The Rest of California

I'm sure by now you have read enough about our California trip to last you awhile but there are a few odds and ends that I wanted to write about so you are getting one last mod podge of a post for all the remaining stuff.

Down in California there's an ice cream place called Handel's, it's probably in other states too but as far as I know it's not in our state. My parent's took us out for $1.00 cones. $1.00 and they had tons of flavors that were all yummy. Ironically, Everly probably got the biggest scoop of ice cream and her mouth was totally red from eating the cold ice cream the way she so weirdly did.

If you go to California, you HAVE to get some In n Out. There's nothing that compares. Besides my youngest brother works there now so we go to see him work. In n Out really needs to branch out to Washington. Mmmmm Animal Fries.

My Daly family. Whenever we go down to California, these are the people that I know I have to see. The Daly's (well a few have gotten married since then and are no longer actually Daly's but they still are to me) were my second family growing up. They were the ones that I could just drive to their house on the way home from college practically unannounced and hang out with. Lots of good memories with this lovely family...unfortunately not all of them could be there but I at least got to see most of them.

 Apparently this is what the kids did when Justin and I were still laying in bed trying to wake up. Cuddle time with Aunt Tiff.

We also visited my grandparents (the kids' great grandparents) and while there the boys got to check out their custom classic car. Something about the way Ransom looks while driving makes me fear the day he gets his driver's permit.

A Knight to Remember

While in California we did one other big outing: Medieval Times. In case you aren't familiar, Medieval Times is basically like dinner theatre only instead of watching performers on stage, you watch performers jousting on horses.

We were served quite the course of food, all of which you had to eat with your fingers. Thank goodness they somehow allowed wet wipes to be invented back in Medieval Times because the kids were covered in food. It was a lot of food but the portion size for the chicken was insane. It was literally half a bird, I'm convinced. The boys ate it ALL..ok almost all, when Logan heard that there were boxes to bring food home he found a few pieces of skin and bones to bring back. Why is beyond me as there seriously was not much left.

We were on the black and white knight's side and as Logan's luck would have it (as I mentioned, he'd been extremely lucky at Disneyland and it carried on to Medieval Times) our knight won. Both the boys loved the show. Ransom started getting into the cheering towards the end, Everly clapped her hands whenever there was clapping, but Logan, well you should have seen him! The kid was getting so caught up in the show what with all the sparks flying, that he actually had veins popping out of  his neck. He was so into it that he was that tense. Apparently Medieval Times trumped Disneyland in his opinion.

The Magical World of Disney

Justin and I always planned on taking the kids to the amusement parks in California when we went down for our years to go visit my family. (We alternate years, so this year it was our turn to go down to Cali, next year it will be my parent's turn to come up here.)

This year was the first year that we felt they were old enough to make an amusement park worthwhile. We decided to start with the big one: Disneyland.

Disneyland is expensive! Ridiculously so. It's $80 or so for adults or kids! I remember when it was $25....back in my day!

However, we had some wonderful people help us out. A friend of my grandma's (so the kids' great grandma) can get people into Disneyland free (if you work there, you get so many free passes for others.) Wonderful, wonderful Yolande was able to get 3 adults in free. Yolande really is a very sweet lady. So sweet that I even remember her from my aunt's wedding that must have happened when I was 16 or so! So right there we had my parents and Justin covered. Then my grandma paid for the remaining adult (me) and the two boys (the girls were free). We weren't really expecting any of this. We were planning on getting at least 2 of us in free (via someone who worked at Disney...we apparently have a few connections) but we figured we'd have to pay for at least 2 or more people on our own. The fact that we were able to go to Disneyland free of charge was great! A huge thank you to my grandma and Yolande.


We didn't get to do too many rides. It's amazing what waiting in line will do to your day. Justin and the boys (along with one or both of my parents) hit all the big rides and by big I don't mean popular, I mean big. Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Star Tours, etc. I on the other hand did Pixie Hallow and Minnie's House with Everly.

