California Trip 2010

A few days after Christmas we headed down to California with Mark's sister Cami and her family. We stayed in awesome Dana Point and hung out at Disneyland and the beach. It was such fun trip and so hard to come back to Utah! I have never understood why people pay so much and put up with so much just to live in California...well, staying there in January has shown me exactly why!!! We had 70-80 degree perfect weather every single day we were there. Driving down in a snow storm really helped us appreciate it! It was amazing to walk out the door every morning in t-shirts and see sunshine when you are so used to freezing temperatures and snow.

We stayed at a condo right across the street from the beach. It was fun to all stay together - the cousins all slept together in the living room (except for Wyatt, too bad for us!), and Jaxson LOVED that. I don't know what he loved more - being in California or being with his cousins all day long! Disneyland was a blast - we had free two-day park hopper passes (we got them last year because a bunch of rides were broken the day we were there). Two days, all day - open to close. That is almost enough to kill a person! It was so, so fun though. Here is a picture overload of our trip:

This picture just about says it all...Jaxson is having so much fun at the beach that he is about to lose his pants!

On a walk down the beach while grouchy Wyatt took a nap on a blanket (don't worry, there were plenty of seagulls to watch over him...and his uncle Brett).

Wyatt was so excited when we first got there. He ran down to the water and was splashing in the waves...until a kind of big one took him by surprise and knocked him on his butt. Then he was MAD. He honestly would not get off of the blanket the rest of the day - this kid can hold a grudge!

He fell asleep on my lap and took a pretty good nap.

Now he is awake and holding a toy and a serious grudge against the beach in general and will not get up or get off the blanket. I'm telling you, he was ticked!

On Sunday we went to sacrament meeting (at a Spanish ward - oops!) and then down to the pier. We let the kids run around and play for a while - this is Jax and his twinner cousins, Makenna and McKay (don't you love his hat?). We all played red rover for a while, and I am not kidding, cars were slowing down to watch like "wow...what is this...children playing?" This was in a pretty wealthy area, and there were hardly any kids anywhere. 5 kids all together was a novelty there!

Welcome to Disneyland!!! We bought Jaxson that hat hoping it would give him an extra half in on some of the rides...didn't work. They made him take it off - Disney workers are so dang thorough! He was so, SO sad not to get to ride Splash Mountain, but the worker gave him two fast passes for any ride in the park, and also a pass to go to the front of the line on Splash Mountain as soon as he is tall enough. That is why Disneyland is the happiest place on earth and Lagoon is not...remember that mean lady who made him cry?




Attempted family shot in Toon Town...that is the best one we could get :)

Awesome sunset while waiting in line for Small World. Not a huge fan of small world in general, but it was really cool all decked out for Christmas. That was Wyatt's favorite ride, and McKay's!

Wyatt LOVED the glasses on Toy Story Mania and kept them on through the whole ride. Have you been on this one? Holy cow, it is so fun.

Wyatt riding with his Aunt Cami. Mark and I secretly wanted her to take him so we could focus on the game and get as many points as we could...

Brothers on the ferris wheel. I hate ferris wheels. It turns out so did they. They didn't hate it actually, but that is one of those things that looks really cool when you are a kid and then turns out to be kind of lame.

On a ride (small world, maybe?)

Yep, Small World. He loved this ride, but I think all those little people kind of freaked him out.

I LOVE this picture. Jaxson was so excited to ride Peter Pan with McKay and Connor (and Brett!). He talked about it nonstop. And HOLY COW that Disneyland worker is SUPER EXCITED, too. Geez, could he be any more annoyed that I am taking this picture?!

Grandma's piano students hard at work, even in Toon Town.

Driving Goofy's car.

Trying to escape while waiting in line to see Mickey Mouse. We finally just bagged it and left through the nearest exit. They saw him last year, and it was a REALLY long line. And Wyatt probably would have freaked out worse than when he saw Santa (hence the escape attempt).

Mr. Muscles

We got lucky and didn't have to wait in much of a line for Sully. This is Wyatt's favorite movie right now, but it turns out we were right not to wait in the Mickey line...he is like get me AWAY from this hairy freak.

Jaxson LOVED him though.

