A Rambunctious Party

One of Thomas' best buddies at school was having his 4th birthday the same day I was flying back from Utah. I told his parents that barring any fight delays, we would be there! And since Matt picked me up at the airport right before the party, I conveniently had all of my camera gear. I thought it would be another good practice time for the 85mm. 

The party was at a local gym in town that is a great spot for 3 & 4 year olds to run off some steam! The lighting isn't great and the boys were pretty much constantly moving at top speed, so it was a bit challenging to take photos, but I got a few good ones!

Especially in the foam pit - the kids loved being in the foam pit (especially if an adult would throw them in), but all struggled a little bit in getting back out the foam pit. They were moving slow enough I have a chance to get some photos in focus. :)

Of course, the spousal unit got in the foam pit at one point and decided it was so comfortable that there was no real point in getting back out any time soon. It did look pretty cozy! But there's not time to rest when you are trying to keep tabs on 2 boys running every which direction...!

I got a lot of shots of the boys running away from me. Which is actually kinda helpful if you try not to post photos of other people's kids on your blog. At least not random kids - which some of these were. You would think I could keep track of his 15 classmates, but I really cannot. I swear there is a new one every few weeks! "/

Henry got tickle attacked by his dadda - he is the best to tickle! He just collapses and laughs sooooo much! It's really hard not to tickle him every possible chance I get. It's a struggle! 

More running away from the mom with the camera! I was trying really hard to get some good photos to share with the birthday boy's parents. Hopefully they can recognize all of their son's friends by the back of their heads... Also I really want this super long trampoline in our yard to play on - so fun! 

Thomas really wore himself out! He was running toward me, then just stopped and laid on the floor to take a break. He's been skipping naps and I think today was a day he was regretting it!

Henry wants to know why his mom is taking photos of him stuck in the corner of the foam pit instead of helping him up. Son, if you were hurt I would, of course, rescue you in a heartbeat! But otherwise, I feel obligated to take a photo first, then help you up... Sorry kiddo! ;)

Girl's Trip!

Theresa and I had so much fun on our girl's weekend last October that we decided to go on a week-long trip! Ok, that's only partially true - we actually booked this trip last July. But we got even more excited about it once we had such a great time in Fredericksburg! :)

We decided to do a Sunday-Saturday trip so that we still had a partial weekend with our families on both ends. Plus having a Sunday to recover from vacation is my new favorite way to vacation! But since I was leaving early on a Sunday morning, I ended up taking a taxi to the airport for the first time in... well... forever maybe? I've had a town car pick me up when traveling for work once or twice, but really this is the first time I've called a cab. "Called" - there's an app for that! ;)

We both could have sworn that we planned our flights to meet at the same time, but somehow my flight actually had me arriving 2 hours earlier than Theresa. She was all concerned about me having to wait, but once I googled the airport and discovered they had free wi-fi and a Starbucks outside of the "secure" area, I was golden! It gave me time to update my very, very behind blog!

But wait, where is this awesome trip??

Drumroll please...

Park City, Utah! We went over a ton of different combinations of where to travel and ended up picking a ski vacation! I had only been to Park City in the summer for a field trip and she had driven by once on a snowmobile trip from a different Utah resort, so we were both pretty excited to stay there for a skiing trip. We looked up the trail maps to make sure we had enough greens to start with and were amazed at how large the mountain was. We could ski a different trail every time and still not cover the whole place!

We skied the first two days and I'll get back to the skiing shortly, but we didn't brave taking the fancy cameras up the slopes those two days. But we planned the trip with a day off in the middle to go walk around the Park City Main Street and take photos. There is a lift that actually leaves from town and you can ski straight into town over this snow covered bridge. We decided to check it out to see if we could ski down the next day for lunch!

And as you can probably tell, it was super bright & sunny. Great for lens flare, but not so great for the heat. I was dying! I was not planning on it being in the mid-50's all week!

We had actually walked down to town the night before for dinner and had checked out the town lift. We didn't get quite this close to it, we just wanted to see how it worked to ride it down in case we didn't feel up to skiing down. Later that night, I realized there was an app for our ski passes that you could download and see how much you had skied - and it showed us as having ridden the town lift! What?

They manually scan your card  when you get on the lifts at the base of the resort, but there is also a RF reader that gets you when you ski under it. Turns out the range on those readers is further than you think (it's the black box labeled epic MIX in the photo above). Luckily we figured this out before we accidentally took our passes into town on our day off - it would have registered the town lift and we would have lost a day of skiing! 

Back to walking around the town! My favorite thing we found on our walk was this super cool pipe painted to look like a snake. I'm assuming it's functional because it's a bit hidden down an alley. I just thought it looked awesome!

Utah is a very weird state with alcohol and to buy any wine we had to go to the state liquor stores. I already knew this, so that wasn't a surprise, but this awesome display outside the store was by far the best "don't drink" display I've ever seen. In case you can't read the fine print it says "Alcohol impairs good judgement and decision making" - though the store is far enough from the ski slopes as to wonder how this skier could have made it this far... ;)

Had to stop for lunch, but still playing with our cameras. Theresa bought me some "do-hickeys" (as she calls them) for my birthday that you strap in front of the lens and it makes shapes with the lights in the background of photos. We got it to work with the few lights in the restaurant, but they weren't the best photos. Will have to play with them more later!

