Family Vacation Day 1

We've been wanting to take the kids to Disneyland for years, but have never been able to go. This year we finally made the trip!!! I've been to Disneyworld at least 50 times, but never Disneyland. We had a blast!!! I don't let my kids go to any kind of carnival (carnies freak me out), so they'd never seen anything like this in their lives. Preston was completely terrified on all of the roller coasters... while he was on them. When he got off he'd either say, "That wasn't too scary." or "THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!" but he had ZERO desire to go on the rides again!
We were a little concerned about going in the middle of the summer, but it worked out perfectly. Sunday was overcast so the weather was great and there was hardly any crowd whatsoever.

My little Princesses and the castle. Morgan was SO disappointed that Sleeping Beauty wasn't actually in her castle!When we were waiting in line to meet the princesses, this little girl latched on to Shelby. She was so stinkin' cute! She sat there for about 10 minutes showing Shelby all of her autographs and asking her questions.
What would a trip to Disneyland be without a princess make over? This is what Preston thought of the whole Princess thing..... This is actually one of my all time fave things to see at Disney. It always amazes me to see little kids fall asleep with so much going on around them! I have to admit that it melted my heart to watch Chris carry him around the park for over an hour.Doesn't every little boy have to try to pull the sword out???



One of the funniest things of the trip: Halfway through the Small World ride, Preston stood up in the boat, covered his ears and screamed "STOP SINGING THAT SONG" when that didn't work, he pulled out his Buzz Lightyear laser gun and started shooting all the robots. We were cracking up!!!You have to have the Mickey Ears! (I have to say, they have MUCH cooler ears now than they did when I was little)
FYI: When Disneyland says "Mile High Cake" they aren't kidding. Look at the size of this thing. Keep in mind that the plate it's on is a FULL SIZE DINNER PLATE!
Parts 2 and 3 to come.......

Fathers Day

The kids have been after us for a while to take them camping, so this year Chris decided that this was what he wanted to do to celebrate Fathers Day. I was jumpin' up and down for joy, let me tell ya! But hey, it was his day, so we'll do what he wanted to do!!! I have to admit though, I had a blast with the kids, and I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time!

So, this is what it takes for the Haycock girls to "rough it!" (The trash bags have all of our bedding in them.) We got there and Shelby said, "Hey camping isn't so bad as long as you bring the house with you."

As we were pulling into Pine Valley (every time I go there I think of All My Children) Morgan let out an ear piercing shreek that caused Chris to slam on brakes and yelled "Look Mommy, Oreo cows." Ok, I'm not going to even pretend to be an expert on cows, but I've been around cows my whole life and I've never seen cows like these. Whatever breed they are, they will forever be known to our family as "Oreo cows"
Reason #1 why I don't like camping: We had literally been there 30 seconds when Preston was covered in dirt!!

She's such a Daddy's Girl

Chris and I were sitting around the campfire while the kids played with guns that they'd made out of sticks, when we heard: "I HAVE THE ULTIMATE GUN!" I turned around to see Preston chasing the girls like this:

What do you say to that??????? ........I mean, REALLY!!!!

Their Charlie's Angels pose

Our campsite was on a little creek and was so pretty.

Saturday night, we had a scary story contest. Shelby won by a landslide even though it had Chris and I in tears!!! I had to go to the truck to write her story down word for word. it goes as follows (imagine her shining a flashlight under her chin for effect) "Once there was an election. And there was this guy named John McCain. And he had a star by his name. And then there was a guy named Barrack Obama and he had a toilet by his name. And the guy with the toilet won. And we all peed our pants in sadness. And the Japapanians felt sorry for us." Let me remind you, SHE'S 8!!!!
On the way home, we passed this sign and I had to have Chris turn around to get a picture.
This prompted the following commentary by Chris: "Weeeelll see, the soda is twenty five cents and the cup is another fifty cents. The lid is a dime, ice 5 cents and the straw another fifteen. But today, and today only, we're offering the straw for FREE. So which combination would you like? or do you want to go for "The Works." We were all rolling!!!
All in all we had a great trip. We laughed a lot and it was so nice to just get away as a family. We've made a commitment to make more time to do stuff like this. Even though camping DEFINITELY is not my thing, I don't care what we're doing as long as we're all together!
Happy Father's Day to the Best Daddy in the world!!

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Our girls have reached the point that they've gotten really into name brand stuff. I don't see a problem in the world with that.... IF THEY'RE WILLING TO WORK FOR WHAT THEY WANT! They are trying to earn money for school clothes, and this is how they're doing it. (Yes I realize that by the time I'm done buying all the supplies I could have just bought the dang clothes, but at this point it's more about teaching them an important lesson than anything!.)
They made $21 in one afternoon.. NOT TOO BAD if you ask me!! More importantly, they had a ball!!!! They got soooo excited every time they sold one and would start jumping up and down and squealing. It was pretty dang cute. They spent the whole morning making their signs, shaving ice and watching the clock. The best part of the whole deal: it wiped them out. They've just sort of been vegging out the rest of the afternoon!!!! NICE!!
Chris took the training wheels off of Preston's old bike on Sunday. (His new one is slightly big for him and I wanted Chris to teach him to ride on the little bike thinking it would be easier!) He immediately picked it up!! Well, today he was "racing" me home from the snow cone stand, when I noticed he had his feet resting on the handlebars. 4 days without training wheels and he thinks he's ready for trick riding. This is what I get for going to a BMX demo one time and telling Chris that those guys were out of their minds and there's no way in the world I'd ever let our son do that crap!!!!! ugh.... BOYS!!!!!!!

