Utah Trip

My friend Carrie and I decided to take an adventure... a road trip to Utah with 3 little ones, with out our husbands. Carrie had never been to Utah and wanted to check it out as a potential relocation place for her family in the future. I of course wanted to go and see my sister and her family and the fall leaves. So we planned a trip! Haws was in busy season and her husband didn't mind her sneaking away for a week. So off we went for a week in Utah. My parents ended up being there for a couple days that we were there, so it was fun to have quality time with them as well.

The kids were amazing in the car! You didn't even know Davis was in there most of the time and her son Tommy did great. James stayed pretty well entertained by books, toys cars, snacks and the DVD player that he didn't even know was in our minivan. What an exciting discovery! Luckily he hasn't demanded it since we got home. Maybe he thought it was just for the road trip. (phew!) I was surprised that we did pretty well all sharing a hotel room both there and back! I was worried about getting 3 kids down for bed at the same time, but it really went rather smooth.

Carrie ended up getting a sinus infection when we first got to Dana's house, so she went to the doc and got some meds and her and Tommy (who was getting over being sick too) took the first couple of days to rest. 

We went to the zoo! There is a cute zoo in Salt Lake that I had never been to before. Great place for kids! I am glad my parents went with us to help with the kids.

Bop and Davis hanging out.

Uncle Chase and Davis. My kids love Uncle Chase! James will still ask for him even after being home for over 2 weeks

They love Aunt Dana too of course!

Cousin bath time is always fun. (that is chocolate in James' mouth. Dana had Halloween candy all over the place for him to get into :)

We got together one night with the "King" girls who were up there and the "Bench" sisters. It was so fun being with these girls. Love them!

We went to Witch Fest, where we took James last year. He wanted to get his face painted and I figured it was only $5 so why not? He did such a good job sitting still and became his version of "spider man".

One rainy day we went to a new store called SCHEELS. It is a huge outdoor/hunting store that has a ferris wheel and all sorts of kids type attractions. James and the twins really liked the Elk. 

We went to the park by the house.

Drove to Park City and rode the Alpine slide.

Carrie and Tommy

James "snuck" onto the alpine slide with me. (he was suppose to be 3, but he could be the same size as some 3 year olds!) HE LOVED IT! I went full throttle and that kid never got scared. Look at the pure joy on his face! It was awesome.

We went to Temple Square and the new City Creek mall (which is amazing!). I for some reason didn't take any pictures there and I am sad about that since we got to see Haws' brother Jared and his family. His kids are all getting so big and are adorable!!!! 

Sadly, we had to leave and drive back home. On the way back we found this great place to stop in Filmore. There was a park area for kids and benches for us to nurse the babies. We took the opportunity to take some pictures. Look how pretty the background is?

These two guys are going to be buddies, I just know it!

And our trip came to an end. We had a blast! It was so fun being with family and friends that we don't get to see all of the time. I loved traveling with Carrie too. This is the 2nd road trip we have taken together and I don't think it will be our last.

Fishy

We took a break from swim lesson for 2 months and every time James got in the water, I knew we had to get him back in there. The kid has no fear of the water and had completely ditched his survival swimming skills. So we are back and he is hard at work. But like the rest of his family, if he works hard he gets to play hard! The other day after his scheduled lesson, they kept him in the pool 30 extra minutes to work on some skills and have some fun too. His teacher took these pictures and posted them on their facebook page. They were too good not to share. 

Davis 6 months

Oh Davis, you sweet boy of ours... how is it possible that you have passed the half year mark? The past 6 months have seriously blown by. So much faster than I remember with James. Davis is still a super easy baby. He has rare moments when he is unhappy, but I could probably count them on my 2 hands. He is at my favorite stage (well he has been for sometime. I love the 3-10 month range). He is very aware of his surroundings (not fun when you are still nursing) and participates more by laughing, "talking" and squealing  He gets around by rolling and gets a little upset when he can't figure out how to move his body forward to reach something. I know that will come too soon. I love how he can be entertained just laying there, rolling around or playing in his exersaucer. He can sit by himself for very short periods of time and even stood for a second or two by himself (caught on film!)

We have started solid foods. Wasn't a fan at first, but now that he is getting the hang of eating he seems to like it (except for rice cereal, still not a fan). He has only had veggies so far and we will try adding in fruits soon. I am sure he will love those, what baby doesn't?

His stats at his 6 month check up:

15lbs 12oz 

27 inches

He is going to be like his brother, tall and lean. I think he carries most of his weight in his cheeks (on his face) and thighs. 

He is still taking 3 solid naps a day and sleeping 12-13 hours a night most nights. We are still doing the dream feed and I will probably keep doing it until his weight comes up from the 10th percentile.

Sporting some Mickey ears at a birthday party.

Love his eyebrows.

