Love

We babysat Cooper Kirby for a week.  Our kids love dogs.  They are starting to do a really nice job of helping out with Kessler.  They let her out and in to go to the bathroom, they can feed her, and they make sure she gets lots of attention...which is good because she has been missing it since Ruby and Owen have arrived.  They love our friend's dogs, like they are their own.  Copper slept in both Ruby and Owen's bedrooms at night and got lots of love while his family was gone.

Speaking of love, we have been loving our backyard.  In fact, it is the only place we get out for backcountry skiing anymore.  And, it is fantastic for sledding too.  Above is Rowland gettin after it.  :)

We have also been loving our season passes at the Canyons.  We have mostly been with the kids, but Chip has managed to get over there for a few-kid free-half day jaunts.  And, he loves to log his stats.  It is really amazing what you can accomplish in a few hours with a few snow bunnies to motivate around the mountain.

Seriously, check this sky out.  No editing folks.  Incredible.  This is one of my favorite runs to do with the kids- Snowdancer.  There are a few tough spots, but mostly it is wide open, perfect pitch, and nice and long.  Above is Owen and I making our way down.

Ruby waiting for us with dad at the bottom.  She is very confident on the skis and can power wedge down a lot of runs. In fact, we have had to back off of doing just that, just because she can.  Owen, when he is interested enough to stay focused on getting down the hill, is also quite confident and actually is getting some technique.  I think lessons are on the docket for next year.  Having been a former ski instructor, it kills me to have to do that.  But, as we have learned with swim lessons also, they are just different listeners and people with mom and dad than a teacher or coach.  I guess there is a reason I was one of those for so many years to so many other kids.  It is such a unique and special relationship to have with kids- not just someone "the parents who can't hack it" pay to be with their kids.  Although it is tough sometimes to let go of the idea of being everything to your kids, I look forward to our kids having many mentors and teachers in their lives.  

And Chip's new skis.  He loves them too.  He helped make them with a friend in the neighborhood- Jay Hill, who makes Dirty Bird skis and surf boards.  

This, I love.  It was snowing a few days ago, and we decided to do an afternoon sledding run in the back yard.  Neither Ruby nor Owen are napping any more...unless they find themselves in the car, or sled at the right time of day.  It takes about 15 minutes to walk all the way up the hill, in which time they both fell asleep while Chip and I pulled.  Luckiest kids ever- get to wake up to a soft and exciting ride down the mountain.

Chip helped organize a reunion of a bunch of the old ski patrol guys.  They met at our local watering hole, caught up, and reminisced. Good times. :) 

Random.  Apparently Ruby is not the only one who loves her Hello Kitty backpack.

Valentines Day! There was a lot of loot that came home from school.  And, AWESOME cards and packages in the mail from Omas, Nana's and Papas, Aunt Mindy, and family in Germany!  It was really fun and Owen and Ruby loved every minute of it.  Thanks everyone!  We love you!

I wish I could say we loved baths, and sometimes we do, but a lot of times we don't.  But, I do love this picture Chip got.  Do not overlook the bum. :)

We all loved some warm weather the other day.  A Spring teaser.  We all got bikes out in the driveway and pretended it was April or May for a few hours.

Sillies.  More than anything, I LOVE these three. :)

Grandpa

Grandpa visited in January.  We enjoyed some skiing with Ruby and Owen, the adults got away for a handful of Sundance movies, and we even visited the ice castles in Midway.  Check it out.

This is a picture one of the photo guys on the mountain got of us.  Better than anything our iphones captured. :)

It was fun to walk around on Main St, get a coffee, look for famous people, and meet up with friends who were also in town.

Movies, movies, movies!

The ice castles.  Ruby and Owen fell asleep on the way, which is a bummer.  They are typically in a rough mood for quite a while after waking if they fall asleep.  We have had to adjust our daily schedule to be out in the morning and early afternoon so that we avoid falling asleep in the car later in the day. Oh well, it was still really cool to see and the kids had moments of fun too. 

Thanks for visiting, Grandpa!  Good times!

Catch up

Oh man, with getting the 2013 book organized and printed along with general business...it has been a while!  I will post a bunch of pictures with captions here just to get us all caught up.

Ruby and Graham.  They are such a pair.  Ruby saves some of her biggest smiles and giggliest giggles for this little man as seen in these pictures. I am so grateful he lives right next door and that they get to hang out a lot.  Ruby said in our "thankful circle" during dinner the other night, "I am thank you that my friends come over all the time."  Me too, Ruby, me too.

One of my new years resolutions was to be more active in having dinners with other mom's and their kids.  It is such a unique set up here that many families work odd schedules and have dinners without dads.  I grew up eating "family dinner" most nights.  This has been a routine and ritual that, despite all the extra time Chip's odd schedule affords us, I have missed.  I needed to make it something special and meaningful in a new way, and it has been great so far.  So easy to make dinner for a few more people when it is at our house, and SO nice to have nights where I don't have to think about "what is for dinner" when we go to their houses.  

Kids in Summit Park can't go to the park, but sometimes we can snow swing in the back yard or....

Snow bike or...

 go to the art museum with our cousins and make really fun Valentines's gifts for our dad!

Sometimes we put the backpacks that Aunt Mindy got us on and walk around the driveway and yard.

Good times were had at the local Home Depot who hosts "kid activities" all the time.  I just love how they get to wear a work apron, sit at a little bench and create something in the middle of the lumber isle.  They built (with some help of course) and painted some cars that they then got to race down a track. yahoo!

Yumm....my new favorite- spiralized sweet potato fries.  Kids don't eat them much, but I can not get enough.  Plus, let's be honest, eating is not our forte these days.  Ruby and Owen are decent eaters for three year olds, but man, I just look forward to the day that we all eat normal amounts and combinations of food, together, at the same time, without six million interruptions and corralling, and requests, and negotiations....ugh.

Owen LOVES to paint and color in black.  If you have been the recipient of a thank you note or something like that from us, you know.  I struggle to find artwork to share that is not just a page of all black.  Sometimes he will paint something incredibly colorful and just when I think "he is past the black stage"  he says, "mom, I need black"...and he covers all the color and work...in black.  

We have been doing swim lessons the last few months.  We started with group, which Owen cried for most of, but by the end it wasn't horrible.  So, we decided to pursue this en devour through private lessons with one of their teachers, Ms Jamie.  She is AMAZING and the kids LOVE swimming.  They can back float on their own, swim under water by themselves for a certain distance, jump with enthusiasm off the edge, and just can not get enough of it all.  A lot of mornings Ruby wakes up and the first thing she asks is, "are we going swimming today?"  I don't love getting wet and full of chlorine all the time, but it is worth it to see the joy in their faces and the progress they are making.

We are really into rain gear lately.  I left them downstairs for 10 minutes one afternoon only to find that they had gone into the storage room,dug out their rain boots, climbed up to get their rain jackets and were parading around as seen below and above.  We haven't had a huge winter here, so I guess wearing rain gear vs winter gear is not a battle I am choosing right now.

Ruby and her buttons.  She says things like, "mom, aren't they beautiful?, they make me smile."  She loves small, colorful, interesting and intricate things.

We went through a rough stage where they could not be left unsupervised for 5 minutes before the hitting, biting, and crying started.  SO much fighting.  But lately, we are friends again...not ALL the time, but definitely more often than not I can trust them to play well, adorably well, together.  This makes mom SO much happier and more sane.  Let's hope it lasts. :)