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January 2009
January 12, 2009
The Boy is One
Can you believe it? Jack is one today. It's little man's birthday. We went to Joelle and Stephen's house yesterday for a fun little birthday party. Ellie, Kate and I all had a blast watching Jack open his gifts and smash his first cake. (Unfortunately Jill had a fever all weekend so Allen and Jill had to hang out at home.)
Jack just learned how to walk so he was quite conflicted at his party. Should he practice his new skill? Should he open and play with his new toys? Should he shove 12 goldfish into his mouth at one time? Decisions. Decisions.
The best part was watching him with his cake. My girls all reacted the same way Jack did. He was not sure he wanted to touch his cake at all. Since he'd never really tried chocolate before it probably just looked like a mud pie. Once Joelle gave him a little taste (She said she had to eat some herself to show him how good it was but I think that was just an excuse to get a bite herself!) he warmed up to it slowly. He was not big on having that chocolate all over his hands so you can see he employed the onesie napkin to take care of the problem.
Happy Birthday Jack!
(Since Jill was sick this weekend I had to cancel all my other clients but Joelle did bring Jack by my studio for some official one year portraits. I'll share those later on this week.)
I took this last picture further away than I normally do because I wanted to be sure and get the 12 sign above Jack's head. Joelle and Stephen fell in love with this sign when they realized it was the day Jack was born. Cute, eh?
January 09, 2009
Guest Photographer
When I showed these pictures to the girls they loved them. "Mom, you took some awesome pictures." So much for their observations skills. I was IN the pictures, not TAKING them! Allen opted for the sidelines when the ice skates came out so he was on photographer duty. (I was too lazy to change the watermark, though, so I'm taking credit for these hon!) He did a great job. Just ask the girls!
On New Year's Day we gave in to all the begging and headed off to the skating rink. Kate was the first one to ask about ice skating. She knew SHE wouldn't be able to skate but she really wanted us to be able to 'borrow' some skates for Jill and Ellie so she could see them fall all over the skating rink. Ahh, sisterly love!
Unfortunately she didn't realize how hard it would be to sit on the sidelines. Poor Kate spent a sad hour on the sidelines watching Jill and Ellie cruise around the rink. My Dad, the former hockey player, was a steady Eddy on the ice so he was a great partner for the ever cautious Jill. Ellie wanted nothing to do with help from me. She wanted to figure out this ice skating thing all by herself. By her second turn around the rink she was cruising along on her own.
Even Kate got in on the action. Every few turns Dad would swoop over to the side and take Kate for a spin in his arms. This totally made her night!
January 08, 2009
Ski Pass
On our first day in Sun Valley, Allen and I took Jill and Ellie over to Dollar Mountain where the beginners hone their skills. Kate could not ski with her broken arm so she had a special day with Nana. (That included lunch and a fun trip to the grocery store. Woohoo!)
Unfortunately the weather was NOT cooperating at all. It had snowed 3-4 inches the night before but it warmed up to above freezing so the snow was like peanut butter. To that add wind and sleet and you have a disaster waiting to happen. Ellie cried up and down the first two runs and Jill was a total trooper. The girls and I regrouped with some warm hot chocolate while Allen tried out the longest run to see if it would be good for Jill. Before he came back I had already convinced the girls to try one last run. When we saw Allen, though, we almost changed our minds. It looked like he'd skied through a fire hose. He was completely soaked!
We waited 10 more minutes and then tried our last run. Surprise surprise! The snow conditions had improved greatly. So much so that we didn't have to twist a single arm to get them to do one extra run on top the of the one extra run.
The next time the girls went skiing was with my Dad and Allen and they had a glorious sunny afternoon. They totally rocked the hill. Jill worked on a ton of turns on every run (ever the cautious one) and Ellie, who found her confidence, had to be convinced to do a few MORE turns.
The lessons we did in November and December really paid off and we can hardly wait for Kate's cast to come off so we can ski as a family later in January.
January 07, 2009
The Cave
We were so worried about the lack of snow in Sun Valley. All month we checked the ski reports and all it kept saying was that only half the runs were open and they were continually making snow. Ugh! We were getting tons of snow at our HOUSE and they weren't getting any in the mountains.
All that changed on Christmas even when they got 2 and a half feet in 24 hours. We didn't arrive until a few days after that but, as you can see above, that snow wasn't going anywhere!
On our first day in Sun Valley Allen decided to compete for the Father of the Year award by spending most of the day outside building a snow cave. This thing was at least six feet long and 3 feet high. Allen got help from Tim (my brother) and on and off from the girls. Actually, the girls preferred to do the interior decorating so they built the snow furniture inside the cave.
January 06, 2009
Christmas with The In Laws
Was that some sort of National Lampoon movie? Whatever the case, we celebrated Christmas with Allen's parents, Dean and Wanda (above) and his sister Deana. I know a fair number of people that groan when they find out they have to spend the holidays with their in-laws. Not me! We all get along so well. You have to understand that Allen married his Mom and I married my Dad. That is so Freudian it isn't even funny but it does make for family bliss!
Wanda had a great time setting up a scavenger hunt for the girl on the 23rd and 24th. She decided to spread out the opening of her presents for the girls by having them follow clues at designated times. On the 23rd the girls got to find yarn and knitting needles that she had wrapped and hidden for them. The funny thing was that she picked the exact same yarn for Ellie and Kate that I did when I knit them their scarves. For that reason I pulled out the scarves I had wrapped up for the girls and Deana and Wanda and they all got to open an extra present that day. (I also made scarves for my mom, sister and myself. I was a knitting fool this year!) The picture below shows Dean and Allen trying to teach Kate how to knit. THAT will never work! (Which is, of course, what Kate told them.)
On the 24th each girl got to search for their own present two hours apart. The gifts were all games so everybody got to play the games while they were waiting for the next sister to open her clue. Jill got Monopoly (with a new fangled credit card machine instead of cash), Kate got Pictureka (an picture search game) and Ellie got Mario Cart for the Wii. Very fun!
Before bedtime the girls left treats for our late night visitors and headed to bed. It was very lame that I didn't take any pictures of the beautiful dolls the girls got from Santa. Suffice it to say that he exceeded expectations!
I'll end with a few shots that I took of the girls (Doesn't Jill look like a teenager. Gulp!) and a few shots Ellie took of me and Kate. It's nice to appear on the old blog every so often!
January 05, 2009
Holiday Fun
We had a fabulous Christmas holiday. We spent a few days (including Christmas) with Allen's parents and then we drove to Sun Valley for a week after.
We were gone for 10 fun days but we are so happy to be home in our own beds and we are ready to go back to work and school.
For the rest of the week I'll post pictures to show you all the fun we had. For now you will just have to enjoy the Sun Valley sights. Enjoy!