Standing like a big boy, drooling like a baby.

Mmmmm... tasty!

"My brother is crazy."

"And I love him"

Doesn't James look so old here?

That is not drool on James, he was practicing drinking with a big cup. He needs some more practice.

I love these two boys so much! I can't imagine life with out them.

Davis' Laugh... I love it!

I was looking through old blog posts of James when he was Davis' age and loved watching the videos I posted. You get such a better idea of what they were like when you can see them in action!

I realized I have not posted one video of Davis on here, so I thought I should at least share this one. He is cracking up over this toy. It has a mirror on it and everytime he catches a glance of himself... he starts to crack up! 

ALOHA!

We had the most amazing opportunity to take a trip to Oahu with my whole family! (my Grandma, Parents, all of my siblings and their kids). 11 adults and 10 kids, 7 of the kids being under the age of 3! It really didn't matter where we went, being together was all we really wanted, but lets be honest... going to Hawaii was amazing! I am so grateful to my parents for being willing to organize this trip. Vacations are where so many memories are made. I never thought I would travel with my young children to Hawaii, but we did and it was so fun! It's too bad they will probably not remember this trip since it will be a while before they go again. Good thing I am documenting it right? :)

We were a little nervous about a 5+ hour flight to get there and back, but our kids surprised us and they did awesome! I think I was more antsy than they were. So we arrived and went to the hotel. We stayed at the new Disney Restort, the Aulani.  It was perfect for kids. The pools were awesome and we had our own little beach/lagoon. We spent most of the time at the pool utilizing the water slides. James was obsessed. I probably spent more time in our villa than I would have normally, but when you have a 5 month old who is not the best "on the go" napper, you have to sacrifice a little sun time. Probably a good thing in the long run, none of us got sunburned! (Well Haws did a little the first day, but that is to be expected with his fair skin:)

Our famiy shared a villa with my sister Dana and her family. It was so fun getting to spend quality time with her and her boys since we don't get to see them all the time. Her twins are so cute... cute enough that I didn't mind being woken up in the middle of the night when one of them was out in the living room. James never quite adjusted to Hawaii time and was up between 4am and 5am most mornings anyway! Gave Haws and I time to trade off  hitting up the gym before breakfast and swimming started. We spent most of our time at the resort. We took some Costco and Target runs and Haws took James to Pearl Harbor. That was about all we saw of the Island. 

I was horrible and took most of my pictures with my phone. Thanks to my mom, she took lots of pictures with her camera. Get ready for picture overload!

Here are some pictures from our days at the pool/beach.

 Lazy river

 Scuba Diving

 James would go down this slide over and over and over!

 

Action Video

 

 Matching suits :)

You may remember one of my favorite pictures of Joshua. He has grown up so much since then and was brave enough to go down the "black hole".

We found out later, parents are not suppose to go down the kid slides. Really? Come on now. Luckily I think we all had the chance to do it before getting in trouble. 

We did the character breakfast one morning where the Disney characters come out and visit while you have breakfast. The kids loved it!

We were quite the crew.

Chase does a great job at entertaining the kiddos. Laundry basket rides are always a good time.

 So is bath time with the twins!

James would take these long naps (3-4 hours) which was great after waking up at 4am! He would sometime wake up with crazy hair like this. It was pretty funny.

James and Caroline are such great buddies. They find each other pretty amusing. I love hearing them laugh.

 Tanner and Luke are totally plugged in! Using Bop's headphones and iPads.

We gathered most meals at the villa that my parents shared with Brad, Kori and their boys. It was pretty lively during those mealtimes. 

Tanner's birthday landed on the day we were flying home, so Kori put on a birthday party for him. They did a treasure hunt and had a pirate themed party. The kids loved it. I can't believe he is 4!

 

We had one night out to dinner with all the adults... no kids! We put the kids to bed and hired babysitters from a local agency to watch them while we went to Roy's. Dana also has a August birthday, so we celebrated her while we were out.

We all love our children, but it was nice having a meal where we could all relax and have conversations with out being interrupted by little people :)

Haws took James to Pearl Harbor with Dana and Chase. James loved the big boats.

And you know you are having a great time when you are constantly getting picture of your kids passed out. 

Thanks Mom and Dad, aka Nana and Bop! This is a trip that will go down on the books (or at least on my blog)!

Coming home was kind of sad... we got thrown right back into reality. Haws started a new job in tax, which means he went right into busy season and has been working super long hours! I started my training to teach barre classes on top of our normal schedule, which meant I needed to leave the kids more than usual. We all had to readjust to not being together 24-7. I am glad we got that quality time in before the madness began. Looking forward to Oct 15th when things settle down a bit for Haws and we can be together as a family a little bit more. I am proud of him though for being such a hard worker and dedicated to pursuing the career path he wants to follow.