Noah's Star Wars Birthday!

Star Wars fever is still going strong in our house.  Noah has wanted and has been planning a Star Wars birthday for almost a year now.  Luckily for us, there are lots of other Star Wars fans out there and this theme was one of the easiest to create.  A quick Pintrest/Etsy search gave us all of the ideas we needed.  Noah greeted all of his guests with a blow-up light saber and a jedi training checklist. They ventured to the basement for jedi training to save R2D2 and C3PO from the storm trooper balloons followed by a "find the clone trooper" scavenger hunt.  They had blaster training in the front room, constructing an R2 until and defeating Darth Vader in piñata form. Han Solo was even trapped in the carbonite jello.  The highlight for James was the "yoda soda"... he had been talking about it for weeks, but when the time came he wouldn't drink it because he was too afraid that the juice and soda would give him cavities... he didn't have any trouble eating his weight in piñata candy... Thank you to all of Noah's friends who were able to make it, a fun time was had by all!

More Winter

Winter is still in full swing here, but we did have one day that got above freezing and reminded us that spring may really be coming. It was on this day that James thought it was time to sit outside with no socks (see the picture)... he quickly realized that it wasn't "that warm" just yet;) The top left picture is how we found Audrey the other day when she left the group and wasn't making any noise.  When Gabe went to check on her he found her in her room looking at a book:)  The picture on the right is of Audrey painting at the playgroup (aka school) Ben and Audrey attend.  They love it there and are always captivated by creative crafts, games and play.

James had Dr. Seuss week at his school and each day had a different theme.  This particular day was "Wacky Wednesday" where he dressed backwards and mismatched.  Audrey loves to be in pictures with her brothers and there aren't many pictures she is left out of.  James has also continued to have a knack for building/inventing and created a special plane with yo-yo wings which he was so proud of. The bottom two picture are of James' Student in the Spotlight day at school.  He had to stand in front of the assembly and say something about himself.  He read the people who are in his family... and I mean READ... he read the sheet exactly as it was written and when he came to Noah's name he couldn't pronounce it and had to have help... I am guessing he would have done better without the card;)  AND in true Jim Smith style he amused the audience by putting his sticker over his mouth and nose and then just sat through the entire assembly as if nothing were different...

Audrey has spent most of the last month walking around the house in either of these two outfits- a life jacket and goggles or a ski helmet and boots.  Depending on the outfit she just constantly repeats, "pool, pool, pool" or "ski, ski, ski"... there is a chance she is becoming wise to the fact that she, weekly, gets left behind for both ski and swimming lessons...

Speaking of ski lessons... Both Noah and James are able to participate in the SnoCats learn to ski program put on through the college at our local ski mountain (hill). It runs two days per week after school for 2 hours.  While fantastic for Noah and James, and they are both becoming fantastic skiers, Ben, Audrey and I have spent many long hours waiting in the ski lodge.  These last few pictures are from the last night I brought my camera and Audrey requested pictures of herself... she is quite the ham!

February Vacation 2015

We started our vacation week with a visit from Grampy, Grammy and Aunt Andrea. We took them to Titcomb and while Noah and I had ski lessons, everyone else got to get out and enjoyed the mountain as well!  We had "the blizzard that wasn't" on Sunday which prevented us from visiting friends in Vermont, but did force us to have a really fun family day at home.  On Monday we traveled to Bangor for some high school basketball tournament fun, even though our team lost we enjoyed playing at the children's museum before Nannie flew off to Florida. Ben discovered that he could see movies in the truck much better from his back row seat if he used the binoculars...:) The bottom picture is of the kids wearing their life jackets in the ball pit.  Audrey kept putting on her lifejacket and asking to go in the "pool"... repeatedly.  Since our pool is covered in snow and I was feeling too lazy to take them to the fitness center, this actually passed for a fun activity:) We spent the rest of the week skating, skiing, sledding, snowshoeing and lots and lots of playing!

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:)