Pirate Party

Just imagine:

- getting some of your best buddies together for your birthday (or 1/2 birthday if you're an unfortunate Waldron child with a Christmas birthday)

- spending the entire day being pirates

- riding rides, sword fighting on an island, finding treasure, exploring caves, eating pizza & ice cream...all in the same day with a brand new pirate sword in your hand

- spending the whole day together at the "Happiest Place on Earth" (ie: Disneyland)!

Not a bad birthday party for a 5 1/2-year old boy!  

Prepare yourselves for some cute pirates:

Dallin, Trevor, Jake & Jack in front of a pirate ship

In their own row on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (went 2x)

Tough pirates in line for Pirates in front of a pirate :)

Dallin's birthday party...he just wanted pizza and ice cream (and was embarrassed as we sang to him)

In the pirate bones ball on Tom Sawyers Island

Cute (or as they said: cool) friends

Peter was so fun with these boys running around having sword fights and making airplane formations...such a fun Daddy Pirate

After a long and fun day together, Dallin opened his presents in the trunk of our car (ie: the Black Pearl)

Thanks to all the buccaneers who came and made this such a fun and memorable day for Capt. Dallin.  He loved the birthday loot you gave him and "treasures" your friendship.  Thank you also to the Crump ladies for all the help and company!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Dallin!

FYI: to any of you who are confused by us celebrating our child's 1/2 birthday in such a way, we need to explain.  Dallin's REAL birthday is Dec. 26 and we are usually gone for the holidays so he never has a friend party (and no one really wants one more thing to attend during that time of year anyway).  We allow our kids to have a family birthday and a friend birthday party and we usually celebrate the latter on their 1/2 birthdays.  There have to be some perks to having such an awful birthdate :)!

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday today to an incredible Dad and Papa!  What a blessing this man is in our lives. 

My children talk about their Papa on a daily basis, hoping the knock at the door will be him or wishfully hoping he will meet us at Disneyland for the day.  

How grateful we are for his example of love, dedication, hard-work and fun (he really is a blast!).  

He would do anything for his family and we all reap the benefits of that regularly. 

He treats my mom with such love and respect and that has been one of the greatest blessings in our family.

He is so self-less, always thinking of others first.  

Everywhere he goes and every calling he serves in, people fall in love with him.  

He taught seminary years ago and his students still call, visit and adore him.  

If any of us accomplish something (even something very small) he is the first to send a hand-written card telling us how proud he is of us.  

He sends packages to my kids randomly filled with stickers, candy and anything else that they love.  

He is so in-tune with the Spirit and is an incredible patriarch of our family.  

He puts together the best General Conference packets!

He always had the most fun family home evening ideas growing up and made life so enjoyable (airplane rides in the morning, well-planned family vacations, pop-goes-the-weasel in the pool, glasses half on half off, letting us go to seminary with him on donut day, awesome holiday decorations, magic tricks, etc, etc, etc.).  

My kids are so lucky to have him for a Papa.  I had a hard time finding a picture of him without one of them in his arms.  

I'm so grateful for such an amazing example.  We Hinckley kids often talk about how blessed we are to have this man for a father and we honor him on this special day.  We sure do love you Dad/Papa!

Happy Birthday!

Avalon Adventure

For Memorial Day, we decided to go on a family adventure to Catalina Island (Avalon) and spend the day basking in the beautiful island weather, enjoying the 1 1/2 hour boat ride there and back, renting a small boat of our own to find out that Dallin is an awesome driver, and strolling the darling streets checking out pirate loot and eating ice cream.  It was a wonderful day (minus a few toddler problems) and we even made a new friend in Oliver the otter!  Great day.

Claire taking all safety precautions on the boat to Catalina Island

On the top deck of the Catalina Flyer

We saw this cute otter swimming in the ocean.  Claire kept calling for him and he kept coming towards her.  She was thrilled and named him Oliver.

Loving their life-jackets

Captain Dallin doing doughnuts on the ocean (and riding the wakes of the other boats)

Pete having a great time "driving" the boat (ten and two babe, ten and two)

A fantastic day on a beautiful island!

Star Sighting

As I watched the "Dancing with the Stars" finale last night, I was reminded of a run-in I had years ago with the champion, Kristi Yamaguchi in a Salt Lake City boutique.  

