::more skiing--this time with sandy & murphy::

Murphy and Laura came to visit us, which was super fun.  Saturday was one of our last possible family skiing days though, so we made them come with us.

But before that, early in the morning, Kris and Max got up before the sun to go up and hike up the mountain and ski down.  This is something that Kris does regularly in the winter, probably close to once a week.  But he's never taken Max with him before.



I was a little worried about Max wimping out, but reportedly he did great and was very brave--though of course very silly.



Bryce's daughter Eva who is Max's same age also came along and did great.  It's fun to see the kids and dads getting quality time together.



So the boys did that, and I got everybody up and ready at home and led Murph yand Luara up the hill to the ski area.  Sandy didn't want to go of course.  But little did he know how fun it would be.  This day's skiing was all about the Sandy.



We met up with Kris and Max, got Laura and Esther all situated in the cafeteria, got Lucy dropped off at childcare and we were all ready to go.  Murphy and Max and I went off to Easy Street to get Murphy comfy on his borrowed skis, and Kris, Sand and the hula hoop (which we found in our garage after we bought the house) went off to the magic carpet.



Sandy was pretty excited!



Here's my silly brother and I observing at the bottom of the magic carpet run.



I realized that Sandy really needed two of us to help him ski, and he was DYING to go on the run with a lift, so I sent Max and Murphy off to ski together and stuck with Sandy.  Murphy is really good anyway and both of those boys are above my level, so they had lots of fun adventuring together.



We did the magic carpet a few more times, then at Sandy's insistence we went to Easy Street so he could go up the lift.



Getting on and off the lift was definitely a little complex, but he was thrilled out of his mind.  And it was fun going down with him.  He stayed in the hula hoop and "chased" me.



He insisted at the end that he wanted to go on the lift with me--that made me pretty nervous because of the off and on parts, but I was very careful and he did great.  He really has great balance so that helps.



He probably went down the big hill about 6 times--he kept saying it was the last time but then when we'd get to the bottom he was excited to do it again.  It was super fun.







At the end, Murphy went up to see him family and Max came to ski with us for one run.

So it all turned out really fun.  Lucy had a great time because she was the only baby at Chipmunk Conrner.  Esther and Laura were cool about hanging out and the rest of us had a lot of fun skiing.  And afterwards we got to go have lunch together at Bumblebee.  It doesn't get any better than that!



Love this little boy and his little skis and huge helmet!

::::

"But I was looking for the Octonauts book!" Of course we found it the next night, up on top of the shelf....oh well.

::st paddy's::

It was just another Tuesday, and though Max had been looking forward to St Patrick's day for quite a while, he totally forgot the day had come.



I reminded Kris about St P's day though, so he wouldn't get pinched by any opportunistic people. So he looked green.



Lucy was jamming to the base lines for a little bit during breakfast.

Max came out dressed normally--no green at all!  I reminded him what the day was and suggested he go and put on his green jacket.  He sprinted out of the room and came back like this:



"Now I just need green shoes!"  He was very proud of his outfit, and rightly so.  It's impressive.



I pinched him anyway.



Lucy doesn't go in for silliness like this, so she just wore whatever she wanted (read, I didn't remember she needed to be in green at the time of baby dressing.)

Sandy and I wanted in on this post too in our green, so here we are.

Love my little leprechans.

::banana hair::

Bananas are the best finger food for breakfast.  They're so delicious and squishy.  In fact, there was a time in Max's life where he ate two FULL bananas every morning in his high chair.

BUT.  Bananas also have a downside.



They turn into this paste--a mushy sticky vicous paste--that hardens into a sort of cement.



Lucy feels the need to smear anything that's in her hands through the hair on the back of her head.  This results in some pretty special hairdos.



Good thing she's so dang cute.  And now we know that when the zombie apocalypse comes we can use bananas for hair gel--really strong hold hair gel.



And here we are during the sleep battle of this particular day.  It's just one of many.  Days & sleep battles.  She still has the banana hair.

::sleep::

This Lucy of ours is really quite terrible about sleeping.  She was never a good sleeper to begin with and she's only improved _slightly_ in the last year.

The pictures in this post are all from attempts at napping--usually pictures I sent to Kris.  Oy I have tried to have her nap so many zillions of times.



Usually when I give up the fight and lie down with her for a nap it works and she sleeps--but of course, not always, and the not always is usually when I'm so tired I'm ready to die.