This is a picture of Wyatt after he played in a puddle for half an hour. Look at that smile. It turns out we didn't need to take him to Disneyland afterall, just needed to find him a good size puddle to splash in. Seriously, that is the most fun he had all day.

P.S. Right after that, we saw Barry Bonds. He is a smaller guy than you would think (must be off the roids'?) Mark wanted to go up and talk to him, but he moved us along quickly after I said something about not being impressed with a cheater, home run king ASTERISK, or something like that. Nobody else around us even realized who he was, and I am sorry Mark, but he is not that awesome and I would have told him so if you had let me. Just kidding, I wouldn't have really dared to.

Cute cousins - these two were good little buddies this trip, and Jaxson wanted to be by Mickey's side the entire time.

On the Bug's Life Ride.

The Christmas decorations were AWESOME. The whole park was decked out, but my favorite part was the castle. The picture doesn't show anywhere near how cool it looked!

Same with the lights on Small World. The whole outside was covered, but our camera doesn't show it very well. Look at that tired boy - he fell asleep around 10 and stayed that way, lucky for us!!

Jaxson was a trooper and was running around full speed until midnight when told him we were going on ONE last ride and he was like "What?! WHY?" And promised he wasn't tired...this is him about 5 minutes later just as we are walking out of the park. It took him less than 5 minutes to totally zonk out on Mark's shoulders. We were SO exhausted but isn't Disneyland tired the best kind of tired?

Thanks for the great trip Cami and Brett - we can't wait until next year!!

Christmas 2009

A little late, but better than never, right? Here are some pictures of our Christmas season this year. We missed out on some things because I wasn't feeling all that great, but we still had a great, laid back Christmas. Kids just make Christmas so much fun!

Our killer gingerbread house. Jax and I spent an entire afternoon decorating our masterpiece, courtesy of a kit from Costco.

The Huntsman family Christmas party:

My youngest brother, Zach - A little big for Santa's lap, but clearly still loving it!

Look what Santa brought us!!!

Happy to be there...

A little LESS THAN happy to be there!

Eating Captain Crunch right out of the box for lunch at Walmart - we made the nearly fatal mistake of running over there for a few last minute supplies on Christmas Eve. It was a madhouse!!!

Christmas Eve PJ's - Wyatt had matching bear claw slippers, too, but he FREAKED OUT any time they came near his body. He was happy to growl at them from far away though. Little weirdo.

My fantastic mother-in-law made us all matching presents so we had to open them all at the same time...

Aren't those the cutest freaking aprons you have ever seen? I love mine but it is almost too cute to get dirty! It is even double sided with cute fabric on the other side, too. Try not to be jealous.

The magic.

Is this for me?

No, but this is!

In the middle of it all.

The must have of the season! My mom, my sister-in-law, and I were all lucky enough to get one. I will have you know that I wear my with pride (but not as much pride as my mom)!

The bagel bandit and a crappy medical diagonosis.

I have been feeling really tired and worn down lately and had some other symptoms that made me take a trip to the doctor's office to get checked out. Most of the symptoms were consistant with Diabetes, but I have no family history of that so the doctor said it was really unlikely. He sent me to have some blood work done on Saturday and said he would call me with the results on Tuesday. So I was prepared to wait patiently (or at least patiently enough).

Last night we were at a family gathering for Mark's sister Alyssa's mission homecoming (pictures to come later!) and Mark's aunt, who is a diabetic, said "let me just test your blood sugar". So she poked my finger and tested it, and his 9-year-old cousin (who is also diabetic) looked at the reading and said "Holy crap!" And that was it for me. My blood sugar was almost 500 (which apparently is scary high). At least I am not crazy and there is a reason for the way I have been feeling.

I was really upset and really overwhelmed, but I got a blessing last night and saw a doctor today and I am feeling a lot better about things. It still sucks, but it could be worse. I am so grateful for modern medicine and for the power of the priesthood. The second that Mark and my dad and my brother laid their hands on my head I felt such a calming, peaceful feeling. How lucky we are to have that in our lives! After talking to the doctor today I have decided that I will just learn as much as I can, and do everything I can to stay on top of this, and do the best that I can with it.

