Brother Snuggles

Ethan is pretty much the best big brother ever.  And he is pretty much the best son ever.  And not to mention, he is pretty much the best teenager ever (even if he is taller than me.)

I often dump the baby on him.  When I need to clean something, or cook something, or help someone with their homework.  Sometime I have to run to the store, and he gets to watch all the kids. 

(Side note, I bought an awesome infant car seat, it has the highest safety rating, it has some cool features  that I love.  I searched for a LONG time to find just the right carseat.  And the stupid thing doesn't fit on a shopping cart.  If I go grocery shopping with Cooper and the carseat, he has to go in the basket, which doesn't leave much room for groceries - like good luck fitting a gallon of milk in the big basket with the carseat.  I digress, every time I go grocery shopping, Ethan gets to watch Cooper.)

Basically, Ethan gets stuck with Cooper A LOT.  So I am always a little surprised when he will pick up Cooper just to snuggle.  Ethan finds snuggle time, just about everyday.

 Aw, so sweet.

Hey, what have you got there? A camera?

Curse you Perry the Platypus!

Mom vs. Dad

When mom is alone with baby,

When dad is alone with baby.

 (thats a diaper on his head)

Sundays with Sam

"Hey Sam, look, I am way taller than you now."

"No you are not, Coop. my head is higher than yours, so I am taller."

"But Sam. my legs are like twice as long as yours.  That make me taller."

"Fine your legs might be my head but...   WET WILLY!"

"Ew, Sam, Gross!"

"Hey Sam, wanna hear a joke?"

"Sure"

"Knock, Knock."

"Who's there?"

"Mutton"

"Mutton Who?"

"You'er getting Mutton for Christmas!"

"Mmm, nom, nom, Mutton."

"Whats the matter Sam?"

"If you had teeth you would eat me!"

 "No Sam, I will never eat you.  You are my best bud."

"Love you too, man."

**Actual conversation**

In other new, It's my birthday.  I had a great day, sluffing church (Dry council Sunday!) (but no seriously. Germs)

I was spoiled with presents, good food, and time with family.  Mother Nature even gave me a couple of minutes of blue sky and sunshine. She also blew all the gunk out of the valley.  We could see clear down to Payson!

Tibble Fork Reprieve

Today we journeyed up the canyon to Tibble Fork Reservoir to see if we could escape some of the bad air that is clogging the valley.  Maybe if we are lucky we could even see the sun.  But we didn't hold much hope of seeing the sun today as the clouds are pretty high, higher than Tibble Fork.

Also, we wanted to see if Tibble Fork had frozen over like Utah Lake has this year.

Before we even got to the canyon, the kids start with the: "So how long are we going to be here?"  "How long are we staying" "What time will we be home?"

Because going home to do chores is so much more fun than an adventure. (I'm not sure these are my children some days.)

We made it up the winding road to Tibble Fork.  No sunshine, but the lake is half frozen over.  There are couple of ice fishermen on the ice, and other people just goofing off. 

Dave and the kids head down to the ice.  I get to sit in the car with Cooper.  Even if he had been awake, he was still staying in the car.  And I, forgetting that we were going on an adventure, only wore my slip on shoes that would have fallen off in the snow.  :(

To get down to the ice, first they had to the giant dirty snow piles made by the snow plows. Then down the slippery and steep path. 

 Dave loves panorama shots.  The bendy rail kinda drives me crazy, but this is the best shot to see the whole picture.  (click on it, it will get bigger.) Dirty snow piles, bendy rail path down to the lake, ice in the middle of the lake, water on the ends where the inlets are.

The kids were a bit anxious to go out on the ice at first.  (Good, smart, cautious kids.)

But if dad can go on the ice, so can they.

They are looking at a blue sled that is under the ice.

Dave said it was a bit eerie walking on the ice.  Because the ice would crack and groan as you walked on it.  Note ice crack in picture above.

The kids had a lot of fun running an slipping and playing on the ice.  They didn't want to come back to the car. (Duh, adventures are awesome like that.)

Although I didn't get to play on the slippery ice, I did get to enjoy the quite peace of nature, and the fresh pine scented air.  I sometime for get how much being out of the city and in the beauty of the wilderness (or somewhat wilderness) recharges my batteries.  I could feel something at my very core come back to life with each breath I took of fresh air.  Maybe it has something to do with the cabin fever that come with a newborn, but I think it is more to do with being out in the wild.  

Must do more camping!

Warming trend

We finally reached temperatures above freezing yesterday!  It was almost balmy!

Well except for the FREEZING RAIN!  Everything was covered in ice. Black ice on the roads, ice on all the sidewalks, and driveways, and even the snow on the lawn.  Walking out side was pretty ridiculous.

Gavin's Birthday

Happy Birthday to my amazing, dangerous, flexible, strong, sweet, funny, handsome, smart, crazy, adventurous, sensitive, speedy, and amazing 7 year old.

