March Madness

This month has actually been pretty calm.  We are getting ready to go on a little Spring Break trip and then we get back and start into soccer and then all the end of year stuff, so it seems like a good time to write about most of March before it gets crazy.  I spent a lot of time outside, mostly in the early am, running in this mild weather.  I have a little gang of early morning running friends here in Wellsville and Estee and I have hit the trails when possible.  I also started going to an exercise class in January that has been really fun.  It's been a while since I've done group exercise but this one is pretty intense while at the same time fun.  It's not a gym just a bunch of crazy ladies working our old hineys off!

I turned 39 this month.  Next year's the big one.  I had a very nice bday this year complete with lunch with a friend, dinner at Kabuki with the fam, being spoiled by Jer, and lots of little treats and messages from friends and family--including the dessert from my sweet neighbor Stephanie that was so cute I had to take a picture.  My birthday was kind of bittersweet because it's also the day Andi lost her battle with cancer.  It was inevitable at that point but still is hard to wrap my head around.  We had some really fun times in Jerusalem and during college, and I'm sad I won't just run into her anymore.  I'm even more sad for Cort and her girls...such a loss for them.  She was a beautiful person that made this world a better place.  I found an old picture of her to repost below.  Her funeral was beautiful, and I hope her family is finding some peace.  I will remember her every year forever on my birthday.

 Not sure about that face of mine, but I picked a good one of Andi.  This was back in 2008.  She was always smiling.

 

 
My cute little leprechauns on St. Patrick's Day minus one.  Don't mind our Christmas tree in the background.  These kids have lots of fun together.  They were creating their own landscape complete with ponds and trees.

 

 

 

 
There were a bunch of weird selfies Jer had taken when I checked dropbox, so I posted one.  This is his classic picture face.  Ian inherited this one.

 
Finally a rainy spring day, and it put some snow back on the mountains!

  Jer completed this little honey do project for me on a Saturday we didn't go skiing.  It's down in the basement.  He rocks.  Now we have enough yard work to last us until eternity.  I am not looking forward to putting in the yard, but I am looking forward to getting rid of all this dirt!  It's so messy.

Ski Season

The skiing this year was so bad but it gave me plenty of chances to ski with the kids.  They don't care what the snow's like, so it was still a hit with them.  We got Leah out on skis this year and she did great.  We had to retire Leah's cute pink helmet until next year and put her in a boy hand-me-down because it was just too big on her tiny head! All of the boys are getting so much better.  Luke, Seth, and I skied a few extra days at Powder Mountain and a day at Snow Basin with Grandpa Steve.  Our day at Powder Mountain was one of my coldest ski days ever.  After serious complaining I caved and bought hands and toe warmers for everyone for the first time in my life.  I'm not going to lie, it felt good.  It was cold.  My ski days with my kids are some of my best memories.  Seth had a chance to snow board alone with Jer at a night party.  In fact, that weekend he skied Friday, Friday night, and Saturday.  He's a die hard!  Here are a bunch of phone photos of our January-March activity.  The only selfies I've taken in my life have been on the ski lift.

  
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

February

This winter was the biggest dud on record.  I know some people loved it, but if you like skiing (and if you want water for the summer) it was quite the bummer.  We had shirt sleeve, 60 degree weather in February!  We honestly did not have a drop of snow on the ground at our house beyond January.  I like four seasons!   One particularly bright, sunny day that we didn't ski I took Seth to a jump rope clinic.  They performed at his school the day before and he thought it was so cool.  He brought home the flier and told him "maybe" which usually means it doesn't happen.  Then I realized it was the next day, so I took him, bought him a jump rope, and he had a blast.  I love that this kid has so many interests, and he's truly content to march to his own drummer.  We even had the chance to go get a Zeppes together, just the two of us, so it was really nice to spend a little alone time with Mr. Seth.

Valentine's Day is best dress day at school for the Valentine's Tea.  The kids escort girls in their class to the gym and seat them and bring them refreshments.  They all grumbled and were funny about it, but I think secretly liked it.  Seth and Ian were all over the best dress.  Luke not so much.  The night before we realized Seth and Luke needed Valentine boxes.  Seth still had last year's minion laying around, so we gave it a take two!  Luke didn't want to decorate, so he used his soccer cleat box.  He's just a tad bit obsessed with Lionel Messi!  Ian demonstrated with a lot of drama how he had to escort a girl on either side to the gym!

 

Luke and Jer have spent every Thursday evening since January in Preston shooting archery on a team with Boyd and Jer's friend from work.  Jer took this picture of Luke's "robinhood" shot when he shot into the back of a previous arrow.  Pretty cool.  He's really had fun and learned a lot.  In fact, their team tied for 2nd and are doing a shootout this Friday.  Jer got a new bow and apparently it all came back to him because he shot a 300 (perfect score) and a bunch of other great scores.

I was in charge of the Chinese New Year Party this year.  We had some stress with a last minute change of location, but it turned out fun.  We decorated the tables with oranges and gold coins and the kids made ram headbands and pulled wool in honor of the "year of the goat/sheep/ram."  This is a fun group to be a part of with a lot of cute Chinese kiddos and their siblings.  

 

January

It's March and I'm just getting started with 2015, but it's been a great year so far.  Winter was pretty much non existent this year, so I'm glad I got a few pics of the only snow we had here way back in January.  We have skied a lot these past few months too, but I'll give that a post of its own.  Seth's not really allowed to ride in the Razor because he's just too big these days, but he and Ian did spend one frigid afternoon playing with it.  

 

   

Ian and Leah have had lots of fun cruising in this thing and finally the other day Leah got up the courage to drive it slowly.

 

 I got the chance to dance with two cute cowboys at Mountainside's Western Night.  Ian wasn't so sure about the whole square dancing thing, but he liked the rootbeer floats.  Seth's quite a good little square dancer, and we had fun.  Seth wore the exact same cowboy outfit he wore last year.  Luke happily bowed out this year so that I would only have one kid to dance with each session.  He has been going to Preston every Thursday night with Jer to shoot in an archery league with Jer.  It has been a great experience, and I need to get Jer to take a photo before it's over.

 

The boys also got back their school pictures finally.  I have no idea why that takes so long these days since it's digital.  I only get the class picture, so these are pictures of pictures.  Ian's cracks me up. Luke's head also looks really enormous for some reason.  It doesn't look nearly that strange on the paper.  Each kid's picture is just an individual head shot on the same page.  I miss the days when it was a real class picture with the tall kids in the back and short in the front.  I'm old school.

   

The boys also enjoyed some pretty sweet seats that we were given to an Aggie game.