Fontainebleau - Fun and Sun!

Sun, fun and friends. That could pretty much sum this trip up.

No trip could be complete without some true excitement though and we started off with some right at the beginning.  I had packed the car the night before and me and the kids were in the car and driving away by 4:30am.  Pretty good.  Well, 20 minutes into our 3h drive Kherington threw up.  U-turn.  We went back home, got the kids out of the car, ran a load of laundry (so happy we have little waterproof seat protectors so I didn't need to wash the whole carseat cover).  I was so sad I had absolutely no motivation to unpack the car.  Kevin had the stomach flu the weekend before so I figured it was Kherington with the same thing.  She was acting completely normal, fighting with her brother, eating normal food and didn't have any temperature.  So I emailed my friend and Ryan and said I was leaving in 30 minutes (as soon as our super long washing machine cycle ended).

We still stopped at Disneyland as we had initially planned.  We did a couple rides, stood in a short (45+ minute) line to see Sleeping Beauty and watching the parade before continuing our drive down to Fontainebleau.

We had a great time with our friends.  One day we took the kids to Disney (they have annual passes also).  The kids did awesome plus the sun makes everything better.  I should comment that 3 little kids per adult is a little more difficult only because most rides only allow an adult plus 2 kids.  We just rode in cycles so it worked out fine.  The teacups was one ride we could have gone all together, but Kherington was dead set on a certain color teacup so it didn't work out.

The first few days of our visit the kids weren't napping well, which made them (and us) a little cranky, but once we all got a good long nap we were back to pure fun.  We spent one afternoon in this huge open field.  It took a little while for the kids to decide they liked it, but they started venturing further and further away.  We also went to the playground a couple times.

Stefan and Ryan are a pretty awesome couple...and have some funny habits.  Here Stefan is multitasking...loading the dishwasher and getting a quick workout in.  Just too funny not to document.  We made the best brownie recipe I have ever had.  You can find it here.  Seriously try it.  I've always been a boxed brownies person but these brownies (after they sit overnight) are amazing (no so much right out of the oven though).

The kids played in the backyard a quite a bit too.

We once again forget to snap a group picture before PJ time.  Kherington and Lily have a love/hate relationship.  I think they both just like to have it their way (they are the big sister after all) and Kevin and Julian were buds by the end.

It was so nice to be able to get away from everyday life for awhile and to have a friend that was willing to let me drop in for a couple days. I seriously think my happiness level would exponentially increase if I had a friend like that living right next door.  Some day maybe.

Kevin Turns TWO!

I can hardly believe that my little boy is already 2 years old!  It is so crazy how fast time has flown by.

We had a fun filled birthday day for him.  It started at 5am when he woke up a couple hours early on his own and came in to watch the NCAA National Championship game with his daddy.  This little man loves him some 'b ball'.

Ryan had high hopes of going back to sleep but Kevin must have known since it was his birthday he could set the pace.  He went out to the main room and was surprised with balloons, decorations and one present unwrapped and setup for him to play with.

We dropped Ryan off at work and came home to play for awhile.  Kherington is truly his best friend.  They switch from fight to played every other second.  This morning was no exception.  They spent a lot of time in their room (in timeout), played with his new toy, colored and did stickers.  They finished up by watching Barney while eating buggles off their fingers.

We picked Ryan up from work at lunch (he took a half day) and headed to a surprise lunch...McDonalds!  We were there for a good 2 hours.  The kids ate their entire happy meal and played in an awesome kids area.  There was a maze, soft basketballs, playspace and nintendo, bicycles....probably the coolest McDonald's play area I've ever seen (we drove about 20 minutes to get there).  We've been to McDonald's plenty of times but always while traveling so this was a treat.

Back at home the kids danced to the Chicken Song Kevin was given for his Birthday over and over and over again.  They also kept running up asking if Kevin could open up another present (we opened them up throughout the day).

For dinner Kevin requested wrapped hot dog (go figure)...then surprisingly didn't eat them...just like he didn't eat his bday dinner last year.  For cake we had a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting (the frosting was delicious).

So that was his awesome day.  He was so happy and Kherington loved it too. Now for some Kevin info:

• He is stubborn
• He has will cry for 2 hours straight and bed time but if we lay down by him is asleep in 5 minutes
• He loves to putter
• His favorite person in the world is his daddy...Kherington is a close second
• He loves his boots (blue croc rain boots)
• His favorite stuffed animal is still 'Waa waa' (his monkey)
• He naps everyday still (so long as I lay down with him)
• He can navigate the iTouch enough to get to the videos, play on the pbs app and call people on facetime
• We're still working on the potty training (I haven't been very consistent about it)
• Food - Normally loves hot dogs, banana's and liege waffles...doesn't really care for veggies (except cucumber) BUT if Kherington is eating it he wants it too (peer pressure at it's finest)
• He loves his cars
• He talks quite a bit now...enough for me to understand
• He starts every prayer by saying thank you for Grandpa, Cory and Adam
• He loves to brush his teeth...as long as we let him put the tooth paste on by himself
• He loves bubble baths...as long as he gets to pour the bubble in
• He gets super excited when it is time to pick Kherington up from school
• He loves music...current favorite is 'Chicken Dance' from the CD he got for his birthday

Conference Weekend

Watching general conference while living abroad is a little different due to the time change.   We usually watch 3 the first two sessions on Saturday (just a lot later) then Sunday morning watch Priesthood (now that  is posted online so quickly) and then the Sunday morning session we watch in the evening.  The last session we have to do another day.

