Legoland!!

For Part 2 of our summer vacation this year we went to Legoland! I didn't feel ready to tackle Disneyland (mentally or financially) so we thought Legoland would be a good starter option.We checked into our fabulous hotel (milk and cookies before bed every night!), went swimming that first afternoon, and then took the shuttle to Legoland the next morning.

This was right outside the gate. They also had life-size Lego people built along the road leading to the park.

As we went into the park Joseph took the big kids to get in line for the Sky Cruiser and I took Jacob to do some littler rides.

This was his very first and very favorite ride. He used to cry as I buckled him into his carseat because he wanted to drive so badly. This was like a dream come true and he was a pro!

He went on to ride in a helicopter...

The cars again...

A train...

(Duplo city)

A boat...

This was a fairy tale boat ride with all kinds of different characters to see.

And he also rode in airplanes, but that was the next day. We were busy!

And I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with my baby boy.

He loved playing in these cars as well and insisted I take his picture here, with that lovely lady posing beside him.

  Meanwhile, the big kids did bigger things. Lots of roller coasters and line-waiting for them.

Joseph wasn't as picture-happy as I was, so I don't have as many of them. Plus their lines were longer so they weren't able to do as many different rides as me and Jacob. But the rides they did get to were awesome!

They also wandered through Miniland where they have a ton of people and buildings built entirely out of Legos.

Poor El was feeling pretty under-the-weather by this time.

We met up in Heartlake City, where Jacob spent his time  watching the Lego Friends show.

The big kids took a second to ride the carousel.

And then we headed in to see the Lego Movie set.

It was pretty amazing, but sort of hard to take pictures of. I loved seeing all the tiny details.

El was about ready to pass out at this point, so I took her and Jacob to get some food while Joseph and the bigger kids went to do more roller coasters.

Within seconds of climbing into the stroller... (poor girl!)

 After this Jacob wanted to do the cars again (surprise!) so we waited in line for that while Elinor slept.

The next day at Legoland we came in our swim suits so we could go to the water parks. That was really fun. One of my favorite rides was one like Splash Mountain that the whole family was able to do together. Getting soaked felt really good on such a hot day! We also went swimming in a wave pool, floated around a lazy river, and did a couple of water slides. We did manage to also squeeze in a fourth and final ride on the cars for Jacob before we left the park for the day.

Emily and Caleb's first ride the second day.

Jake in the fountains at Heartlake City.

Emily and Caleb finally took a turn driving the Lego cars (this was on the big kid track).

Jacob and I went on a laser tag-type ride that was perfect for him. Skeletons, sound effects, stolen treasure, and little laser guns. Every little boy's dream come true!

Any time we passed a gift shop, the kids all donned foam armor and wielded foam weapons to stage a battle. The store employees were very tolerant of this. :)

It was such a fun vacation and Legoland was a great theme park to take the kids to. They were the perfect ages to enjoy everything the park had to offer. It was a great trip!

Earrings and cake

We told Emily when she was little that she could get her ears pierced when she turned 8 if she wanted to. For the longest time she had no desire to do that, but it changed recently - probably within the last year. So, last Monday we went and did it! I was so proud of her for being brave!

She was so nervous and said it hurt but she never flinched or struggled. I think it helped that she'd put so much thought into it.

And... this is the only picture I have of her with pierced ears. I'll work on getting a better one later.

I also wanted to put pictures up of Jacob's cake. It was just a cake mix I bought from the store a while ago and then found in time for the birthday, but it was pretty cool.

It had me divide the batter into six bowls, then told me exactly how many drops to put of which (included) color into each bowl.

Then I mixed them up,

poured them into cake pans in the very specifically prescribed order and fashion...

...and ended up with these. The one on the left got a little messed up when I took it out of the pan. But no matter - I just used it as the bottom layer!

I chose not to frost the top, except for to write Jacob's name, because we've been on a bit of a sugar overload here at the Cooper house lately. It was nice to still be able to see the rainbow and also have a good cake : frosting ratio. I always feel like covering the whole cake is too much.

The kids loved it and it was less time- and labor-intensive than this one of yore.
And while I'm linking to that post, can I say, Holy moley, how crazy is it to see Emily at Elinor's current age?! I swear Elinor is still that much of a baby and Emily was never immature or toddler-like. She's always just been Emily.

So, yeah, anyway. Very exciting things happening here.
We are gearing up for school, which somehow starts very very soon. How did that happen?! I'm working on plans to make next week to be the best last week of summer ever. We'll see if my energy holds up!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

This boy is 3!!

