Winter Break

For Christmas Break this year, Steve and I both took the week between Christmas and New Year's Day off from work and the kids are out of school.  We decided to stay home and enjoy some family time together doing fun things or relaxing at home.

On Thursday the 26th, we had our piano tuned and adjusted. Sarah really enjoyed watching the "piano doctor" take the piano apart to fix the squeaky pedal and tune it all up.  

On Friday the 27th, our neighbor Tammy came over to play with Trevor while Steve and I took the big kids snow tubing at Elm Creek Park Reserve.  It is a great groomed tubing hill with a lift that we have taken the kids to before.  This time, we decided to take advantage of the one nice weather day (over 40 degrees!) and go tubing.  However, everybody else had the same idea!  It was packed and we had to wait 1.5 hours to get tubes and tickets for the hill, but once we did, we had a great time! 

Last year, Sarah went down the hill once and didn't want to go anymore.  This year, she was a bit scared at first, but after going down with Mommy holding onto her tube and hugging her all the way down the hill, she was eager to go again...and again...and again!

Austin heading down the hill.

He wanted to do it himself until he realized that he can go faster when we all go down together and the weight of Mommy and Daddy helps him go faster.

Heading down the hill with a push from Daddy to get us going.

On Saturday the 28th, we enjoyed watching the Irish win their bowl game!  I also got to hang out with Michelle and Brian over the weekend to check on Baby Chester.  I even got to see him on ultrasound on Sunday and see how beautiful and perfect he is!  So excited to meet him in April!

On Monday the 30th, we took the kids swimming for the afternoon at the Grove Cove at the Maple Grove Community Center. We knew there was a zero entry pool and big shallow end for Sarah and Trevor to play in, so we figured we could still manage to safely supervise 3 kids with only us 2 adults in the pool with them.  We also hoped it wouldn't be too croweded and when I called ahead, it didn't sound like it was super crazy!  We had a blast!

My little fish, Austin and Sarah, were very excited!

Trevor...not so much!

He napped a little bit on the way to the pool, but was tired and cranky.  When we entered the pool area, the noise freaked him out a bit and he clutched me so tightly, it was obvious he wasn't comfortable with this plan.  I was able to get him to gradually get used to the pool and the water and he ended up having lots of fun!  He cried a bit at first, but shortly was splashing, kicking, giggling, and playing.  Yay!

Austin enjoyed the big water slide!

While Sarah splashed down on the little slide in the shallow end.

 Everybody had lots of fun and we were all worn out by the time we headed home!

Austin had a blast during break watching football.  He was on top of all the bowl games, who was playing who, what each team's ranking was, the scores of each game, etc.  He got to watch parts of games now and then, and Trevor even got in on the game watch at one point.

Trevor doesn't really watch TV (or we try not to let him have screen time), but when he sees football on TV, he says "Go!Go!Go!"  Check out this video of him catching a minute of the championship game on 1/6. 

The kids have also been working their way through their Christmas candy.  Sarah started on her giant lollipop and obviously enjoyed herself!

On Tuesday the 31st, we popped over to our neighbors' house across the street for a New Years' Eve Party.  There were lots of people, tons of kids, and a variety of really yummy food there.  We had a fun time, but did bring the kids home when they started to get too tired and cranky.  After the kids got to bed, we just relaxed until the new year.  Unfortunately, Austin was up all night vomiting, so he and I rang in the New Year by staying up pretty much all night and sleeping in the next morning.  He was totally fine by the next day and we still don't know why he got sick.  Happily, the rest of us have been healthy!

Daddy went back to work on Thursday the 2nd and the kids and enjoyed some time at the library picking out new books (after stopping in at Kids Hair to get the boys some handsome haircuts). The big kids are pretty excited about Fancy Nancy books right now, so we got a few of those.  Austin is also reading at a 3.5 or so grade level, so we pick out some chapter books for him to read for his AR quizzes at school.  He has been enjoying the "Goofballs" series lately.

The other day, Steve found Austin and Sarah sitting on Sarah's bed reading together. I love it when they read to each other!

On Friday the 3rd, Mommy went back to work.  On Saturday the 4th, I spoke at a prenatal class for a while, but we otherwise enjoyed staying warm at home.  Sarah has been very creative in her imaginative play lately and has incorporated aspects of the nativity story, fairy tales, and other stories she has made up.
Here, Sarah is modeling her attire as the Queen. She is wearing her princess dress, her "glass slippers," her Angry Birds hoodie blanket as her Rapunzel hair, and her crown (askew, of course). She also has her baby Grumpy Bear who she insists is the princess. ("HE is a PRINCESS, Mommy!")

 And...she dressed up Trevor as the King!  (and he LOVED it!)

Austin and Sarah have also been playing together pretty well (check out the cooperation on Sarah's sticker books in the background).  Here, Trevor got a hold of my work bag and carried it around like he was heading to work in his jammies.  (We had quite a few pajama days during break too.)

On Sunday the 5th, I awoke to news that a patient of our group who has been fighting a brain tumor for over a year passed away this morning.  She was 7 years old and was a very brave, spirited, strong little girl.  I hugged my babies tighter today for sure!

Then this afternoon, we got to take the big kids to a fabulous production of Cinderella at Children's Theater Company.  It was quite entertaining for everybody - adults and kids!  Austin didn't think he would enjoy it, but he had a blast!  He was laughing and smiling the whole time. Sarah plugged her ears now and then when it got loud, but seemed to have a fun time at the show as well.  Definitely an impressive production!  We're looking forward to seeing more shows there in the future.

Before we go...some fun videos.
Trevor learned to say "Cookie" as one his new words.  That's my boy!  With the yummy Christmas sugar cookies around the house, he learned quickly to request a cookie and it is now one of his first 5 or so words.


The kids have been rough on Daddy lately and have had fun tackling him...


Trevor even gets in on the tackling, and is sometimes the instigator with Austin and Sarah.


We have sunk into a bitterly cold few days.  Today, wind chills got down to -42 degrees (at least) and overnight tonight, the temp is going down to -24 degrees, with wind chills in the -50s.  The governor cancelled all schools for Monday (and declared it on Friday!), so the kids got a 1 day extension to their Christmas break.  Unfortunately, I'll still be making my way to clinic in the cold weather!  My 7-8am forecast for getting to work is temp of -22 degrees, wind chill of -48 degrees!  Yikes!  Stay warm everybody!