July 4th Festivities - Horseback Riding/First Movie

I'm including this with the July 4th stuff because to me it was all one long weekend of fun. After the BBQ Monday night, Ricci invited us to go horseback riding with she and her mom Tuesday morning. Her grandpa has horses, and Kalianna has been obsessed with horses lately. We had talked about doing it, and with her mom in town from Georgia, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. So instead of driving all the way home that night, we stopped at my parent's house and put the girls to bed there instead. Since we hadn't planned on staying the night, Matt continued home to pick up clothes, diapers, and the dogs for the next day. He ended up driving to Layton and back twice that night to make sure we had everything for the following morning. He is such a sweetheart! I fell asleep after his first trip, or I would have discouraged him from going back again! Tuesday morning I had to wake the girls up, but Kalianna was super excited when I told her where we were going.

We got there and at first Kalianna was really nervous. She said "no like big horse". She loves horses, but this was her first time (that she could remember) seeing them up close. But once she pet one and saw how nice they were, she seemed okay. Ricci's grandpa has a really old horse named Barney who is super sweet. He loves to snuggle and be pet. And he loved Kalianna! He kept following her around and trying to snuggle up to her. She enjoyed petting Barney and warmed up to him pretty quick. Then Ricci got on Snap to go for a ride. Kalianna almost fell out of my arms trying to get to her! She was super worried for Ricci! We put her on the horse with Ricci and they rode around together, and she was fine after that. As soon as we tried to take her off the horse, and she realized Ricci wasn't getting off too, she became hysterical. We let her feed a couple of the horses some carrots and she really liked that! Then when Mommy went for a ride, it was the same thing all over again. She was fine as long as she was on the horse with me. But me being on the horse by myself, she was terrified for my safety! It was like she was trying to protect us. If she was with us, we were okay. Funny girl!

We went back to my parents house and fed the girls lunch, then some much-needed naps. Matt and I decided to take advantage of the rare opportunity of the girls being at my parent's house and we had leftover breast milk from Saturday with us, so we decided to stay another night and go on a much needed date. He took me to a yummy dinner at Red Lobster and then we went for a drive. We wanted to do a movie too, but we got a late start and with Magdalyn's feeding schedule, none of the ones we wanted to see worked out. So we drove up to Layton to get more stuff to get us through the next day. It was nice getting some alone time for once!

Wednesday the girls and I hung out at the house and took it easy. Ricci was there too. After several nights in a row of being up too late, the girls finally got a good nights sleep. Once Kalianna went down for a nap, Ricci and I worked on cards for card group. That afternoon, my parents wanted to take the grand kids to a movie. Kalianna had never been to a movie before. Ever. She is a very active little girl and doesn't sit still for very long. So I wasn't sure how she would do having to sit still in a theater for over an hour. But I figured it was worth a shot. And it seemed like an opportune time to try it, since there were seven adults for the five kids. Logan and Bryan got off work in time to join us. Poor Matt had to work late. =( So it was my parents, Logan, Kristine, and their 3 boys, plus Bryan, Ricci, me, and the 2 girls.

We went and saw Cars 2. It went about how I expected. Grandpa bought some popcorn and icees for the kids. Kalianna enjoyed her snacks and sat on my lap through the previews, commenting on each one. My mom held Maggie the whole time. Who was actually awake and wide-eyed for most of it. Now normally I think bringing a baby to the movies is stupid, but I wanted to be there for Kalianna's first movie, and I figured she would do the best with me anyway. So I chose to be selfish and took Magdalyn along. She was great though!

Cars is one of Kali's favorite movies at home, but we only watch about 20-30 minutes of it at a time. So about 20 minutes into the movie she said "All done" and tried to get down. Grandpa took her for a walk and then they came back a little bit later. She really didn't like the loud explosions and blowing stuff up (it's a spy movie). She kept saying "No like fireworks". She did pretty well, we took a couple more walks during the movie, but I think she did well for her first time. Especially taking into consideration her attention span for movies. By the end she was very ready to go. But all the next day she kept saying "go see Cars", so I know she liked it. Cars 2 was definitely for an older audience than the first one, so I'm sure that added to it as well. When we got back to my parent's, I fed Magdalyn and Matt helped Bryan with some stuff, getting us home late once again. We've just been home the last two days, and although we had a ton of fun, it's so nice to be back to our normal routines again!