10 Years

10 years ago I was a new mom.  I was just beginning to experience the joys, frustrations, loves and pains of motherhood.  I was learning what it really felt like to be sleep deprived and overwhelmed.  I was learning how incredible it was that something so small could bring so much joy and love.  I was learning that nothing in the entire world would matter as much as my little bundle of joy.
And a bundle of joy she has been!
My little baby is now 10 years old.  I am now a mother of a tweenager!  She has been around for a decade and that means that I am a decade older.  I have gone from diapers and sleepless nights to fashion and early mornings.  I have the 3 Highschool Musicals memorized and know almost all of the Miley Cirus songs from memory.  I love hearing her practice the cello and I am the most obnoxious cello mom!  I have watched her play barbies and house as a little girl and grow into listening to the ipod and playing basketball.  Where did the 10 years go?  When did my little princess turn into this beautiful girl?  What will the next 10 years bring?  Is it possible to love this little girl more now than I did 10 years ago????  How is that possible????
Abby is 10.  I am proud of her!  I love my sweet little Abbigail!  Happy Birthday Kiddo!

Easter! What a Wonderful time!

Yesterday was a wonderful day!  Christie and I spent the day doing what we do best. . . . .shopping!!!  It was AMAZING the deals that I was able to find here!!!!  Justice was having a 40% off of EVERYTHING in the store. . . . even sale items!!!  I got Abby 10 shirts for a grand total of $30!!!  We then spent the day taking advantage of AMAZING sales all over the place!!!  Children's place had a sale of 25% off of already reduced items!!!  Old Navy had the same sale.  Then there was this TOTALLY cute store called "Crazy 8's" which is a cheaper Gymboree store. . . . . ADORABLE STORE!!!!!  My kids will be SOOOOO CUTE this summer!!!  (I even managed to squeeze in some clothes for myself too!!!)
Last night, the men/teenage boys went out to watch the Priesthood session of conference and so Christie and I went out and picked up some chinese food, hung out with the girlies and relaxed after our day of shopping.  The kiddies then put out their easter baskets and Christie and I hung out until about 1 am filling easter eggs!
The easter egg hunt this morning was SO MUCH FUN!!!  It is so fun spending holidays with other people and learning what their traditions are!  I think we may have to adopt some new easter traditions because we have been having a blast!!!
Now it's shower time and then off to go sit in the Conference Center and watch Conference LIVE!!!  None of us have ever done this before, so we are very excited to go!!!!

Easter Fun with Family

It's great to have family, isn't it???  I mean, we were sad to leave Disneyland, but we were so excited to drive up to see my Aunt Christie and her family and spend Easter Weekend with them!  From the moment that we got here, it has been nothing but fun and excitement.  We went to a big bouncy house park and played all morning long there!  After that, it was off to McDonald's for lunch!  Chicken and Fries. . . . you just can't beat chicken and fries!
In the afternoon, Christie and I ditched everyone for awhile, picked up some extra Easter stuff (as though we actually needed it) and I found some tasty treasures at Target!  Did you know that in the US, there are more than 3 flavors of Goldfishies????  Did you know that there are about 15 flavors????  SO TRUE!!!!  I bought one of every kind!  I HAD to try them ALL!!!!  We love goldfishies!!!  I can't wait to try the pretzel and cheese ones.
It has been a great day!  We finished things off by decorating eggs with cousins!  It went surprisingly smooth considering we had 9 kids trying to color eggs at once!  Now comes the HUGE task of trying to convince all of these grumpy kids to go to bed!

Farewell Disney

Yesterday was our last day at Disneyland.  It was magical and amazing!  It started off with the announcement from my sister that she had her baby!  Best day ever!!!  We started off in the Magic Kingdom getting special entrance to Mickey's Toontown.  It was awesome!!!  After that we rode on all of the rides that we hadn't gotten to ride on before that didn't have fast passes.  We also got fast passes for all of the ones that we could get them for. Then we hopped over to California Adventure and ran into our friends again.  We joined forces and conquered  "A Bug's Life" and "Playhouse Disney" together and the kids had so much fun hanging out with their best friends!!!  Then it was back to Magic Kingdom for dinner and some awesome rides!!!
I have been so impressed with my kids because they have gone on absolutely every single ride that they have been tall enough to ride.  There have been no complaints and no crying and they have done EVERYTHING!!!!
We all have our favorite rides, but mine is Space Mountain and Indiana Jones!  Abby loved Splash Mountain.  Anne loved Space Mountain and Star Tours.  Caroline loved Big Thunder Mountain.  Dustin loved Midway Mania and the other Buzz Lightyear one.  Lee loved seeing the Characters!  In fact, one of my very favorite things about being at Disneyland was being there with Lee and Dustin and watching how magical it was.  Lee would call out to the characters as they would walk by because he was so excited to see them.  He would keep shouting their names and waving to them from the line while we were waiting to get pictures with them.  It was SO PRICELESS!!!!  Dustin was awed and amazed by everything he saw!  One of my favorite things that he did was when we were going to get lunch.  We told him that we wanted to get pizza.  While we were walking around to find the pizza place, Dustin all of a sudden looked up, pointed to a sign that read Pizza Place and said "We can get Pizza there!"  There was no picture of a pizza and no one around the sign had a piece of pizza. . . . . it was amazing!!!  He is 4!!!!
Anyways, it was so wonderful and magical!  I definitely loved Disneyland and I hope that everyone gets a chance to go there. . . . especially with young children!
Now it's off to visit my Aunt Christie for the weekend!  We are VERY excited about that!