The boys loved all the rides. Logan came out of each ride exclaiming that THAT one was his favorite. Logan also had some crazy luck in that he was always in the front for pretty much every ride. He also proved to be quite daring in that on one ride (a roller coaster no less) he rode in the very front all by himself. The kid definitely gets that from Justin and not me that's for sure!

Everly on the other hand was not a huge fan of the characters. She loved the idea and all the way to the front of the line she was excited. In fact, in Pixie Hallow (where the fairies are) when we got to the front of the line, she dashed towards where the fairies are and I had to pull her back as it wasn't our turn. Of course, by the time it was our turn, she didn't want to be anywhere near the fairies. I had to actually pick her up for the pictures and she wasn't happy even then. Minnie Mouse was the same way. In fact, she begged to get out of line at one point. Of course, now if you ask Everly about Disneyland she exclaim that she got to see Minnie and fairies! Crazy girl. Everly did however love to ride in the stroller eating her carrots. That's all she really did for at least 4 hours.

Verity of course slept through the entire trip. She only woke up to eat every few hours and then it was right back to sleep. Got to love my Ergo baby carrier!

It was quite the day. We couldn't have done it without my parents. Four kids at Disneyland needs at least 3 adults and 4 was better as that meant I usually had someone to hang out with when everyone else went on the rides.

All in all it was a great day and I know the kids loved every minute of it.

Strike!

Bowling seems to be a tradition now. It all started last year when my parents bought the boys one of those toy bowling sets. The boys of course were in love with the set and naturally my parents decided they needed to find out what it was like to go "real" bowling.

But that was last year.

This year we went while we were down in California, to a much nicer bowling alley I might add. The boys got their balls; Logan had green and Ransom should have had green because it was the lightest but he didn't want the same color as Logan so he instantly chose the pink. Whatever. It goes to show you that kids don't know gender colors until they've had them ingrained in them.

We had the bumpers up so no gutter balls for us although honestly, the boys seemed to do really well this time and I don't know if we would have had many gutter balls anyway.

The boys actually really got into it this time and tried to bowl the "right way". Not perfect of course, I mean what kid that young can swing a ball with one hand? It was more of a slow and steady approach. Even Everly joined in a bit and helped Justin bowl on his turns. Pretty adorable watching her get down and push the ball that was probably half her weight down the lane.

You wouldn't necessarily think so considering all that we did in California (Disneyland, Medieval Times, etc) but bowling was ranked one of the boys favorite things they did (granted Disney and Medieval Times outranked it)

Down on Grandma's Farm

While we were down in California, we stayed at my parent's house. This meant that the kids finally got to see the chickens that Grandma bought months ago and they've seen via Skype. Yes, we have Sykped with chickens!


Despite the title of the post, Grandma (and Grandpa because he lives there too!) doesn't really have a full fledged farm. She has a large chicken coop in the back yard with 3 chickens.


The kids got to feed the chickens as well as collect their eggs. Everly took a little while to warm up the the birds but she eventually was just as daring as the boys, entering the coop to collect her egg. Everly somehow missed the memo that you need to hold eggs carefully because the second she had it in her hands she decided to give it back to the chickens by tossing it to one of them. Miraculously the egg landed right on top of the chicken's back, stayed there for a bit, and then fell unbroken to the ground.


Every day the kids asked to feed the chickens which they were able to do a few times. Towards the end of our trip, Everly would start to cluck like the chickens whenever they would start making noise (which was only when someone was laying an egg apparently. Glad those chickens weren't in my delivery room! I wouldn't want someone announcing to the world what I was doing! But then I'm not a chicken.)





It turns out that chickens are highly entertaining for kids. Who knew?

California Report From the Boys

I asked the boys to draw a picture of their favorite part from the trip to California. 

I also asked Logan to write about it. 

Here's what they did.

Ransom's favorite part was Space Mountain and the Rockets at Disneyland. The picture above is of him riding the Rockets.

