::trip prep::

Getting ready to go to Costa Rica for our surf camp trip took some serious preparation. Not only did we need to go and buy gallons of bug spray and zillions of tubes of sunscreen, but I also needed to make sure everybody had the clothes they needed for 90 degree weather.

The boys only needed a few things to complete what they needed, but Lucy needed just about everything. Being the only girl, there are no hand-me-downs, or very little. So we had to start from scrach. Anyway, it took some thinking as it has definitely not been shorts and short sleeve weather here at our house lately. And Lucy had no swimming suits. So we had to take care of that. And we had to have a little try on/show off party.



 Lucy was in heaven. She loves clothes, and she loves swimming and she was just so happy to get to try on swimming clothes. She was ready to go swim RIGHT THEN.

 







And here's another cute little suit:

 

And here's Sandy in a new swim ensemble--he couldn't be left out of the fun.

 

 He's showing us all a lego guy of course. And lastly, a cute regular outfit. Of course I tried to change her out of her swimming suit and into this oufit and she lost it, so she has the swimming suit on underneath.

 



And there you go--your pre-packing fashion show. This was the fun part. The actual packing part was stressful as always. Except maybe more because we really didn't know what to expect when we got there.

::hearty doughnuts::

After ski lessons today I had to rush Sandy down to school for the Valentines party. We stopped at Dunkin D. to get a bunch of treats for the party.

 

Sandy got his own special personal doughnut all covered with hearts because he's cute and adorable. He was pretty happy about that.

 

He's been doing great at ski lessons and has been making tons of progress. It's been worth the extra trouble to take him up with me. I'm glad he's getting more comfortable and less scared. It will be so fun when he gets to the point that we can actually ski together!

::sorry this post is all selfies::

I was going to call this post "birthday date" but then I saw all the pictures, and it's just a pure selfie post.



Anyway, Victoria was finally feeling better so she offered to come and wach the kids for the afternoon so Kris and I could go have some alone time for my birthday.  I thought it would be fun to go up and ski for the afternoon, since I'm getting better and it would be nice and simple without any kiddos to haul around.

It was fun, sunny and pretty warm.  Crowded but not too crowded.  I took a couple of spills, which is unusual for me, but I was trying to keep up with Kris, so I guess it makes sense.  It was a fun few hours.  We just don't get to spend that much time alone these days, so we appreciate it when we get it.



Afterwards we drove back into town and had dinner with some friends at a restraunt we'd never been to before.  Good steak.  And, I had goggle lines on my face until I went to bed--that's what the below selfie was supposed to show.  But it doesn't show how aggressive they really were.
It was a fun afternoon.  I'd do it again!

::it's thursday::

I have been doing this "women's program" at the Ski area for all of January.
It's Thursday mornings from 9-12 and it's basically a group lesson with just girls. We only have two of us in our group, so the other girl and I have both made a lot of progress and learned a ton in just a few weeks. I went from a green skiier to (I'm told) a solid blue run skiier since the first week of January!
I've been taking Sandy up with me to Chipmunk corner so he can have lessons while I do, and though it's much more complex and more of a pain, it's been paying off. He's learned a ton and actually has had a great time. Last year he didn't enjoy lessons there because there were too many kids. He learned nothing last year. But now he can turn and stop, and we're very pleased.



Don't worry though, he definitely still loves to complain about going. And complain that he had a terrible time 10 seconds after he said he had a great time. No worries there, still lots of whining. 

When we got home, there was my super adorable Lucy. Oh, actually this week we had trouble. Victoria usually watches Lucy for me, but she was ill, so Kris had to take her to work. It went well, from what I hear.  She really "helped" at the front desk.


And look what a good job he did, he even got her to nap!

 Anyway, there was cute miss Lucy, and she was so stinking adorable that I had to take a zillion pictures of her.

 

How could I not. Look at that shirt. And that face.




And those boots!

 

And those killer skinny jeans!



We've had lots of coughing this week, yucky coughs.  But they're getting better now, thank goodness.



See, more coughs.



And there's that cute tummy.  Love this girl.



Then after all those photos she put a bunch of stickers all over her face and helped me test out some lipstick. Good to have the girl around.

