Josh, Jenn, Ashton, Emmy and Ethan…

We got to spend three days hopping back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure.  What can I say, it was a dream!  We had so much fun and the kids were soooo good.  My mom came with us the first day.  It was so great to have her with us.  We missed you, though, Dad!

First we had breakfast at the hotel with a bunch of characters.  Ashton was in heaven!

Emmy was a little freaked out…Here she is trying to be brave.

We hurried straight to Pirates of the Caribbean but Ashton absolutely refused.  We thought that was strange since he loves the movie and loved the ride last year.  So we went on to the Haunted Mansion.  Ashton watched “The Nightmare before Christmas” all the way to California so we thought he’d LOOOOVE it, all decked out for Christmas with Jack Skelington.  Well, he HATED it and was scared all the way through.  Okay….so what did we decide to go on next?  Splash Mountain!  I LOVE Splash Mountain and Ashton was tall enough so we brought him with us, even though he REALLY didn’t want to.  Here’s a  picture of my poor baby being thrown into the briar patch…

And a video….

So, as you can imagine, he was way soooo scared of all the rides from then on.  We are the meanest parents in the world!  He was still brave and went on rides, but as we stood in line he would ask a list of questions that grew pretty long by the 3rd day…”Are there any tunnels on this ride? Any witches? Any spiders? Any waterfalls? Any bad guys?”

Anyhoo, here are just a few pictures of that first day with Grammy.

I’m back! After an incredibly wonderful Christmas season, a very Happy New Year and TONS AND TONS of SUPER MARIO BROTHERS on the Wii, I am forcing myself to get back to work!

You might have thought I posted all of our California Thanksgiving/Vacation adventures…Oh heck, no! I haven’t even made a dent! Since I am sooooo behind, I’m going to make it short, quick and to the point!

We all went shopping at the Valencia Mall. The kids always love going to the mall, but this one is way fun with a pet store (with PUPPIES), Santa Claus and a Carousel….

Then we went to dinner at…a yummy Mexican place…see what happens when I wait a month to “write in my journal”?

We drove to California for Thanksgiving this year.  This is what Emmy looked like MOST of the time.

We finally figured out how to keep her happy (playing games on Josh’s iPhone) and the last two hours weren’t so bad.

We were missing Rob and Angie’s families, but the rest of us were together.  It was lots of fun and VERY delicious!   We had to get the kids out of the house for a while Thanksgiving morning, so we played at the park.

We decided to go back home and help a little bit .  I was the table-setter, I’m definitely not a huge help when it comes to cooking serious Thanksgiving dinner.

Ever since Ashton went camping with Josh and our little s’more-roasting picnic in the park, Ashton has been all about campfires and s’mores.  I found him out on the deck with his own ‘campfire’.

Then he taught Emmy how to roast marshmallows.  It was pretty cute.

They didn’t complain about slivers in their throats so I guess a tiny piece of splintery wood CAN be used as a roasting stick after all.

Ashton has been waiting ALL SUMMER for Pirate Island to open! To celebrate his first day of preschool, and just because it finally opened, WE WENT! What a great place for our little pirate-loving boy!

Oh yes, and of course he had to wear his pirate costume…which is in his daily rotation of costumes, even though it’s getting a little too small (tummy poking out).  I forgot to take pictures inside because we were too busy playing and eating yummy pizza.