MERRY CHRISTMAS

It is Christmas Eve! I am so excited to sit back and watch my beautiful kids enjoy the magic of Christmas this year. I used to dream of having Christmases full of lots of noise and squeals and little kid sounds, so I am going to try and soak it up as much as possible. I know these special Christmases when the kids are small are going to go by so fast! I wish I could save some of it up and use it later (like when all three of them are teenagers).

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

NOT So Merry.....

Yesterday I was at work sitting in a nice quiet office watching the snow out the window and listening to Christmas music (while diligently working, of course) and feeling pretty good. I was planning on dragging the fam to see some Christmas lights when I got home...then my phone rang. I saw that it was Preston calling and I immediately got a sick feeling in my stomach. I am only at work for half a day a week, so he doesn't usually call me at work (other than at the end of the day to ask me if I am coming home yet). He told me that Corbie had jumped off of our ottoman and hurt her foot. She didn't want to walk anywhere and kept saying "Ow," and "Hurt." He said he was going to put her down for her nap and hope she was magically better by the time I got home.

Unfortunately, she wasn't.

It was just after 5:00 p.m. when Cora woke up and still didn't want to walk, so I ran her down to Instacare (not my favorite place), where they did x-rays and all the usual stuff. Corbie was very brave and did just great, and only cried a little during the x-rays. She was excited to get stickers and suckers from all of the nurses who thought she was the cutest thing ever. Every time one of them left our little room, she would give them a big wave and say "Deek oo! Bye! (Thank you, Bye!") The doctor couldn't find a fracture anywhere on the x-rays, but said that she might have a "toddlers fracture," which are hard to see on x-rays. So, in usual Instacare style, they put a great big splint on Cora's whole entire leg and told me to check with a specialist today.

Unfortunately, it seems that all orthopedic specialists in a 50-mile radius are out of the office until after Christmas. Even Primary Childrens said they couldn't see Cora until next Wednesday at the earliest, and that we should just keep her in the splint "just in case" until then. So broken foot or not, my sweet Corbie is stuck in this monstrosity for Christmas:

She can't bend her leg at all, and is back to crawling around the house, poor thing. It breaks my heart! Why do I keep breaking my babies???!?? **sniff***

To make matters worse, Dax seems to have caught Preston's cold and is feeling pretty miserable today, too. I have been carrying them both around all day, trying to sanitize everything in sight to keep the cold away from the rest of us and wondering how on earth I am going to finish the zillion things I need to do to get ready for Christmas and the six houseguests that are arriving on Friday to stay with us for a week.

Now it is foggy and rainy and I must admit it matches my mood.

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I think I need some cookies!

Christmastime Sunset

Can I just tell you how much I have been loving the sunshine/snow combination we have been having these last couple of days? I just smile every time I am outside or look out the window.

One of my favorite things in winter are those sunsets that turn all of the snow pink. There was one today at my house. I was a little too slow to capture it on camera, but here are the leftovers (which aren't too bad).

Winter Gymnastics Show

(Doesn't she look grown up???)

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Arden is still loving the gymnastics thing. She goes once a week for an hour. Sometime I use that time to run errands with the little kids, but I usually drag Corbie and Dax along for the ride. Luckily for us, they have a viewing area that is kind of enclosed and has some books that Dax and Cora can read while I watch Arden. Dax has found a dinosaur book there, so of course he is in heaven and looks forward to reading the book every week. The kids do pretty good unless some other kids Daxton's age show up in there too. Dax loves other kids....HOWEVER, he usually shows his love by running right up to them and roaring like a dinosaur in their faces. Then, if they smile at him or roar back, he sometimes shows his increasing affection for them by trying to wrestle them to the ground. Luckily, he only tackles other little boys, but most little boys still don't enjoy being tackled onto a tile floor by a dinosaur for some reason. Good thing he is so dang cute!

I am rambling...sorry. Back to what I meant to be posting about: Flips does "shows" twice a year, and Arden's winter show was this week. This is her first show in the "big gym," where she has got to show off her stuff on a real balance beam and real bars, etc. Preston is out of town again this week, and my wonderful parents came down to help me wrestle the little kids so I could record some of the show on video for him (THANK YOU!!)

Here is Arden (the little purple one) doing her "floor routine"

At the end of the show the kids all get to stand up on a podium three at a time and have everyone clap for them.

And then she got a CANDY CANE, which was her favorite part of the evening. (Arden loves candy canes so much she can't bear to eat them. She just saves them up in a paper stocking she made at preschool...it will be a sad day when one of the little kids gets their hands on her stash, which they are bound to do). Rambling again.....sorry. Great job, Arden!

