Skiers

The crazy weather that we encountered before Christmas lent itself to some marginal skiing, at best.  So, we put in our time on the bunny slopes with the kids.

Hazen loves riding the lifts, but has little interest in learning to turn, snow plow, or stop.  We have taken to the harness and he can keep right up with his sister that way.

In order to get some exercise for ourselves, we did the Chariot shuttle to the top of Smugglers Notch.

 The kids ate maple glazed bacon donuts, while the parents burned off their donuts.

And we all skied down!

We did end up having to improvise with a few "assists"

And when we weren't tearing it down the slopes on skis, we were making tracks on the pasture next door.

For now, the kids are loving skiing.  We've been following their lead and making sure that they aren't feeling pressured or forced into our adventures.  It takes a lot to get this crew out of the house (without forgetting something), but when we get there, seeing those smiles and hearing the laughter is all worth it.

Christmas

The nice thing about the ice storm was that it made for terrible skiing conditions and allowed for lots of quality family time.  The kids love having family around..... they talk about their grandparents, cousins, second cousins, great aunts and uncles all the time.  I't s a lot of work to keep up with the energy that these two gingers maintain, but Bumpa and Grandma did it like professional grandparents.  They were here for five days and the kids loved every minute of it.  This is how they spent a lot of their time:

toe nail painting by Grandma

Bedtime books and pigpile

Needlepoint lessons 

 When the weather was really cold and windy, we had a great excuse to go skating as a family.  Just about everyone hit the ice:

Cally skating on her own!

We also found time to romp around with cousin Will:

and snuggle with Aunt Nif on the couch:

To prepare for Santa's arrival, on Christmas Eve the kids made cookies for Santa with Grandma

And wrote a big card with lots of pictures:

And we woke up on Christmas morning to the most beautiful snow covered icy wonderland!

The kids had a ball opening gifts and playing with new toys.

We even made it out for an F.F.O (and it was maybe 8 degrees above zero)

We are thankful for having so much love in our house this week.  Christmas with children really is amazing.  I saw this  Facebook post recently:

I whole heartedly agree with that sentiment.  There really was a little magic in our house and I'm so glad we got to share it with our extended family!

Five!

People who have older kids always say, "it all goes by so fast".  It didn't seem like it was all going very fast for the first few years, but all the sudden it really is.  I can't believe we are the parents of a 5 year old!  And what an amazing five year old she is.  She's bright, inquisitive, engaging, snuggly, feisty, motivated, and strong.  I have so much fun hanging out with this girl.  She makes me giggle and think in ways that I have never.  We love you Macalister Jane!

Above is the invitation we sent for her party.  We decided to go big for her celebration of the 5th trip around the sun.  She was very excited to donate food to the food shelf after her party and romp around with her friends.  We knew that Dec. 22nd would be a tough day, but more than 20 people responded to say that they'd join us for fun at the Fun Zone at Smugglers Notch.  We were most excited about the fact that three of her cousins, aunts and uncles, and one set of grandparents would be able to make it for the event.

Unfortunately, as the weather gods would have it, the weather was terrible on her birthday.  It had rained and frozen and the roads were all covered with a sheen of ice.  My brother called at 8:30am to tell us that he had called Smuggs to inquire about swimming after the party and the operator told him that the entire resort was out of power.  When I called, they told me the power was back on, but I couldn't get in touch with anyone about the status of the Fun Zone.  Because we had already shopped for all the food, her family was all there, and I thought parents might want to let their kids get energy out in an indoor environment, we decided to keep with the plan.  And I'm so glad we did:

The kids had a ball!

And so did the adults:

While only about half of the guests actually made it to the party, Cally didn't seem to be phased.  She loved seeing her cousins and the friends and families that made it there.  

We made it home for some gift opening

And even got a few good family shots:

Cally got to have her family birthday dinner the night before.  She couldn't decide between eating latkes, falafal, or calzones.  In the end, she choose calzones which she got to assemble herself and eat with her grandparents.  On the night of her actual birthday, the parents went out to dinner while she stayed home with her cousins and got to have her favorite babysitter for the night.  

Santa's Magic

This is a picture of Cally and Hazen's first meeting with Santa.  I know, she's almost five and most kids are plopped on this jolly old man's lap when they are babies........ It just never happened.  It's not like we were trying to avoid the guy, it just never fit into the schedule  (or we missed the boat).  This year, we made it to our local Country Store and it was the real deal.  Santa was there, the line was short, they offered us cookies and candy canes and the kids loved being able to tell them what they wanted (and stuffed owl for Cally and a stuffed frog for H).

Right before we went visit Santa, Cally's good friend, Piper called at the last minute to see if she wanted to go on the Polar Express in Burlington.  The Polar Express is something I'd only really heard about from other parents.  We had recently read the book and I kicked myself for not even trying to get tickets for the event.  It turns out, you have to enter a lottery in order to get a chance to buy tickets or you can volunteer the year before or you can pay an extra $100 to get a chance to get tickets.  None of those options made it on to my "to do" list in October (or July when the opportunity presents itself), so I figured we'd attempt to make it happen next year.  So, when Piper invited to Cally to go, we dropped everything to make sure it worked out.

She had such a great time!  What a treat.  Now I need to figure out a way to get tickets for next year!

Deck the Halls

When I first started dating John, it was the holiday season.  He was a bachelor living with another bachelor, yet he insisted on getting a tree and decorating his house.  He didn't just get a tree, he placed antique skis and sleds around the house with bows on them, put festive candles all around, and even had ornamental snowmen and reindeer on the mantle.  I was touched by his need to be so festive.

This year, John offered to host his office's holiday party at our house, so we had a reason to get the ball rolling on the decorating front. We didn't have to go far to find a tree...... after trying two other tree "farms", we ended up at Whites just down the road.

The kids were thrilled to decorate:

And we now have a beautiful tree twinkling in our living room:

Meanwhile, Cally participated in the Senior Sing at the Underhill Community Center.  Last year, she barely participated and this year she was belting out tunes, doing the hand signs, and smiling a lot:

We also go to to get a first peak at Santa Clause in Stowe:

Watch candy cane get made:

And even tried skating on the new rink in Stowe:

The kids took a hay ride with one of Santa's "reindeer":

Decorated Christmas Cookies:

And took a tour in Smuggler's Notch:

And finally, we rounded our our weekend with some caroling at the Round Church in Richmond: