Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

My oldest girl turned 9 last week.  It was another tough one to take, especially when I realized she is now half-way to adulthood.  You'll have to excuse some more nostalgia...

What happened to this smiley 3 year-old?

It doesn't feel like it was that long ago.

Now I have this tall, long-legged, beautiful 9 year old.

Seriously--she's already almost grown out of pants I bought her last fall!

It was a fun birthday with all the usual.  Decorating the house early with Natalie.  German pancakes for breakfast.  Brownies for her class at school.  Popcorn for her friends in our park day group.  She requested beef stew and cornbread for her birthday dinner, followed by cake and ice cream for dessert.  So basically, junk food all day.  What else are birthdays for? ;)

Her cake was a team effort this time.  I frosted it with red frosting (her favorite color) and wrote the lettering:

I'm actually quite proud of free-handing that from a picture off the internet.  

It's supposed to be a Harry Potter font.

Then she went to town decorating the rest:

It's got hearts, flowers, books, a rainbow, and a wand.

She got some fun gifts, too...

Nate was so excited to give her this horse puzzle:

Natalie got her a chocolate frog:

Checking out the wizard trading card:

One thing she asked for this year was a quilt.  I decided that we could make one together, with Grandma's help, and that we'd just give her a cozy blanket she could snuggle up in.

She also got the snow cone maker she was hoping for from Grandma and Grandpa Allen:

We've already been enjoying that one.

And some shoes....

And books from the Utah Allens.

She's loved them! 

Natalie hamming it up with the snow cone syrup:

Cake time!

One of her birthdays requests was going ice skating.  We did that two days later.  

Nate was not a fan:

He lasted about 2 minutes.

Natalie was shaky but she got better.  She lasted for a little while.

Elizabeth was out on the ice basically the whole time.  I was so impressed with her stamina and how much she improved while she was out there.  She loved it.

Elizabeth continues to amaze and impress me.  Just last Sunday, she gave her first talk in Primary that she had written herself.  It was on God's plan for his children.  I helped only slightly with finding scriptures but she wrote everything out.  Not only that, but she paused twice during her talk to look up and speak from her heart.  I was sitting there watching her and feeling that she really is growing up.  I'm so proud of the person she's becoming.  

We do have our struggles, she and I.  She's been known to whine, talk back and argue things to death.  I try hard not to engage in her arguing or we spiral down, down, down to no place good.  It's a hard balance to strike sometimes--explaining the reasoning for things but not allowing her to question and question and never obey.  

One funny thing happened months ago back before we moved and I've been wanting to post about it ever since.  I started this new job jar when I saw the idea on the internet here and then followed the link to here. (I guess she charges for the complete list, now?)  I liked the idea of a slightly more light-hearted job jar.  It really does seem to work when we use it, which is rarely, sadly. 

Anyway, Elizabeth drew this out of the jar one day

This time she wasn't feeling so light-hearted and she angrily handed me this:

I just laughed and laughed.

The other day we got a much nicer note from her taped to our wall:

I don't know if you can read that but basically she gave us a free nap!  It was the first time where I thought: Wow--she is so thoughtful and mature!  She gets that we don't want her to destroy the house making an art project for us to show that she loves us. We just want her to help out.  We responded so enthusiastically about this that she changed it to one nap per week.  We've already enjoyed our first nap on a Sunday afternoon.  Of course I was having scary daydreams/dreams about Elijah somehow getting outside and falling in the pool so I bolted upright and the nap was over.  But, everything was fine.  She did great.  I'm getting excited for when we can let her babysit for real someday.  

Elizabeth still loves Harry Potter with all of her heart.  We finished off her birthday by watching the first movie again.  She loves to read anything and everything.  Her reading level is crazy high so I try to get books that will challenge her a little more.  Mostly I just wander around the library looking for Newberry award winners.  We've found a lot of goods ones this way.  She's doing great in school but really detests doing homework.  She doesn't think it's fair that Natalie doesn't have nearly as much homework.  She has struggled a bit learning her multiplication facts and that has been frustrating.  Still, she always does great on her actual tests and worksheets.   

She still loves arts and crafts, too.  She made this really creative shadow puppet nativity with a flashlight attached to it all on her own for Grandma Lorna and Grandpa Tom for Christmas.  She always has great ideas.  The trouble is actually finishing the projects she starts.  I suppose she gets that from me. She's doing great in piano.  Her hands are getting stronger.  She had a hard time with a difficult chord recently but just said to me that it's not so hard anymore.  She loves the pogo stick she got for Christmas and can now do 80 jumps in a row!

Elizabeth is bright, bubbly, excitable, kind, soft-hearted, thoughtful, smart, funny, a questioner, a learner, and such a wonderful daughter.  We are so blessed to have her.  We love you, Lizzy!

Disneyland!

