on saturday, and Clint and Makayla were nice enough to take care of the little girls.

On saturday we all went to provo for a family birthday party for all the october birthdays and mine. All the kids had tons of fun playing in the leaves.



Nic was pretty excited about a new job he got at the state mental hospital.



Sweet little Brynnleigh. She is so tiny. At about 7 weeks, she's still smaller than Kiersten was at birth. Shelly and Angie made lots of baby stuff together, and their babies had the same blanket and headband on. Shelly's husband Troy came up to me right after this picture, and had to ask, "is that one mine?" I had a good laugh about that.

holding Brittleah and Brynnleigh. They both had such adorable outfits on!

my nice birthday gifts from my family.

Shelly opening her gifts.

Dad about to open his new blueray player. all of us girls went in on it for his birthday gift. He always lets the kids help him open gifts.

He seemed pretty happy with it. I was glad because he can be hard to shop for.

Evie cried a lot on the flight home. I was a little stressed out by the time we landed. But I was so happy to see Ben pulling up to pick us up, and thrilled to see Kara and Kiersten's smiling faces waiting in the car. Also waiting in the car, was a jewelry bag for me! I was surprised and happy to get this beautiful necklace from Ben. It might be my favorite one he's ever given me. I just love it. Isn't he the best. and I don't know if I can say even better, but almost as good, he cleaned out my car, had the house really clean, and dinner waiting for us at home. That was great to come home to.

Utah visit

We just got back from a 2 week trip to Utah and Idaho. The first week was spent in Utah visiting with my family. The girls and I flew out together, and Ben stayed behind in Washington to work that week. We stayed with my parents for several days. The girls loved my mom's cat, Muffy. Kara kept trying to get a picture with her, but she kept running away. Digging in Shelly's backyard.

My lovely neice Makayla was so good with the babies, and little kids. Evie really took a liking to her.

my mom was so thrilled that Rylynn came to sit on her lap. Usually she is a Grandpa's girl. So we had to take a picture to remember that she did take a nap with Grandma at least once.

Kiersten took a nap in a comfortable place for once!

Just a picture to make Ben jealous of my meatloaf and funeral potatoes. Also, This was taken before Jackie cut my hair off.It is much shorter now, and I don't miss an inch of it!

I got this egg at the dollar store. The girls and their cousin Cash excitedly waited for it to hatch.

I got this little easter project for the girls to do at Grandma and Grandpa's house the day that none of their cousins came over to play.

Kara loved hanging out with Cash.

Mom, Jackie, and I took the kids to a restaurant called Pirate Island. They sure had a blast!

Kiersten won tons of tickets.

Evie really liked her Grandma Boot, and would even reach for her while I was holding her, which is rare. Mom loved having a baby like her so much.

The girls used their tickets for eye patches, erasers and tootsie rolls.

The kids were so excited when the egg finally hatched and a baby duck was inside.

Another easter project that the girls did with Cash.

Jayden and Kiersten.

Dad holding Evie and Kaymie. He sure is good with all the kids.

Uncle Nic playing with Evie.

We spent a few nights at Shelly and Troy's house in eagle mountain. My girls loved having other girls to play with and playing dress up and fashion show.

Kara and Laynee get along so well. As much as she loves all her cousins, Laynee seems to be the favorite. They have just about everything in common.

Jackie bought brightly colored cupcakes for Cash's birthday party. all the kids got a kick out of Kiersten's messy face. she had bright green poo 2 days later.

we had a sister sleepover, and all the kids watched movies and slept in sleeping bags. the next morning, there was popcorn everywhere! It was fun playing games and laughing with mom and my sistas, and Makayla joined the adults too.

the next morning we took all the kids to hogle zoo. they had fun, but it sure was an adventure trying to follow around 14 kids!

we had a big group, and some people were annoyed, and some people thought we were polygamists since Troy was the only husband that went. but all the kids had fun, and that's what matters. we may have had a lot of kids, but at least they were pretty well behaved.

adorable kiddos. Laynee, Kara, and Addy stuck together. Afton really wanted to be included in their little group.

After the zoo, we had the kids play some easter games, anf then they had an egg hunt in the backyard.

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.