The Stevenson Story

With Jack turning three next month, we knew it was time to say goodbye to his pacifier for good. We were planning on getting rid of it earlier, but we had a 7 hour plane ride to get through in December, and then with our life being so up in the air, I didn't want to make too many changes in Jack's life at once. Knowing we were going to Disneyland at the beginning of May, I knew I wanted it for the car and to take good easy naps on the trip, but we should be done with it after that. Sooo, for weeks leading up to our Disneyland trip I prepped Jack. I told him after Disneyland we were going to have a big party and tie his passie to a balloon and let it go in the sky and we would say good-bye to it. He understood really well what was going to happen by the time the big day rolled around. We weren't sure if we were going to also let Avey's go as well, but I finally decided we would just lose hers too since it wasn't helping that much at church, and I was afraid Jack ...

Two weeks ago we went to Disneyland as part of our California trip to celebrate my (Eric's) mom and dad's 35 anniversary of getting married in the L.A. temple. What an amazing time. It was definitely worth the wait . Staying in a hotel that is right across the street from Disneyland is a bit mean to the kids though, cause even though they can see Disneyland we still have to wait to go even more. "Open, open, open" Jack and Avey really caught the magic of Disneyland. They loved to see all the Disney characters walking around; granted, we had to make sure we watched a lot of the Disney movies beforehand to make sure the kids knew who they were when they saw them. The whole time Jack kept wanting to see Captain Hook and we almost walked right by him; luckily we happened to turn our heads at the right time to see him in a little cove. Jack was pretty leery about him the whole time and made sure to keep his eye on him, in case he did any funny stuff. Ok we cheated on this...

Last week we went to California as part of a fun trip with Eric's family. It was our first huge road trip with the kids so we were excited to get on the road with our lovely family. Tip #1 for traveling with kids: iPods and pacifiers. We stopped for a potty break (read: changing their diapers) and to stretch our legs. Avey and Jack decided it would be fun to play in our stuffed-to-the-brim trunk. We broke our trip up in two segments, Utah to Nevada and Nevada to California (tip #2 for traveling with kids). We got to Henderson Nevada about 2 PM. Our good friends the Pixtons are there and graciously offered to let us stay to break up our trip. We thoroughly enjoyed their company for awhile. We went to a park near their home which was super fun. Jack is a super climber. We REALLY loved the parks in our friends' neighborhood, with they had more like them in Utah. One of my favorite family pictures from the entire trip (thanks for the good picture random girls hanging out in the pa...