Our baby is 4!

I can't believe how fast 4 years can fly by. I'll admit I still like to think of Adin as a baby so I am frequently shocked when he does big boy things. This birthday has been anticipated for him since the rest of us had birthday's throughout the summer. I knew he would be a fun birthday boy, but he was even more excited than I thought. He was so animated and excited about everything. I loved it.



Don't look too closely at the cake. Meg convinced him to have a zhu zhu pet cake back in March. He has talked about his zhu zhu cake ever since. Why are they both so obsessed with these things? Adin is well practiced at holding up 4 fingers and has been showing/telling store clerks everywhere we go. He also thinks he is somehow now bigger and stronger than he was before.

This gift was spoiled when he saw the tip of the handle sticking out from under the tarp in the garage.

I always let the kids pick their favorite dinner. Adin's not necessarily a picky eater, but he doesn't like to try new foods. If you can get him to try it, he usually likes it. I knew he would pick pizza. Typically we eat Little Ceasers because it's cheap. However, we loooove us some Papa Johns and get it on rare occasions when there's a good coupon. Adin told me he wanted pizza, but it had to be the kind with the green apple in it. If you've ate Papa John's, they put a pepper in the box with your pizza. So, we had the rare treat of Papa Johns for dinner. Yum.

This video cracks me up every time I watch it. Brian told him to close his eyes and make a wish before he blew out the candles. Watch him every time he blows.

Adin is the sweetest little boy with a tender heart. He still loves to cuddle and gives me hugs and kisses all the time. He is easy going and patient. He pretty much has us wrapped around his finger. We love this kid so much. Happy 4th Adin.

Seriously

Yes, seriously, I am posting. I would tell you that I am going to recommit to this blog, but I have said that before and not done it. So, I will keep my mouth shut about recommitting and just hope.

We love fall at our house. I love all the fun associated with Halloween and we always take full advantage of it. We did have a nasty week long stomach flu bug. It was bad...really bad. I don't wish it on my worst enemy. After that was over, we tried to regroup and fit in some of that fun I was talking about.


Brian and the kids on a wagon ride at Wheeler Farm. Our kids love Wheeler Farm all year round so it was fun to take them there to see the changes for Halloween. We did a mini corn maze (really quite a let down) and a wagon ride. The highlight for the kids was a Freaky Friday performance that some teenage performance group put on. It had lots of dancing, singing and lots and lots of mummies that came into the audience and had no concept of personal space. Meg and Adin are still talking about those mummies. The kids loved it and Brian and I just endured it. Yikesers!





(really not a fan of posting pictures of myself)

Another night, we were going to go to Gardners Village or a bigger corn maze, but it was pouring...really pouring. We ended up watching a scary movie and carving pumpkins. The kids insisted on Monsters Inc even though that isn't remotely a Halloween movie, but we had already watched all of our Halloween movies throughout the month, so, Monsters it was. Meg was carving queen. She loved the goosh. Wierd. Brian even baked us some pretty darn yummy pumpkin seeds. I've never done that before, but the garlic ones were de-lish and quite addicting.

Probably my favorite Droubay family get together of year is the Halloween Party. Loved it. The highlight for me was definitely Cooper's dance moves, but that may be only because I wasn't tall enough to see when Mike T did his dance moves. Yes, Brian got in trouble in the car after for being so darn tall that I couldn't see over him for those 10 seconds of what, I am sure, was complete awesomeness. :)

This is Meg's attack face.

Here are the Halloween pictures that made me post this post. My mom really wanted to see the kids' costumes. Meg was very indecisive this year, which I am sure a lot of kids are. The costume idea that stuck was Batgirl. She chose it with no prompting from me or Brian, and I was really quite surprised because all her other options were quite girly. She was really excited about it until she wore it to her dance class and one of the girls mistakenly called her Batman. Then she was a complete mess the next morning when she was supposed to wear it to school for the Halloween parade. She was certain that someone would call her Batman, which would be completely devastating. You could tell she was a little self-conscious when she walked through for her parade, but after the day was over and no one called her Batman she was good again. I have learned over the years that any costume for Meg must include some of my makeup. She loooooves makeup and uses any excuse to wear it. This year she insisted that it would make people know she was a girl. Whatever it takes, right?

This darn costume took way too much of my time. I always get these ideas in my head and think that I have all the time in the world to create them. Then when I start working on them and the house cleaning starts slipping a little bit and the kids start watching too much TV, I get really frustrated and completely frazzled. I have sworn myself to buying costumes next year. It is totally worth the 20 bucks. We'll see if I stick to that.

The kids got really into the picture taking and kept trying to pose action shots. Don't they look ready for action?

