Swimming and tumbling

February

Alexis started tumbling and swimming. Both have been rough. She cried every time I left her at tumbling, so eventually, I decided to stay and watch. I felt bad for Rindy... She told me Alexis calmed down quickly, but I didn't mind staying when I had nothing else to do, really. Plus I could tell Alexis liked me watching her. Rindy has done such an amazing job perfecting Kendall's skills, so I have no doubt she'll do the same with Alexis. I mean, at this point, it's mostly fun. But eventually, I'm sure Alexis will become quite the athlete, following into her sister's steps.

It took Alexis multiple weeks to be okay with her swim coach dunking her head into the water. But Bryn has been so patient with her, and I really appreciate that. It was sad when we had to switch Alexis' lesson to a different day of the week because of preschool. At least we had 6 months with Bryn. We'll see how Terry does... I'd say that overall, Alexis has done better with the men instructors. And I say that because she had a few make-ups with both male and female instructors. She's progressed a lot, though, in 6 months. She now puts her face in the water and kicks her legs really well. She can even move her arms to do the breaststroke, although she doesn't consistently do it. My baby girl is growing up!

Potty training

February 1

Alexis had been ready for a while, but because of our trip to Disneyland, I didn't want to deal with bathroom breaks, and so I waited. Once we were back, though, we hit it. She had a few accidents the first few days, but within 5 days, she was all clean. Poop took a little bit longer. Sometimes she wouldn't poop for 4-5 days. But she got the hang of it, eventually. In the few months that followed, she only had a handful of accidents, and they usually happened because mommy was distracted... and mommy ALWAYS went to the bathroom with her. In the summertime, she finally decided that she could do it all by herself, without an audience. In fact, she's yelled at people walking into the bathroom while we was doing her business, "Hey! I'm pooping!" And then once, she caught Logan using "her" bathroom, so she yelled, "Hey, are you peepeeing in MY bathroom?" It was hilarious! 

Kelly Clarkson Concert

February 1

Wow, I haven't been to a concert since Michael W. Smith, 4 years ago. And before that, it was Helene, when I was 10 or 11. I felt a little out of place because I wasn't comfortable singing along and dancing, but it was still a blast! We were in the 2nd row, which initially sounded amazing, but in front of the 1st row was an entire VIP section, with people standing up. We had chairs... and we could still see past the VIP people, but whenever the 1st row stood up, we had to stand up, because they were blocking our view. Thankfully, they sat down most of the time. The couple next to us, though, was SUPER annoying! They stood up the ENTIRE time. Sometimes, depending on where Kelly or the others were, it blocked my view. But most importantly they blocked the view of the people behind them, and the people behind those people, etc. I would have been so pissed to pay that much money and have my view blocked by the ONLY people standing in the WHOLE section. And they weren't small people. I thought it was very inconsiderate. I ALMOST said something to them, but then I figured it wasn't my business. 

The concert itself was AMAZING! Brnyn Cartelli came up first. Kelly was her coach on The Voice, and she ended up winning the show. Kelsea Ballerini also came up to sing. I only knew 1 or 2 of her songs because she mostly sings country music, but she also has some pop music. Then The Queen came on, Kelly Clarkson. She is fabulous. She's so real and bubbly and hilarious and talented. She also brought on Chevel Shepherd, whom she also won The Voice with recently. It was just a really cool concert, and I was so glad William came with me because I could tell it wasn't really his thing. Thanks, hubby!

#confessionthursday

January

I started a thing... I called it #confessionthursday. It's exactly what it sounds like. Every Thursday, I admit to something I wouldn't normally just come out and say. 7 months into it (minus summer), I've admitted to a lot of things, including have multiple piercings, back in the day, putting Taylor on meds because we'd run out of options, being obsessed with The Bachelor, crying every week to Grey's Anatomy, being a secret UFC fan, usually leaving the dishes in the sink overnight, picking up my groceries in the summer in order to avoid shopping with 4 kids, having crazy (not straight, not curly) hair, etc, etc, etc. It's been kind of fun to show the real, far from perfect, me.

California Family Reunion

January 20-27

I love family time! I love it when the family is all together. I love the loudness of their laughs and the happy chaos. Our kids and Lily's kids started having fun together right away, which was so awesome. I was glad we decided to rent a house with them. Because of their schedule, Dave's family and Paul's family were unable to stay with us, but they stayed in a hotel nearby, so we still spent a ton of time with them.

The first day, we went to a cove in Laguna Beach. We were almost the only ones there. I don't know if that was because the water was freezing or because it was a really small beach, but I was grateful for it. It made it easier to keep on eye on the kids. Logan stayed in the water almost the entire time. I think his body got numb to the cold after a while. Kendall played in the water for some time, but then she came out with Ashlyn and Meili to do gymnastics on the beach. Taylor tried getting in the water, but then was like, "Heck no!" Not even playing with his cousins was worth getting into that cold water. Instead he played in the sand with Eli. As for Alexis, I totally forgot to pack a swimsuit for her, but Carissa had to run to Target for something, so I asked her to pick up a swimsuit for Alexis, and she picked out the cutest one! Alexis didn't actually get into the water, but it was still nice to have in the sand. Getting dinner with 25 people wasn't easy, but we ended up finding a really nice french restaurant that accommodated our group nicely.

