NO pics....sorry...I forgot how to add them on this computer

Holy cow. I have a lot to catch up on. Jan 9th was my last post. Shameful!

Well Jan was a fun month. We took Mads skiing for her birthday. We put her in lessons for the morning, and Mike and I got to ski by ourselves. We found ourselves in "the best tree line skiing in Canada" on accident. Let me tell you, 11 years without skiing, and I am not in the shape that I once was. We had a blast, and Mike even taught Mads to go off jumps. In lessons, Mads learned how to turn. By the time we got her back, she decided that her 5 times down the hill turning all the time was ENOUGH and she pretty much went straight down. Yes she knew how to turn, but NO she did not want to. Funny. I laughed pretty much the rest of the day.

I also had a moment of complete insanity... those seem to happen all too often. And I agreed to have a combined birthday party for Mads with one of her friends. To my credit, I did not let them invite 10 kids each, like they wanted to. The party was Harry Potter themed, and it was so much fun. The kids came over, had snacks off of the snack trolley, we made wands, transfigured shrinky dinks, made magic potions, had cake and Ice cream, and did a pinata. It was SO cute, and the girls all loved it. We ended up inviting all the girls in Mads and Isa's class. She has a nice little group of girls. I was impressed.

Feb was LONG and COLD. I know people might think that I am being silly... I live in Canada for heavens sake, but FOR REAL it was FREEZING here. I don't remember it ever being that cold... Not for as long as it was. So being the fantastic wife that I am, I "let" Mike take the kids and I to California. How thoughtful of me. (the week before we went it was so warm in CA.... the week we were there, it was NOT quite so warm, but warmer than here.... so we were grateful.) We went with my Parents, and two of my sisters and my brother in law. We stayed at my Aunt and Uncle's place in Desert Hot Springs... right by palm springs. We hung out there, went to some outlets, met my cousin at the beach, and of course, went to Disneyland. So much fun.
The kids had a blast.

Colton LOVED swimming. It makes me excited/scared for the summer. This kid needs to learn to swim before he kills himself. He was SO enthralled with Disneyland. He loved it. I don't know if he smiled much, but he spent most of his time watching everything. His favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney. He loved it. It was Buzz Lightyear's house. And he was SUPER upset when we went on a different ride.

Halle... well, I think that she had fun. She loved the beach, and had fun meeting my cousin's kids. I had forgotten that she does not like loud noises very much, so Disneyland was maybe not the best choice for her. She did really well, and had a fun time, but if you saw the pictures of her at the ends of some of the rides, she always had her hood on, and usually had her ears plugged. MY brother in law got to go on one coaster with her and was SUPER amused to see her have her hood on, with one shoulder plugging one ear, and that arm wrapped around plugging the other one, while she sucked on her sucker with the other... He was also amused to walk behind her. She has always had a way of walking that is unlike anything I have ever seen before. Well, at Disney it was no different, except she often would include jumping from one colored stone to another... in no apparent pattern, stopping, starting, lurching, juking from side to side. She would crash into people, and look up and give THEM the crustiest look ever. AHHH Halle. She wanted So bad to go on the Tower of Terror, and so she and I went on it. I would have sworn that she did not like it at all, but she now tells everyone that it was her "FavOwrite" . She even told Mike that she would "comfort him" on it if he wanted her to go with him.

Mads.... I hardly saw her. She got to go off with her aunts and uncle, and was in heaven. They took her on all the big scary rides, and ran her all over the park. My mom bought some sort of program that could help you know when to get fast passes, and when to go and stand in lines. And so Mads and her crew RAN AND RAN AND RAN... And Mads was awfully tired when we were done. I got to go on a couple of rides with her, and I got to hear her giggle my favorite giggle. She is so adorable when she is having fun.

When we got back it was still not spring here.... but lately the temps have been rising, and we have even had Lake Salmon take over the fronts of our yards on our street. It is a sight to see. The kids have been having fun playing in the puddles, and they come home SOAKING wet. Especially the youngest two. They are a sight to see.

Mads had a sleepover at the beginning of school, and the next day she was SO very grouchy that I, being my rational self, told her that she was not able to have sleepovers for 5 months...(Yes Mom, laugh all you want, but she now knows that I mean business) It has been 5 months, so, that ban has now been lifted, and couple of weeks ago she had her BFF come and sleep over. The next morning, knowing that I would KILL her if she showed any sign of grouchiness, she actually was kind to Halle and let her play with them. They has been playing dodgeball for a couple of hours, and I could hear them running around and having a good time. I found out later that they were playing "Toilet Tag" What kind of game is Toilet tag you ask.... well, apparently from what I can gather talking to little people, instead of just freezing when you are tagged, and having to have someone touch you to "unfreeze" you, you have to get down on one knee, put out one arm to the side, and have someone sit on your knee and push the arm down "flushing" you!

