The battle for the minds of our children

I took Scout to school this morning, and Grace wanted to ride along. On the way there Grace says, "Daddy, half of my brain is nice and half of my brain is mean."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, last night, my left side (pointing to that side of her head) of my brain wanted to think about the Nightmare before Christmas, and my right side (pointing to the other side) just wanted to think about just Christmas. But my left side always gives me nightmares. Well, only at night. They always fight at night! Last night they were fighting."

Scout chimed in at this point "Who won?"

"Neither, I told them to stop fighting. And then it all just got mixed together. During the day they are nice though, they just play during the day. But they fight at night."

Best Pictures of 2007

I loved Brett's post so much that I decided we had better steal the idea and do one of our own. I would love to see all of you do it on your blogs too. I know I see very little of your family and would love to see more. So Tag, you are all it.

So I gave this to Abi thinking she would like it and she did, but every time she licked it, she cried because it was too cold. I tried to take it back but she wouldn't let me.

Abi rests up before tackling the second half of that piece of lunchmeat.

Grace's future in competitive donut-on-a-string eating seems to be in doubt.

You really have to click on this one to see it all. It is a little dark but I love how all the kids have simultaneous squeals of delight at the fireworks.

Gotta love pool pictures.

Time to bust out that ugly stick.

Disneyland. See? It really IS the happiest place on earth.

What cookie?

Random Kid Quotes

In the car on the way to the Mordecai family reunion:

Scout: "When I was a baby I didn't know if Grandpa's were crazy or not!"

In the car on the way to the 4th of July party at Amy's house:

Grace: "I'm sad that President Hinckley died"
Scout: "I'm sad that Jack died"
Grace: "I'm sad that Jack and President Hinckley and his wife died"
Abi: "I'm scared of Lions."

During the opening credits of The Neverending Story, upon seeing the title for the first time:

Scout:"Oh no! This is going to take forever!"

Sea World

Usually Sea World is my favorite thing to do on our trip, but this time we went on Sunday instead of Tuesday and it was busy. I hate going anywhere when it is busy. Since it was busy we didn't get any really good pictures. We only went to the dolphin show and the killer whale show.



Abi was still sick and had a fever. She just sat there the whole time.



The baloogas are always one of my girls favorite. They sit or stand forever looking at them. Last time we went we got a great picture of Scout with them, but there were too many people crouding around this time that they couldn't even get to the glass to see them under water.







We got to feed the seals and the sting rays. When feeding the seals a bird came and grabbed the fish right out of Abi's hand. We almost got the picture right as it happened.



Scout wouldn't feed anything because she didn't want to touch a dead fish. She did finally attempt to feed the sting rays by pinching the very end of the fish tail but she kept dropping it as soon an the ray swam past. Grace loved the sting rays. She sat and touched them forever and didn't want to leave.





Scout's favorite is the tide pool. She loves to touch the star fish.

Playing at Disneyland

There is nothing better then relaxing and just goofing around at Disneyland. We didn't do much of this when I was a kid, but it is one of the best parts about being at Disneyland with my family. The favorite place to just play this time was at Tom Sawyer's Island, they loved the pirate theme and had to try everything out. It was fun exploring all the caves and just splashing in the water. Grace wanted to get on every stationary prop in the whole park and have her picture taken like 10 times on it, leading the other girls to wanting an equal portion in the picture taking.

Disneyland Pictures

These are just the posed pictures that we took. We got pictures with a lot more characters this time then we have before. We didn't get around to going to the princess line though. Personally, I think that was a horrible idea. I am much more likely to stand in five 10 minute lines to see the princesses then to stand in one hour long line to see them all at once.

Our little coaster enthusiasts

I know what you are all thinking. Not another post about Jared's kids' affinity for circular condensation catchers. But don't worry. I'm not talking about that kind of coaster. I'm talking about roller coasters!

All 3 of our girls are big fans of thrill rides. Abi isn't tall enough to ride any of them except for the drops on Pirates of the Carribbean, the Matterhorn, and the small toontown coaster, Gadget's Go Coaster. However she loved all of them and eventually rode every one of them with her arms up the whole time.

Here are a few videos of the girls enjoying (in a shrieking manner) the coasters of Disneyland. Sorry I didn't have time to edit them, so there will be bits where it's too dark to see anything, and a few seconds of my shoes as I try to turn the camera off with my sausage link fingers.

(as a sidenote, pay no attention to the big fat guy you will occasionally get glimpses of. The camera adds like...40 pounds. It's a scientific fact.)

Gadget's Go Coaster was a favorite for pretty much everyone. As little kid coasters go, it's actually fun.

Here is one of Grace not really enjoying The Matterhorn, but Scout and Abi liked it. You can't really see Abi, but she's there sitting in front of Brittney.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was probably Scout and Grace's favorite ride this trip. Our last day in the park we went on it about 9 times. I have a couple videos of this ride, but this one was my favorite.

They both love Space Mountain too, but that one is way too dark for video.

There will be more disneyland posts coming. Stay tuned!