So hard to get one of us in front of the camera these days. It certainly helps when we both have ours! Though we end up with looks that usually read "You're not taking my photo are you??" 

I was! Because I want more photos of my bestie! And also because the chalkboard sign behind her was so colorful! :)

I had to get her to take a touristy photo of me and Franz the bear to show the boys. He looks like such a friendly bear! Look, he has his arm around me *and* a butterfly landed on his arm! Awwww...

I may or may not have bought a coloring book and colored pencils because I really felt like coloring one afternoon! I even contemplated bringing my book from home and decided I would need the downtime in the airport to work on this blog. Instead, I finished it all and ended up buying a coloring book. I have no idea what happened. Wait - I just admitted I bought it. Oh well, confession is good for the soul!

And finally, we made it to the slopes with the camera! We decided to hit the easy practice green to see how it would go skiing with a pack.

I say skiing, but one of us was skiing and one of us was snowboarding. Neither of us would budge on our preferred method, so we just were a mis-matched pair. Our initial plan was to spend the first two days getting comfortable, then take turns getting photos of each other the next two days. 

Except we decided that maybe Theresa should not be snowboarding with camera gear... Ha! In her defense, she hasn't been on the slopes in 3+ years and I have already taken lessons this season. So I was slightly ahead on staying upright...!

She did offer to take photos of me by hanging out on the run until I had a chance to ride the lift back up again. It is the shortest possible run and lift, so I took her up on it. I figured it might be the only spot that would lend itself to getting photos of me "in action"!

Except in action shots really don't look *that* amazing unless you are crouched down and kicking up lots of snow. You can see I managed to kick up a little bit of snow, but it's not *that* impressive. Oh well, I tried!

I ended up using the snowplow method a lot more on this slope than I ever do. I was going so slow that it was just as easy as making a turn. Makes me look a lot less hardcore though. Sigh...

Oh and I should probably say thanks to Brittney for loaning us her camera bag - it was a champ on the slopes! And thanks to Matt for the helmet and goggles. I appreciate that you want to keep my brain intact (and your goggles are cooler than mine)! :)

Theresa ready to go, but I'm still taking photos! I thought I should get a photo of the lift we spent the most time using. Appropriately named First Time - ha! :)

Also we learned that each of us had certain advantages and disadvantages. My biggest advantage was that I came off the lift ready to go while she had to sit down and buckle in her back foot before we could take off. So there was a little bit of waiting for Theresa time I could take selfies or send text messages. 

They had several of these little monsters scattered around the slopes. We thought they were too cute! They even had miniature versions of them in the gift shop and we fell in love with one that was a female skier and snowboarder riding a lift - just like us! At least we were in love until we saw the price. Everything in Park City is pricey, but they were just ridiculous!

On to our favorite run - Claim Jumper! Theresa has a habit of holding her right hand out when she's focusing on her turns. I have been teasing her all week she looks like she is holding a cup of coffee while boarding. I'm 99% sure she did it on purpose for this photo, but trust me that she did it without noticing it the rest of the time!

Remnants of the old tram system used for mining. This one was King Con Ore Bin - I thought it was neat to be skiing along and suddenly run into some old buildings. I'm glad they left bits and pieces of history on the slopes!

Theresa waiting on me to finish taking photos. It was pretty hot outside, so laying in the snow actually felt really nice! Also, it is way easier to take a quick break to sit down in a snowboard than in skis. I can't ever get my legs to not be at an awkward angle while still strapped in. 

Our goal for the day was to ski down to town. It would require some blues, but we felt ready for it. We made it down the green part, then had a fork in the road with three blues. A guy on the lift who had told us that "most of the blues were really greens" had asked the park helpers which trail had been groomed the night before because he thought that would be the easiest. There was a small handwritten sign at the fork that said the easiest way was a different trail. We were torn on which way to go, but ended up going the way Walter had suggested. 

It was awful! In good conditions, we might have been able to make it, but it was low on the mountain in the blazing sun and the snow had turned to slush. It felt like trying to ski in a snowcone! We both were falling all over the place. I made a few turns before biting it - which hurts a bit more in icy snow after you have decided to ditch your coat and gloves due to the heat. I pretty much lost faith in my ability to get down gracefully and tried a combination of sliding, side-stepping and attempting turns to make it down. This is where the snowboard really shines - she just slid/snowplowed down like it was no big deal. She ended up waiting on me for the first time and it was a *long* wait...

And I know the slope looks totally lame here. It was kinda lame, but it was steeper at the top. Either way, it sucked and totally killed both of our confidence levels. 

Just chilling, waiting on her ski buddy. We actually ended up making a friend who struggled on the sister side of our run - the side with moguls. He actually gave up and took his skis off. I didn't get to see it, but Theresa said he did an awesome job of holding them and sliding down on his butt. He made us feel a little better about our performance since he told us about his yearly ski trips he takes. We all hung out at this junction for awhile trying to recover from all the excitement. And figure out the easiest path through the slush to get the rest of the way to town.

