The Happiest Place on Earth

Well I know you've all been dying to see how our family trip to Disneyland was, and I have tons to post yet I can't quite seem to find the time to post everything. So I decided I'd just do short tributes to each day. Not really in order but enough so you could get the gist of it all.
First of all we broke the trip up a bit by driving to vegas and staying the night there then moving on to Anaheim. The one thing I gathered from the trip was that driving that long with a two year old boy is torture after 3 hours. But we won't focus on that because there was too much good to focus on. Our first day at Disneyland the kids were so excited to see all of their favorite characters and to ride as many rides as they could. We got to Disneyland just a little after 9 and I was amazed at how many people were there. We went before the busy season hit and still there were a TON of people there. But the lines weren't too long and the temperature was beautiful nothing over 72 and nothing below 65, making the trip just that much more enjoyable.


The first character we saw when we got into the park was Minnie Mouse! The girls were so excited and Will even liked her too!

The one super annoying thing I HATED at Disneyland was the proffessional photographers who took the pictures and then handed you the photopass so you could go buy their 24 dollar pictures that you just took with your own camera. Sometimes the photographers would be in my way and the kids had a hard time focusing on which camera to look at. But the kids were happy to see the characters and to get their autographs in their little books.

Will loved pluto and didn't want to leave him when it was time to go. There were a whole bunch of other characters standing around but we decided we wanted to split to the rides. Which was a good decision we walked right on to the Buzz LightYear ride which was one of Will's favorite rides of the whole trip. The pictures I took of that ride didn't really turn out but Will was enthralled to say the least.

All of the big rides Lizzie, Me and Jeremy were able to go on but Will and Abby only had a selected amount of rides they could ride. But thankfully Disneyland has Fast Pass and Parent Passes so Jeremy or I would take Lizzie on the ride and then as soon as we got off Jeremy or I would take Lizzie again on the ride so Lizzie was able to ride every ride at least twice.

We rode as many rides as we could the first day and packed in a picnic lunch each day. We didn't worry too much about seeing all of the park because we had a three day pass and we tried to pace ourselves as much as possible. When Jeremy and Lizzie would go on a ride there was usually a character close by or a carosel so I would take Will and Abby to see the characters or ride the merry-go-rounds. The first day the longest we waited in line was to ride the Dumbo ride and that was a 30 minute wait. It still amazes me that we would wait in lines for 20,30,40 minutes for a ride that lasted just a couple of minutes. But the kids were pretty good waiting in line.

My favorite line we stood in was for the Who Framed Roger Rabbit ride as we stood there Will was acting up when a Deep Scary Voice came from behind a door with scary monster eyes and Scary furry Monster Feet. Will screamed for a solid 5 seconds and then jumped 3 feet into my arms and would not let go of me. The ride isn't a scary ride just a silly ride but Will was so scared that deep voice would come back he was frozen in place to me. He didn't fidgit, try to run around, or hit anyone or anything. It was incredibley pleasant standing in line and he loosened up once he saw that we would be riding in cars that we could drive.

Well we went and ate dinner at Downtown Disney after nearly a full 12 hours in Disneyland. The kids were a little cranky but we ate at the Rainforest Cafe which is a really entertaining pace to eat.......that is if you're awake enough to enjoy it...

spotlight on the kids

So I decided to let ya'll know what's been going on with the little ones in our house:




