Good thing this isn't my day job

I am not sure that I am cut out for blogging, it's a good thing I am not doing this to make money or to show people how to do something. I have to admit, the reason why I don't stick with updating this blog can be blamed on the whole loading and uploading photos. I hate waiting for the whole process to happen. Anyway, I have considered not blogging anymore..but I am sure come summer when we start playing outside again I'll have photos that I'll what to share with family and friends again...so we'll see. No promises though.

Since January's last post...

We tried to enjoy our sad snow-less winter

I said good by to my Grandma Joyce. I miss her

Brynlee Started Taking Ballet Lessons

Luke skimo raced in Colorado (2x's)

Pedro turned 7 (in human years)

Chloe has been an eating, growing, and climbing machine

so now I am hoping for lots of...

sunshine,

running,

traveling,

gardening,

and chickens.

Last weekend we finally got in a good snow day as a family. We went to the cabin and went sledding, snowmobiling, and built a great snowman. It was good to finally get out and play in good snow, but it was even nicer coming home to spring like weather!

Here are a few photos.

2012 Ski Mountaineer National Championships

HE WON!

Yep, Luke is the US National Champion in Ski Mountaineering. Last year he was the second US finisher, third overall, but this year he was first overall! It was exciting, plus it was fun to have his parents there to see the race with us. This is the first skimo race they had seen, and it was great to have them around.

The race was held in Jackson Hole at Teton Village. The course climbed up 8000 vertical feet and then of course you have to come down 8000 feet as well.

He was strong this year and had no problem with his gear. It was fun to watch this year as well because I was able to go up the tram and see Luke reach the top . It was the first time I've been able to see him on the course. The weather was nice and sunny this year, but the snow conditions were rough.

The next day he was able to race the Targhee skimo race and placed second there. One min. behind first. His legs were pretty worked after the big race so he couldn't hold onto the lead, but second was still great.

Christmas

This year we spent Christmas with my family. It was good to be home with my brothers, parents, and niece and nephew. Christmas is getting better every year with Kids around. Christmas Eve we spend at my Grandma's house, looking back I wish I would have taken my camera because I did not realize that would be the last Christmas with her around. We had a nice dinner and it was great to be at my grandma's again, it brought back a lot of memories from when I was little.

When we got back to my parent's house the girls received the traditional PJ's and then they frosted ginger bread cookies for Santa. Then it was off to bed.

The next morning Brynlee was very excited to see that Santa had found her at grandma and grandpas and she was pleased to see that Santa left lots of good crumbs behind.

Brynlee asked Santa for a cookie set and for a Fire Truck. Chloe received a barn and barn animals. We decided to continue with our tradition of not going overboard with the girls on Christmas. We wanted to keep it simple and focus on the little things. We've been more careful with the types of toys we buy for the girls and it's been much better at our house.

Christmas was great. I loved having it on Sunday this year. I loved that after opening the presents and feeling grateful for what we had and for being with family that we could attend church and focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

Oh and my favorite part of Christmas was...Surprising Luke, maybe even for the first time in our married life I was able to surprise Luke for Christmas. He's been talking a lot about wanting to learn how to play the banjo, so after a little while of searching I was able to find a banjo for him. It was a little difficult because I knew nothing about what type of banjo to buy. Thank goodness for the internet. It was fun to finally be able to surprise him!

Thanksgiving

This year we changed things up a bit and headed south for Thanksgiving. We had the opportunity to stay with friends and had Thanksgiving in St. George. I think it's been over 10 years since I last visited St. George, and now I can't wait to go back. We had a lot of fun and were able to soak up a lot of vitamin D!

We played by the pool, but mostly the hot tub. We went on Hikes through Zion and didn't wear our winter coats...it was wonderful. The only downside was that we were not with family this year.

Here are a few of our photos

Brynlee by the pool where we stayed

Chloe found an escape route

Our hike up angles landing

Walking the path to the narrows

Very tired from a long day at zion

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween weekend. It seemed to be a very long celebration of Halloween due to it falling on a Monday this year. What do we need to do to change Halloween to occur on the last friday of October? I'll vote for it, who's with me?

I made the girls costumes this year. It was a first for me. Brynlee wanted to be either a princess or spiderman, and then she finally decided on spiderman. We modified her costume into a "spiderGirl" which didn't sit too well with another spiderMan on Halloween night.

Chlöe is a great little toddler, but every once in a while she can put up a pretty good temper. Brynlee had started calling Chlöe "Chlöe Bird" a few months ago and it has kind of stuck, so when chlöe starts getting mad- we naturally started calling her angry bird....so Chlöe was an angry bird this year, but the cutest little angry bird I've seen.

The costumes were pretty easy to make, and I was able to get them made during nap times. (yeah) Using clothing we already had, a few pieces from the dreaded wal-mart, felt, and a trusty glue gun we had two homemade costumes this year.

My parents put on a carnival for the grandkids this year. They put a lot of work into it and it turned out great. The kids all received tickets and were able to go through a spook alley, they had a coloring contest, cake walk (musical chairs), ring toss, and they had a fishing pond. The kids ran around a lot and really enjoyed it.

Getting tickets from Grandpa for the carnival

Entering into the Spook Alley

Grandpa shutting the door on the spook alley so it's nice an scary

Brynlee at the ring toss

Chlöe hanging onto the rings.

Chlöe trying out the fishing pond.

Musical chairs

Chlöe enjoying her cupcake.

Brynlee lost at musical chairs and was very sad. Her cupcake cheered her up though.

The grandkids

Monday we went door to door trick-or-treating this year. Our ward had a trunk-or-treat on Saturday night so it gave us a nice opportunity to walk through our neighbor hood with the girls and visit with our neighbors. It wasn't too cold and the girls had a fun time. Chlöe was mostly entertained by a sucker for the night, and Brynlee was very brave and did a really good job of saying "trick-or-treat" and thank you. It's fun to see her grow up and change from year to year and to see her develop a relationship with her sister.