Snow Skiing in Vail

Our dear friends Jason and Allison Kidd came out to visit us in February to go skiing for a few days. Allison was my friend in college and Ian has known Jason his whole life because their parents were great friends. So, when they started dating each other many, many years ago they introduced me to Ian...on a blind date! The rest is history! We have stayed close to them and visit each other a couple times a year. They live in Bentonville, AR in Wal Mart country.

Mike and Carol came out and kept the girls and we headed to Vail with Jason and Allison. I had signed up for ski lessons because I had not skied since I was about 12 years old. I hated it when I was 12, but I remained optimistic this time. Allison is like a pro. She has skied every year since she was about Maggie's age. Ian is also a great skier. He's a real natural. Jason has only been skiing for about six years and he's so tall that I think it's a little challenging for him but from what I saw he was great too. The first day Allison went with me on the kiddie slope and I did pretty well going down it the first few times. She thought I didn't need lessons at all so I canceled them. After lunch we all four decided to take the lift up to one of the greens and ski it down together. We got in line to get on a four-person chair lift and they sent me up in line to sit down on it first, with them following right behind me. Well, I got my skis crossed and totally bit the dust and I could not get up! They backed out of the way and the chair came along and hit me in the back and the weight of the chair kept pushing me and pushing me as I'm crawling on my knees with skis going two different directions! It hurt so bad! The way my legs were positioned, I couldn't have even laid down and let it go over me. So, they shut down the lift! I was mortified, but that was the only way to get me out of there. We continued up the mountain after that fiasco and skied down in the rain and snow. I was terrible just like I was when I was 12. I decided skiing is just not that fun - it's scary! So I only skied that day. I'll definitely try it again because I want to take my girls so they can learn while they're young and not be afraid like I am.

Unfortunately, Lucy had strep while we were gone and Maggie got it later in the week. I got it several days later (when I was in Arkansas for a wedding) and when I talked to Carol after they got home, she had it too! We're all better now and we're looking forward to spring and planning summer activities and vacation with the kids.

Happy Birthday to Maggie!

I can't believe Maggie turned seven years old on February 15th! For some reason seven seems so much older than six. Saturday night Maggie wanted to go eat at Dave & Busters so we did that. The girls played games and we collected the tickets that they won. We felt like we were ticket-rich but when we went to turn in our tickets for a prize we had actually won very little. So, the girls each got a sucker! But they were happy with that.

On Maggie's actual birthday we had a party here at our house and invited all the girls from her class. All but two came so we had a good turnout. I made smoothies with my new Magic Bullet smoothie maker and they played old-fashioned birthday games and we had a pinata. I didn't know how in the world that Ian and I would entertain 15 little girls for two hours, but the time flew by and it was great. I like this age because parents drop their kids off and come back two hours later. We're no longer in the stage where the parents have to hang around to take care of their own child or make sure their child is behaving at the party. I was so glad because I did not want to have to entertain all the parents too!! There was one little girl at the party that was SO high maintenance - it was very comical! First she wanted a strawberry-banana smoothie, then she decided she didn't like bananas so she requested a strawberry smoothie. After trying the strawberry smoothie she decided maybe she did like bananas and wanted the strawberry-banana one again! Then, later they had capri-suns and there was a picture of a banana on it so she refused to drink the capri-sun because it might have banana flavor in it. I reminded her that she liked the strawberry-banana smoothie and she might like this too, but she didn't go for it. When it was time for cake she shoved almost the entire piece of cake in her mouth in one bite and didn't use her utensil at all. Ian was about to have a coronary (you know how he is with cleanliness and messes and manners while eating?) he was cleaning that little girl up the whole remainder of the party. I had fun watching him stress over that little girl!

