Skiing for the first time

I didn't grow up skiing.  I've mentioned this before.  I'm not sure if it was because Dad was always so busy coaching his basketball team or if we just didn't have the money to take our family skiing, but I have never once skied.  Brad has always said that when Jake started skiing he wanted me to start with him.  His reasoning behind this is that he wants me to be able to ski with the kids for a while.  Then by the time they get old enough to ditch me on the slopes I will be somewhat skilled and be able to at least ski on the green slopes with them.

Well, this was the year Brad decided to start Jake...and along with Jake, me.  Jake's and my experience was pretty much the same. 

At first we felt like we had everything under control.

But soon we realized that was because we were on flat ground :)

Once we got to the bunny hill, the falls seems to come with every slope we skied. (I'm glad Brad had enough sense not to take a picture of me in this position which I found myself in more than I wanted to be.)

And at times, when Dad accidentally got us (all right, just Jake) onto a black diamond...

 there were even some tears.

By the end of the 2nd day we felt like pros.

And even had the privilege of skiing some greens with Kenzie and the boys.

And though we fell A LOT, and were pretty sore the next few days (maybe it was just me that was sore) we liked it.  So much so that maybe skiing at Christmas will become a family tradition.

Yes, yes I know the mohawk hat looks ridiculous on an almost 39 year old, Jordan already had the couth of a normal teenager and informed me of that (it's his hat).  Brad insisted I wear it this one time so he could keep track of me and it definitely did it's job.

Christmas 2013

This year Christmas seemed to have come a little fast.  I'm still just trying to catch my breath from it all.  Usually I am on top of things and have most presents wrapped before Christmas Eve, but this year found me looking for presents in November, not sending out any Christmas cards (sorry!) and staying up with Brad until 2:30 wrapping every gift.  The kids didn't know the difference though and were more than happy Christmas morning.  Unfortunately for Brad and I, they were so excited that we heard the first foot steps and stirrings at 5:30.  I think we should have drugged them with some Nyquil the night before.  That would have kept them in bed longer.  We did post a sign on the outside of the door that said "stay out until 8:00" which did at least keep them out of our room until 7:30 when Jake could bear it no more and burst in to wake us.

When you're wrapping presents for five children the stash seems to be a lot and as Brad and I wrapped we wondered if maybe we overdid it this year.  In the end when each child ended up with about 5 gifts, we decided it was just the perfect amount.

Santa found Jake a cool set of old fashioned cap guns at sportsmans warehouse.  He loved them.  He didn't stop shooting them all morning long.  Pretty soon, in addition to shooting the guns he began to talk in  a Clint Eastwood accent(we've been watching a lot of old westerns lately) asking us to "stick 'em up" and answering "I reckon so" in a gravelly 5 year old voice.

What could be more scary than a 5 year old Clint Eastwood?  

How 'bout a 5 year old Clint Eastwood/Wolverine.  That's pretty darn frightening.

And terrifying is a 9 year old wolverine with a punching bag.   

I'm just waiting for those claws of steal to come out.  I think Ben is too :)

While the gifts of survival shovels, (of course for Brad from Brad...I mean for me from Brad)

snow ski and motorcycle gear,

 water skiing gear (yes we did buy a ski boat),

 and books ranging from Calvin and Hobbes to the World record airplane book all made great presents,

I think the biggest hit of all were the Perplexus maze balls Santa got for us.  At one time or another we were all caught playing with them...

And while they kept us occupied for hours, it can be a more than a little frustrating to fall off the maze, especially for Brad.

Trimming the tree and random bits

I finally figured out how to work with my blog.  You see, ever since it's been down Brad's been complaining about all the wonderful pictures he's been taking that I haven't posted a blog on.  So I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about how I could keep up with my blog.  So, I've decided I have to upload the photos at work and then write up the post when I  have some free time at home.  So far, it's working.  And it's Christmas...three months from when we moved in.  I figured I'd start at the present and work my way back.

I was able to decorate my tree this week.  My house was in chaos for two days as I began on Thursday when Brad and I had work off and finished up 11:00 pm last night.  I don't know how you guys are but I used to picture my tree all perfect and beautiful with no eclectic ornaments at all.  I had decided long before my children had started attending school that those homemade ornaments would never be hung but stashed away somewhere as a keepsake.  Well, as my children did start making their ornaments and asking if they could put them on the tree, I broke and on went the homemade ornaments.  And though my tree is certainly eclectic if you take a close look, I think it still turns out looking beautiful every year.

For Thanksgiving we went to Phoenix for a family reunion.  It was great seeing ALMOST my whole family together.  While in Phoenix, Brad and I, being that we live in a smaller town, needed to stop at some stores and purchase some much needed items.  One of those stores was Kohls.  I know you won't be able to believe this, but there isn't a Kohls closer than 5 hours from where I live.  While at Kohls, I had Jacob, who seems to constantly be growing and putting wholes in pants, try on some athletic pants that were a reasonable price.  They fit.  I still had some pants for Riley to try on, so I told Jake to take the pants and put them outside in the cart where Jordan was waiting for us.  Upon exiting the dressing room with Riley, Jake was not by Jordan and his pants were not in the cart.  After searching frantically all over the store and having forefront in my mind the possibility of a kidnapping of my youngest son (after all we were in Phoenix) I had decided that the next step for me would be to alert the management of Kohls and call the police.  As I was about to head to the customer service Jake walks up.

"Where have you been?"  I asked probably more than a little upset.  "It is not okay for you to be alone in the store."

At this point Jake starts to cry and big crocodile tears are running down his face.  "I did what you told me to do mom.  I put the pants in the car."

"Outside?"  I asked confused.

"Yes, you told me to put the pants in the car but the car was locked and I couldn't get in and so I put the pants under the wheel."

"I said the cart Jake, the cart. "

Relieved that he was in my presence I hugged him and imagined what a scary task it must have been for him to have walked out to the car all by himself in an unknown place.  As I sent Jordan to fetch the pants so we could pay for them I wondered how a five year old could wander by all the checkouts with 4 pairs of pants that he hadn't paid for.  Maybe I'm on to something here. 

One last Jake story,  the other day we made brownies.  Caramel brownies.  They were yummy and I was able to send them with my children in their lunches.  When Jake came home that afternoon there were a few left and I asked him if he wanted to take one in his lunch the next day.  He told me, no and explained that because his friend told him his brownie looked like poop he wouldn't bring them to school to eat anymore but he'd be glad to eat one now.  So that leaves me wondering, do you think Jake will be susceptible to peer pressure or is it just me?

Just Call me the repair woman

Really,  I did it.  Repaired the dryer all by myself.  And all it took was an hour of you tube videos, some perseverance and $55 and our dryer is like new.

Gathering wood

Our home has two fireplaces so we'd figure we'd take advantage of the heating costs we could save  by buying wood permits and chopping our own wood this year.  We didn't have to go far before we found trees that we could cut.

At first we had to measure for Brad to cut.

But then he thought he'd let us all try:

And some, after pulling antics like this,

needed more guidance than others.

We all got turns carrying the wood

Even Jake.

At times the logs were so heavy that our kids had to hook up a rope to themselves to drag and pull the wood down the hill which made me kind of feel like I was using them as child labor.

But I'm sure no child slave got to do fun things like this after:

Halloween costumes

The kids had to make their own Halloween costumes this year.  I think they did pretty good, don't you?  Ben and Riley even did each other's make-up. 

After all the trick-or-treating our narcoleptic son fell asleep in one of his usual positions.

and when I woke him up he was OH, SO STICKY. 

And yes, that's a sucker in his hair.