Finally made it! I managed to make it down and get the camera out in enough time to get a shot of Theresa coming across the bridge. At least we looked like we knew what we were doing for this stretch - right next to everyone sitting outside eating their lunch. Though I wouldn't have blamed them for being entertained if they saw us falling up higher. That was one of our favoritie activities at the Miner's Camp lodge on the slopes. We weren't the only ones struggling this week!

After lunch, we got to ride the lift back up from town. It is by far the oldest lift in the resort and I only risked pulling out my phone to get a photo. You can see I still haven't put my jacket back on - it was just too hot for me! Of course, I ended up with a pretty nice sunburn this week. I had on spf 100 today, but it didn't seem to be enough to save my poor nose...

We had grand plans of all the runs we were going to attempt on Friday, but once we went up and went down our old favorites, we decided maybe it was going to be a shorter day. The slushy snow was working it's way up the mountain and even the upper runs were getting pretty chewed up earlier in the day. As an added "benefit", it was Friday and the slopes were packed with so many people! We did manage to get a few runs in and I got some more photos of the mining operations.

And I was still skiing in minimal clothing today, but decided to re-don the goggles and buff to protect my poor face. I think it mostly worked - my nose doesn't appear to be too much more like Rudolph than it was last night! 

Overall, we had a blast even with the less than perfect snow conditions. We may have disappointed our husbands that were trying to live by proxy by not straying off the "easier" runs but we had fun! In the end, it was mostly about hanging out with my bestie and the skiing was just an added bonus! Can't wait to start planning our next adventure - though I may vote for somewhere warm if I'm going to end up sunburned either way! :)

The 85mm

Recently, my sister volunteered to help with the Diabetes Bachelor Auction Fundraiser. She managed to talk two of her guy friends into being bachelors and asked if I would mind doing their head shots. I had never done "headshots" before so I was all nervous about screwing it up, but figured I could get a decent photograph. I looked up tips online and made my mom pose for some practice shots before the actual bachelors came by. 

And I think I did a pretty awesome job! Taking headshots is much more challenging from the getting someone comfortable in front of the lens aspect than the technical aspects of shooting. Though it certainly didn't help I had all kinds of new light sources to play with since Christmas.

I ended up using my 18-200mm lens at about an 80mm zoom because that was the most commonly recommended focal length online. Which of course, led me to want a dedicated lens for portraits because I really like taking portrait style photos of the boys. 

View fullsize

So I may have bit the bullet and bought one. Theresa has one already and had nothing but awesome things to say about it when I asked her opinion. Of course, the boys weren't in the mood to do "portraits", but I did manage to get a few shots of them. It is quite different than the 20mm I usually keep on the camera - I had to stand all the way across the kitchen to get photos of them! No wonder it falls in the "telephoto" category...!

Thomas was helping me make a cake by cracking eggs for me again! He was ready for his second try at it! Henry was more interested in playing with the potato masher. Probably the safer choice knowing Henry...

But he was still interested in what his big brother was doing. I have no idea what that look on Thomas' face is from, because he cracked that egg like a champ! He didn't even break the yolk! I was giving him high fives for his awesomeness!

And as usual, Eliza was in the midst of things even though she would clearly rather be somewhere else. At least she generally lets me take a photo of her. I mean, she looks away at first, but if I keep calling her name she always gives up and looks at me in case it's for food!

This looks like a super cool dark background, but it's really the living room without any lights on while the dining room table where we are sitting is well lit. Who knew winter could make photos look so much fancier? 

Henry was much more interested in the dimples over his knuckles than Mommy wanting to take his photos. Poo guy actually got pretty upset about his finger dimples. Sorry little guy, you don't exactly have dainty hands... "/

Tonight, I decided to try the lens again at dinner and get photos of their hot dog trays they got from Aunt Theresa. They love their little hot dogs! I obviously wasn't paying as much attention as I should have and managed to catch the top of a glass and the ketchup bottle in the foreground of the photo. Ok, so the 85mm will take a little bit of time to get used to...

Henry checking out his hot dog and probably noticing that mommy didn't do a very good job squirting the ketchup into the bowl. In my defense, it's not the best angle to try and squirt ketchup in there!

Also another glass in the foreground. Sigh... I like this lens, but it is certainly going to take a little more situational awareness while photographing than I am apparently used to...

My Little Baker

Another weekend of working, so Henry and I decided to chill out at home while Matt took Thomas to hockey practice. (I hear it went well!)

Henry got bored of me sitting at the computer and decided to go read books in his finished Space Pod. I thought that he needed a little more comfort in his Space Pod and managed to squeeze one of the bean bags in there. He's wearing his shoes (huge no-no on the carpet) because he had a little bit of a freak out when Thomas and Dada left without him. He kept running over to me and crying "shoes!" with them in his hands. I figured it might appease him a little to be able to put them on - it did!

Thomas decided not to take a full nap after lunch, but did stay in bed for his "quiet" time. Once his songs were over though, he was ready to get up and do something! I thought it would be fun to make cookies together and had the brilliant idea to see how much he was capable of doing on his own. Usually I limit his helping and I thought it was possible I was underestimating his abilities. So I gathered up all the ingredients and put him to work. Once he started opening the butter and declared it was "sticky", I decided it might be good to find his apron Grannie made him last year!

