Vacation Fun

Last Thursday we went to Snowflake to visit family. We just got back last night and we had so much fun. We got to see a lot of family on both sides. Chad and Erica's family and also Rob, Tina, and Christian were at my parents house. Natalie was so excited to be able to play with her cousins, especially Callie. Callie is only four months younger than Natalie so they have a lot of fun together.

It was fun to see baby (6 months old) Kira for the first time. It was really cute to see the two babies together. While at my parents house, Nate and I played Bocce ball for the first time. We played against Mel and Sean, Rob and Tina, and Chad and Erica. It was a really fun game. We are definitely going to have to get Nate's parents to buy a set so we can play over there too.

On Friday night, Nate had his 10 year high school reunion. He had a good time visiting with old friends from high school. Nate even won a prize for being the youngest classmate there. On Saturday we took Natalie and Kelton to see the parade. Natalie had tons of fun collecting all the candy thrown our way. The parade was a bit long and boring, but at least we were in the shade. And afterwards, I got to visit with some of my friends from high school, Ashley and Valerie, who happened to be right across the street from us. That night we let Natalie stay up so we could take her to the fireworks. We ended up watching them from a spot that was only about 150 yards away from where they were shooting them off. Natalie had a blast--she loves fireworks! Then she fell fast asleep on the way back home.

We spent all day Monday out at Lyman Lake just past St. Johns at our first Webb family reunion. It was just Nate's parents and all of their children. Everyone was there with the exception of one grandchild. I rode/drove a sea doo for the first time. It was a blast. Maybe someday in the distant future we will buy a couple of them. Natalie really liked riding on the boats. We got her to sit on the sea doo to take this picture, but we couldn't get her to ride it with us. I later got her to go with me, but after a few minutes, she told me she wanted to ride the boats again. I don't think she was too fond of the noise the sea doo makes.So, do you think Natalie likes the water? I've known that she loves water since about the first day she was born. Just look at that face! She loved swimming in the lake. We'd drop her off the dock, and she'd swim back to shore. She loved her lifejacket.

There's some of the family sitting on the shore watching those out on the water. Tiny picture, I know, but Nate and Natalie are both right about in the middle of the picture. In the picture above, you can see one of the two boats we had there and the tube/raft things we would pull people on behind the boats. Those were pretty fun to ride on too. If you are wondering if we still have another child...we do. His name is Kelton and he was asleep in the camper most of the time. He did go swimming with me for a little bit, shortly before we left. He loves, loves, loves the water too. In fact, he fell and got a cut near his eye and the only way I could make him stop crying was by putting him in the water. Who needs medicine when you've got a lake?

Yesterday we basically abandoned our kids (and probably wore out Grandma and Grandpa Burgess) and went to the temple and then went to see Harry Potter. It was nice to get out. And this Harry Potter movie was probably my favorite in a while. I was kinda disappointed by the last two movies. But I thought they did a pretty good job on this one. However, it helps that book #6 was probably my favorite of the series.

So now we are back home and I have a monstrous mess in my house to clean. Why is it that we seem to need a vacation from our vacation?

Kelton's favorite seat

Recently this is Kelton's favorite place to sit in the house. I guess it's just perfectly his size. I will find him in here just hanging out and playing with the stuff on the counter. He gets so mad when I take him out, and unless I close the door, he goes right back. It's not that big of a deal--except for the few times that he decided to turn on the water.

New Family Pictures

As you can probably already see, we got some new family pictures tonight. The kids survived (so did we) and the pictures turned out alright. All the black may look a bit grainy because my scanner isn't very good. My better scanner is in with the sleeping baby. So here they are!

DISNEYLAND!!! (It's a BIG post, you've been warned!)

We just got back from our 4 day vacation to California. It was tiring, but we had a lot of fun. We had 3 day park hopper tickets so we spent day 1 at Disneyland, day 2 just resting and swimming, day 3 at Disneyland, and day 4 at California Adventure. Then we drove home at about 7:30 pm and didn't get home until 3:00 am! We were tired. Kelton took a 4 1/2 hour long nap today. It was getting to the point where I was starting to worry about him! (I don't think he's ever taken a nap that long.) Here are some of the highlights.