By the way, I have to mention this about Lucy. This is totally un-related to Maggie's birthday but it's funny and worth mentioning. There are about seven teachers at her daycare that are pregnant right now. There must be something in the water. They are all due within a few months of each other too. We also have a good friend that is pregnant that Lucy has been around lately. So, naturally Lucy thinks that she has a baby in her tummy too! She calls her baby Wally and when her tummy hurts she says "my baby scratching me" or she says "my baby trying to get out the hole" and points to her belly button. It's very strange, but cute too.

Introducing....Harper Lee Perry!

Harper is our crazy, new rat-dog! She's a jack russell/poodle mix, which is called a jack-apoo. She's a sweet puppy but she is wild as all get-out and loves to nip at our ankles and heels and whatever shoes we are wearing. Lucy pretty much runs from her to keep safe. She has a mouthful of tacks for teeth and she bites! So, we are all trying to adjust to having this wild thing in our house. We do love her, though, and she's a cutie!

New Traditions!

We are fortunate to live on a street with lots of young families like us and most of them are transplants just like us. Actually, we've met very few people who are actually from Colorado! Our street has an annual progressive dinner every December where we eat a different course at three different houses. They've been doing this for years with different people hosting each year, so I volunteered to do the appetizers at my house with the help of our friends Kim and Ed, who live next door. One family hosted the kid dinner at their house and we had one babysitter keep all the kids there and they ate pizza and watched Christmas movies while we enjoyed ourselves across the street. It was great to see everyone's homes decorated for Christmas and we got to eat wonderful food and it was a chance to get to know some of the neighbors that we didn't know as well. By the way, Maggie lost a tooth during the evening and she put it under her pillow and Ian and I totally forgot to leave the tooth fairy money!! We felt like the worst parents EVER. I guess we were too tired because we crashed and didn't even remember that she'd lost that tooth. But get this - my friend Kim did the exact same thing! Her son Joe lost a tooth the same day Maggie did and they forgot to be the tooth fairy too! The tooth fairy did finally make her way to our street...the next night!

We weren't quite sure how we would be spending Christmas Eve this year since in years' past we always had family nearby to spend that special time with. We decided we needed some traditions of our own! My mom's family had certain traditions such as going to the Peabody in Memphis with our family one weekend in December and we always ate at the Rendezvous. I remember going during both of my pregnancies and ordering a plate full of pickles at the Rendezvous! With Ian's family, we always do Christmas Eve lunch at Judy's with the Frost gang and play Trivial Pursuit. Christmas afternoon is spent with Mike and all of his sister's. Then we head to my Dad's in North Little Rock to see his family. So, this Christmas Eve we went to our Methodist church for Christmas Eve service then over to our neighbor's house and we ordered Chinese take-out from Mark Pi's and we played games. The kids ran wild in the basement all evening until we had to go home and play Santa. We woke up the next morning to see that Santa had come. Apparently Santa put the gifts in the wrong room (according to Maggie) so when she peered over the stairs and didn't see the gifts in the same room as the tree so she momentarily freaked out because she thought Santa had not come.

We left CO on Christmas day and drove to Arkansas, where we spent a week with the Perrys, the Ponders and Bookers. The girls were so happy to be back in Arkansas and Ian and I had a chance to go to several movies and to dinner with friends, which is something we don't do much here since we have to get a sitter to do those things now. It was great! The girls got to spend a lot of time with their cousin Ethan, which they loved! They also spent time with cousins Betsy and Ryan at Marmee's. My dear friend Kristin came to Hot Springs one day and spent the day with us. When my kids see Kristin coming they know they are going to get lots of presents from her. So, they always love to see "Aunt Kristin" as Maggie refers to her. Jill, Kristin and I took Maggie and Betsy ice-skating at the outdoor rink in Hot Springs. We also got to spend time with my two friends Carrie and Catherine and their spouses. We went bowling at the Professor Bowl in Little Rock. That's something we used to do back when we all lived in Little Rock when we all were first married almost nine years ago! It was great to see them.

