Just Us

Lots to catch up on!

Crafting

Cuddles and SNOW. It turned super cold this past week. We had one day when it just wouldn't stop snowing. It was kinda fantastic. The cold isn't so fantastic though. It's really cold.

Asian Celebration! I had so much fun hanging with Max and learning about what he and his classmates have learned about Asia. Did you know that pandas eat 40 lbs of bamboo every day?!?

Ninja! Max is LOVING his ninja warrior class! He had a hard time waiting, since Madison started her class a few weeks before him, and was THRILLED when it was finally his turn to start.  He's doing great and is pretty sure he's already super strong thanks to his ninja class. (He also loves that his coach's name is MAX!)

Super cute drawings by Madison for Dad. Isn't she good?!

Happy Birthday to Dad!  Max had to stay home from school because he was sick but didn't mind getting to spend NIck's birthday morning with him. We surprised Nick with a few treats and his fabulous staff surprised him with a Nothing-Bundt-Cake, lots of treats, and balloons.  The next day Madison made him super special hand-dipped treats during activity days.  I think it was a good way to celebrate him in a low-key way, like he prefers.

Last week was our annual Provo bday trip! And it was as fun as always!  On Friday we played at the Nickelcade and then met up with Lora and Grandma & Grandpa for dinner at a new burger place called Cubby's.  (It was really fun catching up with Lora. She's in Utah for her final semester of grad school and we're excited to some day get her back to CO.) After dinner we went to the BYU men's vb game, which they won!

On Saturday we went tubing in Park City.  It was super cold and the first hour was a little rough because the tram up the hill (the magic carpet) was broken. For real.  Luckily, right when we were about to call it good and get a refund, the carpet started working again and we were able to enjoy our full two hours of tubing.  It was so much fun, especially since grandma and grandpa were with us this time.

After tubing we had a picnic lunch in our car and then went to the ice castles (right next door to tubing). They were awesome and amazing, of course.  The best part was Max licking everything. I mean, the best part in a slightly gross, kind of oddball sort of way.  He seriously licked everything. We even got a picture of him going down an ice slide, face first, licking it.

Next on the list of activities was games at Gabriel's! That was fun. Luckily Grandma and Grandpa were willing to hang with Madison and Max at our cute little AIR-BNB so that the rest of us could enjoy relatively peaceful gametime.

After games we joined up again and had dinner at Tucanos, woot woot. The meat was exceptionally good. Like for real. It's always good, but this time it was just extra good. Yum.  Once we were sufficiently stuffed we went and watched BYU play again.  And they won again!  And we celebrated with ice cream! I took three kids to the store and bought them tubs of ice cream (because we left a little early since I was feeling my after-Tucanos crumminess) and then Nick took Maliya, Grandma, and Grandpa to a specialty ice cream shop and got the good stuff.  Luckily everyone was happy with what they got.  We enjoyed our treats at our AIRBNB and then called it a night, and then took off the next morning for home.  It was, as always, the BEST WAY to celebrate me and Nick's birthdays. We had so much fun and loved having my parents join us this year.  (Disclaimer - we don't actually celebrate our birthdays in Provo, that's just our good excuse for making the fun family trip every year.) 

Madison and MAx love to make up songs. This particular time they sang about how much they love me:)

Birthday dinner (after our trip) at Red Robin! And a cute picture of Madison and Jaelynn during their  Poetry Cafe at school (same day as Red Robin). They each got to recite 2 poems  (and then enjoy a chocolate fountain bar) and NIck and I enjoyed listening to them. They did great! (Our favorite part of MAdison's acrostic poem using the letters in her name was "I is for Ignores people who interrupt me". We laughed out loud at that because it's so the truth and we love that Madison actually included it in her poem.)

Our awesome missionaries tried their hand at a fire-breathing (they did great!) and then taught us a lesson on foundations, complete with a pretty cool object lesson. They had the kids place a finger on top of a Book of Mormon and then they smashed it with a can of beans ... and nobody got hurt. It was kind of amazing. They finished things off with Max the missionary racing our Mister Max. Our goofy 5 year old won last second when he took a slightly illegal short-cut. It was pretty funny.

Date night!! Nick and I went out on Saturday to use up my Red Robin birthday coupon (we only used his last week). I got dinner, he got dessert, and we enjoyed a long needed night out with just us. (As usual, the kids enjoyed extra game time:))

Oh! And skiing. The kids have now gone skiing twice with Nick (thanks to the annual Caprock discounted ski program).  Madison is learning quickly and loving it just as much as Cole and Maliya, and Max and I have been enjoying our Mom-Max days at home alone!