We Love to See the Temple

We had the opportunity to go to the Payson Open House last night.  Unfortunately Jason's knee has been bugging him so he opted to stay home with Ellie and Leila and I had a mother-daughter date.  She was so excited that she would get to go inside the temple, she talked about it all day long!

Once we got there, we filed in to the nearby church to watch the little movie about temples.  As soon as we sat down, Leila looked at me and asked, "Mommy gonna wear white socks?  Leila wear white socks?  All my friends wear white socks?"  She remembered that she had to wear little booties when we went to the Gilbert temple open house almost a year and a half ago!  But once the movie started, she was being, well, Leila, and would not sit still.  When the movie was over, she exclaimed, "We get to go in the temple now!" which caused the entire room to chuckle.

Unbeknownst to me, there was someone in the room that would recognize her little voice.  My sister Ashley happened to be there with her young women's group!  Leila spotted her first and told me that she was there, but I didn't believe her.  I mean, what are the chances?!  But there she was and she was kind enough to lend me her hand and help me with Leila as we walked through that beautiful temple.  Leila could hardly believe that Ashley was there.  She kept saying, "Mommy, it's Ashley!  Mommy, it's Ashley!"  I almost couldn't get her to come home with me when it was time to leave because she just wanted to stay with Ashley.  And the first thing she said in her prayers that night was, "Thank you that I could find Ashley in the temple."

The part of the temple that caught Leila's attention the most were the beautiful light fixtures/chandeliers.  She kept pointing them out and wanted to count them all.  It was an absolutely exquisite temple!  It was great to be able to share this experience with my daughter.  She always points out temples when we drive by, so it was neat for her to be able to go inside.

Ellie at Six Months

My beautiful, happy-go-lucky baby celebrated her half birthday last week (WHAT?!) and at 6 months she:

*Is starting to catch up on her weight gain.
*Smiles pretty much constantly.
*Is an excellent sleeper when we're at home and a great power napper anywhere else. And she's happy either way.
*Prefers to be facing outwards and sitting up when held.
*Can roll over from tummy to back with ease and back to tummy with a little effort--mostly she just likes to spin in circles on the floor.
*Gets easily distracted when she's trying to eat and as a result is a VERY messy eater.

*Stats: 15.5" head circumference (1.34 %ile), 11.46 lbs (.22 %ile), and 23.25" (.13 %ile)

Sure do love this sweet, sweet angel!

Tulip Festival

We took advantage of our passes and spent some time in the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point for the Tulip Festival this morning.  Beautiful--the flowers and my girls!

California/St. George

A couple months ago, I was desperately wanting a vacation but couldn't go anywhere because Ellie was on oxygen and then life just got busy.  But I didn't even have a vacation on the books to look forward to, which is unusual for me and it was driving me crazy!  So, I booked us a hotel for a couple nights in St. George for April just so that we could get away.  Well, about a week ago, I got a text from Alicia, my cousin, saying that they were planning a last-minute getaway to Disneyland for a day.  I quickly shifted my planning gears and we extended our trip to include some time in California before heading to St. George. I also convinced my mom to join us, at least for the Disneyland part.

So we all loaded up in our car Tuesday after Jason got off work and drove as far as Primm that night.  Both girls did great in the car.  Ellie barely even made a peep!  Even better, they both slept well in the hotel that night.  It was a short night though as we left around 5 so that we could get into the park as close to opening as possible.

Unfortunately about 10 minutes into the drive, Leila started to complain that her tummy hurt and shortly afterwards started throwing up.  This continued the rest of the drive to Anaheim, every time she ate/drank ANYTHING!  I didn't know what to do.  This was going to be our only day in the park and she was so excited to go.  Plus, even if we delayed a day, my mom wouldn't be able to come with us to the park because she was flying back home the next day.  So we continued driving and just prayed that everything would work itself out, even if that meant my mom chilling in the hotel room with Leila and only venturing into the park if she felt up for it.

I eventually just stopped giving Leila any liquids because it obviously wasn't sitting well.  Eventually we made it to Anaheim but it was still early enough in the day that we couldn't check into the hotel yet.  Leila seemed to be doing a little better so we decided we'd go ahead and go into the parks and just see how things went.  Miracle of miracles, she didn't throw up again all day!  Many prayers were answered that day.  We quickly met up with Perkins/Sorensens and started playing.

If you hadn't been in the car with us that morning, you never would have guessed Leila had started the day off sick.  She was running around with all of the other girls and had a blast going on the rides.  She was even tall enough to try some of the big rides including Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain.  I guess I didn't prepare her for the fact that she'd get wet on Splash, so she was quite distraught that her Rapunzel dress got wet.  I was a little more on top of preparation for Thunder and told her that it might be loud, so she spent the whole ride with her ears covered.  Regardless, she loved them both!

After Leila got a much-needed nap back at the hotel room, we split off from the group and went over to DCA for a while.  First stop was the Little Mermaid ride, which was the whole reason we all ended up with park hopper passes instead of just a single park.  We wanted Leila to experience this ride first hand since she loves the movie so much.  And it was worth the price of admission.  She absolutely loved it!  My mom, her, and Ellie rode it over and over and over again for an hour!!  The cast members caught on pretty quick and didn't even make them get off the ride and go back through the queue after a while.  In the meantime, Jason and I went and rode Racers single rider.  We all met up again and went on Monsters before heading back to Disneyland to finish up the night.

The next morning Jason took my mom to the airport while I stayed back at the hotel with the girls.  Once he got back, we made our way down to Oceanside to spend the day with the Ziebarths who couldn't wait to take Leila to the beach.  The water was freezing cold but that didn't stop Leila from enjoying every minute we were there!

Even Ellie enjoyed her first time at the beach--wrapped up in a towel to protect her from the wind and sun.

We hung around with the Ziebarths for most of the next day as well before we loaded up our car once more and made our way to St. George.  We left later than we originally thought and got stuck in rush hour traffic so we didn't make it to our hotel until like 2am.  Thankfully the girls were once again excellent travelers and even slept all of the way from Baker to St. George!

Once we got up and going the next day, we made our way to the Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm.  Leila breezed through the main exhibits awful quickly but sure enjoyed the activity centers!

That evening we went to Pioneer Park and spent some time climbing around the rocks and taking some fun pictures.

Leila said this rock was a  shark--love her imagination!

The next morning was the last of our vacation.  We had originally planned on spending some time in Zion's but Leila didn't sleep great and was particularly whiny so we opted to just drive through the Zion tunnel instead and take the scenic way home.

All in all, it was a very successful first vacation for our family of four!