 Logan's favorite part was Medieval Times. The picture above is of two knights (our knight is on the right) jousting. As you can see, he still needs to work on leaving a space in between his words. It's a bit small to read so here's what it says (without corrections), "My fravorite part at Calivornya was Midevil Times becuse we won. The end."

Verity - 2 Months

Age: 2 months

Weight: 11 pounds, 2 ounces - 43%

Height: 22 1/2 inches - 49%

Eating: Eats every 2-3 hours still.

Sleeping: Sleeps for 4-6 hours at night followed by 2 and 3 hours. She sleeps most of the time in her swing but usually ends up in bed with me at some point in the night.

Accomplishments: She smiles and coos now. Just waiting for her to laugh; hopefully in the next few weeks. Verity's moved out of most of her newborn clothes and is now in the 0-3 month range. The little chunk will be sharing clothes with Everly in no time!

Firsts: Poor girl has her first cold. Just a stuffy nose and that's about it. You'd never know she was sick except for at night when she has a hard time breathing through her nose. Honestly, she held out longer than most of the kids did by waiting till 2 months for her first cold.

Places She Went: This was a traveling month for Verity. We went to California to visit my parents so Verity took her first airplane ride. While in California, Verity (along with the rest of the family obviously) got to go to Disneyland, Medieval Times, bowling, In & Out, and tons of other places. She's proving to be an extremely easy baby as she pretty much slept in her Ergo for all our outings with the occasion breaks to eat. Once we got back from California, Verity got to go to work with me in the nursery for the women's Bible study. Starting to socialize her young.

Other Random Stuff: Verity is finally getting her eyelashes in. When she was first born, we thought she was doomed to be the only Thomas kid without amazing eyelashes. Thankfully we were wrong and apparently they just needed to thicken up and grow in.

Flying With 4 Kids

I'll be honest, when Justin told me we were going to fly down to California to visit my family instead of drive down, I was not happy. It wasn't because I didn't want to deal with 4 kids on a plane; that I could deal with. It was just getting through the airport, pulling all that luggage around.

I envisioned this monster sized family plowing through the crowds with their dozens of bags, double stroller, and, car seat overload. I'm sure to many people we did look like that but thankfully that was not the reality.

I was able to cram all our stuff into just 1 carry-on (didn't want to check in our luggage because although that would have been easier, it would have cost us at least $40 round trip) and 4 personal items. That helped get rid of some of the insanity.

We were able to borrow 2 car seats for the girls which was great because they were "lap children" so we would have had to gate check their car seats and I don't trust airports with my car seats. Since we borrowed 2 car seats, we only needed to bring the boys' car seats which they sat in during the flight. Handy because not only do I avoid gate checking the car seats but it keeps the boys contained.

I'm sure we still looked like a monster of a family; two kids in a double stroller, one car seat in the stroller basket, 2 personal bags in the stroller with the kids, me with Verity in the Ergo with a diaper bag on my shoulder, Justin with the carry-on with one car seat placed on top of the carry-on "just so", Logan trying to keep up with us all. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Honestly, it probably wasn't any more crazy than when we go on any of our outings...okay maybe a bit more.

Some things I learned about the airport when traveling with a family.

1) You don't need to take shoes off for kids under 12 years.
2) There's a family line for security (in some of the security checks, not all of them)
3) Double strollers need to be hand checked; they do not fit through the x-ray machine.
4) If carrying a baby in a carrier like my Ergo, you will go through security and then you have to have a "hand check" which apparently is where they run a paper on your hands and then scan that paper... still no idea how it works.
5) Early morning flights are hard to wake up for but easier for traveling.
6) Dinner time flights are annoying because you have to buy dinner in the airport.
7) Babies are the easy ones to travel with; they sleep through the whole thing.
8) You must use head phones with personal devices on the plane.
9) Car seats are a pain to install with airplane buckles but worth it as they keep kids contained.
10) All airport employees are very nice.
11) You can travel with 4 young kids.

How Much Luggage Do You Need For a Family of 6?