 

::wednesday::

Lucy sits in a patch of sun and plays with the hex bugs. She's fascinated with the hex bugs right now. In fact, once they get turned on she doesn't want to let you turn them off, and they will run around their playgrounds until their batteries are dead. She's eating one of her favorite foods--a "squishy yogurt". She pronouces squishy like "a-beeyah", don't ask me why. So she asks for an "a-beeyah ohgurt." She's also wearing one of of her favorite things--a princess dress. This particular one is a Rapunzel dress. It's got sparkles on it, so everywhere she goes she leaves a little stream of tiny sparkles behind. They were all over my face by the end of the day. We got it yesterday at Target from the clearance section. Glorious Target keeps us flush in princess dresses and Star Wars shirts. What would we do without it. It's so quiet when both boys are at school and it's just Lucy playing with all of their toys. I have to say us girls do enjoy it, though it doesn't happen often or for very long.

::a few things::

Today was one of those crazy days.  There was a two hour school delay, so Kris went to work late and the kids went to school late.  It totally threw me off, to say the least.  I felt like I was playing catch up all day-mentally more than anything.

Lots of work stress and such, hungry kids all day, always needing snacks, not wanting to eat the healthy stuff.  
I was going to take a picture of Lucy in her ridiculously silly Little Mermaid nightgown she was wearing over her regular clothes, but she spilled about 6 gallons of yogurt down her front and all over her high chair before I could get a chance.
It was just that kind of day--annoying phone calls, kids being good until I get on the phone and then fighting and crying and screaming--classic stuff.  

But despite all the stress and the everyday things we had to do we survived.  We even remembered to taket he trash can down, which was imperative since I didn't feel well last week and forgot to make people do it and everything was overflowing and gross.

See, triumph!!

Anyway, here's me today, saying hi, blurrily:


Here are my Star Wars fingernails--R2D2 and C3PO. What do you think?



Sandy liked them.

 A few older things, just for fun.

 Here's Lucy going craaaaazy eating some ice cream at Bumblebee on Saturday after skiing.


Max's best friends who moved to New Orleans are visiting for a while, so on Friday night I took them  all to Star Wars and then they had a sleepover--then, much to their delight they ended up getting to sleep over on Saturday too. They're such sweet boys that it's fun to have them around.



It was my 3rd time to see Star Wars in the theater and I still wasn't bored. They did a great job on that movie. Can't wait until it comes out on DVD so we can show it to Sandy. He's being such a good sport about not getting to see it yet.

BB8 is our favorite.

 So there you go, some stuff.

::--::

"More NANAS!!"  Says Lucy this morning.  This is worth documenting because Lucy is really impossible to feed right now.  She doesn't want to eat anything except crackers and yogurt and cashews.  Sometimes an apple here and there.  So this morning when she saw a banana sitting on the counter and got really excited I was pleased.

"Nana!!"  She ate the half that was on the counter and then asked for another half.  She didn't finish it but she tried.

And she posed very carefully for this picture.  Who taught her to stick her tongue out in photos?



And here's the other "nana" eater of the morning.  Please note his Snoopy shirt.  It says "Free Hugs."  This is perfect for Sandy.  The only thing more perfect would be if he had a Mr Hyde version of the shirt that said "Free punches," since he sometimes likes to hit people.



He was playing with the hexbugs this morning.  Nice for the bugs since they've been in hypersleep for the last few years.



And here's sleeping Lucy.  We were out getting business done, and she was supposed to come into work and help me get some stuff done.  But she fell asleep right as I was pulling into the office, so I had to hang out in the car for a while so she could get some zzzs.  Wish I could say she woke up cheery, but.....

::jedi battles::

We had a jedi assemblage in the music room before church this morning.



Kris helped Sandy make these great light sabers out of pool noodles as Christmas gifts for the family. We got the idea from some good friends.



The noodle light sabers are great because no matter how hard somebody hits you with one of those things, it never _really_ hurts.  So the kids can whack away at each other as much as they'd like and we know that everybody will survive.



The funniest thing is that Lucy knows exactly what to do in a battle, and she really gets into it.



But, of course, Sandy is the one that gets into it the most.  I think below he had disarmed Kris and was pretty proud of his setup.



"Come and get me!"



Lucy will attack Kris, and whack him a bunch of times.  Then when he whacks her, she drops her saber, screams and falls to the ground.  It's hilarious.



She's wearing her kitty jacket today--by special request because she wanted to say meow.









More battle scenes.  Lucy is in the midst of collapsing here.



And the dramatic demise.





And again later, dead.  Even more dramatic on the kitchen floor.





She knows she's funny.