A short trip

 Last month, my husband had to go to Sacramento for a conference.  A couple of weeks before, his radiator in his car broke, so we fixed it knowing that this trip was coming.  Then his car started to act up again before he was supposed to leave.  At that point I was going to be left home with 3 kids and no car for 2 days.  We decided, instead, I would just go with him.  We drove up Sunday night and stayed until Tuesday afternoon.

Watching Winnie the Pooh while waiting to get into bed.

Monday, while ben was at his class, we went to the Sacramento Zoo.  Well, first we tried to go to the Science Museum (more educational for my little truant) but apparently they weren't open on Mondays to the public.  So off to the zoo to see the animals.

checking out snakes, or maybe a lizard.  dont remember 

loving the flamingos

the kids convinced me to let them ride the train, which wasnt a train at all

it was really lame, but the kids, of course, loved it

ben

ethan

brynna

this tiger was looking right at me.  i think he was hungry

I made the kids walk the whole way (didn't think to bring a stroller with us)  so when we got back to the car they all crashed.  Brynna was still asleep when we got back to the hotel.  So this is how we spent the rest of the afternoon:

Brynna slept

and yes this is how she really sleeps.  her hands are always there 

Ben did homework

he was loving the rolling chair

 And Ethan played with his leapster

he realized i was taking a picture and so he kinda posed

The next day I took the kids to the train museum.  The plan was to go the the train museum in the morning and then the science museum in the afternoon, but the kids decided they like the trains too much.

inside one of the engines  

all sorts of fruit packing lables.  

in a passenger car that was on this moving mount so we were rocking around the whole time.  it was cool

the dining car had these creepy mannequins that looked a bit too real 

posing with another engine

the mail car was really cool

And the reason the kids decided to stay there so long.... Thomas!  The whole upstairs was dedicated to model trains and half of it was a thomas play area.  there were 4 train tables plus a table that had a motorized thomas the train.  the kids were in heaven!

motorized thomas 

the kids were having a ball (little boy walked in front of brynna right as i was taking the pic of her and ethan)

look at that concentration 

his new "what i am going to be when i grow up" is a train engineer

When were were done at the museum, ben was done with his class so we met up and drove home.  It was a very nice mini vacation!  

Halloween 2011

This year we had quite the Halloween festivities.  Friday night, Little Ben had a spookfest (a halloween carnival) at his school.  They didn't let them dress up in costumes at school, so this was his only chance to dress up and show his friends at school.  So we dressed up and went and the kids had a lot of fun.  Ben was a clown, Ethan was Thomas the Tank Engine, and Brynna was Tinkerbell.

Then Saturday night we had a Trunk or Treat at our church.  That was tons of fun too!  There is this guy in our ward who is like 7 feet tall (he played volleyball for BYU when he went).  We all wanted to see if Ben's clown shoes were bigger than Lars' shoes.  So they had a contest and after many toe wriggling, Lars won!  Too funny.  They also had face painting and Ethan got a baseball and bat painted onto his face.  (Brynna wasn't interested and Ben's face was already painted.)

Monday was actually Halloween, so we went out again!  Big Ben took the kids trick or treating while I maned the fort (which was lame because we only had 2 people come while he was gone and 5 the whole night).  Brynna and Ethan were very tired and ready to come it, but Little Ben was all for going to a few dozen more neighborhoods :)  Then we ate sugar cookies and drank warm cider then we were off to bed.

by the way

Brynna is potty trained! Yup, no more diapers.  Well that is a bit of an exaggeration, ben is still in diapers at night and we still put one of Brynna at night, just in case, but still.  Big improvement on our monthly budget!

Disneyland

Last month, Ben and I went on a second honeymoon of sorts.  His mom stayed with our kids and we went to Disneyland for a couple of days just by ourselves!  (Hey I have to get my use out of our annual passes, seeing on how we will probably never buy them again!)  We had a blast.  It was a bit of an off season, and we had no kids, so we were able to go on all the rides that we wanted to go on, some of them twice, and watch the parade (with awesome seats) and watch world of color all in the first day!  The second day, we were kinda like, "hey, whatcha wanna do?"  We went to the Tiki room, ate dole whip floats, went to the blue sky cellar, ate lunch at the Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue, walked through Sleeping Beauty's Castle, rode some more rides, window shopped, and got great seats for the fireworks.  By the end, I was missing my kids enough to entertain a little girl from Mexico while we waited for the fireworks. 

the next time i more than doubled his score (mine was in the 88,000s) but he wouldnt let me email it to myself.  poor sport :)

tea cups

thunder mountain

Ben with the one of the tiki gods

i think this guy was the god of earthquakes or something

no this was not staged!

awww I love him!

I think we rode this ride 3 times

Part of the castle walk through.  My camera wouldnt catch the pics very well

Waiting for our food

I think my feet were really hurting.  I was so happy just to sit and wait

mmmmmmmmmmm

sorry i can't help it, i must hold on and scream!

we both like the toy story ride much better than the buzz blaster one!

Our view for the fireworks

Ethan's growing up so fast!

Ethan is growing so fast.  I was looking at his baby pictures today and it is hard to believe how much he has changed.  He is loosing all of his baby chub in his face and he thinks and talks like a big boy.  Last month was a big month for him!  He started preschool on August 16th and he turned 4 on August 25th.
He loves preschool.  When I took him to his first day, I had to bribe him to pose for pictures because all he wanted to do was go off and play!  Everyday he wakes up and asks if it is a preschool day.

He also had his birthday!  He had been asking us for a puppy for a long time.  So we had been keeping our eye out and earlier in the month we found him a puppy.  So that was our gift for him.  The problem is now Brynna thinks she is getting a cat for her birthday.  She even told everyone at church this.  The fact that dad hates cats doesn't seem to bother her.  On the day of Ethan's birthday, GG and Grandpa came to celebrate with us.  First, I took cupcakes into his school.  They had 40 people (kids and teachers) so I was frosting all morning!  Then, we took him to Giovani's (like chuck-e-cheese) for lunch and played lots of games, then we did presents and then went out for ice cream.  That night, I was watching my friends kids so we did cupcakes again with candles that time.  It was lots of fun.

Brynna and Ethan

GG and Grandpa

He really was excited, he just doesn't look it.