The Crusher

Last weekend in sub-zero temperatures Adam got the opportunity assignment to go camping with his scouts. Yes, camping.  The scoutmaster around here is die hard and the scouts don't miss their once a month campouts for anything, especially a little snow and a "bit" of cold.   They went to a hot springs so it was fun to sit in the hot pools for a couple of hours in the evening, but that didn't help them much during the -7 degrees temperatures that night.  There was a bathroom facility that was heated near their camp site and more than once Adam found the boys huddled in the bathroom sitting on the floor (ewww!).  They all survived and had fun, but Adam did admit that he doesn't remember the last time he was that cold.  Next month is Klondike and I can already tell he is super excited.

You know, I'm kind of glad I was never a scout.  Just sayin'.

In the winter here are 2 kind of people in this great state of ours--skiers and non-skiers.  Adam and I are in the non-skier group.  We've both been skiing before (back in the 90's) and yeah, we get how it can be super fun, but we just can't get over the amount of money it takes to be in the skier group.  In my mind I see it like this: we can take our kids skiing all winter and enjoy the family time everyone raves about, OR we can use that same money and pay for their missions in the future.  I choose to pay for the missions. It's that darn practical side that I have.  Some of my siblings call me cheap, I prefer "fiscally responsible." ANYWAY, our good friends and neighbors host a big ski party every year and every year Adam and I would toss around the idea of taking the kids skiing for the first time, but then we would decide not to because of the cost and the fact that we didn't want them to actually like it. Well, the kids are getting older and this year when our friends invited us to the ski party the kids definitely had an opinion, they wanted to go!  So, Adam, Britton, Jenna, and Korinne headed off to the local ski resort to experience this thing we call skiing while I stayed home with Jameson. I sent the camera with Adam, but he didn't remember to actually use it.  He hadn't been skiing himself since 1995 so he was busy trying to remember while helping 3 newbies. The verdict? The kids LOVED it! 

Oh crap.

Jenna exclaimed, "I want to go back and do it again really soon, Mom!" I smiled and said, "I guess that's a good thing to start saving up your money for." Her smile dimmed a little when I told her how much it would be for her to go again "real soon".

I know, just put "ski dream crusher" on my list of faults. Boy, this list is starting to get kind of long.  . .

"I have a coat. . .it's in my backpack"

. . .said Korinne as she walked out to the bus stop in sub zero weather this morning. Yup, that's Korinne.  This winter has been brutal thus far, weeks of sub zero temperatures with a couple feet of snow yet Korinne still pops down dressed for the day in something like this:

Her idea of dressing warm for school is putting on a lightweight jacket and calling it good.  This was what she looked like this morning all "bundled" up.

Typical Korinne dressed in bright colors--the brighter the better.

At least now she will humor me by putting a coat in her backpack.  She refused to carry it with her at all until I received a letter from her teacher.  It was addressed to all parents, but I'm pretty sure it was specifically for me.  "Parents, please insist on having your children wear a coat, hat and gloves to school."  Ok, Ok, I got it.  Believe me, I've tried.  I know that I am judged daily by teachers and other parents at the school when they see how inadequate Korinne's winter attire is for the weather we've been having.  I can almost hear them saying, "Who let their child out in this without a coat?" To which I say, you've never met Korinne.

Since this has turned into a post about Korinne I might as well blog about something I've been meaning to blog about for a few years now.  Korinne is seven years old and still uses words in her daily conversations that she made up years ago.  I keep waiting for her to realize that "becepts" isn't a real word.  I have even heard Jenna and Britton tell her, "Korinne, becepts isn't a word." but her only response is a look that says, "whatever", and then she repeats her sentence using the very word.

"They let everyone go becepts the people who didn't get their work done." 