The NO!s and the ABCs

Cora is entering her "terrible two's" a little early. At least the "No" part. Everything for the last week or so gets a great big "NNNO!" from Cora. Here is a conversation we had this morning.

Me: Corbie, do you want some breakfast?
Cora: NO!
Me: No? How about some cereal?
Cora: NO!
Me: Oatmeal?
Cora: NO!
Me: How about some juice?
Cora: NO! Juice?
Me: Do you want juice?
Cora: NO!
Me: Oh, so you don't need a drink?
Cora: NO! Juice Peez!
Me: You want juice?
Cora: NO!
Me: ***sigh***

It is like that all. Day. Long.

Even if she really wants something, she still says NO. I guess she just does it to prove that she can. Dax went through this too, so I know that it will pass someday. I still think of Cora as a baby, so it is sad for me that she is already trying to be so independent! She has to choose what shirt she wears every morning, too. If I try to just grab a shirt for her, she always notices and doesn't let me get away with it.

One of Cora's favorite "movies" (and I use this term very loosely) is the "Letter Factory" DVD from LeapFrog. I got it a few months ago to help Arden with learning to read, but Dax and Corbie love it more than Arden. I let them watch it when we are driving around in the car. Even though it keeps them quiet, I must admit it that listening to that show over and over is pretty painful for me. It is brutally repetitive and pretty dang cheesy, but the twibs LOVE IT. And look at Cora go (sorry for the background noise...that is just how it is around here):

Cora is 19 months old already, and has been doing great in her nursery class. Her nursery leaders told me this on Sunday: "Oh, Cora is doing so great! She is much more well behaved than her big brother!"

Hmmmmmm....Thanks?

Zaugg Mountain

So the big blizzard they were expecting last Tuesday was kind of a let-down. It snowed a little, but the huge white-out wind conditions never materialized up where we live. HOWEVER, it snowed a little bit on Sunday. Like a foot. Or two. Getting all of that snow off of our driveway created a LARGE mountain of snow next to the driveway. The kids wanted to climb it a few days ago. Here is Arden near the summit, and Cora giving up right after leaving base camp:

Arden is our sole summiteer! She conquered Zaugg Mountain!

The kids decided to go where the snow "wasn't as deep," meaning away from the huge piles around the driveway. So, we took a walk down the sidewalk a little, and then Arden went jumping through the snow like a little deer. Dax and Cora couldn't wait to follow. Unfortunately, the snow was still too deep for poor Daxton to move faster than a turtle's pace. His legs were just too short to lift up and over the snow, and he was pushing quite a big pile around after a few steps:

He kept falling over and just laying in the snow yelling "MOM! I FAW DOWN! COME GET ME!" until I would trudge over and pick him up and put him back on his feet:

The snow was almost as high as Corbie's shoulders. Poor Cora couldn't even figure out how to get off the sidewalk and on top of the snow so she could try to follow Dax and Arden. She was not happy:

I know I said that we liked to play in the snow, but this is a little much.

Also, I am almost ready to order my Christmas Cards (see post below....what this girl won't do for some free stuff). If you want to get one, be sure to leave me a comment and I will make sure you are on my list!

Blizzard Time!

It is no secret that I haven't been much of a fan of snow. That might be changing this year. The kids are so excited every time it snows. As soon as they wake up and see snow on the ground they all begging to go outside and play in it. Dax and Arden love to have snowball fights, and Corbie even gets into it, but mostly she just kicks the snow and touches it with her little gloves. We have already built two snowmen this year, and it is not even Thanksgiving! The first snowman was about 2 feet high and took half an hour to make (it is HARD to make a snowman out of one inch of powdery snow!) The one in the picture below was made on Sunday in maybe 10 minutes flat. I actually love playing in the snow with the kids.


However....now a monster blizzard and single-digit temperatures are being forecasted for tonight here in Utah! Arden is excited for more snow, and Daxton really wants to make a snow-dinosaur, but NO WAY am I going outside to build a snowman if the temp is in the teens.

I will cheer from the inside of the window though...

Only one more month until winter officially starts :-)

I Love Shutterfly!

Christmas is coming! Can you feel it? We are only FIVE weeks away, people! Every year I promise myself that I will get my Christmas Cards done and mailed out early, but have I started? Ummmm....no.....

