The Great Bradley Adventure-Road Trip and Beach

Road trips, Christian and I both have fond memories of road tripping with our families while growing up and we were excited to share that with our kids. So we packed up the mini van and took off to California. Now we were a tad worried taking a 4 month old but other than some crying spells she was a champion car traveler and she slept like a log in a hotel room with all of her siblings and parents. It was so much fun and the kids enjoyed the drive and listening to Fablehaven #5 (one day we will finish that series). 

Matt found our throw up bucket and thought it was funny to put his face in it. Later on he was looking for the "hat" (lid) so he could wear that too. 

One of the best things about road tripping is stopping at fun tourist attractions. The bad thing...paying $4.99 a gallon in gas because it is the only gas available. 

We stopped and got some Alien Jerky at an "alien viewing" sight.
They were also trying to raise funds to build a hotel...

Matt made a new friend

Stopping at the world's largest thermometer! Awesome. 

 We only had two hours to drive the next morning and decided to visit the Newport Temple. The grounds were closed but we did take a couple of pictures. We also discovered an awesome echo point that we all had to try.

We went to Newport Beach after, Matt had been asking for months to visit the beach and see the ocean. So we spent a few hours at the beach. Matt was a little hesitant at first, he wasn't a big fan of the sand, but it only took a little bit to make him a beach bum. He didn't even cry when a wave knocked him over.

I didn't even have to pay for the birds and old surfer in the back,
 thanks for being obliging California. 

"Mom, what if we lived in California? That would be the best thing in the world."
Some times I think the same thing. 

Abby seemed to enjoy the sand

right up to the point the water touched her skin

Side note, this little girl is turning into a beautiful young woman

This one too. 

We ended our visit to the beach with a fish and lobster lunch (yup, even Matt and I were adventurous) and a visit to Poppa's favorite doughnut shop.

We left the beach just in time as a storm rolled in. We made it to our hotel and after showers we went to dinner at Downtown Disney. 

When we vacation in Disneyland we eat family style. It saves us a bit of money as we can never determine how much each kid will eat and we get sample quite a bit. We did quite enjoy the pizza we had that night.

Biggest Pizza ever makes James happy. 

 Matt was impressed with the balloon artist. He requested a Spider-Man that became his bestest bud all week long. There were some tears shed the moment when Spidey fell apart due to lack of air at the end of the week.

So that is part one of our great Bradley Adventure. Coming soon- Disneyland!!!

Abby-four months

The past four months have just flown by, I barely remember the sleepless evenings now that I am getting full night sleep most days. Abby is a happy child, just a sunny personality and all smiles. She is such a blessing in our lives and in our family. She has started to giggle and now all the kids (and mom and dad) try and see who can coax the little giggle out of her. She is a joy!

I love how much he loves his little sister 

All dressed up and ready for church

Happy Halloween from Super Girl

Abby was blessed on November 1st. She wore the blessing gown I wore-36 years ago. It has held up pretty well. 

Abby on her blessing day

I am so grateful that my Nan is around to met Abby. Abby is lucky enough to have two great grandparents alive right now

Great Grandpa Bradley is the other great-grandparent. He is a wonderful man who just loves his family

Grinning Ghosts Come Out to Socialize!

As a kid I remember that Halloween really was one day. You wore your costume for the school party and then later for trick-or-treating. If you were lucky there might be another party that you could wear your costume for but that was only if you were super lucky.  It seems my kids are wearing their costumes to many things during the month of October, I really like that, I think it is a lot more fun. 

Red Riding Hood, Katniss Everdeen, Supergirl, Ninja, and Spiderman

My kids started planning their costumes way back in August, I think that is when I bought Matt's (Thanks Prime Day, you may have sucked for everyone else but I got an awesome Spidey costume out of it-oh and diaper wipes) and the other kids poured through catalogs their mom had sent to pick the right one. So come October 1st we were ready.

Our first celebration was with Matt's preschool. Because his teacher was going to be gone over Halloween he celebrated a week early- it was awesome. 

I loved the abundance of super heroes...gotta love 4 year olds. 

Then a week before we had our traditional Bradley Family Spooky food party. There was so much delicious food- it was incredible. Plus the kids had a lot of fun. 

I love the kids with all of their cousins. So many friends, it is great.  

Abby was a pretty good sport, I think she enjoyed the attention. 

I went back and forth and got opinions on Abby's costume this year. We ended up with Supergirl but those who voted for Wonder Woman, fear no. That costume is currently in her closet waiting to be pulled out for Comic Con this spring. Yes, I do realize that my children have absolutely no chance.

We did the ward Trunk or treat the week before Halloween. The kids had fun getting a ton of candy and playing with friends.

Have I mentioned the little kids and super hero thing? 

So we were procrastinating parents this year. We bought our pumpkins on Halloween (we tried to grow them but due to a variety of circumstances we did not get one pumpkin this year), we had to go to two different stores to actually find pumpkins to carve and we were picking the bottom of the barrel there. Lesson learned.

Laine got her pumpkin cleaned out and ready to go before everyone else. 

Matt cleaned out most of his pumpkin on his own. Just a little help from parents.

Eve had a great design but quickly learned that you need more than a sliver of pumpkin between the Jack-o-Lantern's nose and mouth. 

James picked a pumpkin that had trouble standing up (bottom of the barrel, remember?). So he got creative and carved it on it's side. 

After pumpkins were carved we went and trick-or-treated the many grandparents. The kids love it

Trick or treat!!!

..I think the grandparents do too.

Hello, we're here on a top secret mission to collect all the world's candy. 

We finished out our Halloween celebrations with a party with some of our Bellamy family, topped off with Trick-or-Treating with cousins

Even Grammy and Poppa got in on the the fun.

