Pretty nice for February

It was actually pretty nice for anytime of year. The Oregon coast was spectacular this past weekend. Shorts in February? Unheard of around here! You never know what the weather will do but we lucked out and had a great weekend of exploring on the beach. The boys are perfect ages for this kind of weekend. They could spend hours digging and playing and collecting sticks, shells and rocks.  

Friday morning

Catching up

Wednesday always feels crazy around here. I'm up at school from 9:30-11:30 but today we also had the training on Toulouse Lautrec for our next art literacy session from 12-1. Then I ran home to make chicken picatta for a friend who lost her Dad to cancer in December. And also made baked french toast since tonight is "breakfast for dinner".  And did a complete sheet/towel laundry cycle, etc., etc.,
In other news, Sean has turned the bonus room into "Sean's Clubhouse". You must have a ticket to enter ( free for family members) and stations are set up all around the room...learn to juggle, pillow rides, Bop-It....all for a nominal charge. There's even a sign on the front door: "Yes, we're open" or "Go away, we're closed".
We skied Saturday and Jackson convinced me to go on a run called WeeBee GeeBee. Bad idea. It was a narrow, mogul-y, black run that I almost immediately wiped out on. I watched him gracefully zig zag his way to the bottom and then I attempted to gather my poles and skis which had gone off in four different directions. Fortunately a snowboarder saw me and must have sensed my desperation. He helped me slowly gather my gear and then I worked on getting my skis back on. The whole time Jackson was waiting at the bottom yelling "MOM...hurry up!!". I finally got down that hill and decided it was a good time to call it a day.
Next time, no WeeBeeGeeBee!!

A great weekend at the pool

The boys did really well at their swim meet this past weekend. I've never Sean work so hard in any of the sports he's done....he really wanted to win one of his heats. He was ahead in the 50 breaststroke but stopped at the first wall (thinking he was only doing a 25...)....ooops! We all screamed to keep going and he almost caught up, but started flutter kicking at the end, which is a no-no in breaststroke.  His freestyle looked awesome and he even did a flip turn in the 50. Jackson dropped almost 10 seconds on some of his times from October and had some great starts. One of the hardest things at these young ages is doing a good dive off the block...but once they figure it out, it can save 2-3 seconds, which is a big deal in the shorter races.  The boys also did some relays, which are always fun. All in all , a weekend of swimming success!

It's Friday!

It's raining! Talus didn't even want to venture out this afternoon. Cold and rainy means time inside so the good news is, projects around the house are getting completed. Organizing the family photos is going to take a loooong time but I got started today. No skiing this weekend since the boys have a swim meet Saturday and Sunday. Stay tuned for swimming photos!

The week so far

A little bit of snow....a little bit of art. We were hoping for a lot of snow but instead we just had a few inches that was washed away by rain within a few hours. And, sadly, no school cancellations!
I was in Sean's class today, helping with art literacy, which the students do once a month. This month's artist is Winslow Homer, so the kids got to practice some watercolor techniques. (The other photo is an art project inspired by the book "A Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats). 

We love snow!

And, it's even more fun when you get to play with your Aunt and Uncle from Seattle!

Photos from yesterday

From yesterday: Talus seemingly unaware he's under attack from a army of Lego vehicles and a photo of togetherness that has been rare of late. The boys will play together, mostly in staging Lego battles, but it's been a while since I've seen them reading something together on the couch. I'm pretty sure it was the new Calvin and Hobbes book Sean brought home from the library.

10 + 3

Sean has really been amazing us with his spelling skills. A perfect score on the weekly spelling test is "10 + 3". The test has 10 words, plus 3 challenge words.  Occasionally, Sean adds a note to the top of his test...I think one of these says "Oh boy!" and on another one, he had written "I feel lucky". I'm not sure what his teacher thinks about the additional comments, but as long as he keeps getting the 10 + 3, we are pretty happy.

January De-Cluttering

Like everyone else in the universe, I have tried to start the new year with some major clutter patrol. It is a daunting project and we really don't have THAT much stuff. I finally went through the boxes and boxes of school stuff I've saved since the boys started preschool and managed to get rid of a lot of things. Some of the special pieces of art work are now on display in the laundry room, and the boxes are finally labeled and seem to contain a reasonable amount of artwork, writing projects, etc. .
However, as you can see here, The Wall of Legos needs some help. I am perfectly fine having the boys Lego creations out on display in the family room. But, we (I mean "they") clearly need to tidy that corner of the room a bit.

The (sometimes) magical power of skiing

Skiing with kids can be a challenge. We've come a long way in terms of the boys being self sufficient, but inevitably there's always some sort of struggle with getting boots on/tracking down missing gloves and having a positive attitude (not a problem with Jackson, but sometimes an issue with younger members of the household). But when we get out there, get on the first chairlift and have a moment to breathe in the mountain air and take in the view around us, the stress/frustration/ grumpiness usually starts to fade. And, if by chance you've timed it just right, you catch the sky getting ready for a gorgeous sunset. We typically ski early, but on Saturday we decided to have a leisurely morning at home so we didn't get started until about 2:30. The pay off was the parking lot wasn't crowded, the lift lines were short and we saw one of the most amazing sunsets ever on Mt. Hood. None of the photos here is from the sunset...these are from the following day when we went to watch a ski race and did some sledding. The sun was so bright Jackson couldn't open his eyes all the way for a photo. (FYI, that's his friend Reese whose family also skis and spends time with us on the mountain).
Happy Monday!

Some photos from Christmas

Christmas Eve, the big day, up at the cabin and a few pics from a short hike we did today.
What's missing are pictures from a week of skiing because it was raining, snowing and just not good conditions for bringing the camera to the mountain. However, the last skiing day was in 15 inches of new fluffy powder...just awesome and much appreciated after some challenging weather earlier in the week.
Happy New Year!

A few scenes from holiday preparations...

All I want for Christmas...

is my two front teeth! The other front toth finally fell out..just in time for the holidays!

Three things that have happened around here...

We got a Chirstmas tree.

Someone decided it's fun to freeze random objects.

Someone got BRACES!!!!!