Living the Good LIfe

Easter

Easter Sunday was a fun filled day. We have learned that trying to have a "spiritual" Sunday in our household is a different kind of spiritual day. We have 1 VERY busy boy and a girl that just doesn't sit still and cannot concentrat for more than 1.5 seconds. Don't get me wrong, we LOVE it and are learning out how to adjust. We talked about the reason for Easter and showed Hollie a few pictures of Jesus and that was about it. It was simple and perfect.
Our Easter started early in the morning, as I got up and started to make some breakfast. We were invited to go over to our friends at 8am for breakfast and I was to bring a egg quiche and bacon. Believe it or not we made it out the door dressed and ready by 8:00...hooray for us!!! We had a FABULOUS breakfast and then the girls went to go find their eggs. Hollie wanted them ALL, but we had to tell her that there were 6 for her and 6 for sarah. It was a hard thing for her to swallow, but we managed. As you can see in the pics she wasn't a happy girl after that..well, she had moments. Overall it was fun and we quickly got home, kids took naps and we were off to church.

Hollie showing off her basket of Easter Eggs

Don't we look like a VERY HAPPY family? I LOVE this picture!

Me and My GIRL!!

What cute kids

Love this picture!

After church we headed to my aunt and uncle's house for an Easter egg hunt, which was VERY organized. (Every kid, there were 14, had their own set of 12 eggs). There were 14 different colors of eggs...aunt Kathy always does a GREAT job at this...thanks aunt Kathy. Following the Easter egg hunt we had a very YUMMY dinner, visited ate dessert and then were on our way home. By the time we got home the kids were out sleeping within minutes. It was a great Easter Sunday and we were so glad we could spend the day with our family and friends.

My camera battery died while at my aunts house so I didn't get any picturs...bummer.

Pictures

I have to admit that I LOVE getting pictures taken and taking pictures. Yes, I know I take LOTS, but there are many reasons behind it. I LOVE to capture every moment, every age, all the adventures, and everything I possibly can. I know life is short, and I want to make sure that I capture it all. The memories only last so long, but with pictures they last forever. It is through pictures that I remember all that I do when my mother was here and I am SO grateful for them. If it wasn't for pictures some of the memories wouldn't be there. I LOVE taking pictures of Hollie and Ethan, I truly cannot get enough of them. I wish I could just put up pictures everywhere, but that is not possible. Therefore, we will have LOTS of books and cd's FULL of pictures!
My dad LOVES pictures also. Everytime he comes out it seems as though we do new, updated, family pictures. In March we did just that. It was time because our Family grew by one more when Mr. Owen was born and we needed to have family pictures with him. Proud papa wanted new pictures of him and his 3 grandkids...wahoo! Therefore, I called up my friend Crystal and she did a FABULOUS JOB!! We all LOVE the pictures and here are a few of our favorites (well, they all are my favorites, but I could only pic a few out of 150+)..hehe. Thanks again Crystal, you are awesome!

The ending to our "Princess Bash"

