Thirty And One

Today Luke turned the big 3-1.

I'm usually pretty good about posting something about him on his special day.

(Proof: Here. Here. Here.)

But this year in honor of his thirty and first year on this earth, I decided to let the kids do the blogging.  So here is their dad, according to them.  

(This was word-for-word out of their very own mouths.  No help from me.) 

Oh, and I added our family pictures.

2 birds. 1 stone.

Baaaam.

 1.) What is your favorite thing about Dad?

Brooklyn: Ummm.... he takes me running.  

Aubrey: He likes to golf and I do too.  Maybe.

Cameron: Daddy's right there. (Pointing to picture)

 2.) What do you like doing with Dad?

Brooklyn: I like golfing with him.

Aubrey: Golf.  And to go swimming.

Cameron: I do the fish.  (He's eating goldfish.)

 3.) If you could get Dad anything in the world for his birthday what would you get him?

Brooklyn: I would buy him a big thing - like a big station -where he can just golf.

Aubrey: Golf balls so he could golf.

Cameron: Trucks.

4.) How old is dad?

Brooklyn: 32!!  I mean 31.

Aubrey: I don't know.  31...?  Am I right???  I knew that because dad told me he was 30 a few days ago and 30 plus 1 is 31!

Cameron: Idon'tknow...2.

5.) What are some things that Dad is good at?

Brooklyn: Golfing.  And telling us bedtime stories.

Aubrey: Golf.  And coloring.  And good at hunts.  (?)

Cameron: Daddy's car's hot and Mommy's car is hot.  It's fire hot.  The fire's hot.  (No idea...)

6.) What was Dad like when he was your age?

Brooklyn: He liked to do gymnastics when he was a boy.

Aubrey: He liked to take walks and hang out at tree houses.

Cameron: My toys.  (Alrighty, then.)

7.) What does Dad do at work?

Brooklyn: He helps people by being a doctor.  He gives them medicine and shots that makes them feel better.  Like, he just gives them the shot and then they don't have it again.

Aubrey: He helps people when they're sick.  He gives them shots and casts.

Cameron: He works.

8.) Is there anything that Dad is not good at?

Brooklyn: He's not good at doing my hair.

Aubrey: He's not good at baseball.  Wait.  What's baseball again?  There's nothing that Dad's not good at.

Cameron: The fire is hot -goes ow ow ow!!

 Happy Birthday, Luke.

It's 81 Degrees and We Are FROZEN.

 Today was 81 degrees.

I got a sunburn at work + made the kids rainbow snow cones + almost turned on the AC.

What month are we in?!?!

But, while we're enormously enjoying this incredible weather, we are very much in 

FROZEN mode.

I took the girls to see the movie over Christmas break, and there has been no turning back since.

Everything in this house is FROZEN.

Exhibit A:

Aubrey walked out of her room one day in this outfit.  The blue skirt was an old skirt of mine she dug up and she had a bed sheet tied around her neck as a cape.  She begged me to let her wear her Anna costume to school.

And guys.... I did.

Brooklyn has not taken her Elsa cape off in 3 days.  Today without my knowledge, she snuck it into her backpack and pulled it out for recess.  My friend reported seeing the girls after school with Aubrey holding Brooklyn's cape up behind her as they walked passed the cars.

I'm sure that was a sight to behold.

Exhibit B:

Cameron knows every word to "Do You Want to Build A Snowman" and "Let it Go"

He sometimes even indulges Aubrey in acting out the songs as they sing them together.  

(I really must video this soon.)

He even smushes his face against the wall on the "Itdoesn'thavetobeasnowman...." line to give the song it's required drama.

I die.

Exhibit C:

At dinner tonight, Luke's word-for-word quote was, "Let's see if we can make it through dinner without singing any Frozen songs."  

We didn't even make it past the prayer.

Exhibit D:

While at the park with friends, I discovered that the girls were acting out the movie (and they somehow knew it word-for-word.)

It was the best thing I've seen in a month.

While Cameron lost himself on the playground...

 the girls re-enacted the entire movie.

 Their sweet friend did the BEST job playing the guy from "Weasel town."  Her "I'm a peacock with the face of a monkey" dance impression was ahhhhmazing.

It even included the dip at the end.

I was seriously in tears.

I found myself wishing in that moment that I actually had Elsa's freezing power. 

 I would freeze my life right here.

And just enjoy those two sisters with incredible power and a love for each other that will get them through anything.  

Twenty Fourteen

It's 2014.

While 2013 had it's awesome moments, I'm somewhat glad to have it in my rear-view mirror. 

 We learned some lessons, had some adventures, experienced a trial or two, realized the blessings of answered (and unanswered) prayers, made the most of every second, and grew in unexpected ways.