I have no photos handy to prove it, but we had a wonderful day with him. A celebratory cupcake with a candle for breakfast dessert, swimming lessons in the morning (during which he had uninterrupted access to the tablet and all of its games), sporadic present-opening throughout the day, Otter Pops to eat barefoot in the front yard, meeting up with daddy at the movie theater near Google to see Inside Out, family dinner, and a colorful cake with singing and three candles to top it all off.

We do love our little Jacob and the bright, energetic, independent kid that he's growing into. Happy birthday, Jacob!

Sequoia and Kings Canyon

For our summer trip this year we decided to stay in California because, really, where else could we go with better weather? Also, being new to the state we thought it would be fun to explore a little. We chose to camp for two nights at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and then head over to Legoland for a couple of days. It was a fun, busy trip. (I was hoping to get to the Mormon Battalion Historic Site and the beach as well, but that was just too much for everyone. We'll have to do that next time!)

The camping portion of the trip was really fun. It is just amazing to camp among so many giant trees! One really nice thing about this park was that there are several very short, easy hikes set up to get to the biggest trees so it is easy to choose a tree, find the path, and take the kids. They also had a Junior Ranger program there, which the kids really enjoyed.

On the way to see General Grant.

This was the first tree we hiked to - General Grant. It is 268 feet tall, 107 feet around, and the second largest tree in the world.

It was kind of crazy walking around in these woods because all the trees were so huge! I felt like we were in Giant Land. It made me think of that one Giant Land in Mario 3 (you know, on the old Nintendo). It was always my favorite.

This tree tunnel was also part of our first hike. It was huge and amazing and apparently had been there for a really long time! The first forest ranger lived in it for a while, soldiers had lived there, and I'm pretty sure we read they'd kept horses there too. It was big.

Family picture! Minus me. We were out trying to see the sunset. Sorry the colors are funky. I had to tweak things because it was so shadowy.

This was outside the Giant Forest Museum.

This was part of the General Sherman hike - a cross-section of a tree. The sign told about different rings and what they meant - when the tree had been burned in a fire, when it hadn't had water, etc. It was really interesting.  We also learned that when the forest was first explored, no one believed the reports of giant trees so they would chop them down and send cross-sections out to different museums as proof.

It almost made you dizzy to look up at the huge trees all around.

Another fallen tree on the way to General Sherman.

And here we are, standing in front of General Sherman - the largest tree in the world. Okay, so it's only Emily, Caleb, and Elinor here. And it's the largest tree in the world by mass only. There are other taller and wider trees. But still. By mass. It's pretty impressive. :)

Camping was fun. Being able to gather around a fire and sleep outside is always fun. The hikes were great, the trees were beautiful and awe-inspiring. It was a really good trip. I'm glad we got to see and learn to appreciate these trees!

Baptism day!

Emily was baptized yesterday, and it turned out to be a really nice day. We were lucky enough to have my dad and step-mom and their twins as well as Joseph's mom and her husband all come to visit for the event.

Before the baptism.

Another one before the baptism.

Snacks afterward.

Looking at these pictures I'm realizing now we should have set up a few chairs for this...

The kids didn't seem to mind though.

 And a few pictures at the very end:

Elinor and her good friend Mckay.

Em and her good friend Jacob (he was in her second-grade class and said the opening prayer at the baptism).

My dad and Crystal back left with their twins Matthew and Sydnee in front of them. Matt's cast says: "It broke while I was doing a ninja dive roll over a jump rope."

It was a great day, and we felt very blessed to have so many friends and family in attendance. Congratulations, Emi!

Party Time!

Emily got a party this year! I am not cut out to plan this kind of thing, so it was all kinds of stressful for me, but it ended up being a success, I think. She chose an "Under the Sea" theme and we ran with it. Decorations are important to Emily, so we worked together on a few.

These jellyfish bowls were probably my favorite. They're still hanging outside, blowing in the breeze.

Birthday banner.

The food table was pretty great. Check out that shark that Joseph carved!

Baby octopi were a hit.

Other sea-themed delicacies...

And these cute crab cupcakes that Emily and I worked together to build.

Emi surveying the food in all its glory.

We made some ocean slime first, then played a few sea-themed games...

Fish race.

Action shot! Em's super fast when she's motivated! (There were Swedish fish on the line!)

Ping pong pearl scramble.

Pin the fin.

 ... and tucked into the food.

Blowing out the candles... or about to.

Elinor

Jacob

Elinor, Emily, and the other Jacob.

Pinata was next (sea-horse-shaped, natch).

And then presents, another craft, and before we knew it parents started arriving to pick kids up. It was good and exhausting and fun and I'm really super glad I have a husband who knows how to wrangle kids. Most of all I'm glad we could do something that Emily was so excited about. Its great to be eight, isn't it?