Lizzie: Lizzie is loving Kindergarten and we are totally in love with her kindergarten teacher. Lizzie's teacher has been so kind to take extra effort in making sure that Lizzie stays challenged in her class giving her specific reading assignments with reading journals and takes time everyday to read with her on her own level. Lizzie's really loved the social aspect of school and always comes home with a full report of what they talked about in school. They recently talked about Our country and how our government is set up. Lizzie was asked if she was president what she would do she said " I would try to help make fair decisions for everyone in the whole country and be a good leader." Jeremy then asked her what her thoughts were on the economy and taxes (after a breif explanation of what those two things were) Lizzie said "I think our economy would be better if everyone had jobs and worked really hard and taxes should be in the middle not too high and not too low." I really should email President Obama so he can see the face of his competion ;). Lizzie has been really busy with ballet they are getting ready to preform Swan Lake at the end of May and Lizzie's class are going to be black swans. It's really been fun to watch lizzie dance around the house and show us her "swan pose" Recently Lizzie auditioned for the community production of Annie. We found out about the auditions the day before and Lizzie decieded she wanted to do it. She learned Castle on a Cloud the night before the auditions and picked one of her books to read to the directors. The ad said audtions would go from 8:30-12:30 but I don't think they were expecting the HUGE turnout of girls that they recieved. They taught the girls a dance and a song and then had each girl preform her own peice and read and then preform the dance they had just learned while singing the song. I was honestly super nervous for Lizzie and tried to keep her level headed about everything and told her it was going to be a great learning experince. Lizzie's lack of height and ability to learn quickly were a great advantage for her. After 8 hours (that's right EIGHT) they announced parts and Lizzie was picked. There are only 6 speaking roles for the little girls and they are yet to post who has what part but I have it on good authority that Lizzie is a huge favorite for the part of Molly. I was super proud of Lizzie and how well she preformed under pressure. I'll have to post more after we find out if Lizzie actually gets a speaking role but either way it's going to be a lot of fun for her.



Abby and I have been able to spend a lot of quality time together which consits of mostly playing princess, or doggies, or unicorns, or horses or snuggling down and watching a movie that has one of those same themes. I'm trying to enjoy as much of Abby as I can she'll be starting preschool in the fall and I know it's just a hop, skip and a jump till she's in school and all grown-up. It's been fun to see how she's growing and the concern she has for others. She loves to take care of other people. Just the other night Jeremy and I were out on a date and had left the kids with some good friends. While these friends were reading Abby a story (about princesses) the friend had sneezed. Abby stopped the story and took the woman's face in her hands and said "oh no! Do you have the sniffles? Let me feel your head, are you hot? Here you'd better lie down while I get you a blanket." She then had the friend lie down and went and got her favorite blanket tucked it all around her and then asked if she needed anything else. The friend chuckled and assured her that she was ok. Abby gave her a careful eye over and decided that she was fit enough to finish her story. Abby and Will have become really good friends and play together while Lizzie is gone to school. They love riding their bikes together and would color from sun-up to sun-down if I'd let them. Abby will say the funniest things but don't cross her, she is quick to deal with those who frustrate her ideas or siblings. It's hard to believe that she'll be 4 this May, she was just two weeks old when we moved into our home it really makes me sad how fast time goes by.

Will is a two year old. Now for some they refer to it as terrible twos, but I'm not one of those. I love this age. Will is learning to be independent and he speaks so well. Every once in awhile he'll get frustrated about not getting his way and throw some of THE biggest tantrums that I have yet to experince as a mom but he often makes up for it with his laugh, adorable smile with dimples and those gorgeous big blue eyes with eyelashes that go forever. Will loves anything on Wheels, trucks, motorcycles, four wheelers and trains. He's discovered how to build with duplo's and that is now what we bring for him to play with during church (we've had to stop bringing cars his sound effects are often very LOUD) but he'll build towers and airplanes over and over again. Will loves the movie "Cars" and has to watch at least the first half of the movie everyday. He loves his lightenting McQueen bike and loves to go really fast on it. The sidewalk on the North side of our house has a slight incline and Will has learned how to pedal himself (ok he can't reach the pedals quite yet so he kind uses his foot like you would on a scooter) to the top of this hill and then lets go as he zips down the hill. The smile on his face is so huge! I really think this kid is going to have a need for speed much like his daddy. I have to be careful about when I say "Let's go to the park" The second Will hears that he bolts for the door and starts pedaling his bike for all he's worth. The other day I was trying to change into some running clothes before we went to the park and made the mistake of telling Will that we would go the park as soon as I changed. Well three seconds later he was out the door and halfway down the street, it took me forever to change into my clothes because the second I'd turn my back on him he would make a run for it. We've known learned if we're going to the park we have to spell it out. He is so fun and full of life he really makes us all smile.

just checking

So i'm actually hating having my blog private. I think everyone is like me and only checks private blogs every once in awhile and honestly I need more attention than every once in awhile. So i've updated my layout, changed the pictures and wanted to test the water to see who's actually looking at my blog. So if you've seen this post leave a comment and let me know that you still remember me. And let me know if you think this pic should be our header or the one I currently have I can't decide.