I told him the first rule of apron wearing is that you can wipe your hand on your apron, but you have to make sure you are on your apron and not your shirt! He got the butter in the bowl just fine, then got to work measuring out the other ingredients.

Look at how carefully he is transporting that baking soda to the bowl. We still ended up making a mess, but not quite as much as usual...

Focusing hard on mixing the dry ingredients! I didn't get a photo, but he even managed to measure out the flour with the scoop and sweep method. Teaching him right!

He knew how to lift the bowl up without any instructions on my part. I should probably know they watch me like a hawk at all times, but it still impresses me when they pick things up. :)

And making sure he has the mixer on the right speed. We had a safety "stand down" before operating the mixer so he knew not to put his hands anywhere near the beaters. I think he was so focused on safety he asked me about 5 times what speed to use each time he turned it on. 

This was the big moment - his first time to crack an egg. I showed him how to do it with the first egg and he watched closely. Then it was his turn to try! You can see he has his tongue out for full concentration!

So his cracking the egg open was a little like smashing it to smithereens, but he got the egg out of the shell! And we only had to fish out one shell fragment. I'm calling it a win!

Once he had all the wet ingredients creamed together, we moved on to slowly adding the dry ingredients. I think I made his job a little more difficult because I wanted to get a photo and wasn't holding the bowl at a very helpful angle. 

Then I had him measure out the chocolate chips. He even stopped at the correct marking instead of dumping the whole bag in - such self control!

He couldn't decided on chocolate chips or M&Ms, so we decided to do both. Had to use up those Valentine's colors at some point. This is the only part he needed help on. Totally understandable, chocolate chip cookie dough is pretty hard to stir by hand!

I was debating whether or not he would be able to scoop out the cookie dough with the dishers and he did it like a total champ! His aim was a little off, but he would scoop up the dough and drop it on the cookie sheet all by himself. It's fair to say I was a little amazed at all of his culinary skills by this point!

He was more amazed by the mechanics of the cookie scoop. Not at all a surprise for my little engineer!

The only thing I didn't let him try was the oven part - I figured a mistake there would be a little more of a hard lesson than I planned for the day. But the two of them were certainly happy enough to be cookie tasters once the cookies had cooled down. 

I am super excited how awesome he did with making the cookies. I am going to have a full scale helper in the kitchen soon. And my sons have no choice but to be bakers - my legacy must be passed on! :)

Party Day for Our 2 Year Old!

I'm still having trouble believing that my youngest has turned 2. Does time magically speed up once you have kids? It must, there is no other logically explanation for how we have ended up here. He was teeny tiny just the other day!

I am just not following my own chronological blogging rules these days. But I just loved this photo so much I wanted it first. Nonni and Grandpa sent Henry a bunch of new trains for his birthday. Thomas already had the letters to spell Tommy, so now Henry has his own name train. She also sent him a bunch of Chugineers from Chuggington and I am not sure which set he was more excited about. I obviously favored the name train for photos. :)

Back to breakfast - the start of party day! The boys have been really into smoothies recently, so I made sure to include one on the breakfast "menu". Also, that may look like his fireman's hat, but it's not - it's Elmo! We were having a very Elmo themed party day today! And if you look closely, you can see Elmo got some smoothie on his nose - I think Henry was trying to share...!

Present time after breakfast! I don't think I've ever seen him so excited about ripping paper. The first few rips were teeny tiny pieces and I figured it was going to take us an hour to get it unwrapped. But they he got this giant piece and even impressed himself!

He's been super in to Pete the Cat recently and we bought him a stuffed "Pete Cat" (as he calls it). There was one morning he stole the school's Pete Cat from a classmate and there was a big kerfuffle because we made him give it back and apologize. So we thought he might like one at home. We were right! 

But the giant box held this cardboard contraption that is a Space Pod. We had eyeballed it for awhile at Target, then bought it once it went on clearance after Christmas. I know the package said 6+, but we figured it would be something they could help us put together. Ha - it was so complicated and they were more interested in throwing pieces. Matt will have to put it together when his little "helpers" are napping..!

Nonni and Grandpa also sent them bubble wands (6!) for Valentine's Day and we hadn't gotten a chance to play with them yet. After the boys nicely asked if they could blow bubbles, I put their jackets on over the pajamas and we all went outside. Look how excited they are to blow bubbles!
Also look how sad the back yard looks without snow. This winter has not been very impressive...

Henry has even gotten the hang of blowing bubbles! He was blowing them like a champ after a few false starts. Now I am going to have two little guys begging to blow bubbles every single evening. Why do kids love bubbles so much??

We have a firm no bubbles in the house rule that has an exception for bath time, usually with the tiny bubble containers we get for party favors. I need to take one of the wands up to their bathroom - that would blow their little minds!

When they finally went down for a nap, I got started on decorating the Elmo cake. I figured I bought the pan for Thomas' second birthday, might as well get some more use out of it! I thought I should decorate it a little differently for Henry though and decided to use the star tip. I did about 10 stars before realizing it was a horrible idea with my ergonomic issues. Matt heard me muttering and offered to do them for me. And he did an awesome job - such a talented hubby!

