Happy Birthday Ashlyn!!!

Yesterday, the blog wouldn't let me put pictures on, so this is posted a day late...

7 years ago, Ashlyn Marie joined our little family. We were so excited to have a girl! So much has happened since then, and we are so happy to have this sweet & spunky girl in our family!

The things I remember most about when Ashlyn was little was her blue eyes (that everyone commented on), her bald head until she was about 2, her love for babies since she was very little, her ability to make people smile, her fiesty personality at age 2 (and 3 and 4 and 5), and her special bond with her dad.

Ashlyn has become such a sweet girl! She loves animals, especially babies, and whenever she sees a baby animal she says "Awww". She has lots of pet stuffed animals that she loves to play with. She also loves school and playing with her friends at recess. One thing I have been surprised about is that she does not like being the center of attention. (I wonder where she got that from...) When she was little, she loved it and was not afraid of anyone. It has been so fun to see Ashlyn growing up and learning new things. I can't believe it's been 7 years!!!

It was so fun to look back through pictures of Ashlyn and have so many memories come back to me. I know that I'm very biased, but do they get much cuter? I think we are in trouble, because I already think she is gorgeous, and she's only 7!

Here are my favorite pictures over the past few years.

This is the first picture we took of Ashlyn after
finally buying a digital camera
(Now we need to scan all the other pictures)

Wearing dad's cowboy hat

This one shows her personality as a toddler!

This picture shows off her little piggy-tails on top.
She FINALLY got hair around age 2 &
I was super excited to do it!

FINALLY a big sister!

Seriously, do they get much cuter?!

Playing dress-up with best friend/cousin McKayla

All dressed up for the Daddy Daughter Ball

Starting 1st grade

Decorating her birthday cake

Happy Birthday Ashlyn! We love you!

Temples

This is my last post about our California trip. While we were out there, we decided to go see the temples nearby. We like to take a picture of our kids in front of the different temples and hang them up in our house. We were able to visit 5 new temples on this trip and we are all excited to put them up on our wall!

Las Vegas Temple

San Diego Temple

Newport Beach Temple

Los Angeles Temple

Redlands Temple

This brings our total pictures to 13 temples! Sadly, we realized that we don't even have a picture of the closest one to us, the Provo Temple. We will fix that shortly!

Sea World

None of us had ever been to Sea World, so we decided to go while in California. John & I liked the shows the best, and the kids liked the carnival type rides there. My complaint was that it was so hot there! There is practically no shade, so you are pretty much in the sun ALL DAY LONG! I got a pretty good sunburn that day, but not really anyone else, which was good.

Our favorite show was, of course, the Shamu show

Jacob was NOT HAPPY about being soaked! I think he just didn't
know he would get wet, so it scared him a little

A giant turtle

Ashlyn touching a starfish

Jacob touching a starfish

Jayden touching an anemone

I'm glad we went to Sea World, but I don't think I would want to keep going back. It was sort of a one time thing for us, but maybe I'm still a little mad I got sunburned...

The Beach

We stayed in a condo in Oceanside for a week and it was a very short walk to the beach (a block away). We had a beach/relaxing day every other day to make sure we didn't wear ourselves out on vacation. It was just the right amount!

Their first ocean experience!

A little nervous

Jacob immediately ran as far from the water as he could!

Perfectly happy to play in the sand, which was his favorite part of the ocean!

Starting to warm up to the water

This is the only way we could get Jacob to play in the water

Finally after a couple minutes of holding him, Jacob put his feet in

A big wave came... He went back to the sand after that

Later that day, we walked down the beach to check out the pier, and then played some more while the sun set.

This is proof that I was there! I am normally behind the camera (and happy there!)

It was fun to stay by the beach, but I would not want to live there. It was a pain trying to keep all the sand out of the condo. Plus the humidity was a pain for my hair. I would wake up every morning with crazy hair! Jacob keeps asking when we can go back. I think he had fun!

Disneyland

We just got back from the funnest vacation ever! We got to go to California for 10 days (it went by WAY too fast!) and spent 3 of those days at Disneyland. It was everyone's first time going except Johnathan. We all had so much fun and didn't want to come back, but I guess that's usually how vacation is. I am going to do 4 posts from all our vacation fun, so check back for more pics.

Here are my favorite pics from our Disneyland experience.

Goofy was Jacob's very favorite character, which fits his personality

Jacob refused to stand by the "bad guy"- a.k.a. Queen

I loved the Bugs Life area. Walking around under the huge clovers was cool (literally)

Jayden got picked to do the Jedi Training which made his day!

Fighting Darth Maul

Crazies in a cage

I feel like everything worked out perfectly at Disneyland! It was not very busy at all, longest wait time was probably 30 minutes, and average wait time was about 15 minutes. It wasn't too hot either. I was really impressed with our hotel that we stayed in while at Disneyland. They gave Ashlyn a HUGE present (bag FULL of stuff) and had a yummy breakfast & dinner. Everything on our trip just went so well! I am so glad we were able to go have so much fun together as a family!