Awards

Yesterday was field day at our school and Morgan placed 3rd in the whole 1st grade for the 50 meter dash. She was SO excited about her medal!!Today was the end of year Awards Ceremony. Morgan got the Math award and Shelby got the Art award and the P.E. award..... Yes, you read that correctly.... SHELBY got the PE and ART award....When she got back to her classroom, she said "Mrs. Fuson, how did I get the art award? I suck at art... my horses look like anteaters!" HAHA!! Her teacher reminded her that she's great at writing poetry and, of course, dancing. However, she didn't once question the PE award even though she's the most non-athletic child there is!!! lol
Oh well, I'm proud of both of my little over achievers.

Morgan's Birthday

So I realize that this is WWWAAAYY late but what can I say... life's been crazy! Morgan had her birthday on the 20th and got spoiled rotten!!! SHe had a fun friends party with a "50's Rock and Roll" theme.

Pin the record on the Jukebox

Her cake

I can't believe how fast she's grown up. Here are a few of my favorite pictures of her.

Dance Recitals

Tonight was the endof year recital for the girls. Here is the Hard Knocked Life performance. SOOOO stinkin' cute!!! Love it!!

Shelby's ballet class. She's the 4th one from the right in the very beginning:

Shelby's Combo class Tap. She's the tall one in the back with her skirt falling off lol:

Shelby's combo class jazz. Again she's the one in the back with her skirt STILL falling off:

Mother's Day

A while back, a friend asked me what the point of a blog was. I said that everyone uses them for different reasons but I do one because 1) it's easier to keep our family updated on the things going on with the kids. This way I don't have to tell the same story over and over or worry about sending tons of pictures out etc. and 2) I SUCK at keeping a journal, so I sort of use it for that purpose. (Our church is BIG on keeping journals.) This post is sort of a mixture of both I guess.
Today was a day that, to be completely honest, I'm glad is over. In the past, Chris has always tried to keep me busy so that I don't have time to really sit and think long enough to get sad. However, this year I had to work. I had a full 8 hours last night to work myself up into a hysterical, tear streaked, self-pitying mess. I miss my mama. She was all that I had for most of my life and then suddenly one day, without any real warning, she was gone. It's just not "supposed" to happen this way. Yes I know most people lose a parent at some point. But your parents aren't supposed to die at 39 years old. I'll admit, I haven't ever really dealt with it and I don't know that I ever will. I just don't even know where to begin that process. Church didn't exactly help either. I was all good listening to my kids sing in sacrament meeting. Thinking "Ok, I can do this. This day isn't going to be so bad" And then the talks started... I think it was at the "I don't know how I would be able to raise my kids without calling my mom for advice" part that I completely lost it and gave up all hope of making it through the meeting without a full on "ugly cry" (you know the cry where you can't breath and your face gets all red and twisted up). When we got home, I was looking for something for Shelby and found my high school yearbook. I turned to my Sr. page and found the message my mom had written. (just click on it to enlarge the pic if you're just dying to read it)I decided to post it on here because I'll re-read the blog more often than I'll ever dig the old yearbook out. Sitting here now, thinking over the day, I keep going back to October 9, 2001. I don't think you can really understand a parents love until you become one yourself. I'll never forget the moment that it hit me that the love that I felt for my daughter, was the exact love my mom felt for me. I think that epiphany, at that exact moment, was Heavenly Father's way of letting me know that she was there, even though not physically. I've had to remind myself of that over the years. It's funny how the Lord works some times. I'm not going to say that this note made my day all better, but it definitely helped me to suck things up a little and enjoy the good things about it.
Now ya'll (I gave up on trying to break the "ya'll" habit) know that I'm a sucker for a homemade present from my kids. This years presents made me laugh so hard. Shelby made me an "antique vase" and wrote me a love note. Her note was very sweet and heartfelt. And apparently I can "make the grumpyest person in the world laff". Yes well, she makes me "laff"!!
Morgan made me a Recipe book. (She has the same teacher that Shelby had last year, so now I have Volume 2. haha)

Morgans Entry:

Preston made a flower out of his hand prints and answered a few questions about me. 1)What does your mom say to you?- "Do your chores" 2) What is your mom's favorite color? "blue" (I hate most shades of blue lol) 3)What is your mom good at? "Exercising" (well.. obviously hahahahahaha) 4)What does your mom do when you are not around? "Sleep. She works" 5) What do you love most about your mom? "Her hugs"I love my babies. I love each of their little personalities. I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I've had to be at home with them and watch them grow and discover new things. And even though there are days that I miss just being "Jana", I wouldn't trade being "Mommy" for anything in the entire world.

Dance Pictures

For some reason my scanner scanned these a little dark, but I think they still turned out really really cute! They have their end of year recital in 10 days and then we get a break for a couple of weeks.... YYYYYAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!! Funny story about the orphan pic. When they were getting ready to take the pictures they were telling them to say different things (cheese, boys etc.) one of the little girls pipes up and says "SAY WHISKEY!" and since we live in "Mormonville" her mom (who tries be this perfect little "Molly Mormon") looked like she wanted to die! Seeing her face was pretty funny for the rest of us moms haha




Oh, Morgan wanted me to post that she scored 3 soccer goals tonight!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!