New St Patty's Day Tradition

I have never been one of the put together moms, that has a ton of activities and traditions for each holiday.  I am now finding as my children grow older, they are forcing me to be more creative.  

This year, Maddie decided that she was going to make her very own leprechaun trap.  And in true Maddie fashion, she managed to wrangle together some supplies and off she went to do this.  She was so excited about the finished product, and even include some gold Easter eggs because "Leprechauns love Gold".  

The next day she was a bit disappointed when she woke up and no Leprechaun had come in her trap and left any candy.  Luckily we left it up just a little while longer and while we were at church a Leprechaun made some serious mischief in her room.  

M's Gymnastics Meet

Miss Maddie was so excited to finally get a chance to do a intersquad "meet" at gymnastics.  She wasn't able to attend the fall one because it was on a Sunday.  A few days before she said she was a little nervous and so we practiced her floor routine.  Too bad she never told me that she hadn't really learned her beam routine.

On the drive over to the gym, she announced to me that she was also nervous about her Beam routine, stating "I am not sure I really remember it". I encouraged her to do the best she could and told her she would be fine.

Bars started out well with a hit set!  She was so pleased to make all of her skills and was practically beaming with excitement.  Then Balance Beam came.  I watched her warm up and indeed she didn't know ANY of the routine.  At that point I started really worrying for her.  She looked so timid and nervous, whispering to her friends that she didn't know the routine. When it was her turn, she practically had to have the coach do the entire routine next to her because she didn't know it.  Because of this she fell twice and had a rough showing.  My heart broke as I watched her dismount and go sit down with her head held down and sob.  I wanted so much to go down there and take her in my arms to try to take away the pain.  Instead I had to stay seated in the stands and watch.  She did look up once at me and I told her I loved her and smiled and waved.  She gave me a weak smile and eventually calmed down enough to head to Vault.

Her first Vault was great, but then on her second one she stumbled and didn't go over in her Handstand Fall flat to back.  Once again she was upset and this just compounded from the previous event.  Tears flowed again and I was powerless to comfort her.

At this point I wanted so badly for her to finish off great on Floor Exercise.  And luckily it did!  Although it wasn't her best routine, she did do her Round off Backhandspring all by herself!  And with that the competition was over.  Ribbons and treats followed this and then we were headed home.  I think we were both emotionally exhausted and more than ready to be done.

We had a long talk together about the importance of being prepared for different situations in life, whether gymnastics meets or preparation for the Savior coming.  Then I promised her that I would help her practice her routines at home.  We took some post-meet pictures.  I can't even stand how cute my little girl is!

Love you tons little lady!  I cannot wait to see how you learn and grow over the course of this year.  I know great things are coming your way.

Playing Hooky

When we found out about the "Ladies Ski Day" at Pico Mountain last week while skiing with Ben, we knew we would have to come back and take advantage of this deal again.  So although it was a school day, we played hooky again and headed back over near Rutland, Vermont for another fun day of skiing.  One of the greatest travel buddies we have discovered recently is the audio CD children's books.  Over the past month or so we have read "Indian in the Cupboard", 4 books in the "Boxcar Children" book series and are now listening to "Stuart Little".  I love this because the fighting is practically nonexistent with these and the kids no longer constantly ask for a Kindle to play video games on as we travel.  I am hoping this leads to Robby enjoying reading a bit more and I am also enjoying listening to some fun children's books.  

We had a great day at Pico and were able to ski a little in the morning while Eli was at the Daycare center.  After lunch, we all headed out for some more skiing.  We had a fantastic time until Maddie's elbow got caught in one of the lift safety bars near the end of our day.  She was pretty upset about it and wouldn't move it the entire way home.  Luckily her funny bone healed just fine and she was in fine spirits by bedtime that night.

Robby was pretty excited that I let him ski most of the day with his ski poles that he isn't quite ready to use

One of Maddie and Robby's favorite parts about Pico is the smaller lifts that they are allowed to ride on with each other and the smallest one that they can ride all by themselves.

After an upsetting pack up with Maddie howling about how badly her elbow was hurting, she promptly nodded off for a nap most of the way home.  She is actually wearing Robby's sweat shirt after complaining that she was freezing cold :)

40 Degrees and Sunny

After being deprived of sunny skies and warm{er} weather for many months, we took full opportunity of a beautiful Sunday afternoon and dressed appropriately. Shorts, short sleeved shirts, flip flops by a couple of us, and of course Super Hero costumes!  

Too bad this only lasted for a few hours and now we are back in the midst of Winter with snow, gray skies, and cooler temperatures.  

