Just Today

I have decided that I don’t always need to have photos of the fun things that we do in order to blog about them.

I have decided that it’s ok to post about fun things without trying to be clever or witty.

I have decided that it’s important to write while things are still fresh in my mind, or else I will forget about what made them special.

 

Today we went skiing. It has been at least 15 years since I last put on a pair of ski boots. My kids have never gone. I wanted them to at least try it.

I loved it when I was younger. I had no fear. I used to ski fast. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t ski fast today. I was scared. I’m getting old.

For Christmas, Steve’s mom got passes for Me and Jonathon and Thomas and Hannah to go to Sundance. Thank You Mom!

There was no school today. We thought there would be new snow, but the forecast was a little off. We got there bright and early. It was 3 degrees.

I did remember to take the camera, I just didn’t remember to take it out of the car. Later, I did remember that I could take pictures with my phone, but it was out of batteries. No pictures today.

We headed off to ski school. Thomas and Hannah were together with their instructor. Jonathon and his friend with another instructor. I was all by myself with my very own instructor.

It was hard not to think about how the kids were doing, but I had to focus on making my way down the hill without getting hurt. My teacher was very patient and helped me remember what I was supposed to be doing.

I did get to see the kids in action a couple of times. I could watch them from the lift as we headed to the top of the run. They were doing so well. I wanted to yell at them and cheer them on, but I didn’t think it was such a good idea.

We met up at lunch time and ate frozen ham sandwiches that had been waiting for us in the car. We decided that we needed some hot chocolate, but it was so hot that we couldn’t drink it. It was a good thing that we could take it outside to cool it down a little. I was worried that the kids would be ready to go home. No worries. They could barely finish their lunch before they were ready to go up again.

On the way back up the mountain, I told myself that I needed to remember to go slowly as we headed down so that I could make sure the kids were doing alright. Whatever, they passed me right up and then had to wait for me to get to the bottom.

Conditions today were less than optimal. It felt at times like I was skiing on sheets of ice. After three runs down the slope I was ready to go home. The kids were not. So we played on the bunny slope for a while. Hannah was amazing. I thought she would be the first to say she wanted to stop. She was an expert at using the tow rope to take her up the bunny hill. I was impressed. She lasted longer than I did, I decided to take a break and watch for a while. My legs were tired.

The boys didn’t last long at the tow rope before they decided to head back up the big icy mountain without me. Such a long wait – up the lift, down the hill – waiting, waiting, waiting. Hey, guess what they made it down safely. I don’t even know how to convey the stress and anxiety that I experienced while waiting for them to get back.

We lasted until 4pm, but then it finally got too cold for us. I figured that I would be a little bit sore tomorrow. I didn’t have to wait to find out. It only took the 20 minute drive home for my body to start to rebel.

Luckily Steve let us get fast food for dinner so that I didn’t have to worry about it. I’m beat. I can’t wait to do it again.

Tin Grin

Hannah has entered the world of Orthodontics. She is now in what is called Phase One of her treatment plan. It was exciting for her to finally get braces, because she was not super happy with her crooked teeth.

Here she is with her new smile.

Hannah’s 9th Birthday – Sept 2, 2010

 
Hannah usually has a great Magical Birthday Weekend because it almost always falls on Labor Day Weekend. It’s a good thing too, because Hannah always has high expectations. She has such a hard time coping when all the fun comes to an end.

Once again, she decided on a trip to the Kamas Pool – we checked first to make sure that they were for sure open, so as to avoid last years mishap of driving the whole way there to find pool closed. After swimming, we headed to the pizza/ice cream store. If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is the activity chosen most often by my kids for their birthday. The pizza is quite tasty and the kids love to stare at the bins full of ice cream and take forever to pick out their flavor.

 

Grammy also came for a visit sometime during the weekend and we had a little party. I went to great lengths to give Hannah a customized Taylor Swift cake. It was a lot of work, so no laughing. I created the picture on the computer by using one of Hannah’s favorite clip art girls. Then, I tried to recreate it in frosting – not so easy! She was happy with it though, and really that’s all that matters.

 
Right now, Hannah is learning and growing and testing boundaries. One minute, she can be the sweetest little girl who has smart and interesting things to say. The next minute, when she gets upset, the whole world turns upside down for us all. I have learned that she is happiest when she has a project or if she has some sort of responsibility. Boredom is Hannah’s downfall – she gets into so much trouble when she has nothing to do. She is a great helper with Jack and is always the first to volunteer to get him dressed, or put him to bed, or even to change his non stinky diapers. She is very creative and loves to draw and color and listen to music. There is never a dull moment with Hannah around.

Hannah’s Magical #8

Hannah turned Eight on Wednesday. She was lucky that her birthday fell before the first Saturday of the month so that she could be baptized today.

It seemed like August was going to last forever to her. She was very excited and couldn’t wait for September to get here. I promised her that we would go shopping for a white dress towards the end of August, and she would not stop asking me when we would go.

When we finally did go shopping, we had a little trouble finding a frilly white dress – there were quite a few in the spring when I was out shopping, but not so many at the end of the summer.

Finally, at the fifth store that we visited we found a wall full of pretty white dresses. We looked and discussed and decided on a few to try on. She knew right away which one she wanted – but of course, it was too big and they didn’t have one in her size. So we tried on a few more – nope, she wanted the first one.

I had a bit of a flash forward to us trying to pick
out a wedding dress, and I’m not sure if I’ll
be able to cope when the time comes.

After trying on every dress – some even twice, she finally picked out a different one. Whew!

Wednesday the 2nd was her Birthday – she got a new outfit to wear to school and I made rice crispy treats to take to her class at school. When school was out, we decided to go to the Kamas pool and swim for a couple of hours and then come home for dinner and cake. So we loaded everyone in the car and made the 30 min drive - just to find out that the pool was closed for maintenance.

(I did check online before we went, but silly me, I was looking on the POOL HOURS page, not the Rec Center front page with the small red print at the bottom that said the pool was closed.)

So we were all bummed and drove home in sulking silence.

However, when we got home there were presents to be opened and we forgot all about the pool.

Along with her new dress, she got her own set of scriptures, some art/craft project books and new clothes and shoes for school.

She asked for a lemon cake with strawberry frosting. I was not sure of the combo, but I tried my friends recipe for strawberry frosting and it was quite a tasty cake.

Luckily Thursday and Friday went by quickly and today we all got dressed up and headed to the Baptism. It is so fun to see all of the kids dressed in white on the front bench. Hannah was a little worried, but she did great.

Tonight we continued our Baptism Tradition, and took her to The Roof down at Temple Square – Just Steve, Me, and Hannah. We all enjoyed dinner very much, and then we walked around Temple Square.

Tomorrow she will be confirmed, and that will be her last special day for a while. I hope that her memories of this weekend will keep her smiling for a while.

Hannah is a very high maintenance girl. She knows what she wants and won’t stop until she gets it. This is both good and bad. We battle a lot of the time, but I think it’s because we are very similar – neither of us like it when things don’t go our way. She is very good to help me with Jack and Henry. I am very proud of her today.