But for those of you who are slackers like me I have some advice. For the past four years we have ordered our cards through Shutterfly.com. They have TONS of cute designs to choose from, from traditional to contemporary and all different sizes and styles. I could spend (and usually do) hours and hours looking through them. They always turn out just how they look on the website. Here is the one we sent out in 2008:

We have used shutterfly.com to create invitations and announcements too. They also have really cute photo gifts that we have given to grandparents in the past. Here are some links to my favorites:

• Photo Christmas Cards: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery
• Photo Gifts: http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts (check out the CenterStage books...Arden has one of the Sesame Street ones and it is so fun!)
• Baby Announcements: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/baby-cards-stationery

And the bestest part is that BLOGGERS GET 50 FREE HOLIDAY CARDS from Shutterfly!! Go to http://bit.ly/sfly2010 YAY!

Now go have fun and make sure you send a card to me!

Sunsets

One of my favorite things about where I live is my unobstructed view of the sunsets. Did anyone see this little beauty yesterday? (Picture from my deck).

I like my sunsets when they happen around 8:00 p.m. instead of 5:00 p.m., but other than that, not too bad!

The Caterpillar Room

Most of you have seen Toy Story 3 by now, right? I finally got to watch it all the way through last weekend at my in-laws. You know that part of the movie when Buzz and Jessie and all of the toys are stuck in the "Caterpillar Room?" You know, the room where all of the little toddler kids play? Where everything is total chaos and everyone is running around crazy and screaming and yelling and banging things against the walls and coloring all over the place and getting everything all sticky and pretty much destroying everything?
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I realized today that I LIVE IN THE CATERPILLAR ROOM.
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We color a lot at our house. Or we used to, maybe we will stop. Cora has started eating the crayons. Not just a bite. She would eat a whole crayon if I didn't stop her. I got tired of constantly digging crayon chunks out of her mouth, so we tried markers. She used to suck on them sometimes, but she recently started biting the tips off of the markers and chewing on them like gum until brightly colored slobber starts pouring down her face. I end up digging those out of her mouth now too. (I tried ball-point pens last week but she took one and colored on the couch with it, so we were back to markers.) I was in the middle of a marker-tip extraction today when I noticed Dax had left the room. I found him in the playroom coloring all over the rug and carpet with a bright green crayon. Lovely. So I grab the Resolve and get to work, with Daxton dutifully sitting on the time-out stair. Corbie sat next to him for a while to keep him company. How sweet! However, when I looked up from my carpet scrubbing she wasn't there anymore. I found her in the bathroom emptying the contents of the garbage can into the toilet. And on and on. The Caterpillar Room.
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It is a good thing they are so dang adorable. Can you tell from these pictures who has the hardest time holding still?
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Hmmmmmmm....

I just have to tell myself that someday I will miss the Caterpillar Room. It is probably a lot better than the Teenage Drama room, right?

Thankful for Adoption

Since it is November, a few of my friends have been posting about things that they are thankful for on their blogs. November is also adoption month, so I thought it would be appropriate to do a post about how thankful I am for adoption.

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Like most people, I never really thought much about adoption. I just assumed that it would be easy to have kids...people have babies all the time, right? For those of you who have never had to deal with infertility, let me just tell you...it is the pits. THE PITS. The years that we were dealing with infertility were some of the most frustrating, darkest, most humiliating and hopeless times in my life.

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Don't get me wrong, I wasn't miserable all the time. Most days I was just fine. I could push it to the back of my mind and just go on with the rest of my life. But then another baby shower or birth announcement would come along and knock the wind right out of me. Even something like just seeing a mom pushing a baby around the grocery store could hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember going to visit my wonderful sister in law Alison in the hospital after she had her third baby. I remember holding that sweet little thing in my arms and just fighting with every bit of my strength not to break down crying in front of everyone. And don't even get me started on Mothers Day.

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Once Preston and I had had enough tests and medical procedures and doctors ruling out pretty much everything that could be wrong, we finally got around to talking about adoption. And from the first time we seriously talked about it, we knew that was how we were going to try and build our family. We have never questioned it since.

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I remember how impatient I was after we had finally finished all of our paperwork and home studies and classes and were officially "in the waiting pool." Every time the phone rang I hoped it was our case worker with good news. It wasn't very long (though it sure seemed long to us) before Arden's sweet birth mother Meloni emailed us. I was at work and it was all I could do not to scream and jump around my office. I can't even tell you how excited and deliriously happy Preston and I were while we shopped for cribs, baby clothes, diapers, bottles, etc. etc. etc.