My sister lives in the area and my parents were in California at the same time, so we all went to Disneyland together on our first day. This is us (not me, I'm behind the camera) waiting in line for the newly renovated It's A Small World ride. It was really fun and was Natalie's most requested ride. We ended up going on it 4 times. This was the only time we actually had to wait in line. Kelton really liked this ride too, although he got really mad every time the ride ended and I wouldn't let him get out of the boat and swim in the water.

Princesses and Fairies!

We thought we might skip the huge line to see the princesses this year after waiting 1 1/2 to 2 hours last year. But Natalie kept asking to see them so we did it. This time we made it through the line in a record 45 minutes. You kinda have to just get lucky because you don't know which three princesses will be inside when you go in, but Natalie got to see her favorite (at this particular time)--Sleeping Beauty. We got a bonus because Ariel came to trade with Sleeping Beauty while we were with her, so we got pictures with her too. We also saw Belle (Natalie loves her too) and Jasmine. We also waited in line at the new Pixie Hollow to see some fairies. Silvermist and Tinkerbell were inside. They are Natalie's two favorites from the movie.

Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger too! (and Rabbit) :)

Kelton was sooo excited by these big, huge, fuzzy, moving animals. He didn't stop laughing the whole time and screamed as soon as we started to leave. Natalie was so excited to see Tigger, she could hardly stand it. They put Tigger at the end of the line and she couldn't wait to get to him.

We had some rough patches with Kelton still needing to take naps, but we got a few in.

So even though most of our pictures are ones with characters in them (and we saw more than what I listed on here), we really did spend most of our time riding rides. It's just much harder to take pictures of that. Natalie had a lot of fun on most of the rides. The first thing we went on was the mini rollercoaster and she loved it. But the next day, we took her on Pirates of the Carribbean, which officially broke her. The very first drop on that is bigger than you think and it's in complete darkness. She was in tears after that and then she didn't want much to do with anyting too scary looking--including the rollercoaster she had already been on and loved! As I already mentioned, her main request after that was "Small World, because those boats don't have any drops." Anyway, here are a few pictures of rides. (Astro Orbiter, Teacups, and the Tuck and Roll ride--Natalie loved being able to drive on that one)

Beautiful sunset

So I was driving home from in town and turned a corner and was stunned by this beautiful sunset. The whole western sky was filled with huge puffy clouds that were a firey pink with the setting sun shining through the places between them. We get some good sunsets, but this is the best one I've seen in a while. Of course, all I had was my crappy camera phone so needless to say, the pictures just don't do it justice. (plus I was trying to drive at the time) There was WAY more pink and not so much yellow. It was ten times better in real life. But the pictures are still really pretty.

Little artist

So I wanted to post something other than horrible pictures of dog bitten faces--but I'm too lazy to get up and get my camera and take a new picture of Natalie right now. She is doing good though. The stitches came out last Friday. Now we will just have to wait and see how well it heals. Anyway, up until recently Natalie has just been a scribbler. She doesn't really draw anything and doesn't even try to color in the lines. Well, all that is changing now, and it's so fun to see. She is really into drawing people and the piles of pictures are starting to stack up. So I scanned some of my favorites so that I wouldn't feel bad about throwing them out--when she is not looking of course--and I even have to make sure they aren't showing in the trash or she will dig them out and ask me why her baby brother threw away her pictures. Here are a few that I was particularly proud of.

"Malefocent in the Fire"

(from the end of Sleeping Beauty)

I must admit, I was really proud of this one.

Funny story: I accidentaly ran the vaccum over this one today. The heat of the vaccum actually melted this nice orange crayon onto my carpet!

"Ariel

"Snow White"

This one is a bit abstract, but I reall liked it.

When will it stop?

