Goodbye Sanity and Nap Time

Ever since we returned from vacation sweet dear Hunter has hated sleeping in his crib. He has been trying to avoid naps and sleeping on Madison's trundle bed. This afternoon I was working in my craft room and as I am sewing I feel a tap on my back. "Hey Mom! No crying and No crib" I was told by the lil angel.

Vegas!

I'm writing this way after our trip but I noticed it in my drafts! Better late than never! What a great girls trip. Trisha has a great group of friends and I'm so glad I got to go. It was so relaxing, especially after being at Disney for over a week. We stayed at Planet Hollywood and it was perfect. We ate good food, celebrated Trisha, lounged by the pool and went to the "down under".

Hello ER we have become regulars this year

This year has been a very accident prone year! The kids have luckily been perfect, but scared us a little. Hunter goes, goes and GOES! To say the least he is very busy and gets into everything. He and his sister really do not know what "fear" is and have tested it out this year!

Hunter turns 2

This year I got worst mother of the year in the birthday planning area. My poor kids birthdays fall on the craziest times for teachers. Hunter is memorial day weekend, which is the last week of school for a teacher. This year was especially crazy because I was planning a wedding shower for Trisha, moving my classroom I had been nestled in for 8 years and planning my a retirement party for over 200 people for my amazing principal. Last minute we realized we couldn't not do anything for the lil guy. We decided to call neighbors and family and do an impromptu bar-b-q and it turned out great! The party was out of the norm for us with less than twenty people. Ryan bought a blow up slide for the backyard and we just relaxed and enjoyed our precious kids and great friends and family. The best part was the Spradley's put Hunter's FAVORITE Oreo cookies at the bottom of his bag, bam rest of the gifts were worthless! It seems just like yesterday I was getting ready and heading to the hospital to have this perfect lil boy! It was a year of many for the lil or should I say big guy!

New York and Washington DC

Hello Summer! Every summer I kick off summer vacation taking 50 eighth graders on an amazing trip to our Nations Capitol and The Big Apple. The cool part this year was that my mom joined! We had an amazing group of kids and enjoyed every minute. Darien Mooney, Stephen Richardson, Billy Krause and Pat Brolan were the brave adults with us. It was great we did all the sights in DC with fantastic weather and the same in NY. Mom really enjoyed the Holocaust museum and Ellis Island. Personally, meeting my elementary crush rapper Vanilla Ice was pretty cool. Another great treat was the my long list BFF Summer got to come and hang out with us. My poor mom thought I was exaggerating all these years when I said I get 3-4 hours of sleep a night, poor thing. 😂
The first night in NY mom was beat and the coaches and I left mom and Pat to hold down the fort and roamed Times Square. There is something that amazes me that at one in the morning it's just as busy one in the afternoon. I'm really lucky to work with such great people and teach some amazing kids!

Happy Birthday America

This was a very laid back 4th of July. We lounged around all day and headed to the lake with the kids to watch fireworks. The fireworks were amazing and we even got ashes in the boat we were so close. Happy Birthday America!

Disneyland

Disney California Adventure

Hunter loved being able to meet MATER!

Madison and Minnie - She was so excited!

Cars Land had just opened at California Adventure and the kids loved it!

Breakfast with Mickie and the gang

I made the kids matching outfit for the big day at Disney. Madison was in heaven when she was able to see the Princess castle. Hunter kept yelling "PRINCESS"!

We rode Dumbo several times, it was one of Hunters favorite rides!

We were in frontier land and it was a blessing, it was very quiet and the kids were able to meet several characters.

Madison having "tangled" sign her special character book.

We ate dinner at Goofy's kitchen to celebrate Ryan's birthday. Several of the characters came and sang happy birthday to Ryan.

We stayed till the parks closed. The perks were being able to ride the rides with NO lines.

The kids got the It's a Small World Toms and wanted to show them off.

Notice Ryan is missing. ;-) He refused to ride the ride. He told Madison they chopped peoples heads off to try to talk her out of wanting to ride the dreaded ride. Well it backfired! Madison rode the ride half a dozen times and it was her favorite!

Riding the tram at the San Diego Zoo

Flamingo's!

Hunter thought it was super cool to eat breakfast with all of his favorite buddies!

He slept through the entire Disney parade. Sweet Boy!

Getting ready to eat dinner at Goofy's Kitchen.

The famous Panda at the San Diego Zoo

Santa Monica Beach

Santa Monica Pier

Mickey brought the kids a very special Valentine on Valentines Day 2012. Mickey sent the kids telling them they would be spending a week in California meeting their favorite characters. You always here people talk about the Disney "magic" and you think they are a little off of their rocker. We did a Disney count down calendar and even created special books for characters to sign for our first family adventure to California. We flew Virgin airline and it was amazing, thank goodness we had the back seats, tv's in our seats and amazing flight attendants. We arrived in sunny California and it was AMAZING! It was a cool 70 degree's outside, which was great compared to the 100 degree Texas weather.  This ended up being a trip of a lifetime and a small world because the Muellers were in California visiting Nick and the Skrukruds were there as well. This was by far the best vacation I had ever been on. It was so awesome to see all of the excitement of Disney through your children's eyes. The kids had so much fun and it will truly be a vacation we will never forget. We went from sun up to sun down and the kids did GREAT. We were able to do the parks for several days and do several character meals to be able to experience all Disney had to offer. We took a day off from Anaheim and drove down to San Diego to see the famous San Diego Zoo. On the way to San Diego we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway and got to see famous places like OC and Laguna Beach. If I could afford to do this, I would do it all the time. It's amazing what a full heart you have when you see so much fun and joy through your kids eyes. The first day at the park we met up with Maria and Isa and took the girls to a character lunch at Ariel's grotto. She was able to meet all of the princesses and get her picture taken. It was so much fun to be able to hang out with our friends from home. The next morning we met the Muellers at IHOP and got to eat breakfast with Nick. The kids LOVED seeing Nick. We had a great system at Disney, we would arrive early and leave at lunch for a nap and then return to the park till it closed.

Madison and Isa with Cinderella at Ariel's Grotto

Hunter and Madison on the tea cups

Late Night fun in Radiator Springs

This was Hunters second favorite ride. We hit it at the end of the night and they let us ride until the park closed.