Snowed In

Who needs hundreds of dollars worth of video game equipment? Not us, give us a few kids music toys, and a U2 concert DVD, and it is an instant snow day activity fun for the whole family.
Added bonus, no one gets judged at the end!

Vacation wrap up

We had a lot of fun on vacation up at Deep Creek with the Markhams. Nate also went on a sleigh ride with Meckenzie and Grammy. Jesse went skiing. We looked around many of the little shops around town. It was a good time. Here are just a few more photos to wrap things up.
The house where we stayed had a nice large lawn, with several slopes. There was one day when it got warm, so some of the snow melted, but then the next few days were plenty cold, so there was a nice sheet of ice on top of the snow. The kids loved walking and slipping and sledding all over it. Aunt Cammi was such a great aunt to take them out all of the time!

Jesse dragging Graham around.

Just hanging out in the living room.

Coloring.

The view of McHenry from the mountain.

Wisp Resort where Jesse went skiing.

So that's it. There was our vacation. I'm proud of myself for getting it done less than a month after the fact. Now I can focus on other happenings as they happen.

Gingerbread houses

One night on vacation we made Gingerbread houses with the kids. Heather and I just brought two kits to make the houses with. The kids had a blast. Well, Nate and Meckenzie had a blast. Graham had his first of 3 nosebleeds right as we were getting the decorating under way. He just sat on my lap most of the time. But Aunt Cammi and Grammy were there to help Nate decorate his.

Meckenzie's finished product. Heather got fancy and put put icing icicles on hers.

Nate's finished house.

And of course, the best part was being able to eat them over the next few days!

The smallest church

On the way home from sledding we stopped at the smallest church in the 48 states. Jesse had stopped there last year when he was on a ski trip with the scouts.

This man must be the care taker of the church. It was open when we got there, and he came right afterwards, and then in was closed when Seth and Heather got there maybe 15 min after us.

More Vacation

OK, so while we were on vacation we decided to take everyone sledding. Cammi knew of this place in Blackwater Canyon where they had a great sledding hill, with a tow rope up to the top. As it turns out, the tow rope was not running, since there wasn't enough snow base, so you could trudge up, or they offered rides on a snowmobile up to the top. I don't think anyone went up to the top, it was quite a large hill, but most people rode down from about half way up. Nate decided that he loved it. Graham had a good time when he wanted to, but most of his time was spent clinging to me, and since I was in a delicate condition, and sledding is not on the approved list of second trimester activities, he didn't get a ton of sledding time in. This is what happened when he realized that he was no longer with me...
Nate and Heather and Meckenzie at the bottom of the run.

Graham in a rare moment having fun being pulled around by Grandad.

One of the last runs of the evening. The kids were getting pretty tired of it.

....and there goes Graham too....

Nate riding the little sled.

Grandad pulling Graham and mommy on the sled. (He got a work out!)

Heather and Meckenzie at the bottom of the run.

You can kind of see that Nate has fallen off of the sled at the middle of the run. He still had fun though.

Nate and Jesse on one of the less successful runs. Sometimes you made it to the bottom, and almost ran into the building, sometimes you had trouble making it to the bottom of the hill.

One week

We are one week post paci. He looked for it once one day, just randomly. But he's sleeping fairly normal. It takes him a tiny bit longer to fall asleep, but nothing major. I think we're done with it. (Of course, I still carry one in my diaper bag if I ever have an especially bad emergency, but I'm resisting as hard as I can.)

Next onto potty training... (dun dun dunnnnnn)

Don't expect to see this face anymore

We are getting rid of the paci over here. Not by doing anything specific. Just by getting rid of it. The past three nights we just haven't given it to him. Haven't said anything. Just aren't doing it anymore. He hasn't asked for it, said anything about it, just went to sleep without his paci. So we'll see. I'd like to get rid of the paci before the baby comes. It's hard enough to keep track of one paci, much less two.