Disneyland (day 2)

We spent our first full Disney day at California Adventures.

The first stop of the day was to the Chamber of Commerce to get a special assistance pass. I mention this here because that disability pass is the only reason that our family can visit Disneyland. And it makes Disneyland a vacation that our entire family can actually enjoy. And I am the most grateful person in the world that Disneyland has this system in place and is so very accommodating to people of all needs. And I think the way the system works is quite fair to everybody. We have to check in at different stations around the park with all of our tickets and then we are assigned a return time to a particular attraction. So it just means that we can wait in other places besides a crowded line. And quite honestly, there are times that we wait for our return time and then still wait a little bit longer once we get to the ride, but being able to wait away from the crowd and with Perry's wheelchair/stroller is a huge blessing. Luckily, we can still use the fastpass system at the same time. And at the disneyland park we can also use wheelchair access. So between all of that we get the chance to do things in a way that Perry can handle. So thank you Disney!!!

Here are some highlights from our first day at California Adventures:

We rode the rapids ride two times in a row and everyone got really wet! The kids would've ridden it again and again (and later on we rode it at least 3 more times). This was definitely a family favorite ride.


We spent time in Cars Land. We rode all of the rides and tried out the mac and cheese in a cone.

We got to ride the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. Layla loved it when it was Tower of Terror last time, but this time it felt a little more intense so after this first time, most of us were ok not riding it again. Though, all of our kids are so brave when it comes to rides I'm sure she would've done it again if we asked her to.

Perry was tall enough to ride California Screamin'! I thought he was going to fall out, but, of course, he was just fine and happy to go on it again.



After we rode Toy Story, Perry was ready for a little break. All he wanted to do was look at all the toys in the stores. He didn't ask once to buy anything, he just wanted to look around.





Eric ended up taking Perry back to the hotel for a little rest and to pick up baby B. Yes, we were blessed with aunt Jenny as B's babysitter for a few of the days. We were so grateful to her for taking care of our baby girl!


I stayed with the other three kids and we rode some more rides together.











Layla had begun complaining a little bit about her foot hurting her. Eventually, I took heed to her complaints and we took off her shoe to check it out. Well, her shoe and sock on her right foot were still soaked from the rapids ride that morning and it caused her foot to shrivel up. No wonder her foot was hurting her! We took off her shoes and socks and let her feet dry out while we watched a disney street performance. After about twenty minutes, her foot was back to normal. And we learned to make sure she had sandals on when we rode the water rides the other days.

We went back to the hotel for dinner and then brought baby B back to California Adventures with us. She went on her first rides! Toy Story and the Little Mermaid were her favorites.

We ended the night by watching the World of Color. That show amazes me. I just love it. And I especially love these people that I got to watch it with.

a happy baby and something I need to remember to be happy, too

I started writing a blog post in my head last night at 10:30pm while I was feeding baby B. Every thought that came into my head was mean, negative, and whiny. I eventually banned myself from writing blog posts in my head after 8pm. When you are exhausted after a long day, no good can come of that. It's always amazing to me how what seems so overwhelming and awful at night seems so manageable and doable after a night of rest.

It is also true that what seems overwhelming at the end of a week of single parenting (Eric spent 6 days in Italy last week!) seems much more manageable after a few days of taking a break. I was trying to sort out schedules on Friday and reply to a bunch of texts and emails about various things. But I finally just stopped and told myself I would sit down on Monday and do it all. That's what I did. On monday, I whipped it all out and figured out the scheduling conflicts with no problems. What seemed like a mountain on Friday was hardly a hill on Monday.

Love this adorable, happy baby!

Disneyland (day 1)

We were all sooo excited for Fall break this year! We worked hard on our no sugar, dance more, family scriptures etc goals and we earned our trip to Disneyland. And so we played hard at Disneyland all week long.

It was thrilling to me to be on our first vacation as a family of seven! B did great on her first road trip. Though, the way to California was about 45 min too long (that last little while is when Perry got car sick and B was ready to be out of her car seat). But I thought we actually held up pretty well.

We checked in to our hotel. Jenny recently moved to LA and so she was able to meet up with us. We took a walk through Downtown Disney and grabbed dinner.

We introduced B to Mickey Mouse.

And Layla wiggled a tooth right out! Which meant that the tooth fairy got to visit us in our hotel.

We left downtown Disney pretty excited to enter the park the next day!

today

My brain is fuzzy. Whether that is because we are on the tail end of fall break or because of this cold I am fighting off, I can not say.

In some ways this has been a most unproductive week. Because I haven’t felt well, things have not gone as I imagined they would this week. But for some reason Eric and I have been extra productive in getting some home projects done that we have needed to do for a long time. We have ordered hanging shelves for the garage, organized the entryway closets, made furniture decisions for our bedroom, and hung a shelf on the wall. We even hung up Halloween decorations as a family.

I am hoping I will shake this cold thing soon. I keep thinking I have and then it keeps coming back. You know, it is much easier to mother when you feel well. 

And I’ll end today with one more thing. I know I’ve said it before, but I love these quotes I get in my inbox from Gretchen Rubin. Some of them I find particularly striking. And I love this one because I think it’s true! Oh, so many ideas, thoughts, and my favorite conversations with people come from walking.

Perry these days

Our Perry boy! Oh how he is adored around here. His facial expressions crack me up. You can always tell how he is feeling about a situation, that’s for sure. 

Perry loves all of his siblings. He loves spending time with his big brothers (especially when they were out late one night playing capture the flag). He is often Kacin’s little shadow and Kyler’s buddy.

He also an extremely special relationship with his sisters. Baby B has been so good for him (someday soon I’ll have to share more about their connection) and Layla has always been his greatest friend and teacher. Though, they often have their fair share of sibling rivalry.

Perry loves water. This particular day, he started out mad at me, but I turned on the hose for him and after a long time spraying and playing he was feeling much better.

Another time he was mad at me and I was grateful we have that gate so he couldn’t actually escape. 

Perry did an amazing job at the primary program a few weeks ago! He had his part memorized right away. He got a little confused when he got to the microphone and the older primary child who was helping pointed to the words on a paper for his part and so he asked out loud “what is that? (Like in a why the heck are you pointing to those words way)” But then he said his part just fine.

Perry is playing baseball again this season. He loves it, but still asks to try soccer out (hopefully soon).

He is doing well in first grade (since we adjusted his meds) and loves his teachers and friends and is making progress on most of his goals. He loves being on the big kids playground this year instead of the smaller kindergarten playground.

Perry received a character award at his school’s first assembly. How very proud of him we are!!

Perry was extremely excited for Apple Day at school. I got to help out with his group as they went around to their apple stations. It was a fun morning!

Perry loves playing his Lego Batman video games. He is becoming extremely good at putting Lego sets together. He loves transformers. His favorite books to read at home are Berenstain Bears and Little Critter. He enjoys working on sticker books. He is a homebody and so would much prefer staying home than going out to the store or anywhere else.

Perry has recently made another speech jump and we have all noticed how clearly he speaks and how much more he speaks now. We love hearing his questions and ideas!

One day he got the chopsticks and tried to use them to pull his teeth out. He told us he wanted to earn some money. We tried to explain that there are other ways to earn money besides from the tooth fairy, but he still tried for awhile to get those teeth out.

Perry is a great boy and we are so lucky to have him in our family!