Gingerbread Men Gone Wrong

The girls and I made gingerbread men for the first time ever. It was one of those store bought mixes where all you have to do is add the egg and butter and a little water. You'd think I couldn't screw that up, but alas, I did. The directions clearly said to use softened butter but I melted mine completely! So, the dough was extremely runny when using the cookie cutters. We couldn't properly cut out the cookie shapes. They were all really mis-shapen and messy. They looked like obese gingerbread men after they were baked. We had a fun time making them anyway and they tasted fine. When I posed for the picture above, for some reason I stuck my hand up in the air when I bit into the cookie. So, when I took the girls' picture biting into their cookies they both immediately stuck their hands up in the air like I had. I thought that was pretty funny!

Fall 2008

I'm sorry I have not posted anything since October. I knew this blogging thing would be hard for me to keep up with. Not that I don't have the time, I just have to use my creative side to come up with the words, etc. so I always put it off! Okay, the fall season here was very nice and it apparently lasted longer than past years. We still had some really warm days in November and I think that is not the norm for this time of year. We've had several snowfalls already but not enough to keep us snowed in or anything. It's interesting...life just continues on even when there's bad weather. You just head outdoors and shovel off your driveway and sidewalk so that you can get out and all problems are solved. Can you picture that? Me shoveling snow? I didn't know people actually did that, but they do!

Mike and Carol came out to visit us the week before Thanksgiving. We were so happy to have them here! They did some Christmas shopping for all of us and left it here so that we don't have to haul our gifts back from Arkansas later this month. We ate out nearly every meal and I easily packed on 5 pounds that week! Then, after the Perry's left we spent Thanksgiving here at our house. Our friends, Lauri & Scott McAdory are moving to the Boulder area for Lauri's job. Lauri was a friend in college and they were friends of ours in Benton, then they moved to Scottsdale, AZ almost two years ago. They spent turkey day with us and Lauri and I did the cooking. Everything was pretty good. I didn't care for the turkey, but all in all it was a good attempt at the first Thanksgiving meal that I've prepared. We had dessert with neighbors and played games. It was a good time. Then, Lauri and I hit the sales at 4a.m.! I'd never shopped the day after Christmas. I couldn't believe all the people out at that hour - and men were there shopping too!

Lucy is almost 100% potty trained! She has done so well. Maggie was a totally different story. It took us years to get her potty trained. Lucy is so eager to go and so very proud of herself when she does. We started training about a month ago and (knock on wood) I think it's been a success! Maggie has been playing in a basketball league through our local recreation center and it has been a great experience for her. She loves it and has learned so much. She was a little scared of the ball at first but now she's getting in there and making some shots and getting aggressive.

We went to Dallas the first weekend in December for Ian's holiday party. His boss lives in Rockwall on Lake Ray Hubbard so they invited (and paid for) us and about 15 others to fly there and we stayed at the Westin Galleria for the weekend. We decided to take the girls with us to Dallas because it was cheaper to buy two tickets to Dallas on Frontier than it would have been to pay for one grandparent to fly out from Arkansas on the direct United flight. My Mom and Doug drove down from Hot Springs and kept the girls while we did our thing. So, we were thrilled that we got the chance to visit with them and had a free babysitter at the same time.

We are in the process of finishing out our basement. It should be complete by this Friday. I will post pictures of the before and after so you can see the progress.

Oktoberfest 2008 & Pumpkin Seed Spitting Contest

Our neighbors, the Reneiros, had their annual Oktoberfest celebration last Saturday. Lots of bratwurst, beer and suaerkraut - yum! They had lots of games for the kids. A pumpkin seed spitting contest was the fave and they were all awarded gold medals for their efforts; even Lucy! We have hawks that hang out on our rooftops and make the worst bird noises that you've ever heard, so the hawk has become sort of a neighborhood mascot to the kids. One of the moms did a craft project with the kids and they made hawks to take home with them. Lucy and her buddy Jack are the two youngest and they are two peas in a pod. They adore each other! We had a great day and the weather was a little chilly. Perfect Oktoberfest weather!