So happy Halloween from my little goblins and ghouls...and thanks for the sweet treats!

Happy birthday Miss Eve

 Miss Eve turned 11, last week. I can barely believe it, she turned five just a few weeks after we started dating and part of me still sees her as that bubbly five year old who always wore skirts. 

Eve is growing up into such a lovely young lady with a very giving personality. She dotes on her youngest brother and sister. She loves to tell them stories and play games. She makes work fun for Matt, turning bed making into a pirate ship game, or vacuuming becomes a detective game. Eve is very artistic and loves to spend time painting, drawing, coloring, designing, basically doing anything that requires creativity. She is our girly girl who has grand dreams of visiting Paris and is starting to love shoes.  Eve is also very intelligent. 

It wasn't a birthday party year for Eve but she got to celebrate with an afternoon tea! Followed by a birthday dinner and family party! She ended the evening by watching 'The Slipper and the Rose', a girl after my own heart. 

Tea time! 

Eve got to invite one friend for tea, she picked Kate. She and Kate are peas in a pod and just have a good time together. They are talking about homesteading a bit of land at Kate's house. 

Matt thought Eve might need help to open her presents. This girl got art supply after art supply. 

Chocolate Hazelnut cake...she knows how to pick the good stuff. 

Happy birthday dear Eve, we love you and are so grateful you are part of our family.

Fall Fun

I wanted to compose an ode to fall for this blog but then I remembered that I have a very strong dislike for any poetry not written by  Robert Frost so that was out. But I love fall, there are so many things to love about it- the colors (even if they only last like a day here in Utah), football, the weather, and the cooking- I love the cooking. I bake up a storm during the fall I love working with apples, pumpkin, butternut squashes, carrots. There is just something about fall which makes me happy. Maybe it is warm socks and sweaters, I really don't know. 

We also seem to be a bit more active in the fall, that could have something to do with the cooler temperatures, or the fact that we are back in the routine of school and I find it easier to do organize activities. 

So this fall we've had a bit of fun. We took a "hike" around Silver Lake, this "hike" was stroller and Matt friendly so that helped. Even with those things going for it Matt still was whiny by the end...that may have something to do with the fact we didn't feed him before we went, parenting fail. 

Look mom is making us take pictures again. Pretend like you are having fun. 

I'm pretty sure Abby was angry at me because of the sun in her eyes

Dad decided to play a rousing game of tag- It was fun. 

During the school's fall break we took a trip to the Leonardo. I had never been there before and was super impressed. The kids had so much fun with their hands on exhibits. However we ended up leaving when I had two out of the five kids in tears. Abby, because she was hungry and tired and Matt because I wouldn't let him buy anything from the gift shop. 

Eve showed off her piano talents! 

Matt reminded me why we will never have drums in our home, but hey he had  a ton of fun while he was doing it. 

James loved the animation stuff they had going on. 

On the second day of fall break we went up to the zoo with Grammy. It seemed like everyone else had the same idea as the parking lot was packed, the zoo seemed less crowded though...not sure how that works.  Christian insisted after the Leonardo fiasco that Abby stay at home with him and take a nap so I just had the older four- it made it so much easier.

My  kids love this picture. They just climb on and pose and expect a picture to be taken. One day I am going to assemble all of the pictures on this rhino- I think I could create a photo book of just those.  

Matt wanted a picture with his otter friend

Matt really, really liked my Diet Coke. he asked to have a picture with it. 

First time we ever had to wait in line for the carousel. Did I mention the zoo was crowded? 

Selfies with Grammy or what happens when Mom leaves her phone with them. 

So that has been our fall so far- so many activities and super baking.  There is even so much more fun around the corner!! Oh fall, thou almost persuadest me to write you poetry...almost.

Kung fu soccer

My kids have never been much into sports. They have tried most of them but unlike most families we don't spend our spring and fall Saturday mornings on the soccer field. However Matt is old enough to play and so we spent the last month of Saturdays (and Tuesday nights) watching Matt do something...I'm pretty sure it wasn't soccer. 

See what usually happened was something like this:

during warm ups he would actually play and do what he was supposed to do. 

Slowly the game would progress and instead of paying attention to anything he would start posing and occasionally do some made up karate/kung fu moves. 

This would continue the entire time he was on the field.

Until he noticed I had my camera out. At this point he would tell everyone it was time to stop and take pictures...yes this did happen while the game was in progress.

After about ten minutes of watching the ball pass him by and all the other kids run around while he was walking around with his arms in his sleeves imitating a raptor , he would decide he was tired tell the coach he was ready to be done. 

So that was our soccer experience, it cracked me up every time he played.  But he seemed to enjoy it and keeps asking when his next ball sport is. 

Abby- 3 months

Somehow, I am not quite sure how, Abby is now three months old. It is funny, I don't feel that she has been with us that long but at the same time I can't remember a time without her. She is growing fast and has now accomplished great feats like holding her head up and grabbing things. This girl is also a champion drooler, no joke I change her clothes at least twice a day. 

She is also is just a cuddle bug. She loves church as there is a new person wanting to hold her at every turn...I kinda like that too.

Abby moved into her crib this month, breaking my heart but allowing me a tad more sleep. She sleeps quite well and there are even a few nights each week that I get to sleep through the night. 

Things mom does when she is bored and dad is out of town. 

Abby is all smiles until I pull out my phone or camera. So I have to be sneaky to catch one of her grins

Matt was more excited to hold Abby during his soccer game than he was to play soccer

Her head is finally big enough to wear a headband!!! Oh and girl clothes are so much more fun. James and I couldn't get over the tutu thing.