Thought this photo would be fun to share:

Crazy Clothes

I love my Dallin.  He is such a funny, loving, sweet boy.  He makes friends everywhere we go (just like his great grandma Brown :)).  He loves to learn and is an incredible reader.  He is very cautious, which is a fabulous quality according to me and his Nana.  He loves to play games of all sorts (baseball, soccer, Guess Who, Balloon Lagoon, XBOX, Nintendo DS, etc).  He also loves clothes.  This is where my wonderful little boy turns impossible.  

Outside, it is 100 degrees and I am fighting with my son non-stop to put some summer clothes on.  He refuses.  He wakes up in the morning and puts on his clothes before I even know he's awake (so he can avoid my opposition).  He emerges from his room fully clothed in ripped jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt (has to be long-sleeved), TWO pairs of socks and tennis shoes.  Today we had another fabulous addition to his ensemble...winter gloves.  That's right, gloves (see above photo).  I lost it (in my mind) and calmly tried to explain heat stroke to my feisty 5-year-old.  I mean, Michael Jackson must take off his gloves when it gets to be over 90 degrees in Neverland.  Either we move to the North Pole, or teach this little fashionista (fashionisto?) to love shorts and sandals. Heaven help me.  

UPDATE:

A few months ago, I mentioned Claire's crazy princess dress obsession (she would wear her Snow White Halloween costume everywhere we went).  I am happy to announce that we have moved on from this phase.  She simply wants to wear dresses or skirts, and jelly sandals...cool enough for the summer and a much wider variety of clothes to choose from.  Maybe Dallin will take note!

Bubbles & Bugs

"The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity."

 -Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

Our new bubble machine has been a backyard highlight lately.  Pure and simple joy.

A couple weeks ago on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Dallin found a bunch of ladybugs swimming in our fountain (we didn't know they could swim).  The kids scooped them out and played with them for quite a while on our front lawn.  We named the ladybugs, watched them crawl all over each other and our clothes, and eventually watched them all fly away.  Again, pure and simple joy!

Tucson Trip

This past Mother's Day weekend, we quickly escaped to Tucson to visit the Waldrons.  We left Friday evening and Peter drove straight through (well almost if it wasn't for his hungry, small-bladdered wife).  We arrived at 1 a.m., stretched our bodies, made beds for the kids, and collapsed.  

Saturday, we played with Grandpa and Grandma, Kirsten (Pete's sister) and her fun 4 kids came over to keep my kids occupied for the rest of the day.  Ethan, Nathan and Dallin had a blast together and were a non-issue all day.  Katie and Claire giggled, colored and did girly things together... so cute to watch.  Casey (Peter's brother) came over and is always the fun

 uncle.  We all took Mom/Grandma out to lunch (Applebees) for pre-Mother's day and it was fun to have such a large portion of the family together.  We relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the day (and the perfect weather that evening).  Dad, Peter and Steve (Peter's brother) escaped later that night to see "Iron Man" while the kids and I got some much needed rest.  

Sunday, we had a Mother's Day BBQ for lunch, Peter took the kids on an adventure walk, we

 went to church (2:30...Dallin sang in sacrament meeting for Mother's Day with the stranger primary :)), we visited some more and then headed back home.  The drive was very pleasant.  Claire fell asleep right away and slept the whole way home (and all night...what??!!), Dallin played his Nintendo DS, watched some Hannah Montana and went to sleep, Peter drove, and I dug my nose into the book "Twilight" and couldn't put it down.  We arrived home early this morning and slept well again.  The whole weekend went by in a blur, but a really great and memorable one! Thanks Mom and Dad for a great visit and trip to Tucson.

Just Jen

Last weekend, we were able to spend fun, quality time with "just Jen."  My little sis finished her BYU finals, then flew out the next day to visit us here in California.  We had such a great extended weekend!  Our time together consisted of: Disneyland (of course!), Dallin's baseball game, eating out, watching movies, a girl's night (including manicures and a yummy dinner at Ponte Winery), church, the Irvine Train Park, and a picnic with the ducks and peacocks.  Jen even babysat for free while Peter and I went on a date Friday night!  What a blessing it was to have her here.  I am so grateful for my amazingly smart and beautiful sister and loved having this mature, capable woman to spend the weekend with.  Dallin and Claire really miss her and now call the guest room "Jen's room".  Yay for sisters and aunts!