Chillin' in the snow... literally

So a few weeks ago, we had some amazing storms that left a blizzard sitting on our mountain for a few days.  We {with the rest of the valley} loaded up our kids and tried to find some fluffy white stuff to play in, freeze in, marvel at... you know, do what we do best when it actually looks like winter around here!  :O)

The main access road was blocked off by, I believe, the forest service at the base of the mountain, so we didn't even try that route.  We instead ventured up the west end and tried our luck on the hard-packed, icy road.  We got pretty far up, but when we were sliding more than we were driving, we decided that would be a good time to turn around and find a place to "play".  I put that in quotes because little did we know that our girls were about to turn into crying... blobs!

We opened the doors and immediately Madi informed us that this wasn't such a good idea and she was ready to go home.  Maelee took about 45 min but eventually she caved in and copied Madi's sentiments... her rather loud, wailing sentiments!  Instead of playing, we built a fire {meaning we got the dry wood burning with a blow torch... and had to keep the torch on it or it would die!}, set up our camp chairs and watched Bear run around.  That's our dog, we don't have an actual bear...

The camera died, so I didn't get any pics of the girls huddled together, drinking hot cocoa, but it had enough juice left at the end of the trip to get this one last pic.

When all was loaded back up, and we had the 2 drama queens on defrost in the truck, Clint asked the ever-present question of most parents who attempt these "fun" family outings, "What the &%$*@# were we thinking?!?"

Ah, great memories!  :O)

My name is Mud

Well, it would be if I had any avid readers out there who were ticked that I don't update this thing very often lately...  BUT, kind readers, allow me to clear my name with this update full of slide shows and fun tidbits of our life over the last month.

Let's see... about a month ago we packed up enough food and warm clothes to supply a small army and headed up the mountain to play in the snow.  It was Keahi's first time and to be honest, she wasn't so thrilled to be stuck on a blanket where she couldn't eat the rocks.  At the bottom of our run, Clint found {and by found I mean fell into} a hole waist~deep in the snow made by a tree that had fallen before the snow came.  We heard that at the top of the mountain, the snow was around 12 feet deep!  We saw little snail-like things all over the place that were actually rocks or bits of snow that started rolling down the hillsides and grew as they rolled.  Pretty cool looking!  We were all freezing by the time we got home and were glad to come back to 70* weather.  {Gotta love it!!}

Next up, Keahi is eating table foods and turned 9 months last week.  8 teeth, 21.5 pounds, size 3 diapers, learning to stand up in the middle of the floor, cruising furniture, hasn't taken her first step yet but it's quickly coming!! 

Also... I had a fun idea for Madi's hair and voila!  It actually worked!!  {Sorry the pics are so pixelated... don't know what happened there}

I hit the big two-five last week!  That's right, I'm a quarter of a century old and I have to say that it wasn't as hard as everyone says it is.  Maybe 30 will be the tough one... I had a great day and don't feel like an old lady yet so life is great!!  :O)  I also was a finalist for our local version of American Idol, that was fun.  There ended up being 22 finalists {I think... there were a LOT of us!} and I had a blast!!  My audition is online, if you want to see it, let me know and I'll email you the link.

This last weekend, the boys {Clint, his dad, brother Rob and gf Kia} took Russell's kayaks and a canoe and took on the river.  We've a TONS of rain this year so it was flowing pretty heavy and a tad on the swift side... {ok, it was really fast but at least no one died right?!}

I think that really the only other thing that deserves note on this post is that our girls are friggin' adorable and we can't get enough of them!!

LOVE IT!!

Snow & Halloween=

Boy howdy have the last 2 weeks been crazy around here!  Clint was in Texas for a training for work for a week and then off to his brother and sister's for a deer hunt for 4 days!  I know, either I'm a saint for letting him run off and leave me with the girls for 11 days, or else I'm crazy!!  {Definately crazy, I know myself and I'm no saint!!}  So, last week I loaded up the girls and visited my Alma Mater {home town}.  We had so much fun eating yummy food at the local Mexican restaurant, catching up with friends, seeing all the improvements and how nice my old house has been fixed up.  I stayed with my friend Rachel and my girls fit right in with her 3 girls and 1 boy {Madi had a blast and was SO upset when we left!}.  It was total chaos but so fun!  When we woke up in the morning, there was 4 inches of snow on the ground just waiting to be played in.  Luckily, I remembered how cold it got there and had come prepared with boots, mittens, a scarf, a beanie, an extra sweatshirt, pants and socks!  Go me!  Madi had such a great time playing in all that white stuff {yes, she's seen snow before but not for a while}.  It was nice to get home though and not worry about the mud that I'm sure followed very quickly after the winter wonderland.  But all that cold got me TOTALLY in the mood for Christmas so when I got home I started up the Christmas music and SO BADLY wanted to decorate for the holidays... but it was only October so I decided to wait... more on that in a later post!  :0)

Now it's time for our Halloween story.  Well, it's actually kinda depressing.  All of our friends were going out of town for the actual holiday, so we had a progressive dinner/Halloween party Friday night.  We dressed all the kids up {so that Grandparents could see their costumes} and let them practice trick or treating.  Michele was so good and had little pens, notebooks, stickers and bubbles for the kids behind the doors in her house!  It was so cute and the kids had a blast!  Thank heavens for that party cuz that was the only Halloween Madi and Keahi got!  I'm not going to go into the whole story here {I don't want to offend anyone or stir up the hornets nest any more than it already is} so suffice it to say that some things happened, some words, ok bad words were loudly exchanged between some people and to avoid a breakdown on my or Madi's part, we instead watched Enchanted at my brother's house.  {Just so you know, the words were NOT between me and Clint, we were on the same team}  It's been over a week now and Madi hasn't mentioned anything about it since Sunday so I doubt she's been scarred for life.  My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of my girls dressed up like Tinkerbell together {yes, they were BOTH Tink, and it was freakin' adorable!!}.  I'm planning on dressing them up again and getting that picture!!!

So there you have it, another chapter in the book that is our lives!  And Clint made it home safe last night around 7:30, for those who were wondering!  :0)  And his girls ALL missed him like mad!