Well, we did it.  After a lot of talking about it we finally bit the bullet and went to Disneyland.  :)  It was the first time for Joe and the kids, and I hadn't been since I was 8.  What finally got us into action was the fact that Jon and Jaime and their kids were planning their own trip so we decided to tag along with them.  We got 3-day park hopper passes and stayed at a hotel pretty close to the park.  Marsha joined us for one day at the park.  It was quite the weekend!  Fun, definitely, but also exhausting and crazy at times.  We all agreed as we started the drive home that the best part of it all was being with family.  Thanks for the great times guys!

We planned to leave as soon as Joe got off work on Friday night.  He worked like crazy to get things done but still couldn't get off until about 9.  That made for really late night and we didn't get to the hotel until 3am.  Joe had the energy to drive the whole way, thankfully.  But of course Elijah was up when we got there and wouldn't go back to sleep.  We managed to get a few hours of sleep before we were up and at 'em so we could get to the park early.  

We spent the first day at California Adventure...

We split up and I took the girls to go ride California Screamin'.  I was impressed they even wanted to do it.  I was a wimp about rides at their age.  

Before:

During:

Natalie started out the ride excited and yelling and then started saying "I don't like this. I don't like this."  She survived though. :)

After:

They were proud of themselves for doing it.

We splurged on a character lunch at Goofy's Kitchen that day.  We had to wait a long time figuring things out with our reservation in a super-crowded room with hungry kids that kept wandering off.  That wasn't too fun.  By the time it was our turn for pictures with Goofy, Jaime and Joe were still figuring out our meal.  Elizabeth was being weird and didn't want to come.  Hence this awesome picture:

Jon and I with our 7 kids. :)

Once we got in we loved it.  The food was quite good and you can't beat a buffet in the eyes of a kid. The characters were fun, too.

We had a fun stop at the lego store, too.  We were blown away by the lego statues!

We had a lot of fun that day.  Some of the other highlights were:

-Radiator Springs Racers.  That was my favorite ride--perfect amount of thrill and just plain fun.  The kids all loved it.  

-I only got to hear about the Grizzly mountain raft ride but they had a hilarious moment.  Randon wasn't loving that ride, especially getting wet, and when they got to the bottom of the waterfall Jon told him that the worst was over.  Right after he said that, a big wave lapped into the raft right on top of Randon.  Joe and Jon had a hard time not laughing about that.

-Riding the Tower of Terror with Elizabeth.  All of the creepy build-up really worked on her and she was nervous but we had a blast together.

-World of Color!  That was an awesome show.  Our seats weren't great so the kids had a hard time seeing but it was still pretty amazing.  

After a full day at the park, we were all glad for a day off on Sunday.  We tried to go to a local church service but they had stake conference so we missed it.  We had our own little devotional at a park and then went to Huntington Beach.  It was so beautiful there and we had a great time.

I love this one:

Joe took this one of the beautiful sunset:

 Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day so the park was pretty crowded again, especially since we went to Disneyland this time.  We got there early, though, and hit It's a Small World and Toontown before too many people came.

Nate loved that ride! :)

We were some of the first to greet Minnie, Mickey & Goofy:

Nate had been really excited about the Jedi Training Academy and even wore his Star Wars shirt both days since we heard that was a good way to get chosen.  Unfortunately we got there early and he saw the session before ours and then decided he didn't want to go up.  He claimed it was because he "already knows how to Star Wars fight." I went down there and sat with the kids hoping he'd change his mind but he didn't.  All of the other kids got picked and we had fun watching them fight Darth Vader and Darth Maul.

Later on we took turns riding Splash Mountain.  That was as fun as I remembered it.

Waiting with the little boys while everyone else rode:

Joe decided to get this picture because it was so awesome:

Definitely worth it. :)

Then Marsha and I took a turn.  Joe warned me I would get soaked in front!

The crowds and the heat that day made it so we all kind of petered out fast.  We headed back to the hotel early for the dinner buffet they had and then took the kids swimming.

Tuesday was the day we were hoping the parks would be a lot less crowded.  They were better but it seemed like everyone went straight for the same rides we did in the morning.  

Like the Dumbo ride:

We saw Mary Poppins and Bert! We didn't feel like standing in line, though.

Teacups:

 Later on it was back to California Adventure for one more shot at Radiator Springs and some other rides and stuff.

 Joe and Jon went on the Tower of Terror:

Then we got settled in for the Pixar parade.

 

I love this little series:

Eli loved playing on the street:

We loved the parade!  Eli kept pointing and waving at everyone.

After that Natalie got up and danced with this band.

Then we finally got around to buying our t-shirts...

...and taking our only family picture (in the dark, and after Elijah had already fallen asleep--oh well :).

We left straight from there and were home before 1am.  

It was crazy but fun.  I don't think we'll ever be Disneyland regulars.  Elizabeth told me a few days later that Disneyland was her 4th favorite place--after our home, the library, and a park that has room to run around.  I had to laugh at that.  I think our kids may have inherited our aversion to crowds.  Mine was passed down from my dad. Maybe we'll go back someday when the kids are old enough to enjoy all the rides and we don't have to wrestle a toddler into his stroller. :) See you next time, Disneyland!