Dateline: Disneyland

I'm writing this from my cell phone so I hope it works. I haven't been able to get actual internet access from the hotel yet.
It's been an interesting start to our trip. We had an uneventful drive, with an equally uneventful stopover in mesquite. Thursday we spent several hours in the park and had a great time even though it was a little busy. It's great to be back here.

Thursday night things got interesting. Abi started throwing up in the middle of the night every half an hour until morning. Everybody else woke up feeling fine, but about an hour later Grace threw up twice. We waited around for awhile but the puking didn't resume so we headed over to the park, assuming it must've been some mild food poisoning or something.

About three hours later Abi decorated herself, Brittney and the inside of the Monsters, Inc. ride cab with strawberry gogurt enhanced gogurgitation.

Brittney bought her and Abi some new clothes and we kept on trucking.

No more puking after that yesterday.

Today we had a great time at the beach, then when we got back to the hotel this evening Scout started complaining that her stomach hurt. About an hour later she started in with the upchuckage. During her fifth round Abi, Pukemaster General of our little vomit brigade, suddenly sat up and threw up all over the bed.

So after a call to housekeeping for new bedding, and getting everyone to sleep, I am now keeping watch at midnight with bucket at the ready. Abi has tossed her proverbial cookies several times now tonight, casting doubt on our theory that it was a fast moving bug that only lasts about 12 hours.

So now my question is, who out there has puking kids? Who got us sick before our trip? Come on now. Fess up.

By the way, it hasn't been all nastiness. We have some great pictures and video to post once I can get the computer online as opposed to just my cell.

Highlights have included Grace nearly tackling Mickey when she saw him, Scout and Grace riding Gadget's go coaster with each other in their own car (awesome video!) and Scout watching the electrical parade in a state of pure joy.

Keep your fingers crossed that the sickness goes away soon so we can enjoy the rest of our trip.

Grace's theological quote of the week

These are always from Grace it seems. I think she thinks about religion more than the other kids. Today she said:

"I hope when Jesus comes again that he picks me up and flies me back to heaven so I can see what it looks like."

For those who haven't heard the story already: The other day we were leaving to go to the store, and so we told Grace to hurry and get her sandals on.

She proceeded to throw a fit, saying she didn't want to wear those sandals.

When I asked her why, she said "I just don't like those sandals"

"Why?"

"Because I just don't like them!"

"You need to tell me why you don't like them"

Gracie, near tears says, "Because my littlest toes don't show up, and it looks like I only have 4 toes!"

Random Video!

I really just wanted to test putting a video on here. But as a bonus you guys get to see my cute girls being cute girls.

Some Mommies are Mean

Grace called me mommy today and then said "But your not a mommies. Some mommies have white lines all over their bodies except for their eyes, and they are mean. But your not that mommy are you." Obviously we figured out that she meant mummies but I can see how she could get me and a mummy confused.

Grumpy Grace

This is a fairly predictable reaction from Grace anytime we try to do anything out of the ordinary, she is never satisfied with the project, always thinking it should have been bigger and better. Here she is ignoring me. I was trying to get her to take a picture with the Easter eggs that she painted but she refuses because she didn't get to paint the last egg exactly how she wanted to because we had to leave to go to our friend's house for an Easter egg hunt. We were already late. As you can see, Grace was trying not to smile at one point but got herself back under control and ended with a sufficiently nasty look (yes she is snarling at me). She finished it off by hiding so I couldn't take her picture with her eggs.

Cutest Theological Question of the Week

We get a lot of these from our girls. I figured I'd post one every once in awhile and let you all weigh in with your answers. This week's question is from Grace:

"Why did Jesus make owies?"

Keep in mind with your answers that your target audience is 4.

Grace's Song

Grace made up her own song today to the tune of If You Chance to Meet a Frown. It went, "If you chance to plug your nose, do not let it stay. Quickly unplug your nose and stink it up all day."

4 year old upgrade

A couple days ago I was dropping Grace off at preschool, and I asked her how she liked being 4. She said, "Good. I have more cleaning and helping brains now."

Grace's Birthday Party

We had a princess party for Grace for her birthday on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. The girls all came dressed up and enjoyed making the princess wands. Then they searched through the "sand" (it was really rice) for buried treasure. We found out who the true princesses were by trying to sit on pillows to find the hidden ball like in The Princess and the Pea. Then they all got a lipstick and we played kiss the frog prince. Grace had a princess cake. This is her thinking of what she was going to wish for ("I wish all the princesses could come to my house"). Then we did presents which she loved all of them and hasn't decided what her favorite is. We gave her a bike which she loved but was too cold to go outside and try it out. We finished with a princess pinata.

Math by Gracie

On saturday I was driving the kids home from Brittney's mom's house (Brittney was staying overnight to do a bunch of sewing). In the car Scout asked if when we got home I would carry them inside because it was late and they would be tired. I said I would and Scout asked if I could take them in from oldest to youngest. Grace said, "Or, maybe you could take us in from four-est to one-est to five-est."