Classic wit from Jane Monroe:

Jane - "Mom, James hurt me!"

Me - "Are you bleeding?"

Jane - "Yes." 

Me - "Where?"

Jane - "Right here.  In my heart."

Classic James' logic:

James - "Mom, look!  I found a hot dog seed!  Save it for me.  I want to take it home."

Me - (looking at the sesame seed he pulled off his hot dog bun) "Why do you want to take it home?"

James - "So I can plant it and grow hot dogs and we won't have to come back to Costco to get hot dogs anymore!"

Me - "Alright."

So I put it in my pocket and totally thought about the Wall-E pilot and his pizza plant.

THANKSGIVING!!!

I'm so thankful for family, and for food, and for computers so I can document everything in my life (that I ever want to remember) without straining my hand.

I didn't get actual pictures of our dinners (we had one with Aunt Kathy and one with the Monroes), but we did get some fun pictures of the kids afterwards - we left all the cleaning to Leslie (THANKS LES!!!) and took off for an adventurous walk and some fun at the park.

We spent another day at Lego Land during our Thanksgiving break...

We started out at the Aquarium.  The kids LOVE seeing all the Lego creations and taking the quiz.

 After the aquarium we went to the park and rode some of the rides -

In my defense, it was a looooooooong line...

Another loooooooooong line...

Classic picture of James.  He is so serious!

And of course we had to check out all the Star Wars creations -

As we were leaving the beautiful lights turned on -

Jane's birthday continued...

Her actual birthday was on a Tuesday (a school day) so we mostly celebrated on Saturday and Monday. :)

She wanted to see "Wreck it Ralph", so we went as a family to the movies! 

After the movie she wanted to go to Mimi's for dinner-

Since Monday was a holiday and no one had to work or go to school we went to Lego Land Aquarium and Lego Land with Aunt Kathy - 

On Tuesday we had the Elders over for dinner and she got a special dinner of steak and rice, with an ice cream cake for dessert. 

James has had SO much fun in his "Kindergarten" class!  This is his frog "crown" he made - around his head are pictures of the different life stages of a frog.  He has had a blast learning about all science things.  I'm pretty sure he loves it best. :)

Once upon a time there was an Angry Bird loving girl...

Who had a Mini Mouse, balloon loving cousin...

 Both of these precious girls had birthdays... 8 years and 1 day apart!  So their Grandma and Grandpa threw them a party.  They invited more cousins...

They opened presents...

And ate cake...

And went home very tired. :)

Check it out!  We're still alive!

I've been so depressed about my lack of blogging that it has actually kept me from blogging!  I mean, look below- it's been over a year and a half since the last post!  Ugh!

BUT - I have decided that even if I can't go back to recapture all our past 1.5 years of memories, that shouldn't stop me from blogging about current ones.  So there's a small gap in our family timeline... I'm hoping some day my children will forgive me and know that I've spent more time with them and less time blogging.

We've had a great time the last 19 months - including Knott's Berry Farm passes, trips to Jackson Hole, WY, Seattle, Palm Springs, new schools and new activities...  Time well spent as a family and with family, meeting new family and friends.  Some things changed (jobs) and some things didn't.  All in all we're still going strong and enjoying the time we spend together.

So... here's to making New Year's resolutions come true the last month or so of the year! :)

(A trip to Lego Land, summer of 2012)