A Christmas Story

Once upon a time John and LuAnn had 8 kids. They were crazy, but good kids and they always, ALWAYS loved Christmas.

(Just missing the oldest and the youngest this year)

Those crazy but good kids had even more crazy but still good kids by the truckloads who also loved Christmas especially the getting together to cause mischeif part of Christmas

This is only a small sampling of the grandkids ranging in ages between 32-13

Those grandkids got smart real fast, and for the vast majority of them, they all found more sensible spouses that were never ever crazy but they still loved Christmas

well some of them were somewhat sensible and a little less crazy.

Then those grandkids got really really crazy and had even crazier kids that loved Christmas but even more loved causing chaos and running around in crazy circles at all times everywhere they went and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa loved them even more for it.

But they're all so stinkin cute I guess that it just makes sense to love them all.

ps this is not all the great grandkids loads of them were missing! Talk about a posterity!


We had a blast at the annual Carter Christmas Party. I am seriously amazed that everyone can still get together every year for this the majority of the grandkids are very much grown-up with families of their own yet they all still get together to see everyone the Saturday before Christmas. It's nothing too complicated (well except for Uncle Reese's rules on how to pass white elephant gifts.) But we all laugh and enjoy each other's company.

The white elephant gift splendor.

Grandmas and Grandpas lovin' on their kids.

Adults laughing and chatting together about Christmases past.


Grandpa always gives out shiny new dollar bills to the Grandkids.

Will inspecting his shiny new dollar wondering what it would taste like.

So that is just one Saturday activity from our Christmas splendor. We had just weeks full of tradtions and fun making. Next on the agenda of blog posting ...........................................................

Christmas Cookie Making!

Christmas Recap at a glance

So I know I'm a slackin on my new years hope of blogging more but as an great excuse everyone and I mean EVERYONE has been sick in our house for what seems like F...O...R...E...V...E...R starting the night of Christmas Eve so I've spent a lot of time pretending to be Dr. Quinn Medicine woman . So you're getting the lazy version of our Christmas: (I promise I'll get more creative with these posts as days go by)


One: We are so super blessed as parents, I remember as a kid not being able to sleep through Christmas Eve night and being up at 4 in the morning until the year that my parents made the rule that we had to wait till 6 so we would wake up at 5:30 and wait till our alarm clocks all said 6 and we were out those doors so fast. Anyhow back to us being blessed as parents our kids woke up right on time at 8:30 a.m. I was up at 7:30 hardly containing my eagerness for them to wake up and see what Santa had brought them. Anyhow then as a family we say a prayer upstairs and then make the kids wait at the top of the stairs till we go down as parents first. Which just happens to make for cute photo moments like this with all of their little santa hats on. Ummm yes they are adorable.

Lizzie wanted a wii so bad this Christmas and I kept telling her that I grew up without a nintendo and had a perfectly happy childhood. Anyhow it took her nearly 10 minutes to figure out that she got her wish of a wii even after she read the card that santa had left reminding her to share the wii. Even then she really had some serious toy envy with Abby and that barbie guitar.

Lizzie did have some serious fun documenting all of Christmas with her new tinkerbell camera.

Will was easily entertained with his two cars and this awesome cars bike.

Abby loved her princess bike as well. (Disclaimer for adult eyes only: So these bikes came by the wonderful Black Friday deals so the week of Christmas every night I asked Jeremy to put the bikes together so we didn't have to do it Christmas Eve night. Well we constantly got distracted and wouldn't you know Christmas Eve night who would be sick? Why it's our local engineer and put thingies together man Jeremy. So he had to sit there in a sick coma like state and watch me put the bikes together. I'm happy to say that they still haven't fallen apart but I was really kicking myself about not being a little more demanding about putting the bikes together quicker. Adult Reading time over) So Will and Abby have been racing their bikes down our super long hallway ever since (Honestly I can't wait till spring and we can get those bikes out of the house.)

