Tuesday, January 15, 2013

"the king of the superheroes"



frozen fog

A beautiful morning, the world covered in ice.

cousin lovin'

Is this Dutch baby not the cutest thing ever?  Look at his eyes!!  

Fritz loves babies!! 

my ski team.

Love these little rippers.  

a snowy sparrow morning




Monday, January 7, 2013

ice skating afternoon

Measurable improvement since last year! 





ski day with Grandaddy



saturday coffee shop


a lot of pow

and a happy doggy.


date night with the handsome hubs


elfsky returns

Watching for the naughty and nice list.  

learning to do god's work

Shopping for the food pantry at Christmas time.  



timberline lodge

A weekend at the famously beautiful, vintage Timberline Lodge.  Swimming and hot tubbing outside in a blizzard, boys first time in a sauna, a Santa visit, amazing food and fun friends.  Also the place where we told the boys about the baby in mommy's tummy and watched their precious reactions.  Such a good time.  













dinner table

Hot cocoa in a Santa mug and Fritz loves to steal Daddy's wine.  These boys.


ski season begins



epic parenting fail

For the sake of posterity I am writing down this tragic story as a record of our most epic parenting fail to date.  You might laugh...we did some screaming and wanted to cry!

Pet sitting:
Upon arriving to Mexico this year, we had the assignment of pet sitting for Xena and Harry (Grandma Kelley's dog and canary) for 5 days. Due to our delayed and cancelled flight, we were already arriving 24 hours late and the poor pets had been mostly faring for themselves.  Once we got there all was well and we settled into relaxing vacation mode.  The boys loved caring for the pets and especially loved Harry.  They helped change his water and food and clean his cage.  They visited with him on the back porch all day long. He sang and sang.  Xena got her first few doses of a new prescription that we had brought down to help curb her seizures.  She was feeling like a very peppy puppy with the help of phenobarbital (which was a scary drug to give her...um, hello Michael Jackson and Whitney Huston over dose drug!).  All was smooth sailing till Saturday evening.  When all. heck. broke. loose.
The boys suddenly came screaming into the house.  "Harry, Harry, Harry is gone!  He flew out!  He is gone!"  That's right.  My worst nightmare.  One that hadn't even occurred to me.  My children let the bird out of his cage and away he flew.  I have no idea why they did this, we thought they understood the rules.  I know it wasn't intentional or malicious, but it was a massive mistake.  Matt and I came unglued.  It was pretty comical really, we were demanding answers and yelling like a shameful mess.  Matt was yelling at the boys "You KILLED Harry!  He is out there alone in the Mexican wilderness!"  First they blamed each other, then they both admitted guilt, then the tears came streaming down their faces.  There were long time outs and apology letters written and prayers of forgiveness said on their knees.  It was ridiculous.  I had to track down Grandma Kelley in California and deliver the news.  I sent texts to my brothers and sisters in law telling them to rest assured because our kids had just committed the worst grandkid sin in the history of time and their future children could never possibly top it.  It was awful.  And then I prayed.  I prayed fervently for the next 20 hours that I could successfully deliver Xena in one piece back to my mother in law the next afternoon.  Not on my watch, Xena, not on my watch!!

Postscript:
Thankfully Xena is still alive and well and I have a very gracious and forgiving mother in law.  Whew.

mexico

Phone pics, so not great, but still a record of our week.







ranch life by walter

With the ranchero music blasting and the flies buzzing, we sat in on Grandma Kelley's riding lesson one day in Cabo.  It was great fun with lots of roaming chickens and dogs, a little girl learning circus riding tricks and Mexican dancing horses.  Wally took all of the photos (actually he took about 250, but these are the best ones!).