Snow Play in the Sun

Ha! Kelly said this footage would never be seen!

Knock yourself out.

Extra Long Weekend, Part 2

We were NOT leaving for a week long vacation, even though

it may appear that way from the looks of the car.

We WERE headed up to the snow for day!

Ryan and I decided to just drive and see what adventure unfolded before us.

After driving for just over an hour,

We came across a FABULOUS sledding hill!

We were not going to pay a dime, but this place was worth the

"week day" rate we ended up paying. Such a bargain for HOURS of fun!

With all the gear and changes of clothing, and piles of snow clothes in our car,

we were prepared for a blizzard!

In actuality, it was nearly 70 degrees! The snow was melting pretty fast,

But not too fast to get in some hours of incredibly fast tubing!

Short sleeves and sunglasses. Ahhh

And, Yes, that's William in the stroller behind us.

We had to put the stroller to the 4 wheeling test.

This was the top of the biggest tubing hill. Ezzy was the FIRST in the family to go down.

Intentionally.

Joel never quite made it down this one. But he did the "medium" hill all day.

After some groomed-hill-tubing-fun, we headed across the street for some

trail-blazing, rock-climbing, adventurous snow fun.

Ryan has that pro footage.

Can't promise we'll ever see it.

But it was GREAT!

This extra vacation day was greatly needed and I'm so glad we went while there's still snow to be played in!

An EXTRA long weekend. Part 1

Last weekend was already an appreciated 4-day holiday. However, we needed to make it just one day longer.

We just

Were.

Not.

Ready.

to go back.

For Valentine's Day we rolled, cut and decorated some delicious sugar cookies. Recipe given by THIS "Martha Stewart". They were fun and yummy!

We love sprinkles around here!

I don't know if more frosting went in their mouths, or on the cookies.

(and THEN in their mouths).

We are silly and didn't take any pictures when Cousin Makenna was here. What a bummer.

If you ever need one of the BEST babysitters in the WORLD, you've got to have her come to your house! Unfortunately, she's not a local around here.

We had so much fun with her in town.

Parks

shopping

out to eat

baking

crafting

art projects

She even (voluntarily) mopped my kitchen floor for me!

We love you Makenna!

our "skills"

We've been pretty busy around here the past month. Well, we're always pretty busy around here. But we've been honing up on some of our "skills" lately so I thought I'd document what we've been doing...it's a little random.

Our O.J. making skills have been neglected until we picked 1/2 a tree

load of oranges from G'ma & G'pa Southwell's tree. Oh YUM!

We learned a new "skill" at the Western Science Museum.

This little guy got to make a mold of a Mastodon tooth fossil.

He loved the museum field trip with a few of his buddies.

He also helped me with my train-track-designing skills.

When we were finished, we had used every piece in the box!

(notice how colorful they are from my other kids getting creative with their art skills)

For Family Night, William had the lesson. It was all about how to take care of him and keep him safe. Everyone had the chance to practice their diaper-changing skills.

We also talked about things to keep the littlest guy safe. (like cleaning up the legos!)

Our littlest guy has also been learning some new skills.

Here he is, loving the fruit he's munching on through this

fabulous mesh holder (I love!).

Eating is a skill he's always been good at!

Then there's the "will-never-be-a-skill" skills.

That includes my attempts at bowling!

I got to bowl one ball the whole evening, but it was fun.

What a great mutual activity...

(what's going on with the fly-away left arm?)

We also recently improved our sledding skills, but that's for another day!

AAAAHHHHHH!

My open-mouthed- smiling baby.

He loves to giggle and be tickled.

He's so happy 99 % of the time.

(unless he's very tired).

He's sitting up all by himself now.

His new favorite "toy" are his toes.

He's eating a few things now, while in his high chair.

(more pics on that later).

He pushes up like he wants to crawl.

He's 6 months old already!

I just can't get enough of HIM!!

Date Night...

This is me and My Jaydee Boy.

Date night.

We got to go to Whimsicle and get a delicious treat! Just the two of us.

One on One time is pretty rare around here these days. So, we take turns having Mommy dates and Daddy dates. It's so great!

We got to be silly together, laugh together, share bites of our treats together, and chat about whatever HE wanted to!

I love Date Nights...

I also love being super silly with my Jaydee Boy.

He got vanilla, with about 6 toppings.

I got chocolate, with mint oreos.

We shared and they were both delicious.

He's so quiet and bashful. He is hard to get to know when around a crowd. But when it's just the two of us, he's a cute and silly boy. Smart as can be and a funny little jokster, I'm always interested in what he's got to say...you never know what's coming next.

I love him!

Can't wait for our next night out together.