Horses

Rick's parents have some neighbors with a stable and horses in their backyard. We went over there on Saturday and the kids had a blast riding the pony and playing in the mud. Carson was excited that he got to hold a little egg.

Carson was especially excited when I told him that baby Jesus was born in a stable like the one we visited. We had a great time!

Our big boy

So, a little over two years ago when Carson was only about 16 months old we moved him into this fire truck bed, and he has loved it ever since. WE never had any problem transitioning from the crib since he loved it so much! But lately, he has gotten a little bigger and Rick and I have noticed him bumping the walls at night and waking himself up. Pretty much three or four times a week I wakeup to a sleeping toddler in my bed with me in the middle of the night. Finally yesterday I asked him why he keeps coming in my room in the night to sleep and he said, "my bed is too small." I was like, oh.....duh? So, with Carson's permission, we moved our daybed (which was cramping space in Brynnli's room with her crib) into his room and said goodbye to his firetruck bed, or at least banished it to the garage until it finds a new home. It amazes me how fast the time goes by and how life has changed in two years. My big little guy is growing up....sniff. He loves his new big bed though and hasn't come in our room at all.....yet.

Thanksgiving

This post is a little delayed..... but I've been busy Christmas shopping. Christmas over here was in full swing before Thanksgiving even started.....our kids are a little obsessed, and okay, me too. More posts to follow on that. Our Thanksgiving was wonderful and stress free. Rick played in the church turkey bowl, and me and the kids came to watch and play at the park.

We came home and watched the Macy's parade on TV, which the kids LOVED!!! The funny thing is that Carson thinks it is his cousin (whose name is Macy)Macy's parade. We have since watched it multiple times thanks to tivo....

WE had Thanksgiving with Rick's parents and relatives. Rick had to make a swift exit after dinner though and was gone the rest of the weekend at work....... which meant I took my two kids black friday shopping with me:)

The food was yummy and the best part was I barely had to cook anything, even though I did try.

I am so thankful for my family!

Return to Disneyworld

Due to Christmas present buying etc. my blogging has been less than amazing lately. I will try to do better.

Last week we made our way back to Disneyworld with the kids. We like to completely avoid it during the hot yucky months of the summer and wait until Fall (hah) when the crowds leave and the weather is nicer. It was soo fun! We spent three days at three different parks, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, and MGM. Our friends hadn't ever been to Disneyworld and came with us, which was soo fun! The kids had the best time together, especially in our adjoining hotel rooms where they just ran circles from room to room:)
This is why it is called Magic Kingdom....anywhere you can get four kids under four to sleep at the same time is definately magical. It was fun because a few of us adults got to ride some rides too!

Carson's favorite character we met was Handy Manny at MGMBrynnli wouldnt' touch or go near any of the characters except for giving Mickey and Minnie five, until we got to the princesses and she was in heaven (so was Carson....). See her huge smile? She wasn't scared at all (I'm sure it had something to do with them not wearing huge fake masks...)

Carson still LOVES to dance in the parades and has continued to do it since we returned home. We have at least three or four parades a day here.


Carson's favorite ride was the racecars....

Brynnli's favorite ride was the carousel, she loved it!

Carson and Rick went on this ride at Animal Kingdom and got soaked! IT was pretty chilly outside (ok...like 65 is chilly to us) so luckily we had endless changes of clothes in my diaper bag (for Carson not Rick sadly....)

Our friends headed home a day before us so we went to MGM and checked out the show of lights and snowfall they have there at night, it was awesome!! IT was the closest we will ever get to snow here.....it made me excited for Boise at Christmas in a couple weeks!!

We stayed at a Disney resort this time which we have never done before, and it was pretty fun. The theme was Disney movies, so there were all these huge larger than life statues all over for the kids to play on or look at. IT was a big hit.

We bought season passes so plan on seeing us there again soon, and let us know if you are going, we'll meet you there!!

Halloween

We had a fun filled Halloween as always. I can't believe how much more fun holidays are with kids. We started off the morning by doing some Halloween crafts that Grandma Christensen sent the kiddos, they have been really into crafts lately, so this was a big hit.

Our ward at church had a carnival and trunk or treat that night so we headed over there for all kinds of fun. My two favorite things about the night were all the people who kept asking Rick if he was really on duty working........ (doesn't he look cute in his uniform?)
And Carson in his costume. He won a prize for most creative and was SO proud to be a garbage man. I wish you could have all seen him wheeling that can around the parking lot to put his candy in. He was hilarious. Brynnli was going pretty fast herself, but we couldn't keep up.
Brynnli couldn't figure out why she didn't win a prize too, her best friend Izzie won a prize, and then Carson, Brynnli just walked up after that and was like, okay I'm here for mine, she was funny and carried Carson's HUGE BOWL around for like ten minutes with a huge smile on her face.

Just some pics of the kids in their costumes.....

Carson as the garbage man, on a side note: On Friday morning our garbage man came (who we are on a first name basis with I hesitate to admit), I couldn't convince Carson to put on his costume to show him, but Rick took him out and Carson told him proudly he was going to be a garbage man for halloween, the guy seemed pretty stoked and told Carson he had to be scary because garbage men are scary:)

BRynnli as Minnie Mouse or "da douse" as she calls herself

And the kids trick or treating

Grandma and Grandpa Tolbert came with us to the church and were a huge help as usual. Grandma decorated the whole car with decorations she had brought, thanks to the Tolbert store:) It looked great!
Here's some other random Halloween celebrations from the past week:

Here's Carson and Brynnli at the pumpkin patch last week after soccer practice
The preschool Halloween party (the little ones got to come too). And our park day Halloween party....it was a little hot in case you can't tell by all the red faces. After this picture my kids stripped their costumes off and put their cool clothes back on.
Carson and Brynnli cleaning out a pumpkin, they were really good at it! (I won't mention about how there was pumpkin matter all over my house for a few days afterward....they had fun)

Happy Halloween!

The weekend

As I said before, I am excited about Halloween and thought it'd be fun to take the kids on a hayride on Saturday, apparently so did everyone else. Needless to say about 100 people waiting in line for a ten person wagon in 95 degree weather, not my best idea, but the kids loved it and so it was worth it. And yes, the umbrellas are to keep out the sun:)

One of Rick's best friends from BYU got married this weekend in Utah and flew here to go on a cruise for his honeymoon, we were so excited to hangout with them yesterday! I won't get started about how jealous I am that they are going on a cruise.......

Random fun

Even though it doesn't get too cold here I get excited when it is Fall and holiday time. We had fun last week doing random fun stuff together and I thought I'd post some pics.

Last week we had a day of cool weather and the kids spent literally the whole day outside. They loved it! We even walked to the grocery store.....about a three mile roundtrip walk.....which they actually loved!!! (It wasn't by choice sadly, my car battery was dead)

The next day it was still lingeringly cool (okay below 90) and we headed to the zoo, in the RAIN. We rented this little bike which we don't usually do, but the kids LOVED it!

And of course we had to make some Halloween treats for Family night, we let the kids cutout and frost them themselves, which was hilarious. They were suprisingly good at it.