So now for the bright spot in my day...After getting home from the doctor and eating no carbs all day (until my blood sugar is lower), I went in my room to take a nap. I laid down and was starting to drift off, when I noticed that my bed smelled like bagels. I thought "Man, I want bread so bad that I am having hullicinations of bagels as I fall asleep!" And then I felt some crumbs under my pillow, and reached under even farther and found THIS under my pillow:

Stashed there by HIM:

Apparently he snuck it while I was at the dr.'s this morning, but I guess I came home too early and caught him in the act, so he had to put it somewhere for safe keeping. Look at that guilty face!!!

Oh well, if I can't eat them at least someone can...just kidding, I took it away from him after I made him pose for a picture - how mean am I? "Here's your bagel...okay, now look at the camera...just kidding, sucka!"

Look who is TWO!!!

Wyatt turned two last week - I can hardly believe it. I can barely remember a time when he wasn't a part of our family. It seems like he has been here forever (those of you who know him will be asking is this a good thing or a bad thing!).

Wyatt, you are a joy and a terror all wrapped up into one cute little boy. Your personality is like a hurricane - when you are happy you have everyone around you smiling and laughing, but when you are mad you can make everyone miserable right along with you! You love to "Roar" at people, and you get so intense while you are doing it that your little body just shakes. You love your big brother and you run around the house yelling "JAX! JAX!" whenever you can't find him. You LOVE movies and cannot understand why we won't let you watch 17 movies a day - I know, we are such mean parents! You are a big mama's boy right now, and even though it sometimes makes me crazy, I love that you love me so much - I wouldn't trade that for anything!

You are strong and determined, and a little bit of a bully (you frequently have much older kids crying at the park/McDonald's/everywhere else). You were pretty sick a couple of weeks ago and you kicked the doctor right in the face when he was trying to listen to your heartbeat - the doctor said that it was a good sign that even though you were so sick you were still fighting. Ha! Little did he know... We are working on helping you harness your powers for good instead of evil :). We love you buddy and (most days) we wouldn't trade you - tantrums and all!

No interest in actually OPENING the presents, but luckily he had a little help. 15 minutes after we gave these to Wyatt, I found Jaxson in the kitchen, playing with them on the kitchen counter (counter = out of Wyatt's reach). I asked why he had Wyatt's new birthday toys, and he said "It's okay, I gave him some other toys to play with". Other toys meaning OLD toys. The perks of being the older brother!

Birthday dinner. Wyatt chose Madagascar plates and an Ice Age Dinosaur cake. Usually, I really like a theme for a party - it is cuter that way! But this year, the theme was WYATT. We had pizza and puffy cheetos (doesn't that sound like a delightful combination?). Even with two of his favorite foods, he chose to eat his fake corn on the cob instead. Which pretty much sums up Wyatt's personality.

When he opened this present, his exact words were "WOW-WHOA-WOW-WHOA-WHOA!" Pretty sure he likes it.

When a present is REALLY awesome, you just have to climb on it.

Blowing out the candles - do you like his cousin Cody being restrained from blowing it out first? I think he managed to do it anyway! It was a fun night and I think Wyatt knew it was his special day (even though he still managed to get put in time out on his birthday - don't judge me until you have spent a couple of hours with this kid!).

We love you buddy - happy 2nd birthday!

Getting too big...

Lately I have been looking at Jaxson and just thinking "Slow down!" I don't want him to get any older. He is at such a fun age and makes our house a happy place. He is so sweet and the stuff that comes out of his mouth cracks up everyday. I just can't believe how fast time is flying and I wish I could just freeze it for a little while!

Sitting on Santa's lap at our ward party. It was a polar express theme so all the kids wore their pajamas and we had breakfast instead of dinner - it was such a fun party! Besides Wyatt's 30 minute tantrum while waiting in line... Jaxson had a huge list of things to tell Santa (none of which he is actually getting - sorry buddy!). He changes his mind everyday but I'm sure he'll love whatever he gets.

Decorating the tree this year, he was trying to put a hook on one of the ornaments and was having a tough time. So all of a sudden he goes

"I can't see anything without my glasses - let me go get them."

And he comes back with these babies. I told him that spider man sunglasses wouldn't actually help, but then he was able to put the hook in and was like "see mommy, I told you I needed them!" How do you even argue with that? I didn't try.