Trick-or-treating was in Brigham again. That darn Sunday thing was annoying. Our neighborhood is not at all LDS. There are only a couple houses on the whole street. I was nervous because I didn't want to knock on someone's door who wasn't planning on trick or treaters that night. So, we went to Brigham. Luckily, it only rained for the first 10 minutes or so and then it cleared up. Now, we have way too many sweets in the house. Anyone want them?

Adin's birthday and then Thanksgiving is next. I am in love with this holiday stretch.

Meg's six!

I can't believe my little baby is six. That sounds so old to me. She had a misreable birthday, poor thing. The countdown for this day started shortly after Christmas. Her expecatations were high. Three nights before the big day she threw up 9 times in one night. Then twice more in the morning. She wasn't keeping any amount of fluids in her. I was thinking a 24-hour bug. Not so much. Next, maybe a 48-hour bug. Still, not. The doctor was threatening IV fluids. For sure she'll be better by her birthday, right? Nope. She woke up on her birthday morning trying to muster all the excitement she could and trying to convince herself that she was better. I was hopeful. An hour into it she was back on the couch with a high fever and body aches. It broke my heart. She desperately wanted to go to Build-a-Bear for her birthday. She rested up most of the day and then we took her. She loved it. Unfortunately, no cake and ice cream or special birthday dinner for her. She opened her presents, but was too weak to play with them.

Brian and I worked hard to convince her that spreading her birthday out to another day was a really great thing. We thought we would wait and do the rest of her birthday celebration the next day. It ended up being 5 days after her birthday until she was better enough to eat what she wanted. Her birthday dinner was the same thing as last year. She doesn't change her mind very easily. Mashed potatoes, chicken and corn on the cob.

Six Super Things About Meg

1.She has a sweet, tender heart that loves to love and be loved.

2. She is a a great big sister to Adin.

3. She's a budding artist. She spends many hours a day drawing, coloring, and painting.

4. She is fearless socially. She is friends with everyone.

5. She is a little jokester. She is hilarious and always shocks us with what she can come up with.

6.She is OUR beautiful girl. We think she's pretty perfect. What would we ever do without her?

Disneyland 2010

The much anticipated trip to Disneyland was gone in the blink of an eye. It's always so sad to return from vacation. Here are some pictures from the trip.

We stopped at Vegas along the way. We stopped there once about 5 years ago and it has gone really downhill since then. I don't think we'll be stopping there again. The water show at the Bellagio was pretty cool.

There was some serious concern about just how bad our $35/night room would be. Thankfully it was really clean and we loved it.

Our first day in Dland was spent with Mike and Mel. We had so much fun with them. I love the picture above. Our seating arrangements were usually last minute. This time, only the boys were left at the end. Teeheehee.

All the kiddos. Meg and Kenzi picked things right up from the last time they saw each other. So cute!

The dreaded tea cups. Okay, not really dreaded, but I love every other ride at Disneyland and this one just makes me sick.

Our usual trip to Farmer's Market. We love it here. We like to blend in with the locals. Not sure what Adin is doing with his shirt.

After Farmer's Market we made our first stop at the beach. It was a pretty cold, windy day. Both the kids ran right into the water. They played for about 15 minutes before they decided that the water was too cold. It was kind of a disaster because Adin kept getting sands in his eyes and then he would try to rub them with his sandy hands. We didn't stay too long.

The rest of our trip was spent with Kory and Charisse. They came with us on our last trip too.
We had sooo much fun every day, but the days just kept flying by. You would think 5 days at Disneyland would be more than enough, but we left feeling like we weren't done.

To break up our Disneyland days we went to a big aquarium that was really cool. They had tons of indoor aquariums and then a bunch more outdoor ones. It was fun to see sharks, seals, and walruses up close. Meg can now say that she has pet a shark.

After the aquarium we had another beach day, but the day was much nicer and Charisse and Kory were there. We rented wet suits (I really really love the warmth of a wet suit) and a bodyboard. The rental place said that the waves were too rough to be able to do it well, so I gave it a valiant effort. Brian was much more successful than I was.

Kory buried both our kids and then let them walk all over each other. My favorite part of this was when Adin was ready to get out he would grunt and shake all over pretending he was a strong super hero breaking out of the sand. Lately he refers to himself as Adin the Strong.

The first few days we didn't see many characters, but the last couple days we were on character overload.

Jesse loved Adin. I'm not sure what his little hand is doing, but I promise it's innocent.

This was just a toy box to take a picture of your kids in, but right as I was about to snap the picture Woody ran up and joined the kids.

All tuckered out at the end of the day.

This is the blurriest picture ever, but I had to post it. I also have video of this moment that I'm trying to clean some of the background noise out of before I post it. We waited in the horribly long line to meet the princesses because Meg insisted. Adin decided he wanted to meet than too. Kory teased Adin and said that if he kissed one of the princesses he would give him a dollar. Nothing else was said about it and then we finally got in to meet them. They met Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White was last. Brian prepped Meg with a question to ask Snow White, something about Grumpy. Then Snow White turned to Adin and asked if he had a question for her. He was shaking all over and shyly said, "Ummm.....yeah....I wanna kiss you?" I was floored. I pulled the camera up quick to try to get the picture and this is what I got. Crazy kid. Yes, he got a dollar.

