In mourning.

I'm grieving the snow days that were not.

Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

We've been teased with forecasts for as much as SIX inches of snow for the last 4 days--we got a dusting Sunday & Monday & Tuesday & today...alas, the temperature was and is too warm. 

It was so pretty coming down yesterday morning...yet school was on so off go the boys on their bicycles and George to work.

The little boys & I got out and stomped around in the little bit of slush that remained yesterday morning before that all melted away.

I'm the saddest about this morning though. I really tried not to let my hopes get up, but when I saw that snow coming down last night on my way to bed, I was so excited. We got a couple inches and then--I heard it happen in the night--it changed to rain...unrelenting, drenching rain. And now it's messy slush and will probably all be gone before 10am... Horrible warm air! Just an hour north of us they're getting tons of snow and I'm so jealous!

This is probably the only snow we'll get this winter...I'm so sad. We did get some last year in February so I guess the possibility is still there but it's not likely. I'll be grieving all day today.

Such despair and disappointment.

Trouble!

Caught chocolate-handed!!!

And there is evidence of accomplices in this messy deed...open cabinets, milk on the counter, the open chocolate container, a chopped apple now wedged by the chair, among others...

He's been busy causing other trouble as well...he broke the glass out of one of my family portraits that I just finished the other week! Baby powder's been emptied in rooms...and TOYS--the endless march of toys from the toy room into the far reaches of the house (and Benno is his main accomplice there--Benno's been playing "Santa" so he fills bags with random assortments of toys and delivers them throughout the house...it was cute the first time...but now...) and so much more.

As naughty as he is, he's my last baby & he's growing up too fast--I will enjoy every last one of these messes before they happen no more... 

Luck for the New Year!

We made our traditional Vasilopita for New Year's.

This is one of my favorite traditions from George's Greek side. And the boys love it too.

The Vasilopita is a sweet cake-y kind of bread. Before slicing it, a coin is pushed into the bottom and the cake is put right-side-up and spun around so you don't know where that coin is...  Then you begin slicing the cake, assigning each piece in order: always first to Jesus...then to home...to work...to George, to me, to Anthony, to Aaron, etc, etc, etc. until the entire cake is sliced up.

Then we take our slices and discover who has the coin in their slice--and whoever does has the luck for the New Year!

Our 2012 coin ended up right between the slice for Jesus & for our home!

And after all that fun...you still get to eat your yummy cake! : )

Sledding Day!

It's been a relatively warm, dry winter around here so far...but we were craving some winter fun so we invited a bunch of friends to join us the day after Christmas up at Mt Hood where we were pretty sure we'd find snow.

I thought I'd be able to get one big group shot once we got to the sledding spot but everyone scattered to go sled so not only did I not get pics of the great fun group, but I didn't even get my own boys...only Zac, but he's cute enough to cover for the rest.

He did pretty well all things considered.

That's Zac in the sled George is dragging uphill...Zac looked like he was about to slip right out of that sled headfirst down the mountain!

I don't think Zac was much of a fan of sledding...look at his little face in this one. I think that's more terror than thrill.

And by the time we gathered the boys for a family pic, Zac had had it.

Mt Hood looks rather bare compared to its usual blanket of snow...my boys are still hoping to go skiing sometime this season but Cooper Spur doesn't have any snow yet!

There is a chance of snow in the forecast for this weekend! Let's hope they're not just teasing us but that it actually happens!!!

On the way home, most of the group stopped for tasty Burgerville dinner...yum! 

Good fun & we hope it'll become a great tradition!

Beginning Band

Emphasis on beginning.

So Anthony has been learning to play saxophone with the band at school. They had their first concert during that crazy busy week before Christmas break. 

I really tried to be the proud parent happily listening to the joyous "music"...but listen with me and tell me if you too would be holding back belly laughs, tears streaming from your eyes with the effort of holding back.

If you look closely (well as much as the low video quality will allow), you can see Anthony directly in the middle there at the back--his head is just to the right of the kid wearing the Santa hat.

  To add to the hilarity, you must realize that this particular song was their grand finale with the Intermediate Band! (The intermediate band played the verse while the beginning band came in on the chorus at the beginning & the end...oh my, so funny. Halfway through the song, the boy in green on the front row of the audience next to the red-headed grandma sticks his fingers in his ears for the duration of the song.)

Even Anthony said after seeing the video, "It sounded a lot better from where I sat." The whole night was a little off anyway--the band instructor himself was late after getting stuck in terrible traffic...not just a little late, he was so late he wasn't there for everything BUT this last finale song. The poor music teacher (not the band instructor) conducted as best he could in the mean time.

George and I just looked at each other and shook our heads, thinking back to the last 4 years of violin lessons and all the progress he'd made with violin...what a big step backward--but on the plus side, that means there is hope! All of these kids will sound marvelous a few more years (and lots of practice) down the road.

2012.

So I'm going to be bold and post my new year resolutions with the idea that making them somewhat public will spur a little better accountability--keeping them to myself makes it far too easy to let them go.