So the kids are downstars playing toilet tag, and having a lovely time. Then I heard Halle crying. I did not think too much of it. Mads came up and told me that Halle had said that she "cracked her knuckle". Knuckle cracking in my book get a big 0 on my sympathy scale, and so I told her it was going to be okay, and went back to cleaning bathrooms....(ahhh the glamorous life of a mom!) She came upstairs a while later, not really putting much weight on it... My kids can be ever so slightly melodramatic and I was not going to let her mope around and get out of chores, just because she "cracked her knuckle". She had a 3 hour nap on the couch and when Mike got home for dinner, she still was not putting weight on it. We decided to watch it and if it did not get better, we would take her in to get x-rays. Mike got called back into work, and so I put it out of my mind.... tomorrow. Sunday, still not walking on it well, she was curving her foot and walking only on the outside edge..... she calls it her "crescent walk". Monday, it was still not better. I tried to get Mike to call into the hospital here, to get her x-rayed, and they were in the midst of renos. I took her to Mike's clinic, and low and behold...... she broke her toe. She got herself a fine walking boot...(can you picture that kid in a cast with cruches....that might be one of my worst nightmares).

The orthotics guy (what is the correct offical title for them anyways?) that gave us the boot, told me that when she gets better to come back and see him, and he will see what he can do for her walk.... It really is remarkable.... and NOT getting better. If he can fix her... I will love him forever!!

A couple of weeks ago we took all the kids skiing at this great hill just south of Kalispell Montana. (Yes Jen and Kiley, we thought about you guys when we were there. we will have to meet you there sometime to go skiing). The kids did awesome.
We took the kids out on the hill. All the chairs were below the lodge, so we skied first, then rode the chair up. Mads was an all-star. She is a natural. Colt wore a harness, but "skied" in between my legs. He had the BIGGEST smile on his face the whole time, and when I would ski faster, he would giggle ! He loved the chairlift, and pointed out "monster" footprints underneath in the snow.

My mom and dad skiied with Mads for awhile, and when they would come up the lift, we would see Hal and Anna. Sometimes she and her teacher were lying in the snow, with Hal eating it, once they were climbing the hill with boots on, they worked on one ski at a time turning, and then they saw Anna carrying Hal. Anna told them that Hal was tired, so she was taking her into the lodge for a hot chocolate. She had already taken Hal in once, because Hal had eaten her lift pass off her zipper, and it had to be replaced! After a 45 minute lesson....a hour and a half left in the lesson time, Halle saw me and asked to ski with me. ( I am sure by this time Anna had earned her $$$ and more!!!) So I decided to take her down the green circle run, so Hal could ride on the chair lift. (she hadn't been on one yet, and really wanted to.) It took a LONG time to get down. She did fantastic for about the first half of the hill. Then she got really tired. And if anyone knows Hal when she is tired, you know that she becomes her "blessing" self (I learned yesterday in conference that diffucult children were really blessings in diguise. That was good to hear!). She gave up. Wanted me to leave her there on the hill. ended up taking off her skiis and was ROLLING down the hill. I have never seen anyone roll down a ski hill on purpose, but I guess that there is a first time for everything. It took us forever, but she finally made it. And then we went in for Lunch. Colt was done too. He was SUPER pooped, and ate everything in sight. He never eats anything, so it was a miracle. And very funny. YOu could not leave anything unattended, or you would be missing it.

After lunch, I took Halle out for another "run". Halle actually skied, and turned!! she did great, and would ask me every turn things like, "am I doing so good?" "am I the best ski-o" "did I do the tone (turn) so good?" "am I bett-o than Maddie?", "am I bett-o than Allen?" She skied all the way down!! Then went back to the hotel with my Dad and Colton to rest.

The next day after 2 runs Colton was so tired he was falling asleep skiing with me. Poor kiddo. He still loved it, but one little person can only take so much excitement.
Halle skiied like a champ. You would not have guessed that the rolling girl was indeed the same kid that was snowlplowing down the greens and blues like she had been doing it for years. On one steep hill she went down she told Mike after that she was scared... but the Holy Ghost comforted her. Cute kid.

Mads and I started working on skiing paralell, and after two runs of going rather slow... she got the hang of it, and now she flies down the mountain like a champ. Even Mads got tired at the end of the second day. Mike tried to get her to ski as crazy as he does... but Mads (at least for now) has more common sense than her dad, and only flies off a couple of jumps, going about half speed instead of full speed. We are super proud of our kiddos.
But Mike and I are really excited to have litte kids that are such great skiiers, and that really love it. We will be going back next year, at least once.