It really was a magical year. 

But 2014 will be even better.

I can feel it.  

I rang in the new year with my annual tradition of doing absolutely nothing and being absolutely home alone.

This year's festivities included:

Kettle corn.

Sprite in a wine glass.

And my first experience with the men of Duck Dynasty.

Then Cameron decided he was not to be left out, so he ditched the crib and 

made my party of one a party of two.  

 I watched 5 episodes and  d i e d  laughing.  No, really.  I almost died laughing.  I was eating a piece of popcorn and all was well and then Jase (on the show) starting talking about his HOA and I inhaled a piece of popcorn and started choking.  But I still could not. stop. laughing.  I was chokelaughing for a good 60 seconds while Cameron just stared at me with his "theregoesmomagainwithhercrazywierdness" look and I managed to hack it up somehow.

I have decided I want to die laughing.

Or watching Duck Dynasty.

Either way.

P.S. Look how unamused Cameron was.  (It's almost how unamused I was when I had to stay up till 12:05 on New Year's Eve because he would not hit the sack.  12:05.  On New Years.  

Apparently, I'm 92 years old.)

While I snuggled his little buns and enjoyed the drunk neighbors' hilarious conversations, I realized I had approximately 14 minutes to make my New Year's Resolutions.

So I thought as hard as I could, and all I could think about was how drunk the neighbors were.

Like, really, really drunk.

And then 14 minutes turned into 4 minutes and then 4 minutes turned into 1, and then in the last 10 seconds of 2013, I decided that my Resolution for the New Year is to "just be".

Just BE happy.

Just BE nice.

Just BE patient.

Just BE courageous.

Just BE loving.

Just BE content.

Just BE better.

Adios, 2013.

2014, Welcome.

A Return to the Slopes

18 Years Ago

On a brisk, snowy day on the slopes of Mt. Holly at the Elk Meadows Resort in Utah, one father and his 2 adoring daughters were enjoying a nice, relaxing day on the mountain.  A new layer of perfect powder had fallen over night and the family was enjoying run after run on the quiet, peacefully hill.  And then, the dad decided to take the girls down an extremely difficult black diamond run similar to something you'd see an 

X-Games athlete falling out of a helicopter onto.

Here's where the story gets hazy.

The daughter decided she wasn't into it and she was not feeling all too good about the possible/likely drop to her death.

The dad told her to stop being a wuss.

No one (and I mean NO ONE) called that girl a wuss.

So, in protest, she shot down the mountain like a "bat out of hell."  (According to the dad.)

And the next thing she remembers is opening her eyes for a few seconds while laying down in the snow on the wrong side of a sheer cliff.  

And the next thing she remembers after that, is waking up in an emergency room 12 hours later with no recollection of the past few days.

And I, of course, was the little girl.

Ahhh, good times.

Present Day

So naturally, I jumped at the chance to return to the slopes with my whole family + bring along my daughters to share in all the snowy goodness.
(Not true.  But I went, so I get full credit.)

(Just to be clear, the two fingers that she is sticking out under those gloves are her thumbs.)

It took us about an hour to get all our gear on and then take all our gear off to use the bathroom and then get all our gear on again...

And then about another hour to get our skiis on and then figure out that the bunnyhill was up the mountain and then take our skiis off , walk up the mountain, and then put our skiis back on.

But we made it.

The first step was enrolling the girls in Grandpa's Ski School.

(Since he's got such a spotlessly clean record of safely teaching children how to ski.)

Full disclosure: the girls spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to get back up after skiing about 3 feet and falling down.  Luckily, there are no quitters in this family + we had grandpa to help pull us back up.

At one point, Brooklyn accidentally took off down the hill and started drifting toward the mountain drop-off.  I screamed totally meaningless words at her like: "MAKE A PIE!  MAKE A BIGGER PIE!!"  

"SNOW PLOW! 

SNOOOOOOWWWW PPPPLLLLOOOOOWWWWW!" 

About 3 inches before dropping off through the woods and onto the First Aid Buildings roof, she tipped over and came to a screeching halt.

Leave it to one of my kids to almost fall off a cliff.

It was a rough morning.

AND THEN...

we ate lunch, and honestly, there must have been some magic cheese on our sandwiches, because the girls came back with a vengeance.

They were unrecognizable.  

They both went up the main mountain + managed not to kill themselves.  It's a small miracle that we are all still here with all our limbs intact.

Luke begged me to go with up to the top of the mountain, and justifiably, I flat out refused.

It looked like this:

But worse.

Later, I found out that Aubrey had gone up to the top of the mountain.  And liked it.

And that was our amazing day on the slopes.