It was pretty chilly and cold on this night, and it was Brian's turn to be up front. He didn't even get wet. I, on the other hand, got soaked. Notice Adin's little arms up. He was "so brave" to do that. As for Kory...ummmm?

Kory, Brian and Meg on Tower of Terror

We came with the expectation that the kids would be pretty chicken about most the rides. We were completely wrong. Meg rode every single ride. She rode Tower of Terror 5 times, and I can't count how many times we rode California Screamin'. She decided that California Screamin' is her favorite ride there. Not at all what we expected from her. Adin went on every single ride he was tall enough for. He also rode Tower of Terror, but only 3 times. He loved Space Mountain and was so disappointed that he couldn't go on California Screamin'. He kept standing under the measuring post and stretching his neck as high as he could, but he was 6" short. I think the main reason that he did all the rides was because everyone else in the group was, and he didn't want to be left out. He claims it is because "He is just soo brave." That was his motto for the trip. However, his favorite ride was California Sonya (Soarin' Over California). It was really fun to be able to have both the kids tall enough for most all the rides. Previous trips we have had to take turns riding most the rides. This time, we got to ride them all together. So fun!

Our family is going through withdrawals and was almost feels like homsickness for Disneyland. Adin asks every morning if we are going to Disneyland that day. Meg keeps commenting about how sad she is to be home. We soooo love that place!

Soooo busy!

We have finally had really nice weather, and we have stayed cooped up at home. My sister, Sarah, got married on March 13. That brought family to town and lots of family get togethers. Joy of joys, we got a 5 day stomach flu bug just a few days before the wedding. On top of that, I was doing her wedding cake. Doing cakes is something that I have always enjoyed, but is definitely not easy with kids. If I ever do this on a regular basis (and that is a big if), I will be waiting until my kids are in school full time. At one point during Sarah's cake, Meg said to me, "When Sarah asked you to do her cake did she realize that you have kids that need taking care of?" That says a lot. I pretty much planted the kids in front of the TV for a few days and the house went to pot.

This is Sarah's cake. I claim no creative genius for either of these cakes. Both brides gave me pictures of cakes and I just recreated.

Now, Sarah's was the first wedding cake that I had done in 2 years. Out of coincidence, a close friend of mine from our first ward in Orem had her daughter's wedding the week after my sisters. Sheesh! I really should have turned her down, but I didn't. So as soon as Sarah's wedding was over the planning began for the next wedding cake. I took a day to regroup and cleaned the whole house. Then went back to work ignoring my children and allowing my house to become unlivable. I delivered this cake on Friday and felt this immediate feeling of relief at being completely done with these projects. Good riddance to the wedding cakes. Up next, getting reacquainted with my kids and returning my house to order.

Valentines 2010

Maybe someday I will try to make up for all the things I have missed posting on here, but for now I have just decided to try to keep up instead of make up. Things are plugging along. Meg adores kindergarten and has a "best buddy" named Sarah. Adin is goofy and crazy and I can barely keep up with him. Brian is doing extremely well in his program at school. All of his professors adore him and he has become quite the hot commodity among the professors needing help with research. To their dismay, there is only so much of him to go around. He hates me bragging about him on here so I will stop.

We had a great valentines day this year. It was fun to have it on Sunday because it spread all the fun out over three days instead of one. First, I was lucky enough (thanks Michelle) to get to help at Meg's valentines party at school. It was so fun to see her in her element. Unfortunately I didn't bring the camera. The next day, Brian took me to dinner (thanks Sarah and Felipe) and the ballet. The ballet was Swan Lake at it was so amazing. I loved it and was mesmerized. On Sunday we gave each other our valentines and had our tradition of making heart shaped pizzas and eating them by candle light. Brian started giving Meg a special daddy/daughter valentine a few years back. Now that we have Adin he needs something special too so I give him a valentine and Brian gives Meg a valentine. It's really just ended up being a card and a small toy or book or something, but the kids really look forward to it.

For some reason this year, I heard a lot of grumbling about how Valentines is just a marketing holiday. I don't care waht it is, I love it! I love to have a special day or days set aside to specifically celebrate the love in your life. Happy belated Valentines! Here are some pics.

First, a totally unrelated pic. Adin just learned how to dress himself and he insists on doing it about 20 times a day. This was taken at about 10:00 in the morning and this is how many times he had changed. I'm am pulling my hair out. The record is changing outfits 7 times in 1 hour. Ridiculous!

Our candlelight dinner.

Pizza making/eating.

Trial #1 of getting at to smile for a picture.

#2

#3

#4

Meg opening daddy's valentine.