Highs - and lows - of the week

One winter day in Colorado you find yourself outside in shorts pulling sleds across the dry, brown grass (and watching geese fly overhead?) It looks something like this:
and the next thing you know - BAM! - you wake up to this:

OK, so it wasn't quite that cold (although at my parents' house it was), but we did get down to something like -18, which is cold for Colorado. Therefore, we had school canceled for 2 days this week. I got a bit of razzing from Minnesotans, as my family always lived by the rule that we could go out and play up until about -20; after that, it got kinda cold. This is one reason we had a sauna in our home, I guess. It's all about surviving the elements.

Anywho, we stayed entertained by doing a variety of activities like calisthenics, doing the hokey pokey, having a John Denver hoedown (Isabel has mad love for J.D.), doing some Groundhog Day coloring activities and baking shadow cookies, playing board games, watching movies and going on a scavenger hunt. It worked out.

While school was canceled, activities were not; as a result, we got to see what Isabel's costume for her spring dance recital looks like (oh, we had both been highly anticipating this!). It didn't disappoint. Think purple and black and bling. Yep. And Connor has his first basketball practice this week! He really wanted to play, and the first practice went great. Very proud of him. Team sports haven't always worked out so hot for him, but he is really excited about basketball so we're giving it a go. Brian and I really don't care what activities our children like (and yes, this includes sports) and want to support them in whatever they like, and we believe in exposing them to different things to see what takes. He loves to run, and is really good at it, and might run track this summer in a summer league. We are all excited to cheer him on in his first game next weekend!

My kids have a strange fascination with uvulas (???). This might trace its roots to Finding Nemo, I'm not sure. Anywho, one of them (Connor I believe) realized that if you put a Bumbo seat upside down on your head you look like a uvula head. Except if you're Lucas, in which case you pronounce it luvea head. I mean, we are talking mad skills here. Strange, but true. It looks something like this:

We had a fun preschool field trip to the Planetarium at CU Boulder. We saw a fun and super interesting space show in the theater, and did some fun activities. My kids are all about space this days, and thought it was great. Esp. when they felt like they were moving as the stars moved on the ceiling as we blasted off. I don't know why these two won't take off their winter gear inside. And the Flatirons made such a lovely winter backdrop.

Mason is 8 months old today. He loves eating, feeding himself, exploring, getting into things, being entertained by his siblings, snuggling, playing, going places. Everyone in my household is nuts about him. They all hold him, make him laugh, play with him every chance they get. If you are Mason, life is good. The other day Brian was holding Mason and said to him, "I gotta give your mom credit on this one. She was sure right about having you." If you recall, a year ago there was some major fence sitting (OK, I was sitting, Brian was running the other way from the fence and didn't even want to look at it). We are so very, very glad we crossed over. Mason brings us all so much joy.

He has been army crawling for a few weeks, and just started getting up on his hands on knees and rocking, so I anticipate full-on crawling soon.