We didn't want to check in any luggage when we flew last week so we did the unthinkable: we packed only carry-ons. Not only that but since we were already traveling with so much stuff (2 car seats, 1 double stroller, 4 KIDS) we decided to pack everything we needed in only 1 carry-on (plus 4 personal items which were my diaper bag, Justin's laptop bag, and two other similar sized bags).

All of our clothing was in the carry-on. The personal items just held things like diapers and activities. So in reality, we really did pack 4 days of clothes for 6 people in just one carry-on.

Can't be done, you say? I must be lying? Nope! Here's the proof! (I forgot to take a picture of all of us at the airport with all our gear, I really should have since it's quite the sight) Here's our one carry-on (granted it's a big one) with enough clothing for 4 days for all 6 of us (granted 4 of those people are tiny and so their clothes don't take up much room).

The secret? Roll your clothes! I picked up that tip from a Pinterest, something like "stewardess packs 10 days of clothing in one carry-on". It really was the best tip ever! There's no way I would be able to get all our clothing in otherwise!

Oh and did you notice that a huge chunk of our luggage space was taken up just by my camera! Can you imagine how much more room I'd have if I didn't have the camera in there?

So how much luggage do you need for a family of 6? Well my family can make it with 1 carry-on and 4 personal items.

Verity - 6 Weeks

I debated about posting this as I should have posted at 1 month but didn't and then I should just wait till 2 months but oh well, I'm going to post now at the mid-month 6 weeks.

I'm sure you'll get one at 2 months as well. I'm hoping to be smart about this and post on Verity each month...the older kids get a yearly update.







Age: 6 weeks

Weight: 10 lbs (give or take, I weighed her at home) She's holding her 50 percentile.

Height: 21 inches (also give or take) Also holding at about 50 percentile. Hooray for a complete average baby!

Eating: Still eating every 2 hours or so. Sometimes a bit more often but she's probably in a growth spurt right now.

Sleeping: Lately she's been sleeping for 5 hours at night followed by 2 and 3 hours.

Accomplishments: Verity gave us her first smile just before Christmas at around 4.5 weeks. She seems to earlier one things compared to her siblings but we'll see if that sticks. She's starting to coo now and hopefully we'll get some laughs in a month or so.

Addicted to School

Logan is my easy kid to teach. He's very by the book, textbook learning style kid. Which is nice because that's how I am too for the most part. Unfortunately, I think age has taken most of my love for school away. I used to be the kid who read the encyclopedia for fun, not anymore...but then maybe I've just transferred that to the internet world.

Of course, he also get's his insane knowledge from his dad. Logan is just like Justin in the fact that they both have sponges for brains. They just suck some bit of knowledge in and then can repeat it at will.

Logan still loves to read schoolbooks. We used a kid's encyclopedia for part of school last year and after that year was finished, I had put the book away in the closet. Logan has pulled it out and he spent months reading it over and over again. It's barely holding together now.

Another example is how he spends his time after school is finished for the day. Sometimes, he'll just go through our stack of school books and pick out one and start reading. Sometimes it's an actual reading book but other times, like today, it's a math book.

What kid reads math books?

Logan, that's who!

Highlights From 2012

Another year has past and with it came a lot of fun and changes for our family. Here are some of the highlights form 2012.

 Grandpa and Grandma Green visit from California for our belated Christmas.

 One of many group shots.

 Valentine Pictures with Cousin Eli

 Growing Kale

Reading with Brothers

 Everly growing more teeth and hair. It's amazing what one year has done to this girl!

Snuggle Time

Easter Egg Hunts

 Silly Brothers and Summer Days

Logan & Ransom's Mario birthday party 

 Everly modeling one of many diapers for my blog reviews.

Vacation to Canada

 My model once again but this time for my blog's car seat safety and giveaway.

Found out that Everly LOVES squash. 

 Trips to the Park

Verity Jane!

 A new baby sister!

 First Smiles

2012 was a great year and we are excited to see what 2013 holds for us!