Random!

Just a bunch of random pics and videos:

Lucy practicing the piano while being silly!

Emmy being goofy on the piano!

Jonas playing the trombone - just remember that he had never touched the thing as of 6 months ago.  So not too bad at all!

 Jonas had a swim meet this past Saturday.  It was just about his last as I told him I was done with his complaining and so he was all done with swimming!  He was mad; I was mad.  But then we settled down and he'll still do swimming.  So I guess that means he likes it?!  Really, I think he just likes the social aspect of being with friends - which is fine.  He probably won't be an amazing swimmer (he could if he tried!), but I'm still glad he's sticking with it.  Can you find me in the above picture?!  I was a timer.  Awesome.

 Swim, Jonas, swim!  Jonas is usually in the 1st or 2nd heats.  Heats are grouped according to their times in the events.  So Jonas swims with the slower kids and ends up being in the middle.  His form is good and he looks good - just a little on the slowish-side.

 Jonas going off the board for another event.

 I'm proud of him for doing it!

 Brigham is either 1.  sick or 2.  tired of staring at rats all day and so has taken up his previous past-time of napping.

The wall is coming along!  The dry wall is all up and now it just needs to be "finished" off.  Which isn't a small project.  This is the view coming up from our back stairs.

 The light/fan the girls picked out and that Ben heroically installed.  I say heroically because he had to spend a lot of time in our sketchy attic doing it!

Brigham standing in what will be the door.  This view is from the main hallway at the little step-down place.

Okay, girls are done with school and so I best go get them!

Oh Rats!

No, literally, oh rats!  As in I let my kids each get a rat.  How gross is that?!  Ben doesn't think it's gross . . . but he's weird apparently.

My kids have wanted small critters for awhile.  They would talk about it for a bit and then forget it for awhile.  Well Jonas brought it back up again and couldn't leave it alone (he's like that).  So something inside me snapped and I agreed.  The boys bought everything - cage, accessories, and actual rats.  The girls bought their cage and accessories ($50 each) and Ben and I bought their rats for them (seeing as we had helped the boys with their first critters - hamsters or gerbils, whatever they were).

We were going to buy them at Petco until we were told those rats were mainly "feeder rats" and hadn't been "handled."  If not handled, then they are more likely to bite at first, etc.  They are trainable, but . . . So we found out about a pet store in Delta and after a week of semi-good behavior, Ben and I took our kids to buy their rats.  I'm not sure what was more gross - the rats or the pet store.  I just felt so dirty after leaving the pet store - it was the worst!  Yuck!  Also, we were told the rats the kids picked out were all females (which is what they wanted), but, upon closer examination once we got home, it turned out we ended up with 3 males!  What?! Again, not impressed with the pet store.  After Ben read about the differences in the genders, the girls decided to keep their males.  The boys decided to go with females and so that meant Ben and Miles had to go back to Delta and exchange rats.  What a day.

Emmy's rat is the most cuddly so far, but I think they are all warming up to the kids.  Here are the names:  Tomato (Miles'), Nibbles (Jonas'), Oreo (Emmy's), and Harold (Lucy's).  Brigham can't get over them.  He pretty much just sits by their cage and stares.  Sometimes he'll bark.  He's nuts.

On another note, just Friday night we did a bedroom change - Ben and I moved in to the girls' room and moved them in to our room.  Then Ben came up with a brilliant idea of making a wall - so the girls' room is not part of a thoroughfare (why didn't we think of this when we were in there these past 9 years?!).  Ben has always wanted the girls' room and I do have to admit that I love it!  It's so cute and quaint.  Ben will eventually make the girls some beds (that can be made in to bunk beds) - actually, that's what inspired the switch.  Standard beds do not fit in the girls' rooms due to the wacky walls (it's like an octagon shape, but not quite . . .).  Anyways, that's what's going on in our lives (besides work, school, swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, activities, etc., etc.!)

 Our new room - it's hard to get a decent shot.

 Ben's side . . .

 My side . . .

Luckily we don't need any floor room because we don't have much!  But seeing as we don't play with toys, I think we'll be okay.