Thomas woke up from his nap just in time to get a little bit of extra frosting!

Finally got Henry in his party shirt post nap time! I figured he wouldn't make it to the party with a white shirt if I put it on too early. He also loved his Sesame Street banner I put up in their play room. I was imagining getting photos with a fabulous background when I bought it, but the folds on it would not smooth out. And it was a little too shiny to be flawless, but he liked it and that was the more important thing!

Also bought these banners because I have no self control. Look at him being all cool wearing his Elmo hat backwards. I love this photo because he has the best look on his face - that mischievous little smile is so fitting! And I am also pretty proud of that shirt - I came up with it without Pinterest (what...??)!

He was more than happy to ham it up for tons of photos! I tried to get as many as I could before everyone arrived because I am awful at taking photos during parties. I will never be an event photographer. But hanging out with my boys and taking photos? Sure, no problem!

Party time! I wrapped a dish towel around Henry trying my best to preserve his shirt. His friend Jaxson apparently has no qualms about wearing bibs, but Henry usually rips them off. I guess Jaxson wearing one helped Henry keep his on. Also check out the super cool Sesame Street cups (I told you - no control!).

Little Miss Lottie also showed up for the fun, though she's not quite big enough for the kiddie table. But look at her sitting up like a total champ! She was a little bummed she didn't get any of the tasty sloppy joes or tater tots, but I promised her next year she could go to town! 

After dinner jump time! Henry kept running away from the bounce house and Matt kept putting him back in. This particular "putting back" was by far the best. Henry has no fear, in case you didn't know... Also the floating Elmo face is a dangling decoration. They were a little hard to shoot around since I put them right in the middle of the house traffic pattern. Oh well!

Thomas still loves the jump house and was in and out of it multiple times! I was having trouble with the colors on the slide though, so these photos had to go B&W so the kids didn't look like technicolored tots!

Jaxson was a little more hesitant about the bounce house at first, but he warmed up to it! 

Henry was worried that Lottie might be feeling left out of the bounce house fun, so he took her one of her toys that she left in the living room. What a thoughtful little guy, huh?

After we figured they had burned off enough energy and made a little more room - it was cake time! Doesn't Elmo look smashing in his stars? Matt and I are a great cake baking team! :)

Henry looks so bored in this photo. In my mind he's thinking "Come on and sing already so I can have some cake!"

So we sang! Then I handed him his candle and then went over to get the knife to cut the cake...

Only to turn around and realize he had bit a chunk out of his candle. I was telling him to spit it out and ended up having to fish the chunk of wax out of his mouth because he was convinced it was a tasty treat! Casey (Jaxson's dad) nicely thought to grab my camera and get a photo of the fight over the candle remnants. Thanks Casey! There's also a video Brittney took - apparently it was quite the hilarious moment. ;)

Finally time to eat real food - the cake! Thomas was back to his usually cheesy grin. Sigh - can't just tell a kid to smile and get a normal look out of them, can you? 

Uncle Duncan gave me real smiles though (Lottie chose to dance instead)! Lottie didn't get any cake, but she was still pretty excited about the party hats! (She may or may not have tried to eat one...) She might have been the only one though - they were the tiniest hats ever. Several of us adults put them on and they were trying to strangle us during the Happy Birthday song. Actually you can see the string digging in on Henry in the photos with the cake. Lottie might be the only one they actually fit...

Whose birthday is this, anyway?? Thomas was more than happy to test out his brother's new drum kit from Aunt Heather. And Aunt Heather hid for most of these photos, but I got her in one of them! :)

More interested in the ribbon than the actual presents - sounds about right...!

Happy (day-after) Birthday, Henry! Hopefully it was as fun for you as it was for your momma!

Happy Birthday Henry!

I had grand plans to have a fun-filled day of activities with Henry today, but life (work!) got in the way. The daycare was closed on Monday, so Matt took the day off and all of them went to Chuck E Cheese for an early birthday treat! I managed to make time to meet them over there and even got some play time in during my lunch hour. (And a cute photo for my wall at work - I love the photo printing machine more than any game!)

Since Henry was going to be at school for his birthday, I decided to take him cupcakes for their afternoon treat so he could have a mini-party with his friends. Plus he just moved classrooms and there is no better way to make friends that with cupcakes, right??

And in order to make friends with the teachers and fellow parents, I tried to make slightly healthier cupcakes than previous years. I found a recipe that used applesauce and apple juice and no eggs or fats. While it sounded dismal to me, the blog post I found it on swore it tasted like an apple fritter.

Yeah no... Whatever, it was decent enough I figured toddlers wouldn't notice if it had a little frosting on it. 

Plus I made him Minion cupcakes and what little kid these days doesn't love Minions?!? I was pretty proud of how well they turned out - especially the one where the liner pulled away and I managed to turn it into a cool hairstyle. Soooo clever!

Of course, I totally forgot from the Elmo cupcakes two years ago that black cookie glaze icing will spread overnight and the cupcakes looked significantly sadder by the time the kids got them. They didn't even seem to notice, so it was really just my decorating pride that suffered...