It was a GREAT weekend, full of LOTS of fun and everything princess for our little princess. Our baby girl is now 3 and so far we are off to a great start! I just need to bring her back down to reality because she STILL (April 8) thinks that it's her birthday. Like my dad told me, Papa and Janene can spoil her all they want and my job is to bring things back to reality...not easy, but we am trying. HeeHee.
Well, because Hollie received SO much attention this weekend Ethan was feeling a bit left out and had to make sure he got he dose of attention also. Here is a story about our boy and what he did. Tuesday morning we were packing things up and getting ready to head back home. The rooms were conjoined rooms and one side was the Princess suite and the other was a regular room. It just so happened that ALL of us adults and Hollie were in the princess suite. I was packing, Ryan was in the shower and my dad and Janene were laying on the bed with Hollie talking about ALL the fun they had. When all of a sudden our sweet adorable Ethan decided he was going to close the door in the other room! Do you know what that means? He had locked himself in the room ALL BY HIMSELF. You know how, in the conjoined rooms, when you close one door there is no handle on the other side of the door. So, when Ethan closed the door there was no handle on the princess side to open the door. (I hope I am explaining this right). Anyway, we also soon figured out that NONE of us had our hotel room key, they were all in the other suite....the one Ethan was in. We went to call the front desk and picked up the "princess phone" and found out there was no dial tone it was just a princess talking to you and there was NO other phone in the princess suite! My dad went into the hallway to go downstairs and found an emergency phone in the Hallway...called downstairs and they sent a security guy up to open the door. As all of this is happening Hollie is entertaining Ethan by putting her hands under the door and playing with him. I am calm for the moment and just GRATEFUL that the bathroom door was closed and that he couldn't play in the toilet, trash etc... About 5 minutes later (which felt like an eternity) the security guy made it up opened the door and GUESS WHAT? The security LATCH at the top of the door was LOCKED and there was NO WAY OF GETTING IN! I began to freak out and my emotions took over. Ryan, was ready to climb across the balcony (we were on the 4th floor) because if we remembered correctly the sliding glass door was unlocked, NOT OPEN, thank goodness. The security guy didn't like that, but whatever we had to do to get our boy. The main door into the room was cracked as much as it could be and I sat and held my little Ethan's hand and cried with him. I knew we would get it open, I just couldn't stand to hear him cry and know I couldn't get to him. The security guy called downstairs told them the problem and sent another guy that knew what to do. He came up in about 10 minutes (felt like an hour) and within 2 minutes he had the door open and we were all reunited with our little boy. Yes, it was SCARY, but we survived. Just another adventure to add to our already exciting weekend. Soon afterwards we were ready to leave and make our way back home. There is always adventure I am learning when you have a BUSY one year old little boy!

Princess Birthday Bash...Part 4

DISNEYLAND!!!! We got to Disneyland about 11am and our first stop was City Hall. There was a special gift waiting for Princess Hollie there; it was a phone call from Mickey Mouse and he sang, "Happy Birthday" to her. It was cute and fun. Then we were off to begin our adventure at the HAPPIEST place on EARTH! We headed straight for the castle where Mickey Mouse and friends were getting ready to sing and celebrate with the Disneyland Band. We were in front again, but this time our Princess wasn't very happy, but we all enjoyed watching Mickey and friends. (When it is your birthday at Disneyland you wear this button pin and it says it's your birthday along with your name) Well, Hollie only wanted to wear it sometimes, but wanted to wear the ones that said "celebrate"(that's what everyone else gets in the party) and that was fine too. So, Janene wore Hollie's birthday button and everyone was saying "Happy Birthday" to her, it was fun. Anyway, we quickly preceeded to the carousel and that put a BIG smile on our Princess' face. She LOVED to ride the horses. Following the horses, we went straight over to the Dumbo ride, which she calls the "efelant" ride. She loved it and enjoyed going up and down and round and round. Our day at Disneyland was fun and adventurous. Hollie was a bit "overwhelmed" at all that was going on and I would even say, I think it was to much stimulation, but we made it and had a great day. Here are a few highlights of our tirip. Beware there are LOTS of pictures.

Our cute family on the boats on a It's a Small World

A ice cream cookie sandwich ALWAYS makes everything ALL better!

The BOYS in the family...my dad, Ryan, Ryan's dad, and Mr. Ethan

A Picture with Mickey...Hollie was taking a MUCH NEEDED NAP.

How can we be sad at the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH? Just a little attitude, that's all.

Oh, now we are happy. She just got a Minnie Mouse Balloon!

Showing off her cuteness as we wait for the "CELEBRATE" Parade

Oh, goodness now we are sad and mom is TRYING SO HARD TO HAVE FUN!!!!!

The dancers in the Parade were even trying and NOTHING was Working...Goodbye Disneyland it's time for me to go back to my "Princess Suite" and go to BED!!!

A last picture with my grandma and grandpa Larson

A last picture with Janenenene and Papa

Oh wait, I have to call Princess Sleeping Beauty and tell her I was sad during the parade. (Yes, she really did and it was SO cute!)

I even got spoiled with Room Service Pizza for Dinner...what a PRINCESS!

BEDTIME!!!! Goodnight Birthday GIRL!

Princess Birthday Bash...Part 3

Monday March 30th was Hollie's actual birthday!!! We started the day off by going to Goofy's Kitchen for breakfast. Let me just say that this was a PERFECT start. We were going to do breakfast with the Princess' but plans changed and we did this instead. There were SO MANY characters there it was GREAT!! I have to say the food was great also. Here are a few pictures from our breakfast with Goofy and gang.

