Snow tubing

January turned out to be an extremely busy month. As soon as I felt I had recovered from the Christmas holidays, the kids were out of school again for another "winter break".

We took advantage of the break and went to the mountains with some friends. There were 19 of us (9 adults and 10 kids) in one house for 4 days. Despite the close quarters, we had a nice time.

The funniest thing of the weekend was seeing us all get ready and out of the door to go snow tubing. It reminded me of the Home Alone movie where the family was scrambling around trying to get out of the door. Fortunately for us no one got left behind.

The kids all went snow tubing while the parents sat up on the deck and watched. Holden and Haley had a blast and loved every minute of it. Harrison went down a few times with Haley but everytime he got back to the top he would come over and tell me he didn't want to go again. Mean mom that I am, I made him go enough times that I felt I had gotten my money's worth then I let him sit out for a little while.

Although it hadn't snowed in a weeks time, we were able to find a hill that still had quite a bit of snow on it so that we could sled. The kids were having so much fun that the men had to test their sledding skills out. It was very funny to watch them flying down the hill, hitting the all the bumps and finally skidding (or toppling over) to a stop. The men decided to race down the hill and then convinced the women that we needed to try it. I just knew I was going to break my neck but I survived with only a few bruises to the bottom.

Here are a few pictures of our fun weekend.

No snow

What would make two young boys tune out the world and stare at the news as if it was the best show they have ever seen? The chance that they might actually miss school because of snow. Yep, for 30 minutes yesterday my two boys stared at the news hoping and hoping that the weather forecast would call for some snow or at least enough ice to delay schools. Sadly, that was not in the forecast and they had to go to school on time today.

I know not to get my hopes up so when they call for snow or ice I just go about my business as if it won't happen. That isn't the case for two young boys with visions of sleeping in, snowball fights and sledding. The slightest mention of snow sends them into a frenzy.

Today, instead of snow we got a light rain and a cold, cloudy morning. We'll have to wait a little longer for the next winter storm to head out way. For now, the boys will put their news watching on the back burner until they hear mention of snow again and then you will find them glued to the screen in hopes of hearing those two words - school's cancelled.

Don't Axe me.....

Sometime in the last ten years, most likely coinciding with the arrival of children and the tightening of the finances, I started not caring what brand of deoderant I used. Mostly, I buy what's on sale or what I have a coupon for without regard to the brand. The things I want in a deoderant are simple 1) it has to be a solid (I hate the sticky roll-on stuff) 2) it has to smell nice (or at least I have to imagine it smells nice since I can no longer smell) and 3) it has to work. I don't care if it's Secret or Degree just as long as I'm not smelling bad.

Sometime in the past month an odd thing has happened at my house. Holden has started taking interest in personal hygiene. Most specifically the way he smells. Now up until this point, Holden has been a child who had to be reminded to brush his teeth, put on clean underwear and wear deoderant.

Two weeks ago Holden came to me asking for some new deoderant. I offered him several choices from my stash of deoderant but none of them suited. Apparently I am out of the loop when it comes to deoderant choices for boys because no longer will Degree or Dry Idea suffice. It has to be something that smells good. Something that is cool to wear. It has to be Axe.

I am all for good personal hygiene and so I reasoned that if it's Axe that makes him want to wear deoderant than I will buy him some. So on a trip to Walmart, we went to the deoderant aisle to purchase some Axe. I didn't realize the stuff came in so many different scents including a special limited edition. It took him quite sometime to decide on one. He then carried the deoderant around the store with him as if it were his most prized possession.  I can remember when he use to do the same thing with Legos or a Matchbox car.

A few days ago, Target had an ad for Axe value packs. If you purchased two value packs of Axe for $5 each, you got a $5 Target gift card back. Well, since I had a coupon for $1 off  and I can't pass up a bargain, I figured I would make Holden happy again and buy him so more Axe. So we headed over to Target where Holden proceeded to pick out the Dark Temptation body wash value pack and the Dark Temptation deoderant and body spray value pack.

I didn't realize what a bad, bad mistake I had made until we got home. Holden hurried upstairs with his new purchases. Shortly after a hazy cloud of vapors appeared to fill the house and followed by Holden. Can I just say that even though it was 45 degrees outside, we had to open the sliding glass door to air out the downstairs so that we could all breathe.

So I suppose I could be upset that Holden is showing a bit too much interest in smelling good these days but I'm not sure what's worse that or stinky underarms.

Making a gingerbread house

My mom always makes a gingerbread house with the kids. I am glad she enjoys doing it because honestly it's something I don't think I would do well with. First off it's a pain to put the whole thing together. You have to have a lot of patience which doesn't happen to be something I have a lot of. Second, it makes a huge mess. And last the kids generally lose interest right at the end and decide that it's okay for someone else to finish up the project (which includes cleaning up the mess).

This year it actually went pretty well and the boys stuck with the decorating until the house was all but done. Most years the boys just put the candy on until they get bored but this year Harrison even tried to decorate the house with the frosting. I think mostly he just wanted to squeeze out a huge blob so he could eat it but at least he acted like he was trying to help.

Here's the work in progress:

And the finished project:

I resolve every year to take a family picture and design beautiful holiday cards. And every year something happens and time slips up on me. This year was no exception. I did design the card, the picture however was not what I had intended but given the deadline it worked. I even got the cards stamped and mailed today. Finally something I can cross off that list. Now if I could just find those last few presents and get them wrapped....

A case of a mispelled word

The English language makes it difficult to teach spelling. There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason in some instances to the way things are spelled. Teaching young children to spell phonetically works often but sometimes it can be tricky. For instance this week Harrison had for and more. How do you explain to a child why one has an e and the other doesn't? He was able to remember the word more has a e because I kept saying more has one more letter than for.

Sometimes spelling can also be confusing because certain letters have a similiar sound if not spoken clearly which was apparently the case when I called out another of Harrison's words - ship. He spelled it S-H-I-T. Haley was in the next room laughing and trying hard not to myself, I said "No spell ship" (making emphasis on the letter p).   I didn't want to explain to him what he just spelled because I knew that he might find it funny and repeat it. We went through the whole list again and when we got to ship he once again spelled it with a t but quickly changed to a p. 

The test is today and I am hoping that he spells ship correctly. I can only imagine the expression on his teachers face if he inserts a T where the P is suppose to be. She might wonder exactly what Harrison is learning at home. 

How we get our turkey

Let's talk turkey. Today Harrison came home from school with his interpretation of how turkeys get to our Thanksgiving table. Here is his storyboard creation.

Step One: The turkey is running around happy and carefree and loving life not knowing of it's impending doom.

Step Two: The turkey becomes scared and bolts when he figures out that someone has come to catch him.

Step Three: The turkey is unable to escape and meets his fate when he is slaughtered with an axe. Am I wrong to be disturbed by the fact that my 7 year old portrays the slaughter of a turkey so descriptively?

Step Three: The turkey has been baked and prepared for us to eat on Thanksgiving.

Happy Turkey Day.