More Knott's Fun

(I don't know why this is blue and underlined!) Anyways...KBF was having a promotion for Spring Break called "Camp Snoopy" and they handed out maps to each kid and it had locations marked where they could pick up free gear, like a hat, bandana, wristband, and compass. The kids loved this! They looked so cute with their hats and bandanas on!

Me and Jocee had a blast on these spinning hats!! We went so fast that Jocee went flying out of her seat and onto my lap!! She couldn't stop giggling. She had too much fun!

Chad isn't much of a ride guy, but he agreed to go on the ferris wheel with Jordan. He was okay at first....
Here's me and Jocee having fun together... when we went down the first time, Jocee said "I feel like a tickle in my tummy!"
Then we both were stopped on the top while they load/unload people and I turned around and Chad looked a little worried.... I don't know if you can see, but he's got a death-grip on the lap bar and a nervous look on his face!! It was so funny!! Jocee and I kept yelling at them and trying to make them laugh.
Here they are on these semi-trucks they rode on. They wanted to be in the front, so me and Chad had to squish together in the back. They thought it was funny.
Peek-a-boo Jocee!!
Here we are in the back seat.

They are getting tired!! Good thing we took the wagon with us! I'm so glad we did. It was a very wise decision. It was much easier to pull around than pushing a double stroller! They really didn't even walk that much, they just let Chad pull them. Spoiled! I do admit--I even took a seat in it while the kids were on a ride. :)

Jocee also had a fun time on this Woodstock Air Mail ride! She saw this picture and said, "I'm sitting next to a cute little girl!"



This is me on the Sidewinder. It was so much fun! Each little compartment spun around while going on the roller coaster!! It was awesome!
I could hardly believe it, but Chad WANTED to go on this roller coaster!! He doesn't do roller coasters so I was shocked when he said he wanted to go on it. Unfortunately the kids weren't tall enough so I had to stay with them while he went by himself. He ended up going on it 3 times!!

Chad took this cute picture of Jocee.
Handsome boys!

Race Car Ride

This was their favorite ride of all. They went on it so many times. It was the last ride that Jocee went on the last night we were there. We were all the way across the park and they were getting ready to close in like 10 minutes and she begged to go on it one last time (Jordan had fallen asleep sitting in the wagon). Chad wasn't up for running with them in the wagon so I ran across the park-- nearly killing people and not even waking up Jordan, and we made it in time for her to ride it twice!! We were both SO happy! She would have been so upset if she didn't get her last ride before we came back home.

Fun at Knott's Berry Farm

Ahhhh!! Vacation is great!! We definitely need to do it more often! :) My mom was kind enough to take care of Katelyn and Callie so we could have a more enjoyable time with just the two older kids. I think she was mostly afraid of us losing one of the kids so that's why she changed her mind and agreed to watch the two girls. She kept telling the kids "Make sure you stay with Mom and Dad while you're there!! Okay!!??" She's funny. It was nice to just have the two kids though. I missed the other girls but there's no way we could have had a fun time with them all.

Here they are posing with Snoopy!! I was so happy they got to say hi to him!Here's the view from the front of our hotel. The park was just across the street! It was awesome. We could hear the screams from the roller coaster riders! This saved us money because we didn't have to pay for parking, plus we didn't have to buy food at the park either. We just walked back to our hotel and got in the car and drove down the street and paid the equivalent of a meal for 1 person at the park for our whole family! Plus when the kids got tired, we just went back to the hotel and rested for a while, then went back in to play some more!

We made it!!! Woo hoo!
This was the first ride we went on. (I know, it's blurry but oh well) Jordan was nervous about going on rides at first so I went on with Jocee. She was awesome!! She wanted to go on everything and wasn't a bit scared!! She's like a little version of me! Which I never would have guessed because when my dad swings the kids around and hangs them upside down, Jocee is usually the one who doesn't like it. She tells him to put her down. Katelyn on the other hand, LOVES to be thrown around! Maybe next time she can go have fun with us!
To get Jordan in the "riding" spirit, we all went on a little train ride around the kiddie area of the park.
Me and Jocee on the train.
Chad and Jordan in the hot air balloons. The kids really liked this one too. (And even Chad could handle it!)
Here's Jordan on a fun spinning ride. (Jocelyn's behind him.)
At first, Jocee wasn't too sure about this one because it goes up high and goes around in a circle. But I talked her into it and she loved it! (Can't see us in this picture but we're in there!)
Here's one up close on the bus.
Then we all went on this little kiddie roller coaster. Chad was brave enough to try it! (He HATES roller coasters!) He actually enjoyed it--mostly--besides the fact that the lap bar was jabbing into his stomach!

More pics to come....I'm going to bed for now!

Finally! A Vacation!

The last trip we went on was the Gardiner family reunion 2+ years ago in Utah! So when we got our tax refund, we decided that we should take a family vacation. I got online and found a really good deal on tickets to Knott's Berry Farm (Disneyland is pretty pricey so we're waiting till the kids are a little bit older so they can remember going.) and I found a really good rate on a hotel right across the street (it took a while to search out all the different sites, but I found it!). I figured that the kids would be exhausted after a few hours so we would probably have to go back to rest in the middle of the day, then could go back in the afternoon so a hotel that close would be great. I wish we could take the wagon with us to pull around 2 of them while the other 2 are in the double stroller because I know Jordan and Jocee will get tired of walking real fast.
We are really excited about going. I know traveling with 4 kids is going to be stressful at times, but hopefully I can be well prepared with games, movies, music, and food to entertain them for 5 hours! If anyone has any car games or entertaining ideas, I'd love to hear them! The kids are excited to go but keep telling us they want to go "TODAY!" I think I'm going to mark it on a calendar so they can count down! We're going to leave Thursday, the 20th of March and come home on Easter Sunday. It will be good for us to just go and have a fun time as a family. We get so caught up with every day life, that sometimes we forget to "stop and smell the roses" per say, so we're looking forward to enjoying some fun with the kids! (Maybe some day, when Callie's old enough to leave with Grandma, we could take a trip with just "us!" Someday...

