Sweet Spot

Walking up to his bedroom door to check on him last night...

 Zooming in...

Seriously - love that kid!  (Both of them actually!)

The Password is Spring

Musical.  The boys' performance of The Amazing Grace Race was a couple of weeks ago.  It was Ben's first time in junior choir.  Both boys wanted to participate last December, but last week, Ben told me, "You know what I don't like about choir?  It's just singing."  Ha!  I hate to tell you, but that's kind of the definition of choir!  So we'll see if he joins again next fall, but Max says he loves it.

(Ben's sort of hidden behind the pom-pom.)

Skiing.  Awesome day last Saturday on the slopes.

 

Sweetness.  Look at the feast Benjamin prepared for his mama.  Notice that he even pulled the blinds and found a battery-operated candle so I could eat by candle-light.  Love that kid!

End of the school year(?!?!).  How can that be already?  But as I watched my almost-second-grader work on his very first science fair project this evening, I was struck again by just how dang BIG my boys are getting.  Case in point: he wanted to measure himself against me this week and proclaimed, "I'm up to the top of your boobs, Mom."

Training:  I got to go for a run with the hubs this morning.  We usually run solo (due to kids, work, schedules, etc), so it was kind of fun to run with him for a change.

Movin' On Up...

 ...to a 16"

 and to a 20".

My Valentines

Here are a couple of pics from around here the last couple of days.




Since Andrew was in Laramie yesterday, he cooked a Valentine's dinner Sunday night.  The yummy tilapia before it went into the oven.  He also did lobster tails, homemade pot-stickers and pineapple...yum!!










Ben at his class party.









And nothing quite says Happy Valentine's Day like new tattoos!

12 Years Old...

...and she's still got it!  (That's a cookie on her nose.)

Andrew and I got Aspen after we'd been married about 11 months. We were talking the other day how she's one of the few constants we've had almost the entire length of our marriage.  Since we got her, we've each had several different jobs, we've lived in 5 different houses in 2 different states, had different cars, gone from zero kids to 2, and the list goes on. 

She seems to be the only one that hasn't gotten the memo that she's "geriatric" according to vet standards.  We keep thinking she'll slow down, but she still tirelessly drops wet tennis balls in our laps, hoping for a chance to play fetch, and she sprints up and down the steps in the mornings if I'm not feeding her breakfast fast enough. This in spite of being 12 and having blown out her knees twice.  This week we had one of our first car rides where she didn't annoyingly yip almost the whole way; she still gets so excited to ride in the car like you'd expect of a younger dog.  And as many times as I've grumbled "She sheds faster than I can vacuum" or "When she's gone, I'll miss her, but I won't miss her hair," we find ourselves set on either a lab or a lab mix as our next four-legged family member because of her endless sweetness and how fun she is to play fetch with.  For now, we are happy to still have her with us, dog hair and all - we just joke that she (her hair) goes with us everywhere! 

Quick Rewind

While Benjamin's outside playing in the snow, I thought I'd take advantage of the time to do a little bloggy rewind. Yes, I am watching him...through the window. It's much warmer on this side of the glass. :) Oh, that boy makes me smile.

So to hit some of the highlights, we had a great time at Christmas. There was a lot of this. Santa brought the boys The Polar Express train set. (Max is into wearing mismatched PJ's - I don't ask.) The boys wearing some of their new gear. Both of my brothers and their wives flew in for the holidays - yeah! We got to meet this cutie patootie for the first time. Well, Andrew had met her (earlier business trip to Phoenix), but the boys and I hadn't. My middle brother and his wife are snuggling Charlie, but I think they were secretly projecting out to about August when they'll be snuggling their own little peanut because they've got a bun in the oven! They surprised us all with that awesome news Christmas Day.
My mom can't get enough of her grandbabies! Cousin time.
We thought we'd take advantage of having everyone in town at one time and get a big ol' family photo done. I love this one of the boys. Post-holidays, it's just been back to the usual. Both boys wanted to sing in the kids' choir at church (we kind of took the fall semester off), so that's been a new activity for Ben.

We took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters a few weeks ago. I think they enjoyed that more than they'd enjoy a real basketball game at this point, what with the fart jokes, players pantsing each other and outrageous shots the guys make. They also got a kick out of seeing Flight Time since we watch The Amazing Race and he's been a contestant on there. (We didn't see Big Easy though - not sure why.)

They are headed to the Monster Jam show this weekend with Andrew and are VERY excited to see the monster trucks.

