Ski Vacation!

We are back!  Hunter Mountain was our home for five days and we had a blast.  We went with Aiko's family and stayed in a great house right on the mountain.  

Bunk beds!  (they didn't sleep here though)

Little Emme playing...

We had a nice roaring fire every night

Rei and the twins playing I guess their form of chess.

Meal time...

Surprisingly, the kids watched very little tv all week.  We did have movie night one night and all was quiet....

These two were so cute all week, always hanging out.

Our mud room with all our gear...

Stayed tuned for the details of our great adventures skiing!

Another day of skiing...

Well, it wasn't the 10 inches of fresh powder we had in the blizzard, but today was still nice.  Aiko and  I even discovered some new trails (and inadvertently had to ski down a closed one!).  It was very quiet on the mountain overall...maybe it all dies down after ski school ends.

The twins had their lesson, had a great teacher Carson who made it real fun for them.  I think they are getting a bit frustrated that they cannot stop, but they came out of their lesson beaming, which was all I needed.

While I skied with Aiko and the twins had their lessons, Felix was skiing with David and Giovanna.  They met us at the mountain for a morning of skiing.  Now we just have to get their twins on the slopes!

Compo Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  It was beautiful today and so after school I headed home and took the kids over the Compo Beach..

We had the whole playground to ourselves, but there was a lot of snow.

The beach was absolutely beautiful.

We walked all the way down the beach to the cannons.  The twins pretended they were pirates.  

We stayed until sunset and then walked the long trek back to the car before it got too dark.  How nice to get out and get some fresh air!

Blizzard!

Well, Nemo came in full force and I have to say I think we made the most of it!

Sledding in the front yard...even some big kids came to test out our man made sled track!

On Saturday morning, the kids ski lessons were cancelled and so they slept in with Felix.  I headed out to slopes to meet up with Aiko for some skiing.  The roads were not horrible....this is what East Avenue looked like.

The slopes were empty and had plenty of powder (were we in the West?)

Aiko and I skied for a few hours and then when her kids got out of class, we did a run with her kids.  Here's Ko, he and I rode the lift together and he is a great skier!

On Sunday, I woke up early and did a seven mile training run with Giovanna.  The streets were somewhat plowed, but no one was out so it made for a nice run.  After church, lunch and naps we were at Naramake School in the afternoon for some sledding. The big hill was so fast that it was a little too dangerous for the kids.  So we went to this little incline where the kids could go down by themselves.  Josephine and her mom joined us (the other Lucas was sick)

School is cancelled tomorrow (Monday) not due to the roads but because so many teachers and other staff live in towns north that have not seen a plow yet.  So I guess they figure that too few people would should up.  Looking forward to sleeping in!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Last week Grandpa celebrated a birthday-87!  That's a LOT of years!.  We headed over to his house after school to bring him balloons and cookies.  Happy Birthday Grandpa.

Superbowl Sunday

My excitement over Superbowl is like a double edged sword.  In some ways I am so excited for the biggest game of the year, but the other part of me knows that football is over and we will have to wait for September to enjoy it once again.  So to send the season off in style, we hosted a Superbowl Party.  It was three families from the neighborhood, and it was quite the fun time.

The men picking their squares (you are supposed to pick the squares first and then assign the numbers, but logistically that did not work for us)

All set and hung up on the wall for the record.

I had our dining table set up for crafts for the kids.  Each kid got a superbowl book with tracing letter pages (that dealt with football-think "helmet", "field" etc., )connect the dots and football coloring pages.

Cameron had the best seat in the house I think.

The halftime dance party...

I think this pretty much sums it up.  

Congrats to Martin who claimed the halftime money prize from the squares.  Felix won the final score money prize (so that was fun!).

Big Kid Bikes!

By the time their actual birthday rolled around, I felt like we had been celebrating for a whole week (well I guess we almost had!)  Anyway, the main gift for the twins was new bikes.  Big kid bikes!  

Putting them together the night before (this felt like Christmas all over again!)

The finished project.

After dinner at Bertucci's, the twins came home to find them in the living room.  They even tried a quick spin around the house.  

A birthday favorite...

The twins are mesmerized by this game.   It was a gift from Isabella.   It's called Scramble, but I think in our day it was called Perfection (and it wasn't two player?)  Basically the timer starts and you race the timer and your opponent to see if you can get all the pieces in before the timer goes off, the board pops and all the pieces get thrown out of the board.

Lucas is very serious and very competitive about this game.  It is very intense watching them go at it.

Thank you

Of course part of getting all these great gifts is writing thank you notes for said gifts.  However at this age, it meant that I would be writing them, and that really didn't sit well with me.  I didn't really want to do it.  So I typed up each thank you note and made the Dear "_____" part and the twins' names in a traceable font.  And we spent a whole afternoon tracing thank you notes.  Got them more involved in the process which I LOVED.  

After about 20 minutes, Liliana says "Mom, thanks yous are hard work!"  Just wait little lady...wait until you get married!

Birthday

Last Saturday we had the kids' party for their 4th birthday (princess and pirates).  

Felix on prep duty the night before.

All the crowns for the princesses.

The cupcakes were done by my friend Cecily.  She is a chef and also teaches culinary arts at our school.

The princess and pirate of honor!  Each boy had their own pirate hat to decorate and each girl had a crown to decorate.

This is Robert, he came and played guitar and sang and danced with the kids.

The kids eating their pizza.

Enjoying his oversized birthday boy pirate cupcake.

This was the first party that was outside of our home that I had to handle all the details for (last year was at a kids gym and they took care of everything)  But our church's hall was the perfect space.  Lots of room to run around, some crafts and some music, and they had a ball.  I actually enjoyed myself too, suprisingly!