Anyways, it's a pretty good plan, but sometime it ends up like this:

We do what we can...guess it's just all that more important to go back and read about what the leaders of the church are focusing on.

Some fun parts of life with little ones

The perfect father son bonding time is getting haircuts together...the only issue here is that I refuse to pay crazy amounts of money for a simple haircut (especially such a little kid).  So here's some before and afters of my handy work.  Ryan got a 3 on the sides and 6 on the top and Kevin gets a 8 all around.

I have so many pictures of Kherington sleeping because I love walking into a room and seeing that she has decided on her own to take a nap.  At FHE one night Kherington insisted on playing the piano while we sang.  That was cute, but it got pretty funny when she told us she didn't know the song we wanted to sing so we had to sing her son (Jingle Bells).

They both like throwing on different dress-up clothes throughout the day.  Kherington whipped out there two leotards one day and Kevin was all in with putting it on...until it was actually on and then he decided it was too tight so he went back to the petty skirt and baseball cap :).  Another one of their favorite activities in making pictures on the windows with tap.

Bruparck Egg Hunt

We took the kids to the Bruparck Egg hunt again this year and boy was it disappointing.  It has been great the last couple years.  They have dumped buckets (literally) of eggs all across the playground and let each heat of kids run find them.  This year was a total let down.  They scatter a couple eggs in a small section of the playground plus had more kids in the heat.  Kherington ended up with 6 eggs and Kevin 2....Ryan said some kids didn't get any...now that is pretty pathetic.  On top of that they had the scrawniest Easter Bunny wandering around and he was not very friendly.  Now that was a little awkward.

In the afternoon while Ryan napped, I let the kids a get crafty.  Kherington is getting pretty good at arts and crafts.  I think it helps that they do them at school all the time. 

As you may have guess from the pictures, Kevin was not into it.  He just wanted his daddy.  So much so that when he pooed his diaper and wanted his sleeping daddy to change him, I had to straddle him to change it...not fun.  He then went running to his dad and curled up for a nap with him.

Easter Week 2013

We started off Easter week with Family Home Evening.  The kids love FHE.  This week we did the Easter story in eggs (condensed version b/c we were missing some of the eggs...they were from years past).  This allowed us to teach about the Resurrection and how that is the real we celebrate Easter. With that said, I still love any excuse to get the kids excited and plan a little get together.

Wednesday we had an Easter party.  It was supposed to be at a friends house, but one of their kids has the stomach bug so we volunteered the morning of to shift it to our place.  Our place is by no means large and not typically super clean, but I didn't want to have to cancel it.  I had time to sweep the floor and that was about it (I spent the morning getting food ready, clean up the kitchen after doing so, and pulling out some Easter decor).  We had 4 families come with a total of 10 kids.  After a potluck lunch, we did a quick craft with the kiddos that I put together.  We made jellybean necklaces.  They turned our cute, but definitely required some adult help.  We finished off the party with an Easter egg hunt Belgian style...meaning wrapped little chocolate eggs (no plastic filled eggs) scatter all over the backyard.  I had the oldest boy help me scatter them out, got the kids bundled up (sunny but cold weather), handed out paper bags to collect in and let them have at it.  When I went to see how many they missed, I only found 6.  Pretty good.  We had a fun time and I love seeing kids so happy.  It makes me want to keep doing parties for every holiday.  As an added bonus, here is where Kherington ended up after the party

Wednesday Kherington also came home from school with her art project filled with chocolate eggs.  Then Friday she came home with another little present.  Kind of cute.  Ryan also brought home some goodies from work...chocolate bunnies and a bag of high quality chocolate eggs.

Saturday Kherington helped me make a carrot cake.  Then in the evening as they were going to bed she started getting upset that the Easter Bunny might come in her room at night (same thing happened with Lucky). Ryan helped her make a note:

Sunday morning Kherington came running into our room so excited.  The bunny had left something in the front room that she needed to show us.  We all slowly trickled out.  I was last to join the crew and found Kherington and Kevin spreading their loot across the floor.  They were both so excited and couldn't wait to show me every little piece of candy/toy the Easter Bunny had left just for them.

We ended up being 30 minutes late to church thanks to some unsigned road closures, merged lanes, short lights and huge detour but still arrived in time for me to teach my class so not all bad.  After church we snacked on candy and leftovers so we decided to postpone our planned Easter Dinner to Monday (Easter Monday as it's called here).  The Ryan and the kids are watching a movie and I'm catching up the blog.  It's kind of nice to have a relaxing day.

Yucky, Nasty, Dirty

Kevin knows a few words.  Yucky, nasty and dirty are among them.  I say them pretty much every time I change a poopy diaper.  Well, we've been working on potty training but haven't been very consistent lately.  Tonight he went pee in the potty.  Which was good.  He did it all by himself.  Then followed up by drinking his pee. Yucky, nasty and dirty don't quite cover that.  That is so so so gross and definitely not something I even though I'd have to teach a child not to do.