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I was incredibly lucky to be able to watch Arden be born. It was unbelievable to hold her, and it was love at first sight. It was so hard to leave her in the hospital. It was so hard to wait until we could go back and take her home.

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We spent a lot of that day trying to find a gift for Meloni. We shopped for hours and hours. But how on earth can you find a gift for someone that says "Thank you for making us a family. Thank you for letting me be the mother of your precious baby. Thank you for giving up a piece of your own heart so that the hole in my heart can finally be filled up?" It was impossible, and I can't even remember what on earth we ended up buying. But I hope that she knows how much we love her and how thankful I am to be able to see this beautiful face every day:

Arden was our everything when she was a baby. But we knew our family wasn't complete yet, so we finished our paperwork again right after Arden turned two. Before I even had time to start obsessing about the phone ringing, Dax was on his way.

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Daxton's birth mom, Katy, is one of the bravest people I have ever met. It is amazing to me that she was made such unbelievably hard and completely selfless choices when she was so young. I remember the day we went to bring Daxton home from the hospital. I know it must have been the hardest thing she has ever done to hand that beautiful, perfect boy to me, but she handled everything with such grace that it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I know her heart was breaking, but she put a brave smile on for everyone. I left there in awe of her. And of course in love with the little man in my arms. Now look at him!

Corbie is the "surprise baby" we never in a million years thought we would have. But we are so thankful to have this little pixie in our family. She is so spunky and smart, and has such spirit. She is magical.

I am so glad that Meloni gave us the chance to be her family. It makes me so happy when I see Arden and her little "mini-me" clone playing together. Daxton (my early riser) crawls into her crib with her in the mornings to say hello. It is so sweet to walk in there and see their two little blond heads in her crib bent over a book.

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I am so glad to have these three little tow-heads. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world that I get to look at three such beautiful faces all day. I am so thankful that we can be a family forever. And I am so thankful for Meloni and Katy and for the birth fathers of these sweet kids. Thank you for giving me my family.

I have learned so much through my experience with adoption. I have learned a lot about patience. I have learned a lot about trust. I have learned a lot about sacrifice, unselfishness, and most of all, love. I am so thankful for adoption and the incredible blessing it has been in my life.

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And I am thankful for this guy, who puts up with all of us:

And thanks to Jessica for taking our family pictures again!!!!! You are awesome!!!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!


These are the 2010 Zaugg Family Jack-o-Lanterns!

Witches Witches Witches

We have been trying to squeeze as much Halloweeny fun into the time that is left as we possibly can. (warning: picture overload ahead). Last week we went to the Pumpkin Walk in Syracuse with my sister in law Alison and her family. Here is Arden with her most favorite pumpkin:


In case you can't tell, that is a Michael Jackson pumpkin she is standing next to. Arden LOVED Captain EO at Disneyland, and kept asking to watch it. My sister actually got her hands on a bootlegged copy (don't tell!), and the kids love to watch it. Even Cora yells "EO! EO!" and dances around. Daxton does a hilarious impression of the scary queen in the movie ("SIWENCE! INFIDEWS! YOU FECT MY WORLD WIF YOU PRENENSE!") and Arden has perfected some of the dance moves. There is just NO predicting what these kids are going to latch onto and love.

Here is my handsome Dax in a sea of jack-o-lanterns (this is his "happy face"):

I kept asking Corbie which pumpkin she liked best, and she would just point to whatever three were closest and shriek "DIS ONE! DIS ONE! DIS ONE!"

Up until a few days ago, this October has been sunny, warm, and beautiful. Here are some of the colors that I got to see out my front window every day:

Love it.

Last Saturday we had our annual Zaugg family party at our house, which was the first chance for the kids to wear their costumes. Here is Arden (candy corn witch) and Dax (Sulley from Monsters, Inc.)

Corbie is Minnie Mouse:

We had pizza and treats, a candy treasure hunt, and lots of talking. But my favorite part of the party was the "Mummy Wrap" game, where all the kids wrapped up Grandma and Grandpa in TP until they looked like mummies:

What good sports, and the kids LOVED it. It was supposed to be a race, but in the end it was all about the craftsmanship for these little mummifiers.

Besides Arden, there were three other little witches at the party:

Yesterday was Arden's Preschool Halloween Party. Here is Arden with her awesome preschool teacher, who was also a witch (notice the horrifying white stuff on the grass. Scary!)

Arden's friend was a witch too. Her other best preschool friend was Harry Potter, and a wizard is as close to a witch as a little boy can get, right?