The Family and Mickey Mouse

Mr. Goofy

Alice sang "happy birthday" to Hollie

Hollie sharing her cupcake with Japetto

Mr. Blue

Ethan enjoying his breakfast and sprinkles from his cupcakeMom and Hollie

Princess Birthday Bash Part 2...Princess Suite

As I said in part 1, we were staying at the "Princess Suite" at the Disneyland Hotel. The pictures are not going to do the room justice, but let me just say it was SO DANG CUTE!!! Everything was princess! Hollie just LOVED it and could have stayed in there for hours. We would come back at night and before we all got through the door she was already undressed and putting on her princess jammies to climb into her princess bed. It was just the CUTEST thing ever!!!! I hope the pictures will show you how cute this room was. It was a conjoined room with a regular room on one side and the princess room ont the other.

This is a Princess phone and when you picked it up a princess would talk to you.

A princess light and the castle is a clock that has princess music...when you wish upon a star

This is the princess TV (she even had her OWN remote). When you changed the channels Cinderella appeared and when you changed the volume Ariel appread.

And even down to the trash can

The mirror in the bathroom had Snow White on it with the Seven dwarfs around it also and a Cinderella Clock. EVERYTHING PRINCESS FOR A PRINCESS!!!!!!

The Princess Birthday Bash!! Part 1

BEWARE....This WILL be the LONGEST post EVERwith LOTS of PICTURES!! Where do I even begin?
For Hollie's birthday Janene(my dad's girlfriend) got her something VERY special! Something that I HOPE Hollie will remember! Janene got Hollie a 2 day pass to Disneyland and California Adventure and a 2 night stay in the "Princess Suite" at the Disneyland Hotel along with breakfast at Goofy's kitchen!! Yes, some of your jaws are probably dropping because mine did. I couldn't believe it! We have known about this for a few months and have been preparing Hollie for it as much as we possibly could. We were ALL very excited about it and didn't know what to expect. Hollie has been to Disneyland a few times, but obviously she was younger and didn't remember. We had talked about it and how all the princess would be there and she was extatic!
I am going to try and do this in the order that it all happened so bear with me.

We got to California Adventure on Sunday afternoon. We spent a few hours in the park and then the kids where done and hungry. But, our few hours there were great! Here are some of our adventures.

A little bit about the High School Musical Parade. Hollie LOVES High School Musical and it has become her FAVORITE movie (all 3). She knows the music and the characters and it's so cute to listen to her. We were able to sit in the front row to watch High School Musical. We were dancing and singing and low and behold they come up and take Hollie to dance with them. It was so cute and as you can see she was a bit shy. A few minutes later they came and grabbed PAPA and brought him up to dance too. He wasn't sure what to do, but he was the cutest papa up there. This was a great start to our MAGICAL couple days at Disneyland!

Happy Birthday Princess

Happy Birthday to my little princess. On March 30, 2006 at 6:40am we received the phone call that you had arrived. You were born at 6:02am Thursday morning. We couldn't believe our beautfiul daughter was finally here. We were so excited. Ever since you were placed in our arms you have been our princess. You are daddy and mommy's little girl. We are so lucky to have you as our daughter. You have changed my life in a way I thought was never possible. Being a mother to you is the greatest blessing upon the face of this earth. I love you so much baby girl and I hope you have the BEST 3rd Birthday EVER!!!!

Hollie's Playgroup Birthday

The theme for Hollie's birthday this year is "prncess". Ofcourse, it is and why would it be anything else? Her birthday bash started on Thursday, March 26 when we had a little "princess" birthday party with Hollie's playgroup. We had 7 little girls and 1 prince. It was so much fun!! The girls decorated princess crowns while our prince colored his visor (no worries he didn't put any jewels or sparkly things on it). Then we made the girls wands and they decorated those too. Our Prince Kruz had a foam sword and was in heaven with that, he told us that he was the "king" not the "prince"....to cute!! After all our crafts we opened some princess presents and everyone helped with the opening. The kiddos were SO excited about eating the cupcakes that I did everything I could to postpone that till the end. After opening presents, we took a couple pictures, sang happy birthday and quickly handed out cupcakes OUTSIDE!! Thank goodness for the beautiful Arizona weather because playing outside was SO much fun!!! It was a great birthday and the kids ALL had a blast!! Here are a couple pictures of Hollie's fun day!

decorating the crowns and wands