California Here We Are

In the middle of February we took a week off and took off to California. And we were lucky enough to see the Evelyn family on the way there and the way back.

Cora and Emi have matching jammies and Love being together especially when they both have them on :)

 The Evelyn Family took us to an awesome Childrens Museum in St. George that was so fun, the girls loved it. Mike was a great help caring for Princess Cora :)

Daddy teaching Cora about Physics :)

 This may be my favorite picture of the whole trip. I love it so much.

 Pretty Becca and Baby Johnny.

Chad and Madalyn recording some rockin tracks.

After the museum the kids spashed around in this fountain for a bit before we continued on our trek to the land of sunshine. 

 The first day in California we got to go the the LA Zoo. I was really excited to go to the zoo because I haven't been to a big one or any really if you don't count Willow Park Zoo for a long time. And I knew the girls would love it, and I was right. We were going to go to San Diego Zoo but decided to just do LA because it was closer, cheaper, and still had all sorts of great animals. I was glad that we did because LA was just the right size to see mostly everything and Cora feel asleep on our way out. We couldn't have gone much longer anyways :)

 The pictures mostly explain themselves so just enjoy :)

 The hippos were probably our favorite

 So this alligator looking thing does have a good story behind it.  It was literally the last animal we looked at and so I took a picture and as I was putting my lens cap back on it dropping into this beasty animals water... opps... Lucy was quite beside herself  that we needed to get it out and cried most of the way out.

 The next day we got to enjoy the beach and it was very enjoyable indeed. It wasn't super super hot but it was comfortable to be outside in swimsuits and the girls definitely thought it was perfect to swim in the water.

 I knew that Cora would like the beach but both girls loved it more that I thought. So it was a great day. :) Thanks again to the Jackson family for showing us the ropes of the busy streets of Cali and letting us crash their house. It was a blast!

 
Cora had been playing beach at home during quite time so was really excited to bring home all sorts of shells to play with. She was one happy girl. We beat the Jackson's back to their house so we had a few minutes to kill so we have a few shots with each girl, i love them both.

 We got to hangout with the Evelyn's again on our way home and loved every single second of it. They had an awesome pecan tree in their back yard that were so tasty and we even got to take some home with us. 

It was so fun to enjoy time together as a family and see people that we love along the way. :)

February

 Our February was full of love and had a few days of Ice cream in it. For some reason we don't eat ice cream very much at our house. When I see it at the store I think that looks delicious so I sometimes get it and we have one night of cones or brownies and ice cream but then the rest of it always goes to waste! I don't know what our deal is (its not that we don't like it cause we do)but hopefully one day will can fix it and eat all the ice cream and not let it sit in our freezer for 3 months then I finally throw it away :)

The girls love to help me cook in the kitchen no matter what we are making. They are getting pretty good and it is teaching me more patients then teaching anything for them. And it often involves a bit of mess 

Cora's quite time often gets quite creative. I don't really care what she does as long as she is quite and stays in and/or near her room. On this day she had set up a house for Minnie and had all sorts of mess I mean fun with her.

 

So realize that these pictures are all messed up but I can not figure out the formatting today so ya get what ya get. :)
I just couldn't leave any of these pictures out because it give you all a taste of 2 minutes with Lucy. She is full of faces and always so cute. And also a few pictures from a funny face contest we were doing :)

Lucy is a really great sleeper there have only been a handful of nights since she was one that I have gotten up with her. and as a result she often wakes up with some pretty amazing morning/nap hair.

Cora's amazing Aunt Lexie gave her an American Girl Doll this past summer and Cora LOVES to play with her. One this day they were both princesses.

The Olympics was this February and we quickly set up the tradition of popping popcorn and watching it until bed time. It only comes around every 4 years right? :) So we lived it up.

For Valentines day we had a day full of love. Cora got her first holiday inspired hair style and she was so proud of it. We had dinner together then all went bowling it was so fun.

Our library story time did a fun activity/goal for the kids. They each got a notebook and were challenged to read or be read 1000 books before kindergarten. For each 100 books they got a sticker to put in their notebook, Cora reached the goal in about 6 months and was excited to get her final prize of a super soft Lion. :) She loves to read