I made sure to show up early enough to not miss the start of snack time and this little guy was super excited to see me. As a side note - standing behind him is one of the other Henry's at school. Who knew there would be three of them?? Anyhow, shortly after I took this photo, my Henry got tired of waiting for the other kids still in his class to wake up and started pounding on the window.

Sigh...

So much for taking the awake kids to the adjacent gym to let the other ones sleep. "/

While his teacher, Anna, was rounding all the kids back up, Henry and I went down the hall to go get Thomas. I asked him if he had wanted to join the fun and he was super excited! (Probably mostly for the cupcakes, but who knows?) Also, Anna had made these super cute table covers while the kids were napping after lunch.

Have I ever mentioned how much Henry loves Anna and vice versa? The two of them have been best buds pretty much since Henry started there. Sometimes I would come to pick them up and Henry wouldn't be in his usual classroom - because he had somehow convinced Anna to come get him. So he has been super thrilled this week with his recent move to Anna's class. I certainly love knowing he's with someone who really cares about him. :)

Anyhow, back to the party - the kids are ready for some cupcakes!

Thomas even wore his Minion shirt for the occasion! Henry doesn't have one yet. He's in the same size shirts as Thomas, but I haven't convinced Thomas to send a Minion one Henry's way yet. I guess I could go buy him one, but a little waiting is good for the soul, right?

Obviously the cupcakes were a little messy and Henry was covered in icing. He never cared about how dirty his hands were until a few weeks ago. Now when he is eating, he hollers "Napkin! Napkin!!" at the tiniest amount of food on his hands. This mess was a little bit more than a napkin could handle, so we washed him clean in the sink. He's also becoming quite the pro at washing his hands - that's some independence I can get behind!

Happy Birthday Henry! There's more fun to come tomorrow, but I didn't want you to miss out on having some fun for the correct day. Between Monday and a party tomorrow, this is a birthday week celebration!

Happy Valentine's Day!

First off, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! 

Secondly, how adorable are these two?!? I'm not honoring my usual chronological blogging, but how could I not start this post with the cutest photo possible??

Chronologically, breakfast was first and I had this great idea to make them heart shaped pancakes with their names. I quickly realized I don't have the pancaking skills for that, so it got downgraded to hearts with their initials in them. Even then it was only moderately successful... And you can probably now see why I didn't lead with this photo!

They loved the pancakes anyhow! Little boys are apparently not so picky about how cute their heart pancakes are, they just thought it was too cool that it had their "letters" in them. Matt was less impressed - probably because I went with pancake mix because it was easier to use in a squeeze bottle. I have spoiled my husband with good thick pancakes apparently. Ladies - let this be a warning to you. Spoil them and then they expect spoiling. ;)

Also Henry is throwing his heart at me - how rude! The Star Wars pillows were only part of their Valentines presents from mommy. They also got candy filled hearts and Star Wars cups! Oh no, it sound suspiciously like I am spoiling my boys too. Sigh...

I told them the only gift I wanted from them was cooperation for a little while today. I thought we could do some Valentine's crafts and then take some photos. I bought this kit to make pinwheels and it was absolutely a disaster. I had trouble getting one together, so the boys didn't have a chance. So I made them both pinwheels and then none of us could get them to spin. Worst pinwheels ever!

Luckily, they still looked cute in the photos! Especially the top photo - Henry looks so serious!

I also saw this cute photo on Pinterest of heart stickers on the wall and then the little kid was blowing like she was blowing the hearts. I'm guessing that mom put the stickers up on her own and didn't have a preschooler trying to help, because our "cloud" of hearts is pretty much going the wrong direction. Whatever, he's still cute and managed to pull off a pretty convincing blowing motion. 

As soon as I said I was done taking photos, these two were attacking the wall and pulling all the heart stickers down! Well, they mostly pulled the glittery  and decorated stickers down and I got the "boring" ones they left on the wall. 

Of course, I was reviewing the photos on the back of the camera and realized I didn't have a good one of both of them smiling & showing brotherly love, so I asked for just a few more... Surprisingly they were willing to comply and I even got a hug out of them! (Those are mostly smiles, right?)

They were obviously taking this present for mommy pretty seriously!

Or mommy may have also bribed them with an episode of Chugginton if they were cooperative... I've got no shame in a little bit of bribery if it gets me cute photos to remember every (minor) holiday with them. :)

Star Wars Pillows!

I've been trying to find the boys new pillows for daycare for a while now. Henry's is too small for his growing head and the one Thomas' former daycare teacher made him was getting pretty lumpy after repeated washings. I kept seeing girl themed pillow and blanket sets at Target, but nothing for boys. Then we randomly saw a Darth Vader set in the clearance aisle last week! The boys wanted them so much, but the blankets were too big for the sleep mats at school and even the clearance price was a bit much for just a pillow.

So I had the brilliant idea that I could just make them pillows! I had been to Joann's Fabric a few weeks ago for mom to pick up some things and had seen a whole rack of Star Wars themed fabrics. After doing some reading online for ides, I decided to buy small pillows and make them pillow cases. That way I could wash the cases every week instead of the whole pillow.

The plans I found online were for bigger pillows, so I did some math to make proportionally sized cases for little kid sized pillows. I was so proud of myself for buying fabric got ready to cut everything out. Which is when I realized I really had no clue what I was doing...

