Remembering the past..

When my kids where little they each had personalized song I would sing to them to sleep.. Alex was this: ¸¸.•*¨*•♫Alexander is time to say goodnight,¸¸.•*¨*•♫ Alexander turn off the lights,¸¸.•*¨*•♫ Alexander is time to go upstairs,¸¸.•*¨*•♫ Alexander is time say your prayers.¸¸.•*¨*•♫ Alexander turn off the lights.. Alexander say Good Night!¸¸.•*¨*•♫ I love you baby!


Shawn's son was the Sunshine song.. he loved it!  I remember once while driving I was singing that song to him and he told me how I was the most beautiful mommy in the whole wide world.. it made me cry!  Then he told me he loved me millions of times.  I stopped the car and told him to look at me, and to forever and always remember that moment.  He promised me, he would always tell me he loved me.  My baby was only four years old, and he touched my heart that way in a way no one had ever done.  ¸¸.•*¨*•♫You are my sunshine, my only sunshine ¸¸.•*¨*•♫  Gotta love it!  

My Dahlia!

So much has happened since I last wrote here on my blog, it would take me 6 month of straight writing and typing to catch up.  Instead I will skip whatever happened and start from today. 
My life is filled with love, I have three beautiful grand babies and they fill my life with joy and happiness.
Dahlia - Erica's and Dane little daughter.. my first grand baby. Her smile lights up the room every time she comes to visit.  She is GORGEOUS! like her momma! Dahlia is extremely smart and learns very fast.  She knows how to sign, has a very large vocabulary and loves her "guampa" and "gamma" to pieces.  Dahlia is very girlie, she calls headbands "hats" and every piece of jewelry "pretties" she loves to wear tutus, and she has the cutest way of dancing, where she almost steps over with one of her tiny feet..she is so cute! 
Dahlia is a picky eater and spits her half chewed food!  I know, right? Gross! but that's the only way she'll learn to try new foods.  Dahlia is 1.5 years old now and her favorite word is no!  Her mom told me the other day at Target, there was another little boy sitting on a cart while the parents checked out.  Dahlia looked at the little guy and shouted, NO!  The little guy looked at Dahlia and said NO back to her, and the two took turns yelling NO! to each other while the parents laughed.. I laughed and I wasn't even there!

Trip to Disney World and Disney Cruise Dec.2011

People often say our family travels a whole lot.. I make no excuses.  Our family trips are so much fun!  and we had to go back to Disney for the 7th or 8th time.. I've lost track of many times we've gone now.  For some reason I could care less to go to Disneyland, been there and done that twice..I had fun, but never felt the magic.  Disney world is the place, where I feel the magic, where I can close my eyes and hear my children's laughter, see their happy facial expressions and feel their emotions as they walk around the parks with glee. I remember just about every detail for every trip I've planned to FL, how I loved dressing Jake and Alex alike, how I always had an itinerary that even included the hrs we should get up everyday, and how I enforced these hours to be on time for everything I had planned.  How we eat at very expensive restaurants with $50.00 of coupons, or how we found round trip tickets from Boise for $100.00  
We'll it's not surprise that we had to visit Disney in 2011.  I needed this trip.  It was after Eryka got married and Dahlia was born.  All the stress of planning a wedding caught up with me and this time we planned a Disney Cruise with Kallie, Shawn and Monica.  The boys couldn't come due to schooling, but I had purchased a ticket and had to cancel a month before sailing away.
Our cruise Disney Dream Cruise took us to the Bahamas, where we had an amazing time visiting "Atlantis" and Disney's own Cast away island.  The Disney cruise was AMAZING!  We had a grand time.  Then after the cruise was over we did Universal and Disney World.. Here is a few pictures:

http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/ships-activities/ships/dream/

Animal Kingdom

Pictures from Walt Disney World Trip and Universal

Disney World, Dec 1-8 2010

Our family is a huge Disney World fan. We've tried Disneyland a few times and it didn't do it for us. On the other hand Orlando Disney World and Orlando Universal rocks our world. We've been there six times as a family and most of our fun family memories are concentrated there.
Our "adventure to DW began on December 1st. Brett had always wanted to go to Orlando the 1st week of December. I made his wish come true.
I only had six weeks to plan this trip. This trip with seven people was a huge task to plan. My children are not little any more, we had six adults and Kallie was the only child, a total of seven.

• Day One - Our Delta plane left Boise at 1:00 pm. In that flight there was Brett, myself, Kallie, Eryka and Shawn only. Jake and Alex left an hour later since we could not get them seats on our flight. They flew Southwest going up. We all came home together in the same Delta flight. Once in Orlando I panicked when I didn't see Jake and Alex waiting for us. It was midnight and they were no where to be found. They were supposed to have arrived an hour earlier. We looked, and looked, then found out that their plane just landed, so we went to their gate to meet them. What a relief to see my boys! They had a layover in Las Vegas, and before we left Boise they had teased me about staying in Vegas. Funny boys! We proceeded to get our van rental. I'm not a big fan of minivans.. not my style. I like SUV's, but the prices were ridiculous, so we got a minivan. We all loaded in, got the GPS ready and off we went to find our vacation home. The Vacation home was super nice! Four bedrooms, huge tv, game room with pool table, foosball, family room, pool, hot tub, etc. The house had everything! The best thing about the house was the location. We were minutes away from all the Disney Parks. That night we got to the vacation home and went to sleep. We were tired!
• Day Two - We were up early. It's unusual to see my kids up early, but their excitement was very noticeable. They all got showered and ready and we all left to Hollywood studios (Disney park), on our way to our destination we stopped at McDonald's for breakfast, and I got to taste a sausage McMuffin. I only get to have one when I'm on a trip, so is double yummy! Once at our destination we started riding rides and watching shows like Muppet Vision 3-D, Extreme Stunt Show, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, Star Wars Jedi Training Academy, Studio Back lot Tour, The Great Movie Ride, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Voyage of The Little Mermaid, Toy Story Mania, but the most exciting of all was the American Idol experience. The Pedersen family, being the great singers, musicians they are wanted to try out. It was a tough audition, some of us forgot our lyrics, froze, were pitchy, etc. One of us made it through (Shawn) but they 15 people they needed for that day had already been chosen, so if he wanted to participate he would have to come back another day. Winning the daily American Idol competitions at Disney World meant a guaranteed "Golden Ticket" a for sure try at the real auditions. The park closed at 9:00 PM, the night was a bit chilly and I was getting frustrated with the weather. No one was cold but me. I had waited all night to see the "Osborne Christmas lights spectacular" and that was the best Christmas light display I've seen in my whole entire life. It was so worth it. It felt magical, unreal, beautiful, amazing.. It was AWESOME! At that time I felt the magic of Disney in my heart. I knew right then, why we love this place so much. MORE TO COME!

Shawn became a home owner over a year ago!

I never blogged it before. Better now than never. Congrats Shawn! Your house is beautiful!!