And we've certainly gotten some pretty intense doses of winter. I'm afraid we may pay for our extremely mild fall for a while. They even canceled school for 2 days due to cold temperatures. I don't remember them ever doing that before; usually school is canceled for lots of snow, not just cold temps. Anyhoo, Ben just came in and is asking for cocoa, so that's it for now from around here.

Chair Lift = No Problem

Yesterday we hit the slopes again, and Ben rode the chair lift for the first time! He did great, no problems. He then snowplowed down some long greens with us and did awesome! Here are a couple of snowy pictures Andrew took with his phone. Max: Me and Ben:
Again, as you can see, not a sunny day, but we had steady flakes all day long, which makes for some pretty amazing snow on the slopes!

Getting Our Holiday On

Tuesday, I made 4 dozen of these little gems. I'm sure I'll be making more next week, but this is a start! :)

Tuesday evening we met up with some friends to tour the lights at the Wildlife Experience. Max felt the need to look frightened in front of the polar bear and dive like a dolphin, but I managed to snap this one before he crooked his arm over his head like a candy cane. The kids wrote letters to Santa, mailed them, and visited Santa's reindeer. They also had Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas running every 45 minutes on the IMAX, so we watched that on the BIG screen.

Today we toured Hammond's Candy Factory with my mom. System overload. Watching the workers do their thing.

Then we grabbed lunch and headed to the Governor's Mansion. The real attraction for the kids was in the Carriage House: Legos! Lego village with running trains. (Max is tooting the train horn.) Totally amazing Lego renderings of local landmarks, such as the Governor's Mansion and the Denver Public Library. Great holiday activities!

December, so far

Well, we're closing in on Christmas. Max is off-track from Thanksgiving break through the end of winter break. I've heard some parents say that they wouldn't want their kids home at this time because they'd be bouncing off the walls before Christmas, but I actually kind of like it. Whereas others talk about how frenzied everything is right now as they rush around, I feel kind of zen. Since we're in vacation mode (Ben still has preschool 3 mornings per week, but it's a lot more vacation-y than normal), we can do a lot of the fun holiday activities during the weekdays when things aren't as busy.

So what have we been up to? We've spent a lot of time with friends, gone to the Wildlife experience, gone skiing, and the boys checked out the Christmas activities (reindeer, crafts, puppet show) in Elizabeth with Grandma and Grandpa.

Ben had his school's holiday program Monday morning. Here is what the cuties looked like.

And here is what the cuties sounded like.

(He's got some great jazz hands, but looks a little Allen Iversen, in need of some chap-stick.)

One thing I love about his preschool is that they do Christmas songs, Hanukkah songs and Kwanzaa songs (bet you didn't know such a thing existed, huh?). I think it's good to understand the holidays your own family celebrates, but to also be aware of the holidays other families celebrate. It's hard to believe this is our last year at the preschool. It's our fourth year in a row having kids attend there and it's bittersweet as we enter the last half of our youngest child's final year there.

Later this week we're heading to the Hammond's Candy Factory and the Governor's Mansion, both done up especially fancy for the holidays. Saturday we're going skiing again and I have a cookie exchange/party with friends.

Last weekend skiing, (and we didn't take any pictures because it was snowing off and on all day, so we didn't have the bright blue Chamber of Commerce sky, but we had lots of fresh powder instead) Ben totally got into it for the first time, which was awesome!!! I so look forward to getting up there this season with the whole family. Last weekend and this weekend, we got discounted tickets through Boy Scouts, and then we also bought 4-packs to Copper Mtn, so we'll get up at least 6 times this year, which is progress for us. :)

Also on last Saturday's ski day, one of my very favorite Max stories happened. He was still groggy from getting woken up early to go skiing, but mumbled, "Mama, I have a surprise for you." He then proceeded to unzip his footy pajamas, only to reveal that he was FULLY DRESSED underneath! He said, "I was just so excited to go skiing that I didn't want to waste any time getting dressed." He was like a skiing superhero! What a cutie!

Today, we have nothing on the calendar (back to the whole vacation mode thing), but we're going to make some of my always-in-demand tagalong cookies (holla to Laurinda for that recipe!) and another batch of a new-to-me-recipe mint chocolate cookies. I made a batch yesterday and I highly recommend them if you like mint and chocolate! I'm pretty sure the boys will do some jigsaw puzzle work too...they've become pretty dang good at puzzles and will work on those puppies for hours!