I made a funny

Yesterday we were driving and Chad had on the song "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and it's mostly sung by a guy but in the middle of the song there's a part where a girl sings a bit and Jordan yelled out "Dad!! This is a GIRL song!!!" Chad told him, "No it's not." Then Jordan replied, "Yeah huh, there's a girl singing!!" Chad then told him, "It's okay. I like girls. Mommy's a girl and your sisters are girls." To which Jordan replied, "But Dad...You know I'm allergic to girls!!!" We laughed so hard!!! Then when he realized he'd made a funny, he said, "You better not tell anyone I said that!" That made us laugh even harder. Kids are hilarious!

Katee's busy Saturday

Okay so about a week ago Katelyn gave herself a hair cut. So Saturday I took her to Great Clips to get it fixed. She had cut one side pretty short and she cut some of the top behind her bangs so she had to cut it pretty short.
This is one side of her hair before the haircut.


She sat in the chair just fine, but when the lady pulled out the cape to put on her, she went nuts!! So she ended up sitting on my lap the whole time. After that, she did great!
She even let the lady blow-dry her hair! She looked so cute.
Afterwards, we went to get frozen yogurt. Yumm!!


Then we went home and she played with Grandpa! Weeeeee!!! She has no fear!

She's going to be a roller coaster rider like her Mom!After all that fun, she went out back to ride her bike! 10 minutes later, she came in screaming!!

She crashed her bike and hit a wooden post face first!! It started to swell up so fast so I had to hold her down to keep ice on it for a little while. She DID NOT like that!! She wouldn't let me take a picture of it either. So I managed to get this one while she was laying on the couch.

DAY 1


DAY 2

DAY 3 (tired of me taking her picture)


DAY 4

So today is day 5 (haven't taken her picture yet today) and it looks like she has purple marker under and around her eye. There's even a bit of yellow/green bruising up towards her eyebrow. So I know it looks bad. Every time I go anywhere, people constantly stop and ask me what happened or ask her "Did you get an ouchie?" and she just stares at them like "What are you talking about?" She doesn't know it's there except for when she walks by my mirror and then she sees it and touches it and says "ouchie!" Anyways, so we were at the Sprouts this afternoon and she was a very good girl (no tantrums or anything!). No one had asked me about her eye for some reason on this trip. THEN.....................................I was standing in line to pay when a POLICE OFFICER approached me and was looking at Katelyn (checking out the eye), and introduced himself and said "A concerned customer called me to come check out the situation with your daughter's eye. What happened to her?" I was totally stunned! I felt like such a bad mom at that moment. My stomach was in knots and my heart started racing and I was so nervous. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but the fact that someone is basically accusing me of hurting Katelyn made me so mad! I told him what happened and he was like, "When did this happen? How old is she? When is her birthday? Can she talk?" I guess he wanted to ask her what happened. I told him that she doesn't talk that much and actually we had just left the Speech therapy session!" Then he took my name and address and birthdate. I felt like such a criminal. How embarrassing! Everyone in the freakin' store was staring at me. I might understand why someone might call the police if I was in the store yelling at her and mistreating her, but she was so good, just sitting in the cart being good! He walked out of the store and walked with me to my car, then was like "Have a nice day." I am still stunned that someone called the police! I just can't get over it. I told the cop that I guess I should start putting makeup on it before going out because I don't want another visit from him. He laughed and said "Yeah, I guess so!" SIDE NOTE: Erika, you better hope that the same person doesn't read your blog about how Taylor's tooth got knocked out!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was our 8 year anniversary!!! I can't believe how time flies as you get older. I remember my mom used to tell me all the time that time goes by so fast and I used to think she was crazy!
So for our anniversary, we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and then went shopping for a new camera, since Katelyn got her little hands on ours and broke it! We had bought one on Monday night but when I took it home to play with it, I just didn't like it. So we took it back and haven't found the "right one" yet. I've been looking up some on the internet and I will probably buy a Canon. Chad's brother, who is a great photographer, said he has one that he loves and works well so I will probably get one too. Now to find the best price on one! I'm also refusing to get one that requires AA batteries. I'm only getting one that uses a Lithium-Ion battery. Anyways, after we went shopping a bit, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. It was SOOO good! I saved a bit of it so I could have some for today when the girls went down for a nap. Mmmm!!!

(So, I won't have pictures to post until I get a new camera. :()

In other news....Katelyn got ahold of scissors that Jordan was using and didn't put away, and cut her hair!! It's really short on one side and the back is long on top and underneath is short. I'm waiting to take her to the beauty shop because I have to take a before picture and a during and an after! I know, I'm nuts. But I have to document this milestone!! I have pictures of Jocee's first haircut so I have to do the same for Katelyn. If I didn't have 3 kids at home all day, I could go shopping for one during the day, but since I do, I'll probably have to wait til Saturday unless I buy one online and wait for it to come in the mail.