Snow, Snow and More Snow!

After a relative "drought" of snow for most of January, February keeps on dumping it and it is only the beginning.  The kids have had 4 snow days in the last week, which included a 4 day weekend!  Coincidentally, Gabe also had the same 4 day weekend, so we took full advantage of all winter had to offer.  We have done lots of snowshoeing around our house, skiing lessons at Titcomb Mountain have started, we have taken a few snowmobile trips and more skiing at Saddleback.  Gave and I both ended this stretch of snow days and outdoor fun thinking that it was almost as busy as a summer vacation week!  We did spend some time indoors, just enough to build and play with trains as well as another fun lego night at the library:)

Gabe's Birthday Celebration

The kids had a snow day today.  We usually make a list on days off or weekends of what we would like to do that day (mainly so that I don't forget anyone's ideas after the first hour).  Some of the "regular ideas" were thrown out there- legos, puzzles, baking, but James had another agenda... He was insistent on having a surprise party for Gabe.  I tried my hardest to persuade him otherwise since Gabe's birthday isn't until 2/14, but he had an answer to everything I threw at him.  He had specific decorations, games, baking a cake and even present ideas.  It snowballed, all of the kids were so excited to put together this party that there was very minimal fighting and lots of cooperation to bake a cake, decorate the cake and build/wrap gifts.  It was such a fun day and Gabe was completely surprised to come home to such a thoughtful party.  Some of the specific ideas from James were for a chainsaw made of big legos, a birthday cake of big legos that everyone had to participate in making (under his direction of course) and this ring of lego mini figures that he meticulously laid out onto the table for daddy to eat his supper in and for the cake to sit:)

Lego Night and Some Winter Fun

Our library has a lego night for the big kids and it has been so much fun for the boys to attend. They arrive, are given a theme or goal for the week, spend 45 minutes or so on construction and finally present, to the group, their creation.  This week they had to make a car to race down the ramp.  Noah and James both did so well with both assembly as well as explaining what was "cool" about their car. About an hour after this lego night Noah started with a GI bug (which Gabe had already had) to begin a challenging week with lots of laundry.

Ben and Audrey have been having a ball while Noah and James are in school.  They spend most of their days playing dress up in the basement, chasing each other around or playing hide and seek.  Audrey's personality has really started to show itself in the past month or so.  She has a much larger vocabulary than the boys did at 2.5 years and is very opinionated about what she wants.  At the same time she is starting to figure out how to get things done for herself from watching her brothers.  The picture of her eating the yogurt- she waited patiently for Ben to get out of his seat, then she stealthily climbed up and finished the yogurt... he wasn't impressed:)  The next picture is after "helping" me fold the laundry.  She insisted on wearing James's shirt and Noah's underwear.  It was a battle all day as she refused to take them off until bath time. Also, this is the new face she makes when you ask her to smile for a picture.  The bottom picture- she has found that she can get almost anything she wants on the first floor if she just pushes the chair around.  Here, she is getting herself a cup of water from the bathroom sink... She is also become obsessed with washing her hands so this is actually fairly convenient;)

Ben is also having a developmental explosion in the direction of progress and I am happy to report that he is fully potty trained, nap time included, about a month before 3.5 years!  He has been insisting on doing everything himself, which is not as much of a hardship for us as it would be for most 3 year olds because he can actually do it all himself with relative ease.  He can now fully dress himself, make his bed, use the bathroom independently, brush his teeth and almost anything else he sees his brothers doing for themselves.  Having only 1 in diapers is amazing... it has been almost 6 years!

Gabe had MLK Day off this year because he worked the weekend before, so we took the kids for a day trip to Portland.  We have some snow here to ski, but other than that this month has left us with frigid cold air and spots of bare grass showing through.  Great skating though!  We visited LLBean and the children's museum in the morning.  It has been a little over a year since we were in the Portland Children's Museum and lots of things have changed and I thought that the kids may never leave!  

Happy New Year! (and the end of Christmas vacation)

Our busy Christmas vacation wrapped up last weekend and we are sad that the kids are back at school, but I think that all of us are glad to be back on some sort of schedule.  Friday Gabe and I took Noah and James on a day trip to Boston to visit the Museum of Science and to their first Celtics game.  We had purchased the tickets through a local auction to benefit our ski mountain and we were so fortunate that they were way better seats then we would have ever purchased ourselves! Noah and James enjoyed the science museum, but given that it was school vacation it was pretty busy.  They really enjoyed being in the city, eating pizza and getting ice cream at the game:)

Saturday Hillary, Jacob and three of their friends came for a sleep over to go skiing on Sunday.  Everyone, but Audrey skied (she stayed at home with her little friend Jackson and I think they had a way better time without the "big kids" around;)) and we had so much fun. Ben and James both took lessons and were almost skiing independently by the end.  It was a great way to start the ski season and we can't wait to see how far everyone progresses this year!

We rounded out vacation with lots of board games and crafts the kids received for Christmas.  Despite Audrey's face she was really enjoying the game;)