This is how all of this makes us feel.



The teething hasn't helped.  Her teeth have been coming in slowly and in the wrong order.  Babies are  supposed to get their bottom teeth first (according to our resident growth and development expert) and she's gotten her tops first and we're steill waiting for the bottoms to make their move.  We saw a picture of Sandy today at the same age and he already had SIX big old teeth!



She had a really bad cold for a couple of weeks too and that really didn't help.  The teething made it worse too.  So not a lot of night sleep and like NO naps.  I used to think Sandy was a bad sleeper, but HAH!



Hopefully after the teeth finally arrive we can settle into some sort of routine, but honestly she hasn't taken good or even decent daytime naps since around Christmas.



I sent this picture to Kris and it was supposed to show my sympathy for the pitiful little baby.  He said I looked defeated.  It's a little true.

But on the bright side, she's a really good natured little thing and does well on less sleep than I think she really needs.  She's pleasant to have around all day even without naps and is adorable.  So we'll keep on working with it until we get things figured out.  And hopefully at some point I'll get to sleep through the night more than about once a quarter!

::after church::

Not sure why, but this happened on the way home from church.















There's not really a lot to say about all this, but I love these silly people.

::ski day::

Kris had a boy scout campout on Friday night, but we really wanted to go skiing together on Saturday morning, so we had to work out the details.  Kris and the president decided to camp up near the ski area, and then to try to get parents to come and pick up all the boys so that I could meet Kris up at the ski area in the morning.

He took Max on the campout with him--Max always enjoys this, but he got extra cold in the middle of the night this time.  They still had fun though.



Some of us were more excited about going up to ski than others.
The way the child care works in Santa Fe, when a kid is over 3 they have to do ski lessons for part of the day.  Sandy has had fun a couple of times doing it and not so much fun a couple of times.  Today he was convinced he WAS NOT going to have fun.  His face looked like this before he even got dropped off:



If he didn't usually end up having a good time we wouldn't force him to go, but he does usually have tons of fun.  But, as you can see, he had a rather defeatist attitude this particular trip.



But despite all that we finally got both of the kids dropped off (Lucy was happy to go and play in the nursery), and trucked all of the ski gear up from the parking lot to the lodge.


I don't look excited I know, but I'm happy to be there.  I'm just already tired from having to drop the kids off and do all the prep.  Everything in life just takes so dang much work!

Max was losing patience with us and all our time it took to get ready, so he started to make his favorite silly faces.



Kris doesn't really have a tummy like this, I have to point that out.  He'll probably be annoyed that I posted this picture, but besides the slouching he looks so cute!



And off we went! (After more photos than Max could even handle)



It was fun to spend a little time just with Max--I mean how often does that even happen?



The guys and I stuck together all morning.  I practiced and got better (I get a little better every time) and fought off their suggestions to go on harder and harder hills.



Later I went and checked on Sandy and Lucy.  Lucy was great, Sandy of course was sad.  He didn't want to go and ski.  I had to bribe him with the offer of some videography--"I'll take a video of you that you can watch later if you will just ski!!!"



He actually looks pretty good, but I think he just doesn't enjoy the group setting.  There were a lot of kids on this particular day, and it seemed like the teachers were just going around picking kids up off the ground the whole time.  I did get a video (in case you were wondering.)



The guys and I went to do one more run--up to the very top of the world!!  The view from this run is so crazy, you can see EVERYTHING.  It was a little scary for me but I made it down.

It was a fun day--somehow worth it even though it takes a lot of work to get ready and get the kids all dropped off and then to reload the car and etc.  Doesn't everything in life just take more work than it should?

::lucy does things::

Lucy wears the hat from Grandpa's race while she plays in the bathtub waiting for me to get ready in the morning.  She's usually cranky in the tub so it's nice that she's happy right here.



Lucy knows how to use remotes.  She's always trying to change channels and etc.



She packs herself for a trip.



Cute?  Yes.



Lucy regards me with suspicion.  What is that crazy lady even DOING?



Lucy wants her bear hat OFF even though her ears will get cold.  Some diabolical grown up put a snap under her chin though, so her pulling and fussing was all in vain.



Lucy smiles for a photo during breakfast on Grandpa's birthday and melts my heart.



Lucy steals my drink during a meeting at work and helps herself.  Luckly it was full of water.  She was very serious about drinking it.  I don't think she got any out at all.



Lucy does a lot of things these days.