 What Brigham does 90% of his time now.

 Emmy and Oreo.

 Lucy and Harold.

 Ben working on the wall.  (I hung curtains so we could visualize the wall . . .)

Miles and Tomato.  I really, really didn't want the kids to get a white one.  They are even creepier than the creepy rats.  But Miles did.

Sigh.

Oh, I did have multiple nightmares the week before we got the rats.  Once I even jumped in the bed and screamed out - scaring Ben.  Then I couldn't stop laughing because I'm so funny.  But, yes, the nightmares did involve furry critters!

Aiyiyi.

Winter break is over

Well today is the last day of winter break - yes, our kids were still out of school as of today!  It was good when it was good and was awful when it was awful!  :)

The boys had a lot of adventures.  They were able to play at this "creek" (ditch) area and build forts with their friends for many days.  They rode their bikes all over as well - in town and in the Buzzard Gulch Mtn. Biking area.

The girls were home more.  Thus we had many "dance shows," etc.  They did manage one play-date with friends and I did take them to the pool like 4 times, I think.

But real life starts back.  I'm a little sad and a little glad.  Routines are nice, but it was also a nice break from the crazy activities of school, gymnastics, swimming, music class, etc.

Plus, I have to work tonight.  Sigh.

Why can't life be more balanced with play and work?! 

Because . . . that's life!

 Here's our December calendar . . . just posted a little late!

One of Emmy's Christmas gifts was a 3-month subscription to Kidstir.  It's a company that mails out a box that includes three recipes and a few kitchen "tools" to go along.  For December's box, Emmy got three cookie recipes and enjoyed making them.  She just got January's box - full of soup recipes.  Today she made the Oodles of Noodles soup - it was basically a homemade ramen noodle soup with carrots and tofu.  She had fun making it. . .

and eating it, too!  I tried a bite or two and it was yummy!  Her siblings all had a bowl and all enjoyed it, too.  Those are the cute chopsticks that came with Emmy's Kidstir box!

And here is one of the dance routines the girls came up with over break:

Our Own "Winter Olympics"

So the first week of Winter Break was pretty long . . . I was missing our cool winter activities that we couldn't do because of the lack of snow and cold enough temps during the day (the nights have been plenty cold - including some single-digits).

Anyways, I started thinking that I should get a group of families and friends together and rent the Field House in town.  It just opened (it used to be the old pool) and so my family had never been and I thought it would make for a fun experience.  But . . . I didn't just want a bunch of kids running around crazy for 2 hours and so I decided to organize a "Winter Olympic" themed activity.

I wasn't sure I'd get enough families to commit (I needed 8 others so our price would be $20/family) - but it came through at the very end!  In fact, I had a group show up that I wasn't counting on and that brought it to exactly 9 families and so it was perfect.

Unfortunately, since I was in charge and running it, I didn't get any pictures myself.  My friends did send me a few from their phones, though.

We started out with a Captain's command game - just to get the kids together and moving.  Then we did the Olympic torch.  All the kids lined up and then ran half-way around the field with the torch and then passed it on.  It was fun to watch!

 Most of the kids all lined up and ready to run!  Miles started it off!

 Go, Lucy, go!  They ran around Csilla.  :)  Csilla was a great help and support for this activity and I'm glad she was there!

Emmy later told me, "It was fun to run with the torch, but also a little embarrassing."  Haha, good!

Then we named the three countries and its team members:  Finland, Sweden, and Norway!  I had made the teams up already and assigned point-values for the different ages of kids.  Thus each country had the same (or within one point) value, hopefully meaning the countries would be "even" in terms of ages and abilities.  (Which I think it was for the most part!)

Half of the fun is being with your friends - so I managed to group up many of the kids with one friend.  Here is Lucy with her friend Lila - go team Finland!  (We marked their cheeks with the first letter of their country.)

