competition, maybe?

I think Alyssa caught wind of the late night art in the dark trend and wanted to up the competition for the 2010 awards. I walked into her room this morning to discover that she had lined up her babies, bears, monkeys and arranged the curtains all in the dark late at night!

ski lessons

Jaiden's very first ski lesson! I signed him up for a half day lesson today and I was so impressed. He did great! Here are a few samples from what Dennis and I could preview. The weather was horrific ... super cold and very windy. So windy that they closed half the mountain down.

He's doing it! All by himself... well, with the instructor close at hand!

The next 3 photo series is compliments of Daddy...

going, going...

gone!

When I asked Jaiden about this, he said the wind pushed him and it was hard to stay up! Bless his spirit for keep trying even with all the blowing snow and huge gusts!

Another Daddy photo. As I was taking Alyssa back to the lodge, we got off the bus shuttle and I was surprised to see Jaiden and his class getting on the bus. I said "where are you going Jaiden?" He nonchalantly replied "the rope tow, mommy!" and climbed onto the bus! Luckily, Daddy ran over and got a couple of shots of him going up the rope tow all by himself!

At the end of the day, I asked how his first lesson was. He said "it was great except for those flowers that were in the way (see 1st photo!)"

I am so proud of him for doing it and so excited to see him wanting to try again. He moved from the red level to the mellow yellow level in just one lesson! Way to go buddy!!

You may be wondering where Alyssa was in most of this?

Showing off with Daddy!

and snuggling with me and some hot cocoa!

cupid

As we were getting ready this morning to go skiing, Alyssa appeared in her idea of appropriate ski attire with a bag of valentine cards from Jaiden's class last year. She was handing out special ones to each of us when ...

... she got to the one with the flower (you can barely see it still in the bag), gave it to me and then looked inside her bag (which still contained several more) and said "okay mommy, that's all I have. The rest are crap!"

I said "excuse me?"

She said "the rest are crap except for digger's bone and I will give that to Daddy!"

When I relayed the story back to Dennis, he started to laugh and admitted "I think I must say that too often!" Well, I guess it could be worse, eh Aunt Cyndi?

extreme

Jaiden's new thing is "extreme"... for example, "mommy, it's extreme." or "mommy, we are going to be extreme"... so I ask "what exactly is extreme?" Here are a few examples, some of the other examples were too hard to capture on camera as it involved excessive, not extreme, movement and lots of "ka- POW!" noises.

3D Lego magazines...

and extreme behaviour followed with another KA-POW!

I am sure you will see more "extreme" as I figure out exactly what that means...

dragon and mermaid

An afternoon of intense creativity...

Oh, the concentration that is required to paint a dragon.

and it is a must to hold one's pinky finger daintily out as if drinking a cup of tea.

winter trees

Winter trees and snowy days are definitely the January school theme!

Alyssa brought home her artwork from last week today and inside was her blizzard tree (there is actually more white at the bottom but it doesn't show up despite multiple attempts of scanning it in.)

 

And when I checked Jaiden's school bag, I discovered this sweet poem in his poem binder along with his adorable drawings. His snow is blue on white paper where as Alyssa had blue paper and white paint.

 

So sweet!... and yet so chilly!

frozen...

Yikes, I am really slacking in the new year! Well, not really. It's been a busy past few days and so this means it will be a bit of a lame post but I wanted to share two things from today when I noticed I forgot to share Friday's photo.

This is Friday's photo ... Jaiden decided that -3 degrees was acceptable bike riding weather! While on Thursday morning at -11 degrees F, walking was the mode of transportation. I am so impressed with his determination to fill his Freiker meter. I don't think we have missed a day yet this year!

Now on to today's adventure... we decided to go feed the ducks and geese this afternoon and while I was driving to the ponds, Jaiden asks "mommy, do you think the lake will be frozen over and there will be no birds to feed?" I guess I hadn't thought that part through but sure enough, the lake is frozen and you can see a little patch where the birds are in the middle of the lake!

Of course, they all came when we started tossing the bread bits to them!

Alyssa didn't seem to mind them coming to close. They almost ate the bread right out of her hands!

And I had to include tonight's late night art. Jaiden came down while I was working at about 9 to have me help write the "whee" in the bubble, and then he hinted that he would hang it on his door for me!

Close-up... I guess he likes holding the title of Best Late Night in the Dark Art title!

ski cuties

Wow, it's my first post of the year. Time is flying by already! Well it's not the only first today, the biggest first was the kids went skiing today! After each treatment, Jaiden gets to choose a fun activity. Last week, he chose to go skiing. Lucky for us, a huge front came in and it was snowy, cold, COLD and very windy but they were determined to go.

Here is Alyssa with Daddy on her second run off the rope tow...

And Jaiden on his first run with Daddy!

 Note: this photo is completely unedited as the above two were so you could see their faces! This was Alyssa's last and very insistent run right after lunch with Mommy. Brrrrr....