Too Many Hafens

Tod is trying to figure how to far down the path he wants to go.

Enjoying snacks and the view from a top the mesa.

Kimball telling me to save the boys as they are heading down a path that leads to the edge of hill.  Always the older sister looking out for her little brothers.

 A self-portrait of Danny and I.

My fabulous sister-in-law Kim and my brother Abe found some time to do a family photo-shoot of our family.  They were awesome, and got some great shots.  These pics, do not give them justice because these are the funny outtakes that I wanted to put on the blog.  The nice pictures will go on the side of the blog on a more permanent spot.

 Love this boy!  This is one of the faces Jack willl make if he's trying to trick us, or if I ask him if he's done something he doesn't want to admit to.

I saw a cute picture of a family posed  with the parents laying down and their cute little kids sitting very cutely on top of them.  This is as close was we got.

Tod looking very concerned before we got a good smile out of him.

So glad to have this little girl as our oldest.  She sure keeps me entertained and is the best big sister!  

Harnessing her inner "free-bird."

When we told Jack and Tod to come climb on top of us, to try and set up a pose, they decided a flying leap was the best approach.

Danny caught mid laugh or snarl... can't tell which!

Thanks Abe and Kim!

Group meal times outside were a easy way to contain the mess.

But every once in a while we did had to let them inside.

Danny and Tod rode around in style!

We took Jack and Kimball on  the Madderhorn.  Jack made it very clear afterwards that he didn't like that ride.

We ate as much sugar as we could.  Papa also joined us for that.

Kimball and her cousin Ashton (aka Ashbug) having fun in a portacrib.

We all loved the new Cars Land ride!  Thanks to Cally and Nate who let us mooch off of their "special kids" passes so we never had to wait the full line.

Kimball and Jack loved this ride, and I have to admit that I love this ride too.

Danny enjoying his crib with his new sleeping buddy.  He picked out Pluto.

Tod became very attached to Donald Duck and to this day, has to have Donald in his bed.

Kimball and Jack are definitely not Disneyland virgins, but we still found new things for them to do.  Jack looks a little too happy with this rifle, don't ya think?

Our attempt of a family picture in front of the castle.  I remember my dad saying "for posterity sake" as he tried to get us all in one pictures.  So, here's our "for posterity sake" picture.

Kimball learned how to throw peace signs, we don't know where she got that from. 

Who knew they had rock climbing at Disneyland?

I feel like I have to explain why my #2 son was walking around with a pink hat on.  We had watched Alice in Wonderland a couple too many times, and Tod loves the Chesire Cat.  So when he saw that hat, we couldn't talk him out of it.

Another new fun ride in Cars Land.

I just liked Tod and Kimball's face in this picture.

Dad and Danny enjoying some Ghiradelli's icecream sundaes.

Kimball and Tod borrowing their Uncle David's hat. His wife just laughed as her husband walked around all day with this hat on.

And the best pictures of all the kiddos in their ears!

It was the vacation of all vacations.  And we enjoyed ourselves to the max.  THANKS to everyone that came with us, AND everyone else who helped us get there (you know who you are!)

The kids all got their faces painted at the school Carnival.  

Kimball stayed "in character" the whole time, and Tod decided to join her.

Here's the whole crew.  I keep trying to embrace the "home-maker" part of being a stay at home mom, and made 2 of the costumes this year.  

What do you do when your son says he wants to be a "bad guy" for Halloween?  Cut out a felt mask, and buy some electrical tape for a white shirt, and make him look like this!  The red juice on the shirt is optional. 

The kids got more candy than I should admit,  (may or may not still have some up in the cabinet as I'm blogging about this in Feb.) and were very happy about it.  But I tried to be a good mom and ration how much they could eat. We had a great time!

He loved his ballloon and presents.

Really, he's just a happy boy!

The cutest 4 year old I know.

Every once in a while, I manage to make a cool cake.  Google has the answers for everything, including good tutorials on how to make an AWESOME Angry Bird cake.

 He couldn't wait to dig in, and kept asking, "is it time yet?" 

Finally!  He got to eat one of the birds off of the cake.

This little boy, who is the oldest boy in our house is such a funny guy.  He can be very stubborn, but can be so sensitive and can have his feelings hurt pretty easily.  He loves to build things, especially with his blocks, and can be found lining up every single toy car we have in a nice neat row.  He loves to ride his bike, which he learned to ride w/o training wheels a couple of months ago. He loves to play with his big sister, and is just starting to play with/tolerate Tod.  I sure love this boy and am so happy he is our oldest son!

I know lots of people have "Conference Weekend Doughnuts" that they all make at home.  We decided that is an awesome tradition, but we are more than happy to let Krispy Kreme do the work for us.

And during the break in between sessions, we hiked around the mesa by our house. 

Trying to keep up with Kimball and Jack was a challenge as they sprinted up the nearest hills they could find.

We finally caught up with them.

Tod enjoying some water and shade after chasing Kimball and Jack.

Danny and I taking a leisurely stroll on the not so steep hills.

It was a great conference, with some new announcements about mission ages that just took my breath away.  It was hard not to get emotional and very excited about the new missionaries and how the work is "hastening."  Kimball will not ever know what it's like to have to wait until 21 to decided to go on a mission. 

Every year on the Sunday night before school started, my dad would walk around the house half singing/half chanting "It's a school night, it's a school night" and make sure all of us kids knew how excited he was that we were going back to school.  For the first time, I got to sing that song.  I kept saying this is the beginning of the rest of my life.  Here are a few pictures to document Kimball's first day.

She was excited to pick out an Angry Bird shirt for her first day.

And then her cute Hello Kitty backpack, which she liked more than the Disney Princess one. I was shocked.

For her, the kids meet at the little playground area, then line up and their teacher comes out and gets them.  As she was lining up, she saw other parents giving goodbye kisses, and she promptly yelled "Mom, I need my kiss."  Can I love this girl any more?

I was trying to not be a complete stalker, but I really wanted to get pictures of Kimball in her classroom, so I conveniently offered to help bring in some of the bags of supplies.  I beat the kids to the classroom, so I caught this cute shot of them walking in their line, into the room. 

And one last one on the carpet. Yep, welcome to the rest of my life. I didn't cry (which is a miracle for me). Kimball was too excited and I didn't want to do anything to take away from that. I hope she'll be just as excited next year for all-day school. I'm so glad they break us first time parents w/ half day kindergarten.

She came home very content and said she liked it.  She did say that some girls cut in line and she cried, but the teacher told her to be in the back of the line to make sure everyone stayed in line.  Nothing like giving a little bit of authority to cheer her up.  Woo hoo for Mrs.Orr and looking out for my little girl.