Before the party the kids sat on the steps and sang some Halloween songs for us. Dax had been happily eating the snow before the songs, but when I turned around I couldn't see him. He had sneakily made his way in with the preschool kids and sat down next to Arden. So all the moms got pictures of the preschool class, plus Daxton. Sorry everyone! He was so excited to be "in preschool," and ran after the kids when they went up to the classroom. I had to physically drag him out of there.

Last night was our neighborhood Halloween Party. It was really fun, and TONS of people showed up. The kids got to "trick or treat" around the classrooms, then they "listened" (and I use this term very loosely) to a Halloween story:

Then it was up to the gym for games, talking, entertainment and more TREATS! They had some delicious donuts and sugar cookies. Can you guess what color of frosting the cookies had?

I feel so sorry for whoever had to clean up after this little shindig. Root beer and frosting was everywhere!

It has been a really fun Halloween season so far, and the kids are really excited about the trick-or-treating on Saturday. I have been trying to get Corbie to say "Trick or Treat!" but she just smiles really big and yells "TEET!" She doesn't want to give anyone a choice, just give her the treat!

Those Tricky Treats

Here is a VERY small sample of some of the reasons why I LOVE Halloween:


Aren't my cupcake holders cute? These are the ONLY spiders I am happy to see. Though they don't look very happy to see ME, do they? It is probably because they all just witnessed what I did to one of their friends. And they are wondering which one of them is next...


Mmmmm, sugar cookies! The kids had fun helping with these, though more frosting and chocolate chips were eaten than made it onto the cookies.
Then Preston made these little caramel/chocolate beauties this afternoon. Heav-en-ly.

However, I gotta admit that my tummy isn't feeling the greatest after this latest weekend of gluttony. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten those last three cookies after dinner.

I guess this is the part of the day when I stop blogging and hit the treadmill. :-)

Pumpkin Patch 2010

Another year has gone by and it is time again to pick some perfect pumpkins at Pack's Farm Pumpkin Patch! We had a few to choose from....

I don't know why, but our annual trip to the pumpkin patch always seems to start me thinking about our past trips and how much the kids have changed.

Arden is now four and a half years old! Sometime in the last year she totally and completely gave up taking a naps, which was a total and completely bummer (for me). She is growing up a lot and is even starting to sound out words a little bit. She loves preschool and playing with her friends, and misses playing soccer now that the season is over. She is so beautiful and takes such good care of her little brother and sister.

Dax has grown A LOT from last year when he was 16 months old until now at almost 2 1/2! He is seriously huge. And as he has gotten bigger, he has gotten LOUDER. He is constantly running around and roaring like a dinosaur (or a lion, or a tiger, or a gator...pretty much anything that roars) and he loves to wrestle and tackle. But he is like a tootsie pop, and underneath his rough exterior he has a softer sweeter center too. He carried this little white pumpkin around like it was a baby all day, and even tried to take it with him into bed at naptime (he only dropped it a few dozen times).

He loves his sisters. Every SINGLE time Arden goes to preschool, as soon as she is out of sight, Daxton looks at me with the saddest little face and says, "Mom, I miss her. I miss her, Mom." Soo cute.

Cora turned 18 months old this week. My baby is 18 months old. Is she even a baby anymore?

What is the baby cutoff? 1 year old? 2 years old? I know that by the time Dax was 18 months old I thought of him as a big boy. That was probably because he did seem so big compared to 8-month-old Cora. But since she is the youngest I still think of Corbie as a baby, whether that is fair or not. I am going to keep thinking of her as a baby for as long as I possibly can, because I am just not ready to let this baby part of my life to be over yet. But it is slipping away from me so quickly.

Today was Corbie's first day of nursery, and she did amazingly well. She wasn't sad at all when Preston took her down and was happily playing with some toys when he left. After a little while, Dax had to get his diaper changed so they brought him up to me. Apparently Corbie was sad when he left and so they brought her up to me while I was changing Dax. But I took them both right back down to nursery together, and Cora stayed the rest of the time without crying at all.

I was relieved that Cora was doing so well in nursery, but as I sat there in RS, I couldn't help but feel sad that there was no one in my lap or crawling around by my feet. I missed it a lot more than I thought I would. :-(

When I went to go pick up the kids from nursery, I peeked through the window. Cora was quietly sitting on the quilt watching everyone sing "Once there was a Snowman" (well, everyone except Dax, who was running around crazy and roaring).

Here is one last shot of my beautiful kids at the pumpkin patch.
Is it just me, or as the days get shorter and the nights get cooler....does anyone else feel the need to gorge themselves with chocolate?