So here are some that I've been pondering for 2012:

1. I am going to do my Personal Progress. 
I never finished it as a YW and I always felt a little badly about it. Back then you could earn the 3 separate class necklace medallions before getting the big YW medallion, so I did get my Beehive...but that's really not saying much. I have already started over with Personal Progress since working in the YW, but it's time I just finished it once and for all!

2. I am going to achieve my more ambitious Lose It goal.
I did achieve my first one last summer (go me!) and I reset the goal. (I'm not telling what number it is...but those on Lose It can see how close I am to my goal.) I'm already signed up to run the Hippy Chick Half this spring...so there's some additional incentive to keep running & take care of myself!

3. I am going to finish the unfinished projects laying around my house.
I already finished one! I was re-doing all the family portraits that I have hanging in my entryway (they're all hand-drawn) and it was halfway done for a long time...then we repainted in the summer and I took them all down and they'd been down since last summer. Almost all of them were in desperate need of updates with missing children or spouses or whatever...so I'm very happy to have that done! Next on my list are my boxes and boxes of photos, for which I have albums but it's a chore to get all those photos organized and into the albums.

4. I am going to write Thank You notes.
I have been so awful about writing thank you notes (in a timely manner...sometimes I do get around to it but way later than I should!) It's time to change that. I bought myself, the boys & George all new sets of Thank You notes already--no excuses!

5. Lastly, I had this idea (sorta spurred on by the Game On/Fit Game thing I did last year): I want to try to do one new goal every week, whether it's to lose a bad habit or start a new one, I want to be focused on something good and growth-minded (there's the Mindset influence!) every week. There are so many little goals I want to work on but they get lost in the shuffle of life at times so this will help I think. I'll try to share some of them along the way.

That's a decent list, don't you think? I think those are worthy, achievable goals...let's see how it goes 2012.

And it's meet season again...

Well, here we are, back into meet season again. This year will be crazier than ever with 3 boys in 3 different levels with all different meet schedules...I try not to think about it or I start to feel frazzled. We take it one meet at a time and then it's all ok.

I am struggling a little on the Sunday issue though. All my life I've been taught and said myself that we don't do sports on Sundays. Period.

Now, 4 years into competitive gymnastics, we're finding that it's becoming unavoidable, which I knew would be the case at some point as I've read into the stories of other LDS gymnasts--I just had hoped we had a few more years before having to deal with it.

The meet featured here did happen on a Sunday--the same Sunday I gave my talk last month as a matter of fact--and we do what we can to keep the Sabbath...the boys did come to sacrament meeting, and we skipped our regular routine of going out to eat after the meet....but still, I am having a hard time with this.

Fortunately, the majority of our meets still happen on Fridays or Saturdays. (And the 2 oldest are in Seattle today with George for a meet.)

This meet is different than the regular meets--it was a team challenge so there were no individual placings, only a team score. Our team was 2nd place--very close behind the 1st place team--and if my 2 boys hadn't fallen on their landings 3 times, our team would have been 1st (I see that as our punishment for sports on Sunday!)

This was the most dramatic fall--watch at 15/16 seconds where Anthony's feet hit the bar and his coach catches him on the landing...it all happened so fast that I didn't even know what happened until we went back and watched the video. The video starts late & is shaky thanks to the 2 year old on my lap:

Thankfully, he was ok. Just a little shaken.

No falls in this one--Aaron did beautifully! He has come such a long way since last year!

Again, I started late on the video, grr. Not easy with Zac.

I'm so anxious to hear how it all went today in Seattle! I so wish I could be there to cheer them on!

Zac a deux ans!

{Zac is two!}

Incroyable! Quel surprise!

Yes, believe it or not, my baby boy is TWO!!!

We ate lunch at his favorite restaurant. He really was excited to be there, despite his glare in the photo. He just wanted to stare at the caboose and I kept telling him to turn and smile at me, thus the glare.

There's the smile! And Katie & Betsy joined us.

Zac can make Betsy laugh better than anyone else...it's delightfully cute.

Here is my sad attempt at cake decorating again. I was too busy to put much effort into it, I'm afraid...so the best we got was the cupcakes with licorice 2s & some sprinkles. And a 2 candle. : )

Zac liked his cupcakes anyway.

He is way into trains right now... I love this shot catching his reaction at his first peek at this wooden block train...this is a fun age. 

And Zac is growing up entirely too fast. He decided the night after his birthday to stop sleeping in his crib (which I was nowhere near ready to give up yet!) and now sleeps in the toddler bed (which was Benno's but Benno sleeps with the big boys.) So I'm perusing craigslist these days on the hunt for a new set of bunkbeds to shift the sleeping arrangements around a bit. If anyone knows anyone locally who could use a nice, used-but-in-good-shape crib, mine's now available...

We also pulled out the little potty chair & he's tried that out already too. He hasn't actually used it yet--I know after having potty trained 4 boys now that it's useless to push it, but at least he knows what it is and for the time being likes to sit on it...with any luck he'll start really training sooner than later!

Happy birthday, my little blonde, blue-eyed cherub!