I have only sewn two things in my life that I can recall - an incredibly lumpy and not straight at all pillow and a pair of pajama pants. I did pretty good on the pajamas, but I had a pattern to pin to the fabric for cutting. I really had no clue how to cut this fabric in a straight line. I didn't have anything besides a sharpie to mark on the fabric and no straight edge long enough to mark all the way across. Plus I had bought the wrong size fabric and had to sew two cut pieces of it to make it long enough for the band(s).

I was not off to a great start!

Then we couldn't get the sewing machine to work... It's one of Grannie's old ones that we have had forever and we have used it successfully before, but we had no luck today. The manual in the case was for a different machine, so I was googling the manual to see if it had any helpful information (not really!). We ended up Face-timing with Grannie to try and see if she could help. She ended up showing Matt a youtube video she found and we decided something on our machine was just not working correctly.

Thankfully, Heather had just gotten a sewing machine for Christmas and she didn't mind loaning it to me! I think she'd do anything for her nephews...! She hadn't even taken the strapping tape off of it yet, so I did at least get it all set up for her. Hers has a built-in needle threader on it (so fancy!) and the bobbin worked like a champ. I was ready to get sewing! 

I didn't get any in-action photos because I was very focused on trying to not mess these pillowcases up! And I was following a description without entirely knowing I knew what the process was going to be. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job - I messed up the seams a little, but the pattern I was following did blind seams. It required sewing the seams once the wrong way at 1/4", trimming them, then sewing them the other way at 1/4". I got the process just fine, but I had a ton of trouble trying to sew at 1/4" with my not perfect initial cutting. I think next time I would just give myself more material to start with!

The final result! This one is Thomas' pillow. Matt requested that I find fabric that wasn't just Darth Vader. Apparently them loving the bad guy bothers him a little. My argument is always that at least Darth Vader loved his mother! But I did manage to find fabrics with a better distribution of light & dark side characters. 

Henry loved his pillow! As soon as I gave it to him, he ran to get his daycare blanket from the laundry room and proceeded to pretend nap all over the house. How adorable is that?!? Of course, he assumed both of the pillows belonged to him since Thomas was still asleep. The moment he realized they weren't was quite traumatic and involved a few tears. But he cheered up pretty quickly - he still has one awesome pillow, after all!

I may have been so excited to give Thomas his pillow that I woke him up from his nap. I mean, he had been asleep more than his usual nap time, but he still wasn't very happy to be woken up. And he didn't even care about his pillow at first. :(

But he did finally start carrying it around and even used it as a place to hide from mommy's camera. So I am quite sure he will love it once he is no longer grumpy! :)

January Phone Photos

I did awful this month at pulling my camera out! Looking back, I took enough photos last month for 11 posts, so I think maybe I was just worn out from taking photos? Which is silly! Luckily for me, even if I don't drag my Nikon out, I still have a camera with me at all times thanks to my phone. And they always say the best camera is the one you have on you! So I figured I would do another month review in phone photos so I didn't feel like such a slacker!

This is what happens when you tell your boys to get their breakfast out of the pantry. I meant for them to grab the cereal, but they went for applesauce and cookies. They generally get applesauce in the morning on their way to daycare, so that I get. But cookies were just wishful thinking! Much to their dismay, they ended up with cereal this morning.

Thomas helping me bake the cookie bars of the week. I think this may have actually been a repeat because we wanted pecan pie bars again. But really, if I make any version 50 times, that's pretty much honoring the concept of making 50 bar cookies, right??

Thomas learned a new trick from his dad at breakfast this morning!

He was pretty proud of himself.

I'll let you decide if I mean Matt or Thomas by that last statement. (Hint: both!)

This little guy is not old enough to start skating lessons, but doesn't he just look like he's ready to tear it up? Soon Henry! Also, I love his little belly hanging out between the chest protector and pants. Reminds me of some of my toddler photos...!

This guy did not want to nap this particular Saturday and I needed to run errands. Matt needed to work on the garage, so I tried to convince Thomas to go with me since he would probably be more of a hinderance to his dada. Finally got him on board when I promised we could stop by the neighborhood park for 5 minutes on our way to the store. Magic words! Also, his hat wasn't in my car, so I improvised with mine and he looked pretty adorable in it. :)

Henry started his tumbling classes again! It's hard to get a photo of him while he is in motion, so I took a selfie while I could. For the record I love taking selfies with my boys and have a photo folder on my phone dedicated to them. Pretty much the only way we end up in photos together!

Another park trip, another round of forgotten kids winter gear. Luckily, I had another hat and Henry didn't seem to mind the giant pink gloves I put on his hands...!

Birthday breakfast with my boys! Also the last time Henry is getting a sprinkle donut for a long time - both he and the floor were covered in sprinkles! 

Last year, Thomas and I hung out for my birthday and he painted me a coffee mug at the ceramic store. This year, my mom and both boys spent the day with me! I was going to get them to share painting the same mug, but it wasn't there! One of the big cargo ships had an issue this week sailing up from Washington and all kinds of stores were low on goods (the downside to living on the edge of the earth!) Since all they had were smaller mugs, Henry got a coffee mug and Thomas picked out this "I Love You" piece. Awwwww!

