Freezing Feb

Well, winter has finally hit UT. While more "warmly" recieved here then pretty much anywhere else in the US, it still has us bundling up...

...and finding cozy spots where ever they might be.

The good news is that with the cold came the snow, which means skiing! Ski clothes...

...thumb holes...

...and pizza practice :o)

Ice castles

It's finally snowing tonight! Things have been dry and warm in utah which is making us all a little on edge. Luckily, we were able to make it to the Midway Ice Castles before they shut down for the year. It was spectacular.

The state of M v3.9

And then there's M :o)

She loves her preschool and is sucking up everything they teach. Last weekend we were playing with blocked as she counted ten of them in Spanish, before switching back to English and counting all 60. Unassisted. She's still really challenging to understand so I think it's easy to underestimate just how much she knows. And that how much she knows is growing every day. She started speech therapy this week, and seemed to really enjoy the extra attention so we'll see where that goes.

M's doing gymnastics on Saturday mornings and LOVES it, as long as her normal coach is there. If another coach tries to lead warm ups then m's clinging to my legs, crying, and refuses to go in . The girl likes her routines that's for sure.

It's been interested to observe m this week when it comes to the way that the family is coping with the loss of max. She certainly is empathic and gets sad when the rest of us get sad, but it struggling to figure out why we don't solve the problem by getting another dog, like today. If not having a dog is sad, then we should get a new dog! The equation is totally solvable by her logic :) Who knows, the logic might rub off on the rest of us sooner rather than later.

The state of C v6.5

It's been a while since we've done this type of update, so let's do a run down of what the kids are up to.

C is 6 and a half years old, and loving kindergarden. She loves taking the bus in the morning, and wears her snowpants every day even though it's been one of the dryest winters on record. She loves her teacher and friend, and will even occasionally tell us stories about her day. They just did the mid-year testing and C had a composite DIBELS score of 225 (the expected score is 122 for this round). And the handwritten note was "Charlotte is the ideal student. She works hard, gets along with everyone, and enjoys school".

C is now officially obessed with skiing. After dragging her out of bed all week long she wakes up on her own Saturday morning because she knows she's going to get to spend the day on the hill. She's in the top group for her age, and loves her coach Brent. They generally ski blues all day, but will also do a black from time to time. She is officially faster than I am, but will wait if it means that she gets to ski Sunday (with me) in addition to her all day Saturday less. When not skiing herself she wants to be watching skiing - it should be a fun olypmics.

Overall life is pretty good for miss C. Lots of things she gets excited about, though it hits her hard from time to time how much she really misses max :o(

Goodbye Dear Maxwell

Today has been a hard hard day. We said goodbye to the best dog.

When we said hello all those years ago who would have thought that our first baby...

...would serve faithfully for years as a fiercy loyal companion and the best big brother our girls could ask for.

We love you always dear Maxwell.

May you rest and play in peace in fields of sunshine and bunnies.

Happy in one take

You could watch the state of the union tonight. If you do, you definitely need this. And even if you don't, chances are it will make you smile :o)

Slow start to the sledding season

Actual date: 12/25

As you may have noticed from path pictures, we've had a terrible winter for snow so far this year. Fingers crossed the tides will turn on that soon. Luckily for playing (and I guess unluckily for driving) we did get a storm over Christmas, which allowed for some fun in the snow.

However, since it was really the first storm and nothing was groomed there was a lot of this...

Before we were able to get things packed down enough to get to this :o)