January this and that

Austin (to his dad when he walked in the door from work):
"Dad, this has been a hard day for me.  (starts listing on his fingers) First... Cole would not help me make my bed.  Second... Cole dumped gatorade all over my sandwich at lunch, and Third... Elise hit me with the vacuum cleaner hose."  (all true, btw)

As I came down the hill one morning...gorgeous! (except the power lines)

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Mardi Gras date night
(holiday party for Davis Hospital)

Austin was shaking with joy during our Monday dinner
me:  "Austin, what are you thinking about that is making you so happy?"
Austin: "That today is Monday.  And Monday is the farthest day from Sunday!"

dinner w the Powell's
 it was an especially happy reunion for these two! 

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George took Cole & Elise grocery shopping.  He hears this little Elise voice say from the back seat of the van, "My super ears are burrrrrnnning" (quoting Megamind)
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smoothie face

Cole:  "I want some ranch dwessing on my feta cheese!"  (both favorite foods - now combined)
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Happy Birthday dinner for Grandma Liz!
We are sure lucky to have her as a grandma and mom and mother-in-law

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Unpacked!!! WOot! WOot!

George and I came out to the kitchen covered in applesauce... floor, cabinets, oven, etc.
Elise:  "Well... we found some applesauce in the pantry.  And we wanted some, so we got a big bottle out.  And Austin said, 'I wonder if applesauce bounces'.  So he threw it.  And it didn't bounce.  So I took it and
threw it harder.  And it didn't bounce then either but the lid came off and the side broke."
Austin:  "yeah mom.  Applesauce DOES NOT bounce."

Different day...
Austin:  "Mom did you know that if you blow on applesauce in your bowl, it makes these canyon things?!?" (shakes)

Not sure why applesauce has been so exciting and prompted so many scientific experiments...
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Elise loves to be in charge of fixing dinner.  One night, she dumped white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, and sugar and mixed it all together.  What a treat! :)
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Lucy and her "royal" art

The first full quarter of school ended for the girls.  Both did really well and are making good friends.  Lucy is in a 6 week language art class that she LOVES!  She made a line drawing story and is working on a book project.  She's trying to decide whether to do her report on The Secret Garden or some dolphin book.  Dolphins have been a favorite animal for a while now.
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Austin is soaking up all sorts of great knowledge.  He came home from preschool and said, "Mom, so you know what a homonym is?  It is two words that sound the same but mean something different.  Like 'sea' and 'see'."  And then sang the whole "A sailor went to sea, sea, sea" song.  (which has become a favorite!)  He's also learned more about the letter G.  As we were going to lunch with Lacey and Mom, I said, "Look for a sign that says 'Carl's Jr's'.  What does 'Carl's' start with? What about 'Jr's'?"  Austin said, "Well, the "j" sound is a j or a g.  G is kind of a tricky letter because it makes two sounds.  For example, like Greg and George.  They both start with G but make a different sound at the first."  ha!  The 'for example' part really cracked me up!  I don't think he came up with this example on his own, but I was impressed he remembered it.
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Austin:  "Cole did not mean to break that bowl.  He just wanted to see if he could make a triangle out of it.  And look... he made two!!!"
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George is supposed to cast at his new job so he decided to take a weekend course in Phoenix to learn this new skill.  He came back with lots of materials to practice on the rest of us!

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Aunty Lacey and Jax came out for a couple weeks...so fun!  We went to "The Foreigner" at HCT (my mom was just as funny as the actors :) and ate sushi. We skiied, crafted a cute USA board, played in the snow, visited Aunty Vicky's playland, made lots of messes, cleaned out the old girl's bedroom closet in my mom's house (and had to try on the old dresses too...Elise's dream come true!), and laughed a lot.  Cole and Jax didn't fight and cry over pink strollers so I'd say it was an improvement for their relationship.  :)  In fact, Cole was such a good friend that he added toilet water to Jax's bath so he'd have more water to play in. It's always great to have our Texans around!

sorry mom...never know what we get when
Austin is the photographer!

Jax thought this trick was the funniest ever!

I love this photo because it shows the
boys' best skills (mess making)
and Elise's best skills (mothering Erik)

Hit the Slopes!