This poor little girl. So yesterday morning's swelling was nothing. It's even worse today! Natalie wasn't wanting to take her medicine when she woke up so I took her to the mirror so she could see why she needed to take it. She looked in the mirror for a few seconds and then said "mom, my eye is broken!" I assured her is wasn't, but I'm not sure she was convinced. So, when is this swelling supposed to stop? Anyone??

Swollen

So Natalie's face is a bit swollen this morning. I probably should have been expecting that, but I wasn't. It's just so sad!! You can see in the pictures that she can't quite smile right. The first thing she told me this morning was "Momma, it still hurts." She's doing okay though. We went to Walgreen's this morning to fill her perscriptions and I let her get a new Princess coloring book. So she's actually pretty happy!

Natalie takes a Sunday evening trip to the ER

Tonight we went over to a friend's house to eat dinner and afterwards, the kids were all playing outside. Natalie ended up getting bit by one of their dogs. We were really worried about it scarring really bad so I took her to the hospital urgent care. She was so scared the whole time. They don't usually stitch up dog bites, but decided to do these ones. The top one was pretty open and would have scared really bad without stitches. They wrapped her up and covered her eyes (so nothing would get in them) and draped her face. Then they gave her a bunch of shots of lydocaine (sorry to all my nurse siblings for my lack of medical spelling). That poor little girl was so terrified but she did a really good job with the whole process. She got 3 stitches in the top one and 2 in the bottom one. What really stinks too is that animal control is probably going to have to take our friend's dog away for 10 days to quarantine it. Anyway, that is our fun for the night.

The top bite looks worse in this picture because the blood had run down her cheek. The thicker part is the bite--you can see where the blood ran off the side. I took this picture with my phone right after we got to the hospital. You can see how scared she looks.

This is the "after" picture. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and this is Nate bringing her in.

Natalie's 4th Birthday

Natalie just turned 4 years old! For her birthday this year, we headed to Snowflake so she could spend her birth day with all of her grandparents. She had so much fun. Her birthday was on Sunday so we had a little birthday party for her on Saturday. That morning we headed to Show Low (or Jello, as she calls it--"Momma, are we in Jello?" or "Melanie lives in Jello"). My sister Melanie's in laws have a pony and Natalie got to ride it. Needless to say, after riding around for a while, she did NOT want to leave. She didn't even care that there was a birthday party later. She just wanted to stay and ride the pony. After that, we hurried home so I could finish her Barbie/Sleeping Beauty cake, which she absolutely loved. We planned to have her party at the Pioneer Park so the kids could play, but that only lasted long enough to take a few pictures of her with her cake. We could tell that the rain was coming and as soon as we had decided to leave and gotten back in the car it started pouring. So we moved the party to Grandma and Grandpa Webb's. The next morning, on Natalie's birthday, she got to open all of her presents from us. She has been waiting for this for a long time and was so excited. She was also very excited to be 4 years old. We had a great weekend!

Relief from the heat

This afternoon we got our first rain! It's been so hot that this was a most welcome change. This is the first time Kelton has ever seen rain. (well, old enough to react to it, I should say) I don't think I need to tell you how he felt about it--the pictures speak for themselves. You can see that his arms are going like ninety miles a minute in this first one.

Water Babies

We've always known that Natalie loves water, but we found out that Kelton does too! After over a week of 100+ degree temperatures, we put up the pool in our back yard. Natalie remembers the pool from last year and was very excited. Kelton has never been in a pool of any kind. This was the first time he's ever been in a swimsuit--and he looks so cute! He didn't stop smiling the whole time he was in the pool. It was very easy to get some cute pictures of him. After the kids got out, we had dinner. As soon as dinner was done, Natalie was begging to get back in the pool. Poor kid is going to have to wait until Monday to get back in--I hope she can survive until then! There's a video of the kids at the bottom of the pictures. It's just randomness of them in the pool. They had already been in for a while by that point, so I didn't get the really good stuff recorded.