Holiday Festivities

Well. It's mid-February and I still have pics on my phone from mid-December that I need to get on the blog. How exactly did I get this far behind?? 

Christmas. I realized that I didn't take a single picture on Christmas Day! We were too busy enjoying our family time! But, we had an office Christmas party in mid-December, and the younger boys had a Christmas program at school. 

Office party!

My handsome boys had such a cute program. Their music teacher does a good job of picking fun songs that aren't babyish for them. They always sing catchy songs that the kids love!

We made cookies...

Snowmen and snow forts...

Played with trains...

The boys met Santa for the first time in a loooong time

Oh wait! I found the one pic I took on Christmas Day!

And the snow. So much snow. Thankfully it is gone now and there isn't any more in the forecast at this point. 

I knew it!

Spring isn't here. It's still winter. :(

It started out as just a dusting, but quickly moved to this:

Argh. Thankfully it is in the process of melting!

Back at it

The boys were supposed to start back to school on Monday, but we had a snow day! Snow days are rare here...this might be the 2nd one we've had since having kids in school. We got A LOT of snow, and then it warmed up a bit to make for some crazy roads. I was happy for another day of break, but I think everyone was ready to go back to school the next day.

Break flew by. Preston joined the ski race team, so we will be making even more frequent trips to the mountain (which I'm not thrilled with, but he loves it, so what's a mom to do?!). 

After Christmas, John and I celebrated 13 years of marriage, followed by Preston's 9th birthday on New Year's Day. We kept the celebrations kinda low key, but we will be doing a "friends party" next week for Preston. He was pretty thrilled with his presents, but he only asked for 2 things so I'm pretty sure he knew what he was getting (a bow, and Skylanders Trap Team for his kindle). We decorated gingerbread houses, and played a lot of video games. No surprise there!

Birthday breakfast (pancakes, peanut butter, bananas, and whipped cream)

I just can't believe another year has passed, and my little boy is now such a big kid. Here are his current interests, at 9 years old:

1. Skiing. That's pretty big right now! He's been even more excited since joining the ski team. 

2. Science stuff. He loves science experiments. Definitely takes after his dad on that!

3. Reading. He told me that all he wanted for Christmas was books! Current favorites are anything by Rick Riordan and James Patterson (kids books obviously, not the adult ones!!), and Calvin and Hobbes. He got the complete Calvin & Hobbes set for Christmas and he is just about done with it.

4. Running/jumping/playing with Ender. 

5. Cub Scouts

6. Four square

We also had lots of snow on his birthday, and over the next few days. At one point, I think we had close to a foot. There was some serious snowball fights going on...so serious that they broke out the ski helmets and goggles! Silly boys!

I took the last picture at 10:00 at night! I love how bright it is outside when it snows, especially considering it (usually) gets dark here at about 4:30 right now. 

Christmas!

We almost had a white Christmas this year. We got snow on Christmas Eve, but it all melted off before Christmas! And we had a couple of days of snowless weather before we got hit with the snow again. John's mom took the boys overnight on the 23-24th, so John and I got to take a nice, snowy walk to the store on Christmas Eve.

We did Christmas with Grandma on Christmas Eve, and then stayed home on Christmas Day. It's nice to have quiet (well, as quiet as it gets in our house anyway...) holidays at home. We had a fun relaxing day. The boys got to spend some time enjoying their gifts, and playing games. 

We finally got Just Dance for the Wii and the kids love it! 

We decided to go skiing (first day this season) on Saturday. When we left in the morning, it was very light snowing, but it got kinda crazy while we were on the mountain. On the way home, cars were sliding all over the road and pulling over all over the place making for some interesting driving conditions. It took us about twice as long as usual to get home! Not a fun time. But then short after we got home, the cousins arrived! My brother and his family stopped by for a night on their way back to Oregon from Canada. It was so fun for the kids to see their cousins, and we had plenty of snow for them to play in! 

I can't believe how quickly break is going. We only have one week left! I'm not ready for school to start again. I think we need a longer break!!

So Much

This will probably be a lot of catch-up randomness. I am not doing so great at keeping up with the amount of pictures that are on my phone! It's been craziness around here, what with the 3 boys and their school/activities/etc., Thanksgiving, snow, birthday parties, John taking a "work" trip to American Samoa (this was a while ago...I'm behind...by a lot!), the boys and John chomping at the bit to go skiing (the mountain opened last weekend)...the list goes on and on! 

So. Starting with the oldest thing: John's trip to American Samoa. I was jealous. He got to spend a few days on a tropical island while I stayed home in the cold, snowy weather (which truthfully hasn't been TOO bad so far, thankfully!). Either way, it's tough to not be jealous when you get texts like this:

Yeah. He's lucky. :) 

Meanwhile:

The boys and I went to a birthday party, and just laid low for a few days.

Preston discovered a new love: Calvin and Hobbes.

And B is reading the "My Father's Dragon" series, which is pretty challenging for him but he's loving it!

Yeah, Archer spent an entire day dressed like this, and even went out in public...thankfully it was not a school day!

We had parent-teacher conferences right before Thanksgiving, and took the boys out to celebrate their amazingness afterwards. I'm so proud of them! I really wasn't sure how Archer would adjust to kindergarten, but he has done awesome! His teacher had nothing but good things to say! (Same with my older boys - they're all awesome. Their teachers this year are pretty spectacular too!)

And So It Begins...

Our first snow. Never mind that it was just a skiff. Never mind that it's only lingering in the shade. It's here. 

Yuck.

So Little Time

So many things going on, so little time to blog about them!

Where to even start...

We re-sided our house! We are still waiting on one window, and we need to paint the trim, but that is obviously not happening since the weather outside is very un-Spring-like. 

And on that note, we just spontaneously booked a vacation! We were planning to go next Fall, but for various reasons that is probably not going to happen, so we're going on a cruise! We went last March and had an amazing time...hopefully we will repeat that. I can't wait. And every day, I have to give the countdown to the boys who are bouncing off the walls excited. They had so much fun in the kid's club last time that they can't wait to go back. Sadly, I think they are counting on their favorite person working there and they might be a bit disappointed when they realize new boat = new kid's club employees. 

Otherwise, birthday parties:

Lost teeth...

A little dental work...

Lots of time in the snow...

And rainbow loom messes...

John was gone this weekend (working in Boise), so I've been trying to keep the boys busy which is difficult considering it "feels like -6" according to my phone. And I would agree - it's COLD. The snow is currently falling, and blowing horizontal as it does. Good thing I have a warm weather vacation to look forward to!