Maddie has decided she is going to learn how to skateboard this year.....which means already scraped up knees and elbows

M has been trying to a toe stretch for quite some time and is still upset that she can't do it without holding onto something.  I love her concentration face in this picture

Winter Break: Saturday

We decided to try to get to Ski resort "early" on Saturday.  This meant leaving the house around 9:30am and starting to ski around 10am.  I was so excited to bring Jesse along so that he could see the progress our children have made.  I was equally excited to have the freedom to go on a few runs by myself.  It was really fun to show him how much better they have all gotten at skiing and to see him excited to take the biggies on the ski lift.  He shot some pretty good footage of each of the kids skiing, and he enjoyed riding up the ski lift with Rubba.  We even did one run where all five of us went up the ski lift. 

On Thursday, Eli rode the J-Bar up all by himself on the last two runs of the day {and then skied down the hill with the backpack harness}.  He was very insistent that he also do this by himself on Saturday as well. It was a proud moment to see him go up the lift all by himself over and over again without falling. 

The boys petered out around 12:30pm and Jesse took them to the car. Maddie was still wanting to ski some more, so I ended up taking her down 4-5 more times.  I truly enjoyed being able to ski with my daughter.  She is finally hitting a point where it is no longer a chore to have her ski with me.  She can ski down most of the beginner/intermediate runs and even learned how to ski over moguls. 

My cute Eli boy riding the lift in front of me

Pictures with Maddie on our ski date up the mountain

Winter Break: Wednesday

Wednesday took us to the "Montshire Museum", a fun children's museum that we have yearly passes at. Maddie has gotten a little jealous as of late, of the amount of time that the boys have spent at the museum in comparison to her.  We tend to go there while she is either at gymnastics or school or friends houses.  I knew that during break this would be a great time to take her there.  I wasn't sure if the children would get bored quickly since we have been so much, but luckily I was wrong.  They have a really fun new exhibit set up about how people make things.  My kids were in heaven and could have stayed much longer than the 2-3 hours we  were there.

They were able to make parachutes out of plastic, strings, tape, index cards and pennies.  They even got to test them out by sending them over the banister to the first story.  They also spent a long time making spoons, foot prints, and other small creations out of wax, made die-cut paper boxes, die-cut 3D horses, and molded pennies.  They have all been talking constantly about these fun exhibits and when they can go back again.

 One of the fun new exhibits included building trolley cars and then taking them down a ramp and watching them smash back apart (pictured above).  Eli loved it and probably built his 5-6 times in a row

They also had an old-fashioned life size car that the kids could assemble and then take back apart.  Eli favorite part was pretending to drive the car.....even if the steering wheel wasn't even attached to the car.

Winter Break: Tuesday

 Tuesday was initially forecast to rain the entire day. What better place to spend our time than at the indoor swimming center in Hartford Vermont?!  It ended up being sunny all day long with rain showers in the evening. Nevertheless we still had a fantastic time swimming.

Another cool program out here is the "Passport to Winter Fun", which encourages children to participate in physical activity throughout the winter months.  In it you fill out a box whenever you are active for at least sixty minutes; it can be playing tag, doing gymnastics, ice skating, skiing, playing hockey, playing hide and go seek, etc. We have been diligent in filling out these booklets with Maddie and Robby.  Once you have ten boxes filled out, you get to choose a reward.  One of those was getting in free to the Aquatic Center.  Since both my children had 10 boxes filled out we happily brought our passport booklets with us and saved ourselves $14 in admission.  We are already looking forward to more rewards to come.

My children are basically little fishies in water and so we ended up staying at the aquatic center for about 2.5 hours.  The bonus was that they were so tired that evening that bed time went off without a hitch.  I love nights like that.

Eli, Robby and Maddie

*Funny note- I got asked if I had triplets while we were swimming. They are finally all hitting that stage when they are fairly close in size.  I had to laugh though, because Robby is quite a bit taller than both of the other children.  Eli is swiftly catching up to Miss M's height.  Poor girl

 Eli is completely obsessed with my camera right now and whenever he can get his hands on the camera he will snap upwards of 20-30 pictures at a time. This is one of the best ones he got of Miss M, Rubbas and I after changing back into clothes after swimming.

-being an Arizona girl, it feels almost wrong to put a heavy duty coat back on after swimming-

Winter Break: Monday

We just got finished with our annual "Winter Break" from school and then had a "No-Snow Snow Day" and so I am officially hitting catch up mode.  I was more than excited to have school back in session this week and resume normal activities, but I have to admit we had quite a bit of fun.  It was nice to return to lazy sleep-in mornings, fun craft projects, lots of skiing, and other exciting things to do. I tried to come up with one major activity to do each day and then lots of small things.  Luckily, two of my three children are home-bodies and are completely content to just hang out around the house {Miss M constantly wants to be off doing something}. Some of our fun activities included:

Monday- Skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway
Tuesday- Swimming at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center. M came to my cookie decorating RS activity
Wednesday- Montshire Museum with the Holbrook family.
Thursday- Skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway
Friday- Birthday party for Maddie/Movie Theater with the boys; Bowling with the Monteleone's.
Saturday- Skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway as a whole family {with daddy}.

I am going to highlight Monday in this post and then will do smaller versions for each of the other days, so I don't end up with a gigantic post with way lots of pictures.