Abby can now play a hundered different versions of Girls just wanna have fun....i used to like the song.

Yes I can see it in her eyes toy envy. Luckily the girls are pretty good about sharing.

Abby gave Lizzie this cute build a bear ballerina bunny. We had fun sewing it together and it now is one of Lizzie's favorite sleeping buddies.

Abby had three wishes for Christmas, A princess bike, a unicorn and a rainbow. Lizzie found this cute unicorn and was happy to be able to scratch that one off of Abby's list.

Will is seriously so easy to buy for essentially if it has wheels or buttons he's happy so he was in heaven with this Cars Cell phone. He has honestly spent more time on his phone than I do on my own.


So I snagged these super cute sweaters for a super good deal and when I started wrapping them for my kids I thought they are so going to hate these as gifts. As soon as Will opened the present he stripped down and put on the sweater. He soon realized he didn't have pants so he went and got his pants and also pants for the girls so they could all be dressed for the day.
This was my shot at Abby's rainbow. And she loved it!



Adorable little kids. Happy Christmas. Can't wait for next year.

Time for a change

Hey All! So after a lot of careful consideration and a long talk with myself I've decided to go private with this blog. If you want an invite please leave your email address. I'll make the change at the end of the year. Sorry I've been a sucky blogger lately but hopefully the new year will bring a new commitment. And here's a pic for you all to enjoy.





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pumpkin patch/cute kids/ 29 yrs of greatness!

Hello Blogging world..have you missed me? It's possible right? Well I'm just a month and a half behind on my blogging so I thought I'd throw it all out there right now. Well not all. Just a couple of things and then maybe I'll come back and put more out there.
So this particular post has pix from our annual trip to the pumpkin patch and some photos of some super cute kids and a woman on her 29th birthday.

This is a pumpkin just in case you've never seen one.

When I took this picture I really really hoped that it would look like Will was laughing...umm guess not.

The entire time we were at the patch Will talked on his pretend phone. He's obsessed with phones right now.



The pumpkins seemed to go on forever and ever.

Lizzie walked up to me and said Mom take a picture I look like a farmer. I guess some grass in the corner of your mouth is a requirement for all farmers.


I was totally stoked for fall and have spent as much time as possible outside soaking it all up.

Abby picked the last of my flowers and I enjoyed it immensely.


I decided I don't have enough pictures of Will and gave him a little photo shoot. Umm ya he's slightly handsome...holy cow what am I going to do when he gets older!



For my 29th Birthday we went out to dinner and came back to three happy kids my friend Mindy made me a cake and we all sang Happy birthday. Really the only thing I really wanted was a picture of all three kids looking and smiling at the camera with me.....well I guess there's always next year.
Almost made it.

Well I'll try to post the rest of my pix sometime soon. Leave a comment if you've missed me blogging.

6, Honestly, 6!

Why is when I do something so incredibly fun and adorable it takes me like 3 weeks plus to finally post it on my blog. Maybe I should stop editing pictures and trying to put them in cute little layouts...yada yada yada.... Anyhow I need to give you all a warning now. There are a bazillion pictures and all have a plethora of shades of pink. There are lots and lots of pix of adorable children. And although I didn't get pictures of everything that I wanted to, now that I'm posting I'm really really glad.


