Disney Cruise

I know it's pathetic that's it's December again and my last post was about December, so let's try and get caught up.  I really thought I would have more time to get things done once the girls were in school all day, but life has just gotten busier.

We went on a Disney Cruise in January to the Mexican Riviera with my parents.  It was one of the best vacations ever!  If you like eating, relaxing and shows than a cruise is for you.  They had an awesome kids club and my girls wanted to stay there all the time, so Steve and I even got some time to relax without worrying about the kids.
Here's a few pictures from our trip

At port waiting to board the Disney Wonder

the girls with Grandma & Grandpa

A not so happy Cadence and Kaitlin with Pluto.

Exploring the ship

What's better than watching Disney movies while you lounge at the pool?

Swimming in Mickey's Ears

Kaitlin on the Mickey Slide

Cadence on the Mickey slide

Our Room.  The couch turned into a bed and another dropped from the ceiling for the girls to sleep in.  We even had a balcony which was nice to have so I could still get some sun while the girls napped.

The girls with an Ariel statue

 Cute Cadence

  The front of the ship

Cute Kaitlin

The pool and deck area

Kaitlin as Wedding day Ariel

Cadence as wedding day Ariel

 Our formal dinner night

 Me and my dad

Grandma & Grandpa

Us and Minnie

Our waiters were amazing and always kept us entertained.  They made hats out of napkins, always knew to bring the girls a mickey ice cream after dinner and even cut the kids food for us.

 Steve's pan hat

Grandpa's cup hat

Grandma's Minnie bow

Kaitlin doesn't like to look silly and was mad about her bow.

Cadence liked hers.

We got to meet Characters everywhere we went!

The girls loved the Mickey Ice Cream bars!

 Messy Mouth 1

Messy mouth 2

The were so happy to meet Ariel they were in awe!

Our first excursion:  Las Caletas!

This excursion was amazing!  We could have stayed there a couple days without getting bored.  The kids got to do an amazing adventure hike including, rope bridges, rope climbs, zip lines, donkey rides, monkeys, ducks etc.  Even though we enjoyed the beach and meal, watching the kids have a blast on their adventure was my favorite part.  

 Taking the ferry to the beach

 hiking to the kids zip line

 Kaitlin always does this "drugged up" look for pictures.  I'm not sure what she is doing but it's funny.

 Cadence on the zip line

Kaitlin zipping by

Our house keeping staff was also awesome.  Most nights we had little towel animals decorating the room.

Our next excursion was the floating island at Cabo San Lucas.

We met at a booth near the Nowhere Bar.  The sign is hard to read, but near the bottom it says:

"No one under 21 years of age and no girls over 95 pounds allowed"  

Needless to say they had a whole wall of pictures of bikini clad drunk girls. 

 The girls on the Floating Island. AKA a boat, but they did serve lunch, drinks, and provide us with snorkeling, kayaks, and a ride to Lovers  beach.

The girls exploring near lovers beach

Grandma snorkeling.  Grandpa stayed on the ship that day.  It was time for him to go home.

My idea of snorkeling is to go waist deep in the water, put a mask on my face and hyperventilate as I look at the amazing fish.  I wish I was brave in the ocean, but I'm just not.  One day.....

Steve taking the kayak back to the floating island after me and the girls ditched him for the beach.

Land's End.  Once you go around this peninsula it gets cold and you are on your way home :(

We had to cut our excursion short to make it back to the ship in time.  Our nice guides found a friend with a flat boat to take us back to shore so they wouldn't have to take their entire Island back.

 The last day at the pool.  The ocean swells that day were so large that the swimming pool turned into a wave pool.  One side would be completely empty while the other side rose 3 feet in depth.  It was pretty crazy.

The girls in their bed for the last night.  They swapped beds each night so they could both have a chance on the top bunk.


We had so much stuff to carry that we put the girls to work at the airport and made them pull their own luggage.  No, we aren't actually that mean, they really wanted to help and we thought the teamwork was cute.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year and really enjoyed having the girls home from school for a month. Life is so much easier without homework!

With Christmas being on a Sunday this year we decided to open most of our presents after church.  I wasn't sure how well that would go over with the girls, but they didn't complain, and all were happy.   We enjoyed a nice peaceful sacrament meeting then went home and opened presents.  I forgot how spiritual church is on Christmas day since it doesn't happen very often. 

After presents we went to Grandma and Grandpa Berg's house for brunch.

Disneyland at Christmas Time



The HUGE Christmas tree on Main Street in Disneyland



Me and the girls posing as toys in California Adventure.

