Spring Break

Last week, Robby was out of school for Spring Break. It was great to have him home. We did a lot of fun things.  I never had my camera with me, but I did take a few pictures with my phone.

Monday:  We went swimming. The kid's had a blast. Robby hasn't been swimming since last summer, so he was really excited.

Tuesday:  We went to the park. We went to a normally very busy park, but it was a little cool outside and we were the only ones there. It was a lot of fun.  Zoe struggled a little bit because she wanted to do everything Robby did and there were some things she just couldn't do, but they still both had a lot of fun. When we were done at the park, we went to get Slurpees, which was Robby's one request for Spring Break. Sometimes he is easy to please.

Wednesday:  We actually stayed home. Robby's friend Tyler came over and played. It was a good break.

Thursday:  Kirk took half the day off and we went to Salt Lake with his mom. We went the planetarium. We saw "Born to Be Wild," a really cute 3d Imax movie about baby orangutans and elephants. It was cute and the 3d was done well. Zoe kept her glasses on through most of it. She wasn't sure about the 3d. She kept asking, "Those elephants aren't going to get me are they?" She wasn't sure if it was real or not.

After the movie, we just walked around and looked at the exhibits. Robby loved them and learned a lot. Zoe just liked anything that had buttons she could push.

Friday:  We spent the morning at Chuck-E-Cheese with Emily. We got there as soon as it opened, so it wasn't busy at all. The kids had fun playing all the games.

The fun of spring break pretty much ended there. Kirk took the afternoon off again, but just so we could do yard work. We spent the rest of Friday and most of the day Saturday, digging trenches so we could put in root barriers for our raspberries. It wasn't very much fun, but will be worth it.

All in all, I think we had a great Spring Break.  Robby said that it was a lot of fun, but he couldn't wait to get back to school. It is hard to believe that he only has a few weeks left and then the fun of summer vacation will begin.

The Big Move

We put off moving Zoe out of her crib as long as we possibly could. It just didn't seem like a good idea to mess with a good thing. She was sleeping well, both at nap time and at night and I did not want to lose that.  Last month though, we couldn't put it off any longer. She decided to start climbing out of her crib, and she was definitely not graceful about it.  She would put one leg over the side, so she was straddling it and then would just throw herself headfirst onto the floor.  The first time she came downstairs, with a bloody lip, saying in her proud little voice "I got out of my bed mom," I knew we had to get rid of the crib immediately.

That night, we moved her out of the crib and into the toddler bed. She was so excited. Unfortunately, it was very much the battle I expected it to be. She loves her bed so much, but had a really hard time adjusting to the freedom it gave her.  For the first few nights, it took hours to get her to go sleep.  She wanted to, but she just couldn't stay in her bed. There were too many things to get up and explore. We would finally get her settled down and go downstairs to watch TV. A few minutes later we would hear the pitter-patter of little feed coming down the stairs. She would smile at us, say "What you guys doing?" and we would start the process all over. A few hours after she finally got to sleep, she would wake up because she needed to go potty and it would take a couple of hours to get her to go sleep again.  It was a frustrating few days.

We finally got it figured out though. We discovered that she can be bribed. We bought her a toy that she loved, and told her she could have it when she got 5 stickers. She got a sticker every time she didn't get out of bed, either at nap time or at night. She wanted those stickers and that toy so much, it only took her a few days to get her 5 stickers.

Things have gone pretty well since then. I was sure that moving out of the crib would be the end of naps for her, but that wasn't the case. She still naps almost everyday. She only gets out of bed once or twice at night before she finally falls asleep. She is so happy and proud of her big girl bed. It is a little hard for me to see her growing up so much, but she is so cute laying in her big bed.

I love my big girl.

Return to the Home of the Mouse

Last month, we went to Disneyland again.  We had a lot of fun.  The first day was a little bit busy, but the next two the park was pretty dead.  It was nice to escape the cold of Utah and enjoy some California sun.

As always, we saw a lot of characters.  Zoe is such a social girl that every time she sees a character she wants to go and say hi.  It doesn't matter how many times she sees the same character.  She really loves them. Robby occasionally enjoys seeing them too, although most of the time he just rolls his eyes.

One of Zoe's favorite characters to see is Sully from Monsters Inc.  I would think he would be kind of scary to a 2 year old.  He is so huge.  But she just walks right up to him like his is her best friend in the world.

We had great fun riding on the rides too. Zoe is discovering a love of roller-coasters. She loved the little kid roller-coaster in Toon Town and even asked to go on the Matterhorn a couple of time. She was sad that she couldn't ride on Space Mountain and Big Thunder. I think she will love them when she is big enough. Robby discovered this trip that even the little kid rides can be fun. He enjoyed the less exciting rides, but even more, he enjoyed helping Zoe have fun on the little rides. It was great to see him being such a great big brother.

We had a great trip with great memories.  I love spending time with my family.