Ski Weekend

A few weeks ago we had a babysitter that was snap-chatting w/ the kids and turning their faces into animals. Finley noticed the SnapChat app on my phone (it seemed like a great idea on Girl's Weekend after a few jell-o shots) and has desperately been trying to make animal faces himself. Fortunately (for me), unfortunately (for him), he turns the camera on instead of the app and my camera roll has filled w/ selfies.

Hadley was off school last week, so we did a little of a lot of things.

Yes, that's 11 of puzzles.

Her favorite - playing in the sand! The bowling alley recently built a dome over their volleyball courts and opens on Wednesday mornings as a giant sandbox. We met up w/ Nicole & RJ and already made plans to go back next week.

Finley was off at the end of the week, they spent part of Thursday cruising the mall w/ Grandma. Literally cruising on large animals.

And they bumped into Santa!

While they cruised, I attended Finley's parent-teacher conference. It was a GREAT conference, he's doing really well in both reading and math (AIMS scores were way above grade level in math and he's reading at an end-of-year 1st grade level) TOOT TOOT happy mom! He's a kind friend, a good listener, likes to help, has a good sense of humor, is respectful towards staff, and re-directs well. Our only watch-and-see continues to be a few speech things. Nothing that will qualify him for therapy, but he's on the radar and the S/L therapist will continue to send things home for practice. And he turned a Hershey kiss into the letter Y.

Finley also had three days off of school. He's such a science nerd these days. He did an experiment on the effects pop has on our teeth. He put an egg in a glass of water and an egg in a glass of Coke.

24 hours later, he pulled them out to discover a brown egg in the glass of pop.

The conclusion - pop is bad for our teeth! (But I so loooove diet coke!).

W/ the kids having a break from school, we took a road trip this weekend. But before we could leave, I had to run a long way. Friday morning I ran 20 miles, yikes. I ran 14, then Rachel joined me for my last 6. It was so nice to have company when exhaustion would've started setting in. I was pleased that I kept a decent pace and still felt pretty good when it was over.

Let the weekend begin! We drove to Wausau and the kids hit the hotel pool ASAP. They are wearing life jackets in the deep end, but I'm so happy w/ the confidence and progress these two have built in swimming. Watching swimming lessons last night, there really has been solid growth - Finley can swim half the pool unassisted and Hadley is doing well too.

Saturday was spent at Granite Peak Ski Area w/ Patrick's family! As promised, I rented skis too.  

It had been 17ish years since I last skied, so I stuck to the bunny hill w/ this cute girl. I think I went down 5 times all day...

...because a good portion of the day was spent doing mom-stuff. I had to run back to the hotel for snowpants, I was in charge of snack breaks, we all had lunch...

...and one kid passed out for nearly 90 minutes in my arms.

Last winter I spent the day w/ Hadley & Leah too. Both little girls did ski this year, but they didn't have the desire like the big kids. While Hadley slept on me, Leah seriously fell asleep sitting up!

It was so so so so nice outside! 50 degrees and sunny! So even sitting outside doing nothing was a treat. Most of the crew - Auntie Shawna, Grandma Kathleen, Uncle Jeremy, Uncle Scott, Mayah, Leah, Owen and a few family friends.

Finley has turned into quite the skier! He & Mayah even went out on their own for an hour, riding the chair lifts and coming back down...that part made me a little nervous. He did attempt one black diamond (w/ Patrick) and took a big digger. But overall he's doing AWESOME on the hills!

The kids had fun swimming w/ their cousins...

...eating pizza...

...and snuggling!

And finally, Baby Bert arrived! She's a girl and absolutely precious.