My view up the J-Bar lift.  I love seeing my bigger two ahead of me on the lift looking so grown up

Mr E nestled between my skis up the hill. I have really enjoyed teaching Eli how to ski this year.  It is challenging and frustrating at times, but also incredibly rewarding. 

Not to mention CHEAPER than paying for lessons

Maddie enjoyed hiking up the hill a bit to try her hand at jumping.  She has gotten pretty comfortable on her skis and is such a risk taker in every aspect of her life

Maddie was upset that I didn't get one of her in actual mid-air during her jump.  

I tried over and over again and blamed the sun light and an old camera for this. 

{a new quality camera is on my bucket list of things I want post-grad school}

Winter Carnival "Ice Skating"

Every year for Tuck's Winter Carnival they have this fabulous ice skating party on Occom Pond. We have always elected not to attend the actual Winter Carnival festivities beyond this party because it is expensive, full of alcohol, we have three children, etc.  We were excited to once again attend the skating party on Friday after school with the blue skies and warmer temperatures.  Too bad it was a little too warm.  So warm, that it was no longer an ice skating sort of day.  Instead everyone ditched their skates and ran around on the slushy ice to play hockey.  Maddie was not deterred.  She still put on her white ice skates and proudly walk-skated around the ice.  The boys elected to play in the igloo and by the ice sculptures.  

Love Day

This year I feel extremely loved on Valentines Day.  I have three amazing children who are constantly giving me hugs and kisses, and tell me how much they love me, and love to make me homemade presents.  I am constantly reminded at work how precious life is, and come home more grateful than before for healthy, happy children.  They are my light and joy in life.  They make the hard days worth it and they great days even more fantastic.  It's amazing how much life changes when you have children.  You become so much more selfless when it comes to them.  I feel like I was pretty self absorbed until I became a mother.  Instantly the good of your child comes before all else.  My wants are nearly always surpassed by what my children need.  Yet in providing for my children, I am happy.  

I am also grateful for a hardworking, confident, loving husband.  I am so proud of how much effort and determination he puts into his schoolwork.  He is also such a giving man.  This winter he decided to be the volunteer 8th grade Hanover Basketball coach and has put in hours and hours of time with these young men teaching them how to be better athletes.  He truly dedicated his heart to that position and you can tell all of the boys really look up to him.

This year for V-Day I had most of the day to spend with Mr E, now that M and R both attend school all day.  We put together Valentines Day cards and went to the "Tiny Tuckie" Valentines Day feast/party.  We had a great time visiting our friends and exchanging treats.  My older kids had a great time making their own Valentines this year as well.  Because their school essentially banned candy at school, we substituted "take apart erasers" that Miss M has been obsessed with all year to give to each of their classmates, for candy.  I know their Valentines didn't look quite as fancy as some of the store bought ones, but I love that each year my kids put their own personal stamp on their Valentines. 

 Eli is such a goof ball, and it took probably 30 pictures to get one smiling picture of him and he's not even looking at the camera. Oh well, I love to remember him this way.  I love looking at his goofy poses and big cheesy grins.  He is such a happy, spirited little boy and we are thankful for the enthusiasm he brings into our house.  He seems to know what to do or say to bring a smile to our faces.

Love this little Valentine of mine <3 p="">

And just because I am a total rebel, I had to give my kids PLENTY of candy since they weren't allowed to really have any at school. 

TOTALLY LAME

Here is my Facebook post take on the lame Fruit Salad Party Maddie's class had instead of a traditional Party with treats and candy: 

Dear Miss xxxxxx,

Really? A "Fruit Salad Party"? I mean, I'm all about healthy choices when it comes to food and all. But don't you think that Valentines Day is a special circumstance. I'm not sure banning candy from school for the Holiday is going to reinforce a lifelong of healthy eating. Teaching moderation in all things is a much healthier approach to life in general, rather than teaching a no tolerance for such things.

Sincerely,
Unimpressed Parent

Maddie was pretty frustrated when she first heard the news of her fruit salad party and came home and told me about it.  At first I didn't believe and without thinking said "Maddie of course you're not going to do that....that would be just plain weird".  I am so glad I have a child with a great memory; of course she went to school the next day and announced that to her teacher.

When I questioned the whole non-candy thing, this is what I was told: "in the interest in promoting healthy eating at our school, we just feel like having the kids bring candy wouldn't serve that purpose."

Double Lame.
This is one thing I will definitely NOT miss about this quaint little town.

Laundry Day

In case you ever wondered how much laundry a five person family goes through in one week, here it is. I sort of couldn't believe how large the pile was prior to sorting loads.  

No wonder I never seemed to be caught up with anything around this place.

-I seriously don't know how larger families cope with the overwhelming volume of laundry.  This is one of my chores that I constantly put off doing because I despise it so much. 

 *thank goodness I have this bright little boy amidst all this chaos, otherwise I might totally lose it