Birthday dinner at Benihana's! They took a photo of our group at the end and promised everyone was in the photo. When we got the photo, it had everyone but Heather! Sorry this isn't the greatest photo, but I wanted to prove she was actually there! And a good sport about the fact our waiter totally left her out. ;)

Tumbling lessons again! Thomas has aged out of the class they used to be able to do together, so now he sits in the corner during Henry's class and plays lego games on the ipad. He seems pretty happy with the arrangement, but I still feel the need to go check up on him from time to time.

Ok, this isn't a phone photo, but it's literally the only photo on the camera I got for Matt's birthday. Clark had wandered over to one of the Happy Birthday drawings I did for Matt and it looked like he was reading it.

I'm easily amused...!

I made Matt wait until almost the end of his party before I gave him his "real" birthday presents. I had sneakily ordered him a bunch of gear he was daydreaming about for his motorcycle and gear for the related trips and shipped it to Brittney's house. I figured once he opened it, we were going to lose most of the guys to the garage and I was absolutely right. I did manage to surprise the heck out of him and earn "Best Wife Ever" title for at least the month of January! :)

Second ski day with Matt at Alyeska! I took a short lesson last month to try to remember how this whole skiing thing worked and mostly remembered what to do. Matt finally convinced me I could handle the blue trails on the upper mountain and we bought a full mountain pass. The lower mountain pass is less than half the price, but you really only have 4 green trails to work with. After spending the morning on those trails, I was ready to head up Ted's Express after lunch.

Thankfully, I didn't see this sign until the second time up the lift. And I did pretty good on the harder runs, but I did fall a few times and was just way more stressed out in general. I did a few runs, then I went back to the greens after telling Matt I was worn out emotionally. He gave me a hard time about that for days. Sigh...

We had a 7.1 earthquake hit at 1:30 in the morning! It was super scary and we both ran to the kids rooms thinking we could somehow protect / save them. It was quite jarring and felt like it went on forever, but we really didn't have any damage beyond frayed nerves. This picture frame in the hallway fell over, but that was about it. Though the chandelier in the entry way swung for about 15 minutes after the shaking stopped - that was a bit freaky. And we got hit with lots of smaller aftershocks. One downside to Alaska is certainly it's seismic activity. The first few were a novelty - now they are just unsettling...

Last, but not least, Henry and I at Thomas' hockey practice! He's a great sport for not being able to play and is mostly happy to sit with me and watch Thomas. Of course, I occasionally have to chase him down, but overall it's quite fun hanging out with the little guy being a spectator!

Hockey Update

Thomas is on his fourth week of skating lessons, so I figured I'd bring the camera along again to show his progress. It's still a frustrating 45 minutes for us to be stuck on the sidelines, but Thomas seems to be making incremental steps in the right direction.

He's got his new jersey and it's not much smaller than the temporary one he had the first day. But it does have his name on it! We had to pick a number for it and that was way more stressful than it should have been. We ended up going with 76 - it's his dad's birth year and coincidentally America's. When we were discussing it was the first time I realized my husband is a bicentennial baby - ha!

Back to skating lessons! He can get on the ice without falling now, but his progress is slow enough that most of the time someone helps him get over to the group for warm-up. You can see the older / more skilled kids are super into it and ready to go! Thomas is keeping his safe distance from them... 

Coach Allen is trying to convince Thomas to get down on the ice to practice standing up. Thomas was not convinced falling down on purpose was in his goals for the day and ended up having to be pulled down to the ice. But Coach got him down, gave him a pep talk and coached him through standing back up. 

Thomas doesn't do a great job in following along with team activities, so Coach Allen gives Thomas his own "missions" to focus on. This involves giving him a ring and telling him to put the ring on a cone that is situated by Matt or I. It's a mostly guaranteed way to make him sloooooooowly skate to a target. You can see Matt is giving him a pep talk as Thomas is coming towards him. 

Then it was my turn to have the cone! You can tell how thrilled he is about this mission, but he's doing it anyway. The lessons are on the rink in the bottom floor of the mall and it is super distracting for Thomas with all the lights, the bigger kids skating all crazy and the crowd of spectators that always show up.

Watching kids learning to skate is incredibly entertaining in case you haven't seen it - which is why it always draws a crowd on the upper levels of the mall. The older kids have a game where they furiously skate around and the coaches throw their hockey gloves at the kid's skates to try and make them fall. It is hilarious and I have a hard time not watching it as well!

He made it!!! I get all excited and bounce the ring up and down off the cone and his hemet to cheer him on! So he's all smiles while I do that. But then wants to leave... Then the coach pulls him across the rink and we start over.

He's been making slow progress, but it's progress! Matt and I found an outdoor rink at a nearby elementary school, so Matt has been taking him to practice. The deal is that Thomas has to "try hard" and then they go get hot chocolate and read books at Starbucks. As a side note - my negotiating skills have improved since my oldest turned 3...

Finally the lesson is done for the day and they meet to have one last "Go team"! Of course, this is just the littles of the skating program - there are at least twice as many on the other side. Thomas told me one night before bed that he wanted to skate with his friends on the other side of the ice. I told him if he keeps trying hard, he will make it over there!