Cali Turns 13

On Sunday Cali turned 13.

We are officially a house of teenagers.

No more kids.

This year my baby became a teenager, and my oldest will become an adult.

Life phases.


Cali has been obsessing over the Netfilx show, Stranger Things.  She's watched both seasons about six times through now.  Her entire wardrobe now consists of Stranger Things t-shirts.

So when I saw that one of the actors, Gaten Matarazzo, was going to be at this year's ComicCon, I had no doubt as to what her birthday present would be.

So I bought ComicCon tickets and we'll sign up for her to meet, and get a picture and autograph with him.

Cali's birthday fell on Sunday this year, which was also Kyle LeCheminant's homecoming from his mission, which meant that Makenzie, who I share a brain with, was back at church visiting.

And I miss her.

My girls:

Me, Makenzie Anderson, Crystal Bartlett

And our not so weekly, weekly Sunday picture, also my girls:

They're growing up.

Happy birthday, Cali.

You're going to rock this teenager thing.

In Which I Got Very Behind and Now Do a Catch Up Post

As it tends to go, I got a little overwhelmed with life.

It's been a harder semester with both math 1050 and Spanish, plus working full time, and also trying not to slack as a mother and a wife altogether.

Which didn't happen, but after a slap of reality I pulled it back together and realized where my priorities need to be, even while working and going to school.

No other success can make up for failure in the home.

I don't want to fail in my home.

As it is, the blog got set to the side for a few weeks.

And now I get to show all the incredibly random things that have kept us hopping.

Like Cali's birthday party at Hollywood Connections.

Where Grandma Julie gave Cali some ice cream cones for part of her birthday present, and we then used them to back the cupcakes in and top with ice cream on sundae toppings.  

Our local grocery store had a week where they invited schools to decorate check stands and come in and do...

Well...

This:





...all through the entire store.  Over and over.

The walking around behind the mascot, not the rapping.

Though the rapping was quite good.

A few months ago I saw a groupon for Harlem Globetrotters tickets, and as the Harlem Globetrotters have been on my bucket list since I was a kid, I jumped at the chance to go.

For "bring your parent to school day" we decided to just join the girls for lunch.  We showed up with Panda Express and Subway cookies and hung out with them at the Middle School for that part of their day.

It would have been helpful if they'd all have the same lunch, but what do you?  The Man helped me study Spanish flashcards in between lunches.

A random pic of the girls tromping into church on a windy day.

As it turns out, we have all six kids going to the orthodontist.

I'm not sure how this happened since none of their parents ever had the need for orthodontia, but *sigh* I guess that doesn't matter.

The orthodontist (who is awesome by the way, if you need one hit him up here and tell him we sent you) checked out these three, thought he was done, and then was shocked when he realized the rest of his chairs were also filled with our kids.

The orthodontist has become a family outing.

I think that brings me up to date on all the little goings on.

I have a really fun roadtrip post to do, and I still have the 10k run post to do, complete with a discount run.  It has inflatable jump houses in it!  The run, not the post.  We also need to plan our Very Merry Unbirthday Tea Party for our Disneyside Home Party ( a HUGE thanks to Disney for the fun swag for that one!).

But first, a Spanish test tonight.

Then we'll get on with the rest of it.

Midway Ice Castles

Yesterday Cali turned nine.

Because she thinks she can do that or something.

She also thinks she gets to choose Olive Garden for her one on one birthday lunch... which she does.

This girl is all spit fire and sass.

So for her birthday we decided to cool her off a little bit by taking her to see the ice castles in Midway.

And can I just say, this is a must see.  Like, you need to see this at least once in your life.  You have to.

There were tunnels, tunnels that ended in a slide, Olaf, a waterfall, "slot canyons", and all sorts of nooks and crannies everywhere we looked.

And the textures with the lighting.  I was in awe with it all.  The Man said he wished we would've gone in the daylight so he could see all the texture of the ice better, but honestly, I couldn't get over the way the light hit it.  I think either way you see it is going to be spectacular.

And though we haven't seen Frozen yet (I know, I know, but seriously, when you have eight people in your family it's around $80 to see a movie, and that's without treats!  We have to patiently wait for the movies to show up at the local dollar theater), we knew Olaf when we saw him.

(Though the flash was killing them while they tried to pose with him).

We found an awesome ice throne.

You know it's good when all six kids insist that they need a picture on it.

If you don't have plans this weekend, we highly recommend going and seeing this.  Day or night.
You can find the information on the website here.

The ice castles will open through the end of February.

Just don't forget to layer up.

Baby, it's cold outside!

We got to watch some ice maintenance with a chain saw going on.  And we saw a demonstration with a guy sculpting the ice with a blow torch.  How awesome is that?

Also, while we were there they brought in this piano:

Apparently the Piano Guys are going to be filming a video there in the next few days.  I can't wait to see it!

Have I convinced you yet?

Go see it already!

Also, this is the part where I say I did receive compensation of free entry to the ice castles in exchange for writing this post, but absolutely, 100% the opinions, experience, and pictures are all my own.