We got lucky and got in the very short line for Jessie right before they closed it.

The girls love getting their picture with all the characters!

Showing how tough they were while we were in line for Space Mountain. 

In line at Space Mountain still.  They had no idea what they were in for.  Needless to say they didn't really like it, but they did it without crying.  We were really impressed with their bravery.

Waiting for World of Color to start.  We had pretty good seats this time, and we loved it!

Gotta get a picture with Mickey Mouse!  After all isn't he the one who started it all?

We loved all the Christmas scenery.  The trees were so big that it's hard to do them justice in a picture; especially if you wan't to see the people in them. 

We had dinner at Goofy's kitchen and got to meet lots of characters.  The girls love getting to talk to the princesses!

Another cute photo opp, but we couldn't get Cadence to cooperate.  We were trying to stay out until fireworks that night, so they girls were getting pretty tired.  Then they ended up canceling them because it was too windy. :(

Steve and Kaitlin with full bellies after having breakfast at StoryTellers Cafe one morning.  This is my favorite restaurant at Disneyland.  They have the best omlettes in the world! It must be true, because I generally don't eat omlettes. 

The girls in front of the GIANT Christmas tree again. 

Steve and Cadence having fun on the Dumbo ride!

Halloween 2011

Princess Jasmine and Pocohontas. We originally started out as Daphne (from Scooby Doo) and Jasmine, but we made the mistake of going to the Disney store. They had a Pocohontas costurem and since Cadence LOVES Pocohontas we ended up getting it. I think this is the 3rd year in a row that we have ended up with 2 costumes for 1 or both of the girls. What can I say though, I love Halloween so I'm a sucker for the cute costumes.



Halloween party at dance class

The girls at Lori's house

Halloween with the cousins.

Lake Powell 2011

It's catch up time for my blog. Here are some pictures from our Lake Powell trip 2011. Lake Powell is my personal heaven, I love it so much that I dream about it all winter. We went with our friends the Robbins who have 3 little girls. We loved just being in the sun, and playing in the water. The girls all got along great and had tons of fun. We had a little drama with a big rain storm that was cold and kinda scary. Then we had a rogue wave bring some tiny fish fish into our boat. And some of the girls fell off the tube and scared me half to death, but we all survived. We also went fishing, road the banana boat and ate a ton. One of our favorite things was taking a "bath" in the lake each night. It's amazing what a little bit of soap, shampoo, and dirty water can do on a suncreened greasy body. We were having so much fun though that we decided to stay and extra day.

Kaitlin's Ear Piercing

I just noticed that I never posted about Kaitlin's ear piercing. Maybe it was so traumatizing for all of us that I was trying to forget about it. She got her ears pierced on June 21. She had been contemplating it ever since Cadence got hers done. At first she wanted to wait until she was 5. That day came and went and then she wanted to wait until she was 6. Some days she really wanted it done but I could tell she was scared. So on this day we were swimming with Lori and it came up. After several bribes from Lori Kaitlin decided she wanted to get it done. We got there and picked out some earrings. Of course Kaitlin wanted big diamond earrings, so I talked her down to some cute multi-colored flowers. The lady got ready to pierce them and Kaitlin freaked out. She was sitting on my lap crying and shaking. We took several minutes to calm her down then tried again. We ended up having to hold her down but we got it done. She was pretty upset by it though, and I felt horrible afterwards. Needless to say she got all her bribes except for extra earrings. We wanted to make sure she tolerated her studs okay since Cadence was allergic to hers. So I guess I still owe her new earrings. She did get to ride the train at the mall, the merry-go-round, and got Subway (her favorite) for dinner and cookies as a treat. All of this was times 2 of course so Cadence didn't feel left out. I felt so guilty for days afterwards. I was worried that I had ruined my innocent child. Eventually she forgave me and she really loves her pierced ears.

Kindergarten Kiddos

My babies started Kindergarten today and I've been on an emotional roller coaster. Kaitlin fought me tooth and nail on everything this morning. She topped it off by spilling her cereal. Thankfully she decided to eat it dry so there wasn't any milk; just a lot of crumbs. Cadence was her regular even tempered self which made things easier. Here are the pictures of this milestone.




Kaitlin, Cadence and Savannah

Lining up to go inside.


Thankfully they let the parents come inside. I was so happy to get some pictures of them at their tables. They had bear names tags to show where they sit. I told Kaitlin she now had her very own Kaitlin Bear name tag. (her nicknames are Bear, Baby Bear and Kaitlin Bear. She was so dark and furry when she was born that we thought she looked like a baby bear cub and it stuck.)