Will On Skis

Will also got to ski on our recent vacation. He had a full day's lesson at Breckenridge. Here he is, riding up on the gondola with his skis before his lesson. He was happy to have a lesson, but there's no doubt we were more excited than he was.

These other pictures were taken at Keystone at night, where he got lots more practice on the bunny hill there. After Andy followed him up the magic carpet a couple of times, he said, "Daddy, this time you can wait for me at the bottom!" Sure enough, he proceded to go up and down by himself about a dozen times! He still needs to work on his wedge, but as he explained to me, "Mom, it's not that I CAN'T stop, it's just that I don't want to!"

Sophie Skis!

Sophie had her first experience on skis at Keystone while we were on vacation in January. Can you tell she was excited?

Picture Tag

I was tagged by Erin to select the fourth picture in the fourth folder on my computer. I only have pictures on this computer from July 2008 to date, so this was what I found. This picture was taken July 10 at 10:53 AM, so Sophie was... two days and about an hour and a half shy of being 22 months old. We visit the zoo quite often, so this picture is very typical of our summers, but on this particular day Mimi and Grandma Spangler were visiting, and Daddy was even able to come by and have lunch with us at the zoo. Here is a link to my blog post from that day.

I'm not sure who has already done this and who does and doesn't do tags, but I'll tag Rebekah, Rebecca, Tasha and Stephanie and see if anyone actually does it. Here are the rules:

Go to the 4th album in the place you store your pictures on your computer
Select the 4th picture in that album (no exceptions)
Post it in this post with an explanation and link it back to your tagger
Tag 4 people to do the same thing

Why We Must Convince Sophie To Stay In Her Own Bed

Here you see the kids sleeping in Mimi's basement at Christmas. Note Sophie's positioning. I'm pretty sure she has an onboard GPS that programs her to remain perpendicular to the bed at all times. This is exacerbated by the fact that in sleep, her limbs remarkably lose all ability to bend at their joints, or at least to remain bent for more than three seconds. And if there's a body nook around - like neck, lower back or abdomen - into which she can dig her feet, she will find it. These special abilities are really fun when you and your spouse have a queen-sized bed that - as often as not - by morning has four occupants.

Thankfully, I think we are making some progress in this area. When she comes into our room now, she asks, "Is it light outside?" because it has been drilled into her that she shouldn't come downstairs until it is light outside. The next step is honing her ability to sense light. I read somewhere that this happened in the womb, but apparently she is lagging behind in this area.

It's Starting Too Soon

Background Info: While on vacation, the fire alarm went off in our condo development. We got to see the firemen come and check everything out, but there was only a cooking issue in one of the other units. Later in the week, they tested the fire alarms while Mimi was in the condo with the kids. Wednesday night at church, Will noticed the fire alarm pull and had some more questions about it.

On the way home, this query came from the back seat:

Will: When a fire alarm goes off, why do we say it "goes off" instead of "on"?

(Silence from the front seat.)

Finally, A&K (unison): You know, Will, that's a very good question.

He is already stumping us.

Couch Full of Kids

After Christmas, we were fortunate to have our friends J & S come visit with their three kids. Here are a couple of pictures of our ragamuffin group (on the morning of their departure, so my kids still had on PJs).

Advice on Food Coloring

I thought I was making a rare in-road towards Mom Of The Year, not only cooking my kids a hot breakfast but also linking it to one of their favorite books. Little did I know that I was opening a can of worms, so to speak, since my little brood (do two qualify as a brood?) was not satisfied with mere GREEN eggs and ham.

So in case any of the rest of you have the type of kids that always want a little something extra, whose creativity in their requests knows no bounds, be forewarned:

1) "Blue" eggs turn out green again, since yellow + blue = green. I think multiple bottles of blue food coloring would be required to actually turn eggs blue.

2) "Purple" eggs are really more of a yucky brown.

3) Yellow eggs are pointless.

4) "Pink" eggs really turn out more orange. I'm sure you can figure out the legistics of why. Pinkish-orange eggs look really disgusting, like raw guts. (Or as someone else said, a little reassuringly, like shrimp.) Even I had trouble convincing myself that they really tasted the same as regular eggs.

Dentist

Our trip to the dentist inspired a fun round of pretend play, wherein Will was the dentist and Sophie was a surprisingly willing and content patient. (Much more willing and content, by the way, than at the REAL dentists' office.)

(In this photo, Dr. Will is showing Sophie how the tool feels on her hand before placing it in her mouth, exactly like Ms. Christen did during Will's appointment.)

(No, they did NOT actually use a drill on either of my children!)

Sick = Ugly, Unloved Baby

Apparently this what what Sophie thinks, at least.

She is slumped on the couch, her temperature between 103 and 104. Her eyes are partially closed and she is under a blanket. Lest I wonder if she is asleep, I simply have to utter these words: "Shh... Sophie is sick."

She rouses up, her piercing eyes reflecting anger and hurt, "I am NOT SICK. I am feelin' better." Then she resumes her previous posture.

The only thing I can think of that produces comparable venom is when I refer to her as a Baby.

New Best Friends

Lately, Sophie has started paying a lot more attention to Ransom. One of my favorite things to hear is Sophie talking to Ransom (or one of her stuffed bears) in her sweet little voice: "Are you Otay? It's Otay, it's Otay..."

Thankfully, Ransom is a very youthful nine-year-old and tolerates Soph pretty well!