December 2018
Potpourri
I’m really working hard to get our blog up to date by the end of the year which means picture dumps are in order!
Dallas accidentally jabbed a WD-40 straw into his eyeball. He was unable to keep his eye open for any length of time, so he went to the eye doctor. The eye doctor put a contact bandage over the injury, and in a few days he was as good as new. Phew!
Brooke wakes up E.V.E.R.Y. M.O.R.N.I.N.G. with the craziest bedhead I have ever seen. What is she doing in her sleep?!
Speaking of sleep, Spencer and Caroline have turned into sleepwalkers. Spencer’s episodes seem to be tied to needing to use the bathroom. I think he wakes up enough to realize he needs to go, but once he’s awake and walking, he loses all sense of where the bathroom is and what he should be doing. We have to guide him to the bathroom and then back to bed so he doesn’t wander all around. He’ll also do this weird thing where I’ll hear him moaning/whimpering/crying, but when I open his bedroom door, he’ll start to giggle uncontrollably. I ask him if he’s okay and he says yes while giggling. I close the door and in a moment he goes back to whimpering again. It’s so strange.
Then there’s Caroline. She sometimes wanders into our room and acts awake. We ask if she’s awake and she gets mortally offended and grumps that of course she’s awake. We’ll ask questions she can’t answer in her dreamy haze which further frustrates her until we finally usher her back to bed.
The other night I heard commotion outside our bedroom door. I assumed it was someone sleep walking/mumbling again and was about to ignore it when I heard Brooke confront the sleepwalker. Turns out it was Caroline who was up and wandering about. She had decided to go open our garage door. At 11:30 at night. Luckily Brooke heard the garage door open and told me what was going on and thankfully Caroline didn’t go stumbling about outside in the freezing cold. I can’t handle these nighttime escapades!
Madison got in this position and started giggling and yelling, “I’m flying!”
Last year the girls were in their school play, “Cinderella.” Brooke was a townsperson and part of the palace staff. Caroline was a maiden and the cheese steward.
One time I told Caroline that I wanted to give her the middle name, “Kimberly.” She took that bit of information and fully embraced it:
Brooke realized that if you lick Cheerios they stick together and you can make things out of them:
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First Days
Let’s travel back in time to the beginning of school. The kids were excited for the new year.
Spencer started 2nd grade.
Caroline is in 4th:
Brooke’s in 6th:
Madison is still stuck with me. She goes to preschool twice a week.
We were only a couple of days into school when pinkeye decided to pay us a visit. Noooo!
Her eye got better just in time for her other eye to get it:
Then Brooke came down with the dreaded disease. She looks miserable, but don’t be fooled…
She was all smiles when she realized she was missing school.
Just when we thought everyone was well and able to go to school…Spencer got it.
The kids missed more school than they went those first couple weeks of school. Finally, finally, finally they all got over the pinkeye and were able to go to school and stay there.
Caroline and Brooke wrote stories for a writing competition for our city. Caroline’s story won third place for her age group. She got to take a picture with the mayor:
The theme for the stories was about dragons, so they brought in some bearded dragons and other reptiles for the event:
Dallas’s grandmother passed away right as school started. My sister was nice enough to watch our kids while Dallas and I took a quick trip to Las Vegas for the funeral. They had the burial in Utah. Dallas’s grandma was such a fun woman. We loved remembering her and honoring her life.
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A Visit to Paradise
We took our annual trip to Carlsbad in October to visit my parents. This time we brought Dallas’s mom, Kathryn, with us. We had a great time!
We settled right in with baths and cheese balls.
We went to church:
After church we went to the Mormon Battalion Museum.
We were right by La Jolla beach, so we had to stop and see the sea lions.
The good thing about vacationing with Oma is we could hug her whenever we wanted:
The kids drew adorable pictures. This is Spencer’s rendition of our blue van arriving at Grandma’s house:
Madison drew a fish and her with Grandma and Grandpa:
Caroline took her time and filled up her whole page with color as she did a cute palm tree:
Brooke was drawing some adorable animals. I remarked that I couldn’t believe how well she could draw without looking at anything for reference. I mean, I think I know what a pelican looks like…until I try to draw it and then I realize I have no idea about how its neck attaches to its body or what its tail looks like. We decided to have a pelican-drawing contest. The results ranged from impressive to ridiculous. Brooke drew the two pelicans at the top with the orange beaks. Going clockwise from there we have Caroline’s, my mom’s, mine, my dad’s, and Kathryn’s was the big blue one. My dad is good at a lot of things…but drawing pelicans may not be one of them. 
He is, however, really good at making French toast every morning. Yum!
It was a super windy day, but the kids were dying to go to the beach, so we went and had a good time despite sand flying everywhere. Brooke directed this photo shoot before we left:
When we’d had it with the wind, we went home, had dinner, and begged Grandpa to pop us some popcorn while we watched a movie. He is good at popping popcorn. He gladly obliged.
The next day was Legoland day! 
The weather was perfect and there were no lines. It was great!
The kids made cars out of Legos for a big race.
Madison was the youngest racer in her heat, so we didn’t have high hopes, but we were all surprised and delighted to see that her Christmas tree car was the clear winner! Red ribbon for Madison!
I was dying to do the Ninjago ride. My parents have season passes to Legoland since they live five minutes away, and my mom and dad always ride this ride when they go. My mom ALWAYS beats my dad. She has some hidden ninja skills, so I was anxious to see if I could beat her. The answer – nope.
Dallas, however, also apparently has crazy ninja skills and he was able to get on the “Best of the Day” scoreboard…with my mom!
Madison was completely fearless. She loved the roller coasters best and insisted on riding with her arms up on every ride.
Our fairy tale Brooke:
Our tickets also got us into the aquarium. The kids enjoyed stamping their booklets:
The next day we went to the Fleet Science Museum. We went to two classes to learn about air pressure and static electricity:
As we were getting kicked out of the museum at the end of the day, my dad saw the lady at the concession stand throwing away buckets of popcorn. He asked if we could have one and she said yes! Turns out my dad’s also good at scoring free popcorn!
The Fleet Science Center is at Balboa Park, so we walked around the park a bit.
We ended our day at Golden Corral:
The next day we went to Point Loma tide pools. We got there at low tide, but the surf was still too high to see much. Oh well.
Then it was off to the beach once again:
We played a rousing game of Jenga.
Brooke added her own challenge by deciding to play using her feet:
We ditched the kids with pizza and a movie and the grown ups had a very nice meal at Benihana:
We also played Qwirkle after we put the kids to bed:
We found a fun park by my parents’ house and played. The kids and Kathryn collected twigs, acorns, seeds, leaves, thistles, and pinecones:
Then we decided to hit up the beach one more time:
This is Dallas blocking the sun from my eyes. If that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.
All too soon it was time to say good-bye.
We had to give Grandma and Grandpa’s stuffed animals one last hug:
And we had to give Grandma and Grandpa one last hug:
We always love our trips to California. We were glad to bring Kathryn this time around and make some fun memories with her.
