Our Second Ski Trip

On March, 7 2011 we took the boys skiing again. They had so much fun the first time we decided to go back.
Here we are in front of the ski lodge. All geared up and ready to go.

Hear is Morgan on top of the Appal Strudel. We are so proud of him he skied down this one and then went on to Orchard Run. He and John eventually tried one black diamond called Big Appal. He is so brave.

Here he is making his way down the Appal Strudel.

Here is Jack on the Appaltizer. When we first started he wanted to hold my hand the whole time. But then he saw some of his buddies and wanted to race them. Then he was gone and even moved over to the Strudel. He got on and off the chair lift better than me. Which is not saying much. I had some serious difficulty getting on.

Saturday Morning at Lowes

Occasionally on Saturday mornings we like to take the boys to Lowe's to build. These little projects are free and the boys love it.

Here are John and the older boys walking into Lowe's.

Jack ran into a buddy from his soccer team while we waited.

Jaden wanted to put the wheels on first. He did not want to put it together he just wanted to play with it.

Jack carefully hammering his car together.

Morgan getting all his tools and pieces together and patiently waiting for John to tell him the first step in the directions.

I helped Jaden a little with the hammer. I thought it would be safer that way.

Jack putting the bottom plate on his car.

Finished product. You may notice that I had a car too; This is because in my haste to put Jaden's car together fast I did not pay attention to the directions. When I nailed/tacked the bottom plate on I put it on upside-down. In doing that I covered up the mechanism that allows the car to move forward on its own. So on the second one I made sure to put the plate on correctly. I lined up the holes and hammered away only to find out that it put pressure on the back tire and it would not roll. I am hoping Daddy can sand it down so Jaden can play with his car. So the lesson in this story is READ the directions.

Our First Family Ski trip

On February 9th we went with a couple of friends to go skiing. We decided to try out snow boarding.
This was the extent of my snowboarding career. It is a lot tougher than it looks. I spent more time down than up.

This is our snowboard instructor using the much needed "hands on" approach with Jack. To no avail.

Here is Morgan hitting the slopes during a practice run.

This is everyone pouting that they hate snowboarding and that this is the worst day of their lives.

Oh look what happend after lunch. The snow boards magically turned into skis. Then the worst day of our lives quickly turned into the best time we have ever had.

Morgan even got brave enough to try some slopes that required riding the chair lift.

Morgan going down the Strudel which is a blue square slope. That means difficult. Green square-aka bunny slope =easy. Blue Square= difficult Black diamond= very difficult. Very proud of both boys for trying new stuff and they had fun doing it.

The Power Team

The Power Team came to Morgan's school and talked to them about abstaining from drugs and alcohol. Morgan begged and begged us to go. He told Jack how cool it was going to be.

This is a Big Country blowing up a hot water bottle. He blew it up until it popped.

I can't remember this guys name but he was bending a lead pipe over his head. These guys were very strong.

This is Big Country he broke a wooden bat over his thigh, his shin and his knee. The boys were very impressed.

Here are the boys with a member of the Power Team. The boys loved the show and had lots of fun. At the end they had an altar call and implied that all the people were saved by walking forward. We worried about going for that reason but it gave us an opportunity to talk about true salvation with Morgan and Jack. All in all it was a good night.

Snow Jan 2011

In January 2011, we had a heavy snow storm. School was canceled for a week. Here is how we passed our time.

Morgan threw snow balls!

Jack was his target.

Buzz enjoyed playing in the snow.

I got my exercise by pulling Jaden around the neighborhood on a sled.

Then Jack decided that his legs were tired and jumped on the sled too. As you can tell he did not hold on to Jaden very well.

As we made our way around the 'hood' we noticed that the Stewart's had an awesome sledding hill. I think the boys sledded for about 2hrs. Jack and Jaden were cold and tired and wanted to go home. The Stewart's were nice enough to let Morgan stay for a while longer. That was the first time that we allowed him to walk that far in our neighborhood by himself.

This is our lovely home in the snow. I love our house and our neighbors.

Jaden loved being pulled in the sled. He wanted nothing to do with going down the hill in it though.

Morgan made some snow people on the deck. Then he had fun throwing snowballs at them and knocking them off the rail. We had fun in the snow but that was enough fun. We just about went stir crazy being stuck in the house all week.

Christmas 2010

I know this is a little late but...better late than never. I have been so slack at updating my blog so I am going to cram two action packed months in.

This is John "reading" the directions to Morgan's K'nex. There were no words- just pictures. I had attempted to put it together but John ended up taking apart what I had done and redoing it.

Morgan and John working on the K'nex that Gary and Kristin gave him for Christmas.

Here is Jack with the Harry Potter Lego set that Papa and Lucretia gave him for Christmas. Look at how proud he is. He helped me put it together.

And here is Jaden with the Thomas track that Papa and Lucretia gave him. Now mind you these were not the only gifts they received but just some of their favorites.

Somehow at Christmas we ended up with and extra boy. I wish he was our gift, but he is our nephew. He got to ride home with us and spend the night. Jaden enjoyed a sleepover with his cousin Trey.