On Presidents Day the kids didn't have school so my parents and 2 of my sisters and both grandparents got together at my sisters for lunch. The kids had a great time playing together. Elisha's backyard has a hill so the kids played on the hill and in the snow for awhile. It was a great day. This picture above is a 4 generation photo. My grandma, mom, me and my 2 girls.

Grandma & Grandpa Christensen, aren't they cute. The picture of my dad's parents didn't turn out, I had too much light behind them.

Cousins having fun in the snow.

Thanks to many right now!!

Tyler fell asleep right before the Alladin show started at Disneyland.

2 very tired girls after the fireworks.

Some of the cousins and minnie mouse. The older cousins are my girls idols. We are so thankful for their goodness and kindness. They couldn't have better role models.

Mickey's house.

I think blogs should just be for happy stuff. But life happens and that's a fact. We just went to legoland and disneyland. Yeah! Of course our camera broke and it was the same one that had the rest of our Hawaii pictures on it. I can't get the pictures off. Gonna have to get a professional to help I guess. The camera worked for part of legoland. The morning we got to Disneyland it wasn't working. Lucky for us Brad and Danielle had an extra one and we did get some photos. A huge THANKS to them for letting us use their camera!!
The week before our amazing vacation my mom had a lung biopsy. Lots of people have been asking how she is. She's recovering great! My mother and father-in-law came and watched my kids while I went to Rupert to help my mom for a few days. I had so much fun with her. It wasn't easy leaving her because she still needed help. I owe another big THANKS to my in-laws for spending the night and taking care of my little ones while Shane was at work. We truly have the greatest family. My mom does have cancer. They ruled out breast cancer so they are saying it's spindal cell. She has more doctors appointments next week. I owe another huge THANKS to everyone that has kept her in their prayers and fasted for her. They have helped her and us so much.
Back to the fun vacation. My kids were amazing. Olivia got home and wouldn't come into the house. She stayed in the garage and said she wasn't coming in because she didn't want to be home. I don't blame her. During our trip she also decided she wanted to hug minnie mouse. So luckily one day right after we got there we saw minnie, mickey, pluto, goofy, alice, cruella, mary poppins, & chip and dale all walk out of a door. We ran over to minnie and got a picture. Then later when we were leaving we saw her again. We also were waiting for family to get done with a ride and tiger, pooh, rabbit and eyeore walked right by us. I love being a parent and taking my kids to stuff like this. I loved Christmas growing-up but I love it even more as a parent. That's how I felt about disneyland. Tyler never even complained when he wasn't tall enough for a ride but his sisters were. He'd stand at the side and wave. He was the only one that cried on the car ride home though. Sadie was super brave and rode lots of big kid rides. Space mountain was her favorite. I think it was one of my favorites too. A couple of Shan'e brothers and one of his sisters were there too. It was fun to find each other throughout the day and ride a few rides together. Jeff and Katie Peterson also came to Disneyland one day. It was fun to watch Grady and Tyler dance during It's a small world. We stayed at their families house. So we owe another huge THANKS to the Lord's for their generosity.

Funny Things

Olivia has naturaly curly hair. It curls in perfect ringlets underneath and at the sides.
The crown of her head is only sorta wavy and I don't really know how to help it. I put mousse in her hair for the first time the other day. Halfway through the day she came up to me and said, "mom do you think you could put some more cow in my hair?"

Hawaii - Part 2

When we arrived at the resort they gave us leis. These pictures are just some I took while walking around the resort.

This is the backside of the resort.

These condos were next door to our resort.

Hawaii - part 1

We just got back from the most amazing vacation in Maui. Thanks to all our great babysitters so we could leave the kids home. Shane attended a conference in Hawaii so he got some CE done. We stayed at the resort where the conference was held, and it felt like we were in a dream the entire time. We have so many great pictures I'm going to post them in groups. Here we are getting ready to go Zip lining. Something we had never done before and I want to do it again. It wasn't at all scary and we are both afraid of heights.

Brad and Tammy also came with us on the zip line.

This is our group that we spent the afternoon with. They were so much fun. It took about 4 hours to do the course. Here we had stopped to eat lunch.

This is the platform we stop at. We hit the white square and then there's a long spring that slows you down. You can see from this picture the valleys we went over were amazing.

Just finished a run. You can see the springs all bunched up. They would straighten them out before the next couple came. There was a little hiking involved after each run so you could get to the next one.

This was the only run were we walked up on a tall platform and sat on the edge to go.

The guides

The view

Most of the runs were like this. The guide would hook us up then open the gate and let us go.

The Unimog we road up the mountain on. Shane decided this truck needed to be added to his list of toys he should own someday.

Sadie

Sadie is growing-up so fast. She is an amazingly kind person. She is so easy going and fun to hang out with. She is such a good big sister to Tyler and Olivia. Happy Birthday Sadie!!

Grandma and Grandpa F always give us a present to open Dec. 1st. This year it was a gingerbread house kit. It doesn't have much candy left on it now.