Okay, then on to our first event - Mogul skiing!  I used the 3 lines on the field for the three different countries and each team member had to jump over the line with both feet at a time (basically hoping side-to-side, but going forward . . .).  They had ski poles with them, too.  If they touched the line, 2 seconds were added to their country's over-all time.  It was a relay and so as soon as one kid finished, the next one in line went.  The kids looked awesome and funny!  :)

After moguls we did Bobsled.  We had three "bobsleds" and the teams broke up into three relay-groups and each group had to pull the bobsled down and back.  The kids enjoyed this one, too:

(Peter pulling Braden)

After bobsled, we did the biathlon.  I had brought three pairs of skis with boots on and the kids were going to have to hop in the boots/skis and "ski" down the field and then shoot using nerf guns.  But we weren't allowed to use skis on the field and so that kids just ran down the field, grabbed their nerf guns, and had 5 shots at cups.  For every cup knocked down, the team would earn a bonus point.  Miles said this was his favorite event.

Shoot, Emmy, shoot!

After the biathlon we had our slalom skiing.  We set up 10 "poles" or towers (made from lego container boxes that were about a foot high) along one line and you had to take the ski poles and weave in and out of the towers.  If you knocked down a tower, 2 seconds would be added to your finished time.  There were several close calls, but no towers were knocked down!  Jonas said this was his favorite event.

We were going to do "figure skating" next, but we were running out of time and so we nixed it.  But the kids were going to have to put wax paper on their feet (held up by a rubberband) and perform a little routine (skate forward in a circle, full turn on your right foot, skate backward in a circle, full turn on your left foot, some jumps, etc.).  Maybe next time!

So our last Olympic event was ice hockey.  I had enough hockey sticks and we used Csilla's trainer tennis ball (an extra-large tennis ball).  Two teams went first and had 5 minutes to play.  Whoever scored the most, won.  Then the losing team played the third team.  The winning team from that went and played the first winning team in the finals.  :)  It was fun and the kids played pretty decently!  This was Lucy's favorite event!

Then Csilla had worked her magic and we were allowed to use the "human bubbles" to let the kids roll around and pummel in to one another -for the last 20 minutes.  These bubbles can be rented, but you only get 10 of them for 1 hour for $200.  That's why I didn't do that . . . The older kids went first and then the youngers.  They got about 10 minutes each of play-time and they had a lot of fun for sure!

Fun - and totally funny when kids got stuck upside down and couldn't right themselves.  :)

Then it was on to the medal ceremony!  Team Finland won with 48 points!

Lucy, Lila, Kyle, Jonas, Ivan, Tyler, and Camden - all gold-winners!  I made medals for gold, silver, and bronze.  Gold got butterfingers.  I told them they had to bite them like the real Olympic gold medals.  :)

There was actually a tie (so crazy and I didn't fudge numbers to make it so!) for second - Norway and Sweden, of course (with 41 points each).  Silver medals were York patties and bronze medals were Reese's PB cups.  So the rest of the kids got either one of those.  :)

 

Here was the whole group - plus a few extra little kids that were hanging around and watching their siblings.  :)

Everything worked out pretty great and the kids all said they loved it.

At least we could pretend to ski and sled for a couple of hours!  :)

Finally!

We finally got to enjoy a winter activity during our school Winter Break!  It's been a tough break as there has been a lack of snow and cold - thus we can't get out and do some fun, free winter activities.  Like sledding.  Skiing at Ouray's rope-tow.  Skiing at cheap Kendall Mtn.  Etc.  So last week was pretty long!

Luckily we had a good New Year's day up in Gunnison.  They have an indoor ice-rink and an outdoor pond and covered rink.  The indoor rink was closed for the holiday, but the outdoor rink and pond were open for pulic, and free, use.  We pretty much had the rinks to ourselves and got some good hockey-playing in.  It was awesome!  The kids and adults loved it!  Win-win.

 On the pond.  The covered rink is right behind the pond.

 Go, go Lucy!

 The pond was a little bumpy, but was still enjoyable.

 The outdoor covered rink was awesome!

 Lucy, like all the kids, just loved skating!

 Hockey time!

 Lunch time!

More hockey time!

End of 2017 Interviews