Before we left for California,

was kind of crazy and stressful.  Any mom with young kiddo's out there will tell you that being organized enough to get everything all packed up for a big trip is not very much fun.  Especially this kind of trip where we are staying in a rental house and need to bring all our own towels, linens, food containers, etc.  It is ALOT of stuff to pack for my whole family, I was almost tempted to post my spreadsheet/packing list just so you would be impressed/feel sorry for me, but I'll spare you.  :)

Anyway Matt was crazy busy with school right up until we left and working as usual, but we did manage to do a few fun things before we left.  By we, I mean the girls and I.  Again Matt with the busy-ness.

Here are the highlights, conference weekend was pretty great during the ever illusive "naptime" Lily built this.

We had been talking about King Benjamen and other prophets (very briefly) before conference when I was talking to Lily about excited I was for conference and explaining to her how lucky we were to get to watch from home.  Anyway, I came in and she showed me what she made and told me that the boy on the top was King Benjamen.  It cracked me up.

It also cracks me up to see how some things are just pre-programmed into my girls.  Like dress up and tea parties.  I didn't teach them how to do this, they just do it and it is SO classic and cliche, that it makes me laugh.  They also  love to bend our big gate into a square and make it a "castle" and play inside it.  Watching them play reminds me SO much of how I used to play at Lily's age and it is amazing that some things are exactly the same.

We also painted our toes.  Izzie and I got matchies and Lily INSISTED on white toe nails with stars, though I tried to discourage her since I am not a huge fan of white as a base color, but she loved it, so it all worked out.  :)  She is getting SO opinionated already and always wants to pick out her own clothes/hairstyle/food/etc.  She's 3.  Most of the time I am not amused because it always ends up taking longer to do anything, but I am trying to be patient and give her a few limited options to then narrow down.  Its finding that balance between letting them think for themselves, but also having them realize that you are the parent and you are not just going to cook up what ever/style their hair/plan your day around their every whim.  Some days are more successful then others.

Matt's been so exhausted and busy lately that (other than our vacay) most of the time the girls see him he is sleeping/and or falling asleep.  So they always tell me night-night and want to crawl in with him no matter where he is.  Here he is sleeping on the floor where they can best snuggle him.

Now so as not to overwhelm myself with the thought of blogging our AWESOME vacation, and not to over whelm YOU with 50 pictures in one post I am going to break my blogging up into 4 days, so that each post is roughly a day-ish.  It may come out to only 3 posts, but that way I can do it one at a time.  I am hoping to get it all up in the next couple of days, so be sure to check back!

Here is a preview of the goodness to come!

PS, the rental house we stayed in is literally one of the housees in the backgound of this picture.  It was spectacular!