Halloweentime at Disneyland

Last week we took our first trip to Disneyland at Halloweentime!

Disneyland was all decked out in Halloween decorations. Everything on Main Street was all decorated in oranges and yellows, and there were pumpkins EVERYWHERE. Mickey and friends were all dressed up in their Halloween outfits too. Grandma and Grandpa Zaugg came with us, and we met up with Preston's sister and her family who live in Spokane. It was good to see everyone and we all had a great (if exhausting) time. I wasn't very good at taking pictures, but my brother in law, Clint took a ton of photos, so I am hoping to get a few good shots from him. In the meantime, here are a few pictures that I did manage to take.

Here is Arden on her most favorite ride, the teacups. They usually aren't my cup of tea (HA!), but I don't really mind them too much because I can turn the wheel the wrong way and make it so the cup I am in doesn't spin at all. :) Dax and Cora don't mind riding with me, but Arden and the bigger cousins thought I was the most boring teacupper EVER. I told them it was better than having me get sick all over them.

Arden was tall enough this year that she could go on some of the bigger rides. Before the trip so said she was so excited to go on all of the fast, fast roller coasters. We threw her on Space Mountain, which was tricked out for Halloween with scary flaming ghost-like things that chased you around through space. It is pitch black dark in there so I couldn't see her face during the ride at all, but as soon as it was over I asked her if she was okay, and she shook her head NO. She pretty much hated that ride. They take a picture of you while you are on the ride and then you can see them as you walk out. Arden's eyes were HUGE and the look on her face was pure, unadulterated terror. Poor little thing! She was still brave and went on Thunder Mountain (didn't like it), Splash Mountain (liked it all except for the big hill), and the Matterhorn (which for some reason she liked). Dax was tall enough for the Matterhorn and he liked it too. Brave kid. I didn't let Arden even attempt the Tower of Terror because I knew she would hate it and probably come out permanently afraid of elevators (LOVE that ride!)

Dax's favorite rides were the Jungle Cruise and the rockets. He also really liked the part on the train ride where there are "DINO-FORS!" Big Thunder Ranch was all decorated for Halloween, and even the petting zoo animals had Halloween neckerchiefs on. Here is a picture of Dax and a goat smiling at each other:

Weird, huh? Freaky little goat.

Dax's LEAST favorite ride was the Haunted Mansion, which was taken over by the Nightmare Before Christmas for Halloweentime. He HATED it. Oh well. Hopefully no permanent damage was done. Cora actually liked that ride, and pointed out all the pumpkins as we went along ("PUCKINS!")

We went without a nap for the first day or two, but Daxton still needed his and would fall asleep pretty much wherever. He fell asleep in the middle of watching Captain EO (Sidenote: I don't remember Michael Jackson's backup dancers having such incredibly cheesy hair. If you are ever at Disneyland, be sure to catch Captain EO if for no other reason than to see the amazing mullets). He slept a lot on the stroller, which he doesn't quite fit in anymore:

Dax wasn't the only one who was worn out. I think that we walked poor Grandpa and Grandma Zaugg into the ground. Here is a picture of them waiting for the Muppet 3D show to start:

I am pretty sure the Grandpa took a little nap right there on the floor. They were both great sports, and the kids loved playing with them.

Cora loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on TV, so she was excited to see Mickey, and kept yelling "Mouse! Mouse!" whenever she saw him. But when it was our turn to have our picture taken with Mickey himself, she wasn't quite sure what to think. She touched Mickey on the nose and looked at him funny. I suppose she was wondering why Mickey didn't talk to her?

Corbie also really liked the jungle cruise, and especially loved pointing out all of the animals. She of course loved the carousels, both the one at Disneyland and the one over on the California Adventure side:. Here she is riding on at otter (I was riding on a much taller fish with Dax when I took the picture).

She is so cute. We watched the Pixar parade one day, and she danced and waved all through it, it was hilarious! One of my favorite moments from the trip was riding on the Dumbo with Dax and Cora while everyone else rode the Matterhorn. They were both just so excited to be flying on that elephant, and had huge smiles on their little faces. It just made me so happy to see them having so much fun.

Arden, of course, always enjoys a ride on the carousel too:

We flew in on Wednesday morning and flew out on Saturday night, which was the perfect length for the trip. It was long enough that we were able to see everything we wanted to see and ride on all of the rides we had to ride on. But we were all pretty tired by the time we got home, and I know I was ECSTATIC to get home to my own bed (and to get the kids in their own beds all the way down the hall from me!)