BAD blogger! BAD!

The last month or so leading up to my kids leaving for Washington (sniff, sniff) has been jam packed with...well...I have NO idea.  I've been busy, OK??   But now that they're gone, I have more free time than a hot dog vendor at a supermodel convention, so it's time to catch up.   As always, here's the pictorial version of what we've been up to:

My little Ben graduated from Kindergarten.  Love his cute teacher.  She's the best!

Took the back road to aunt Beffie's house one night and ended up in the middle of a cattle drive.  Never done THAT before.

Look at the babies!

Grabbed some carrots and stopped to feed the horses.  

No idea.  Really.

Lucas' 4th birthday.  I think everyone in my family has pictures in our files with uncle Jerry in the background like this.

Fun day out for Lucas' bday--Pizza, video games, indoor black light mini golf.  Good times!

Off to the Discovery Children's Museum.  What a fun place!  It was the middle of June and cold and raining.  My kids were freezing here!

This was taken about 8 seconds before he fell out of this loft and hurt himself.  Typical.

My little future Katie Courics.

These are the happy faces of two boys who got to sit inside a real helicopter.

Simulated sand.

Ok, so as we went through the museum, I was thinking how uncharacteristically stress free and fun this outing had been.  It was a great place to take the kids and let them run around and BE KIDS without worrying about them disturbing others or getting into trouble.  They are ENCOURAGED to get into trouble at this place.  Loved it!  BUT...

Ya know the old saying, "I spoke too soon?"  Well, apparently it's entirely possible to THINK too soon.  As we were making the long trek back to the car, Lucas insisted we go for a gratuitous ride on the escalator--the one we were walking past but did NOT need to ride on.  I figured, why not?  Why not indeed.  On the way up, Ben was dancing around on the steps with his usual Pinocchio-ish grace, when SMACK!  Down he went, shin first into those ugly, evil, metal tooth-like...uh...teeth...that stick out at the edge of escalator steps.   All I remember is I saw A LOT of blood and a little bone.  So I carried a screaming, bleeding boy like a wounded soldier back to the car...in the rain...with three wet, whiny kids trailing behind.   

We survived.  But it's still Kids-999, Mommy-0 on the record books for stress free outings.

All that bleeding Ben did really wore Lucas out.

Our trip to St. George.  We had lots of fun things planned.  Swimming, Toy Story 3, family fun center, temple grounds, splash pad and water play area downtown....well...

As you can see, we did manage to get in some swimming (no pics) and the fun center, but halfway through our trip, mommy got sick in a big way.  I was down for the count.  So these sweet, good little kids just quietly hung out in the hotel room while mommy was either glued to the bed on her back, or crawling to the bathroom.  No, REALLY, they WERE good and sweet.  No sarcasm there.

I said they were good.  Didn't say they didn't get bored enough to do weird things with their body parts.

When you miss going to Toy Story 3 because your mommy is throwing up her lunch...and her breakfast...and possibly a small town...you find other ways to have fun with the 3D glasses you didn't get to use.

Family get together at the park on Flag Day.  Cute kids.  I sure do miss 'em.  Sniff, sniff...