The second day, we went to Disneyland, with out matching shirts. Everyone had complained about the shirts up to that point. Ruby had actually put ME in charge of figuring all that out for some reason. Ruby had wanted bright colors, a different one for each family, but no one wanted that. So I came up with "50 shades of Grey," and everyone seemed to like that. Haha. Bill and Ruby wore white shirts, Dave and his family wore light grey shirts, Lily and her family wore grey shirts, our family wore charcoal shirts, and Paul and his family wore black shirts. And everyone was happy. It worked out great. In the end, I think most people were happy to have matching shirts because it made staying in our group easier. And thank you to Carissa for actually having the shirts made for all of us. Surprisingly, getting around and staying together was a lot easier than I had anticipated. I thought everyone would have wanted to do different things, but we all stayed together the entire time. The only tiny issue we had was that Alexis couldn't ride on everything, but we used the parent swap and were able to take multiple kids twice on each ride. Plus, the workers were usually so overwhelmed with the size of our group that they didn't actually count how many people were getting on. It worked like a charm!

The third day, we went to California Adventure. Most of the rides there are for older kids, so Alexis and I did what we could, but eventually, we slipped away to ride Ariel 4 times in a row and to go to the Disney Junior Dance Show with Mickey Mouse. She LOVED it! I was so glad we did that instead of waiting for the other kids to get off rides. The worker at the Incredicoaster was a turd, though. William had gone on the ride with everyone, but LeiLani, Carissa, and I skipped out because Koa, Eli, and Alexis couldn't go on it. Each of us could bring 3 kids, so 12 of us could go again. Carissa wasn't interested in riding it, but even without her, we had 13. We figured we'd try and see if we could get 13 on it.But the worker stopped us and told us we had an extra person. LeiLani counted out loud and counted 12. I counted out loud and counted 12, too. But I knew we had 13, so I was super confused. This whole ordeal wasted at least 5 minutes of our time because he thought we for sure had 13, but we kept counting 12. Anyway, in the end, he let us go, and we figured out that Sidney had gone ahead, pretending that she was on her own and not part of our group. Haha. Smart girl! That day, both Ellie and Spencer threw up in the morning. Then Kendall threw up at dinner. I'd say there was definitely a bug going around. But it seemed that everyone still had a lot of fun.

The fourth day, we went back to Disneyland. Honestly, I was kind of done with Disney by then. 3 days in a row is rough. I just kind of felt like I needed a vacation from the vacation. We did break away from the group for a little while to eat at Blue Bayou. It's our favorite restaurant there. While we were eating, the rest of them did the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, so we saw them, and that was funny because Paul shouted our name and did it so loudly that everyone turned to him then to us. Haha. Bill and Ruby left after just 2 hours. Paul and his family left around 5 because Paul had to work the next day. Lily and her family left around 6 because she had a work dinner to get to and her kids were tired. Dave and his family left around 7 because they were just done. And we stayed a little while longer to do little kids' rides that none of the other kids were even interesting in doing. The last 2 hours became all about Alexis, and she loved every minute of it.

The fifth day, we didn't do much. We played in the pool a bunch, which was heated, thankfully. Lily's kids had homework, so we took Charlie downtown to bowl and eat ice cream. We also got Alexis a Belle dress because she really wanted one. We ended the day with a barbecue by the pool. It was fun!

The sixth (and last) day, we went to Newport Beach. I had heard so many good things about that beach, so I was really disappointed at the end of the day. There were tons of crazies walking around, including one that got violent and honestly scared me. The food and shopping were meh. And of course the beach itself was just okay. Kendall surfed with Lily while the boys played in the waves. Alexis and I played in the sand and ate snacks covered in sand. And that was it.

I'm so glad we went, even though the kids missed a whole week of school for it. It was worth it to see all the cousins playing together and creating memories that will last forever. I lucked out when I came into this family. They're so awesome! And Alexis has such a cute bond with Spencer. She always has, even that summer we went to Park City with the whole family. Back then, she was still super attached to me, but she loved Spencer and would give him hugs and kisses. It was one of the cutest things I had ever seen. I love to see them together. 

Happy New Year

We started off 2019 with a bang! Literally. We actually had fireworks. I didn't want to do them on the street, but William insisted, and I gave in. We let the kids stay up late, until 11. Besides the fireworks, we ate a raclette, with took silly pictures, we drank apple cider from champagne glasses, and we had a chocolate fondue for dessert. 2019 is going to be a fantastic year!