We asked Gav what he wanted for his birthday, he said he wanted his two front teeth, and a car of some sort.  He also wanted a party with friends instead of a big present.  And he wanted chocolate or maybe white cake, with lots of colors for the frosting.  

"Oh, you want a rainbow cake?' I said

"NO! not a rainbow cake."He emphatically replied.

Not a rainbow cake, just one with lots of colors.

We decorated with lots of streamers and balloons.

Pinterest said you could color your own ceramics with sharpies, and them bake the ink on FOREVER!

(Pinterest lied a little)

We colored the plate, we baked it.  Half of the colors came off when I washed it with soap.  The other half came of when I put it in the dishwasher.  :(

Gavin requested french toast for breakfast.  We woke up early so we could all have breakfast together, something that hash't happened since Ethan started Jr. High.

It was maybe a little too early for Gavin, but we was still in good spirits.

For dinner we when to Pizza Pie Cafe because they have 2 of Gavin's "favorite things rolled into one, pizza and dessert!"

We had second desserts, because there was cake at home.

Dave bought me a bundt for Christmas, this is my second ever bundt cake.  I think that bundt cakes are my new favorite.  We opted for only blue and green frosting.  This cake is special, because there is a surprise inside.  

 Any guesses what the surprise is?

Presents?

Squirrels? 

Presents, hmm, no but that could be fun next time.

Squirrels, really???

SURPRISE!!

 IT'S A RAINBOW!

See, I had you all tricked with the 'colorful' blue and green frosting.  If you ask for a colorful cake for your birthday then you get a colorful cake.  And if you ask for not a rainbow cake, then sometimes you still get a rainbow cake.

We finished the evening playing Gavin's current favorite game - Apples to Apples. 

We have an unspoken-pseudo-family-Rule when we play Apples to Apples; the red 'shark' card is the trump card.  Because sharks fit just about everything, they are scary, crazy, intense, speedy, snappy, distinguished, friendly, weird, etc etc.  Pirate are the second place trump card, mostly because they are awesome.

Happy Birthday Gav!!  Thank you for 7 beautiful, wonderful, crazy, fun, exciting, joyful, dramatic, hilarious, awesome years!

Sundays with Sam

Holding up that head!

He is making a funny face here, he doesn't look like himself at all.  I think he looks like a baby Josh Brolin. (Josh Brolin, does that date me?  Yeah that dates me.) Also, did you did you notice that Halle photo bomb?

Jan 13th - 20th

This last week was pretty exciting.  Cooper is growing fast.  He is holding his head up  pretty well.  He will grab things that touch his hand like fingers, clothes, toys, eyeballs...  We put the "newborn" sized clothes away this week.  (sigh) I suppose a month and a half in in little teeny clothes is a pretty long time for most babies, but I just with they could stay tiny forever. 

These next pictures are a little montage I like to call "Sunday with Sam"

Cooper likes to look at the light, or at my hair, or anywhere but at me.

For family night we played a game I found on Pinterest.  I don't remember the name but the idea is that you fill a tea cup with flour, tip it upside down. pull the cup off and put a candy on top of the flour.  Then with a butter knife take turns slicing away some of the flour.  If you make the candy fall when it is your turn to slice, then you have to fish the candy out of the flour only using your mouth.  :)

 We started by using Andie Mints, but they were two easy to get out of the flour, so we switched to using 2 skittles - 2 so you had to put your face in the flour TWICE!

It was AWESOME!

 (I don't have a normal picture of Moey this week.  This is one that Halle took.)

Moey had a fun week. On Tuesday her class got to go Skiing at Solitude.  And yes, it was below 10 degrees all week long.  Then on Wednesday she had a 'Battle of the Books' meeting at school.  They had a drawing and she won the first Michael Vey book!  Battle of the Books is a new program they are doing in our school this year.  Any student who wants to participate is put a team and they are given a list of 20 books to read - as a team.  In March they will have a have a quiz show type "battle" answering questions about the books.  There are 4 girls on her team.  They all decided that they would read all 20 books each.  20 books in 6 months!  I told them they should try for 10.  With out any prodding from me, she has already read 16.

On Sunday. Dave and I were called to works with the Bears in Cub scouts.  Thursday was pack meeting.  It was a magic show.  Everyone was invited to prepare a magic trick.  So Gavin and I prepared a few tricks.  First we made a quarter disappear using a magic paper.  Then my scarf started to bother me and Gavin helped by pulling the scarf off.  He pulled on both ends looking like it would choke me.  We got on audible gasp as the scarf popped off my neck!  Gavin was so adorable.  I asked him to help me with my scarf and his eyes brightened and twinkled and his smile was huge with excitement.  Don't tell him I called him adorable.   Lastly we practiced our levitation.  We didn't get a picture of the actually levitating, but gavin is under the blanket, and he levitated.  Dave said it looked pretty cool, I guess you will have to take his word for it.