We had a Fancy Nancy Birthday party...Now for those of you who don't know Fancy Nancy, I'm so sorry. She is a joy to know. We read and reread her books. If you want to read go to your local book store or Library the authour is Jane O'Connor and for those of you who really don't want to get to know her well she basically makes all things fancy, she loves: Anything spoken in French, Pink, Lavendar, Glitter, butterflies and anything that looks fancy. So we had all of Lizzie's guest come in their "fanciest attire" (attire is a fancy word for clothes) and then we gave them mini-makeovers. We did everyones hair and added a few accesories, then glittered everyone with some glitter spray. Big shout out Thank you to Patricia, My Mom, and Tammy, they helped with all the hair and doing other party games while I painted toe nails and finger nails. While the kids waited for their fancy session they played Hualabaloo ( a game a friend gave Lizzie the day before the party), Fancy Pose Tag (freeze tag) We read Fancy Nancy books, colored pictures and made necklaces with rope licorice and candies. After everyone was fancy we added just a few more accesories (you really can't have enough) and we gave all the girls feather boas and tiaras and the boys recieved top hats and ties. Oh and everyone had a new pair of sunglasses fancy indeed!
I didn't get any pictures of the makeovers or the games because I was busy painting finger nails but once I gave them their accesories I couldn't stop taking pictures. They were so adorable!
those feather boas were totally worth every penny and every minute of clean up!
The boys were a little hesitant about the ties (they had flowers on them) but they decided because they were black it was still cool.

Honestly aren't they delicous! So ooh, la la! I loved every second of it!

This was a post kiss/darling..picture they all blew me a kiss and called me "darling" Love IT!
The kids were so excited to give their presents. And were oh so generous. I wish I could name Lizzie's favorite gift but she loved and appreciated them all. Her friends were truly Fabulous!

Lizzie with our neighbor girl Gracie! They are the cutest of friends.

Jackson and Lizzie, he didn't want me to do his hair but wanted me to paint his nails.. I get the biggest kick out of him!

Lizzie and Megan. Megan is one of our car pool girls and I still can't get over how adorable she is!


I pondered forever what to do for a cake and seriously thought of a lot ideas but when it came down to it we wanted a fancy cake but I didn't want to take the time so we had a store bought cake with fancy roses added to it. It looked fancy until I took it out of the case and smeared the frosting on the side of the cake. So we didn't get too many pix of it.


Cute still the same and hassle-free

Lizzie's haul of presents from her great friends. We invited so many kids and that was still an edited list. Next year I told Lizzie she'll have to cut her list down even more. Nothing like 16 5-6 year olds! Phew!

I love this picture so you can all see the feathers that were carpeting our carpet! I still say it was totally worth it!

My mom was able to make a quick surprise visit for us and brought Lizzie her gift. Abby got this same gift for her 3 birthday and Lizzie has been eyeing it every since so My Mom in her infinite wisdom picked one up for Lizzie too, unfortunaetly so had I luckily I hadn't given it to Lizzie so I was able to return it but all I can say is Great Minds think alike!

Grandma and Grandpa Rawlings were able to make it down for all the fun too and brought Lizzie some great gifts. Lizzie LOVES her Fancy Nancy purse book and loves beading necklaces just like her Grandma and loved even more her custom jewelry made with love from Grandma!



After all the festivities Me, Patricia and Tammy were able to make it to Women's broadcast and loved every second of it. We then went out to dinner and all I can say is I'm super blessed to have the in-laws I have. It was a wonderful day.

The next day was Lizzie's actual birthday and we were able to have a nice small family dinner together. My brother Garret made it up and thus made it a special dinner.


Lizzie loves her Uncle Garret even if he does bribe her with Money...

Lizzie has had her eye on this shirt ever since we took her school shopping and had described it to Abby. When I went to buy it Abby was with me and without me pointing it out or anything Abby walked right up to and said "Mom this is Lizzie's shirt. We have to get this for Lizzie." She then carried it around the store until we bought it. She worked really hard on keeping the shirt a secret from Lizzie and Lizzie was so excited to get it. My favorite part was seeing Abby's face as Lizzie unwrapped it. Priceless moments.

Cake part 2: We made a chocolate cake and I let Lizzie and Abby go to town with all the sprinkles in my kitchen. When we were eating it Lizzie said "Mom I love this cake so much more than the cake yesterday." I asked her why and she said, " Because we made it...mmmm..it tastes soo good!"

I still can't believe she's 6! Man that's gone by so fast. In the next 6 years she'll be turning 12 and starting jr. high, then 6 years after that she's 18 and on her way to college...that totally sucks!
This tutu a friend made for Lizzie and she wears it all the time but my favorite is when she wears it with her pj's She's such a doll.
Thanks Lizzie for being our first child! We couldn't ask for a better, smarter more adorable way to start out our family!