Lacey has been out visiting and one of the top things on her list was a sibs+ ski day!  I admit, I was thinking of weaseling out... lots to clean, haven't been skiing in 15 years, George had to check on a baby at the hospital really early, etc. etc. etc.  But Benji reminded me all of us sibs had never been skiing together, so I forgot my lame excuses and we headed up to Beaver Mountain to meet the brothers and Gav and Grace.

It sorta took forever to get us all geared up (both with snow gear before and skis once we got there), but what a beautiful day to be on the mountain!

It was Lucy's first time and George and I aren't good enough to actually teach something, so Lu and I took a lesson.  This is something I learned from taking surf lessons in HI - children and non-athletic people need pros to actually teach them the right way to do something.  :)  Ray was a great teacher.

Geo said I kinda looked like I was dressed by a blind person :)

Anyhow, I had a great time!  Sure, I bit it quite a few times (one time I ran into  the orange danger fence, sunk in powder and the ski patrol rescued me - very memorable), but it was a such a fun day!  Somehow it made it more fun to watch my daughter learn something new and I had a great time "dating" George.  We were ski buddies.  He is better than I am, but was nice enough to stay with me on the learning runs.  :)  Lu loved the bunny hill.  She also skied a few times on Little Beaver.  There was one run where she kinda lost her nerve, but overall she did really well and I was very proud of her!  The going down fast wasn't a problem for her, but if the run narrowed, she'd get nervous that she'd go off the edge.  And she hates getting off the lift (so do I!!!)

What about the other kids?  Well, grandpa Ed and grammy Cindy to the rescue!  They volunteered to be kid watchers and then brought the whole crew up to Logan to join us for dinner.  Thank you, thank you!

pinning their coloring to the wall

Erik at 7 months... this boy has skills!

 Erik is growing, growing, growing!
Some new things he learned to do...
- grab his toes (and eat them)
- grab for anything (and eat it)
- he has two bottom teeth!
- much improved at eating food (still a big mess, but not quite as big).  I was feeding the child and he got distracted.  I asked Austin to keep an eye on him while I checked on Cole.  I came back to find squash ev-ery-where.  Austin:  "well, he stretched over and grabbed the bowl and tried to drink it.  Then he dropped it.  Then he got the spoon.  And I watched him do it... just like you told me to do."
- perfecting his pincher grab by eating puffs.
- real pro at holding on to things very tight - hair, paper, necks are his favorite things.
- prefers sitting up to play with his toys
- very curious.  Nursing and spoon feeding is challenging!  He is very distractable.
- Knows how to pour on the charm.  He gives us sweet coos and laughs...especially at bedtime.

Erik's 1st Christmas

Happy 2014!

This New Year's Eve was unique... not entirely sure this was a good thing.  Cole was sick again (not sure why he seems to follow the "sick for two days, better for a week, repeat" pattern).  George worked and by the time he got home, both Cole and I were done.  I had a bad enough headache that I was past functioning well.  So Cole and I hopped in the bed and slept for three hours.  Plans for fun food, blowing up balloons, writing looking back/looking ahead papers, etc. were out the window.   I went to bed feeling a bit sad that I hadn't planned fun things or that we hadn't made close enough friends to celebrate with someone, but we would have had to cancel them anyway, so it didn't matter.  We slept for three hours.  I came out to see four happy faces glued to the TV screen.  They were watching their second Star Wars movie and thrilled about it.  I am pretty strict about the 2 hours of screen time per day rule.  But all rules go out the window when I am sick.  Plus, George is not as strict about it.  The kids went to bed about 10:30 but when they woke up the next morning both Austin and Lucy said it was the best New Year's party ever!  Maybe I should put dad in charge of more holiday celebrations!  :)

The next day we went to the Stephenson's and just hung out.  It was perfect because George and I hardly got any sleep again (more sickies) and it was nice to just eat and relax and try out Jim's back machine.

side note:  Frosty was one of Cole's favorite holiday songs.  He sang it over and over and over.  By the end, he'd yell loud when he got to the "coal" part!  :)  And I think he would have watched the Frosty video 4 times a day if he wasn't vetoed by the sibs.