You can basically replace the word except with becepts and you will be speaking her lingo. She used to use "her" instead of "she" in all of her sentences, but that finally stopped when she started reading and kept reading "She went to the store" instead of "Her went to the store" which is how she said it for about 4 years or so.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering we are going on 5 years of Korinne sleeping on the floor.  Ever since she got out of the crib at 2 years of age she has preferred to sleep on the floor rather than in any type of bed.  I know, this "phase" has been the longest phase EVER! And yes, she still sleeps in the hallway every night.  When will it end?  That is the million dollar question.  To put it in perspective if she keeps this up for another 5 years she will be 12 years old sleeping in the hallway every night.  Hmmm, there's a thought. . .

Fake Birthday

This is how Jameson was feeling on his real birthday.

 

 

Yeah, he just wasn't feeling well. Since we didn't get one picture with his signature smile we decided to have a fake birthday party today so we could get a decent picture of this major milestone.

 

 

 

 

Birthdays are so cool! Woohoo!
 

He enjoyed his fake birthday party and we're happy to report he is feeling much better these days. 

 

Sometimes he shakes his head at us. . . .

 

 

Yeah, we're pretty dorky, but fortunately he loves us anyway.

 

Laughing at big sister Korinne

 

Happy Birthday!

 Guess who's 1?

Jameson is such a smiley, happy little guy, but he has a really bad cold and had a bit of a fever last night and wasn't feeling the best on his big day.  This means that we don't have a single birthday picture with his big signature smile.  The biggest smile we got from him all night was when we gave him some ice cream for the first time and asked him if he wanted more.  His big smile answered that question for us. Too bad we didn't get a picture of it, it was priceless. He didn't love the cake and just threw his piece over the side of his high chair and on the floor after a few minutes.  I decided that he must get his immediate love of ice cream from Adam's side of the family. :-) Adam LOVES ice cream and his Grandfather had a bowl of vanilla ice cream every single day until he passed away.

Out of all of our kids Jameson has been the fastest mover.  He crawled up on his knees earlier than everyone else (6 months), he pulled himself up and started "cruising" earlier (7 months), took his first steps at 10 months and now on his first birthday he is a seasoned walker.

This is all well and good except for the fact that he is into everything and we can hardly keep up with him!  I have to admit I cry a little on the inside at church each week when I think about the fact that we still have 6 full months before he can go to nursery. We have already been chasing him around the church for 6 months and it has felt like an eternity!  He isn't a fan of us letting strange people take him during church either.  We have all sorts of people who would love to take him for us, but if there is anyone who can turn on the crocodile tears in less than a second, it's Jameson. He would like to stay with his parents and make them stay in the hall all day, thank you very much.

The kids had a lot of fun preparing for Jameson's birthday and he really enjoyed  his small gifts.  We are breaking out the 18 month clothes already.  Fortunately I never got around to getting rid of some Britton's baby clothes and now they are coming in handy.  Initially I didn't think they would because they were born in opposite seasons, but now that Jameson is 6 months ahead in his clothes it is working out perfectly.

The Holidays

Here are the kids in their Christmas Eve jammies. Jameson hadn't put his on yet, but he was very willing to stop and cheese it up for a picture.  Even though this was 2 weeks before his 1st birthday he is growing so quickly I had to buy his pajamas in the 18 mo. size.

The kids enjoyed their annual Christmas Eve story with Grandma.  Since my parents house is done this year they went home after our Christmas Even festivities and then after a quick phone call at 6:30 a.m. they were back to watch the kids open their gifts from Santa.  This was Jameson's first Christmas and at first he was very confused.

But after a little while he decided that he's a fan of this thing we call Christmas.

The kids declared it the best Christmas ever.

As for our New Year's, well, we didn't exactly win any partying awards. In fact, 4 out of 6 of us were in bed long before midnight.  Can you guess who stayed up? The answer may surprise you. (I'll let you guess in the comments and then I'll give the answer later)

Over the Christmas break the kids enjoyed a day with their cousins from up north.

 We stayed close to home over the break.  We got a LOT of snow so there was plenty of the white stuff to go around and keep everyone entertained.