portrait of Mommy

Max has really been getting into coloring lately. The other night he brought this picture to me. When I asked what it was, he said it was me and then proceeded to point out the body parts he drew. I could take this a couple of different ways, but I decided that he must think I have that many arms and legs to be able to do what I do each day around here:)

Lesson learned...

Last night Chris came home from work and told me about a special deal he saw on a sign outside the local tanning salon where you could do a spray tan for $12. Since I had been complaining for a few weeks now about how white my skin was, I decided to splurge and get a spray tan since I was going to be in a swimming suit this coming weekend. I got there, signed in, got my finger prints taken (weird, I know) and then proceeded to get all the directions for how this thing worked. They told me how to stand, how to hold my arms, hands, fingers, how to put lotion on parts I didn't want sprayed, etc. Then, at the last minute she told me to put this hair net on over my hair. Easy enough, right? Well, it never even dawned on me to make sure the hair net was right next to my hairline and not in the middle of my forehead. To be honest, when I put the thing on, I was most worried about getting it to cover my earrings. It takes 3-4 hours for this tan to show up, so I went to bed thinking I'd wake up with this beautiful bronze tan. However, this picture below is what I saw in the mirror. I wasn't happy, but many people told me it was the highlight of their day so I thought I'd share with the blog readers so it can possibly make your day too or at least give you a good laugh. The picture is good, but it's much better in person. Watch out Wisconsin Dells...here comes the crazy striped lady!!

Olympic spirit

We've got Olympic fever here at the Hoden household. This quote came directly from Chris's mouth today.."If we're going to make our kids into Olympians, we need to start young." He was outside building them a luge track as he said this and followed it up with "Do you think we should buy the lot behind us?"

Winter has always been Chris's favorite season. He grew up in Minnesota so he has been doing the whole winter sports thing for years and is bound and determined that our kids will as well. For his sake, I sure hope they do because it's definitely not my favorite thing. In fact, Chris is working/volunteering at the local ski hill this winter. (I call it work/volunteer because he is being paid, but it's less per hour than we give our 13 year old babysitter:)Friday night he worked from 9:00 p.m. until 3 a.m. teaching lessons and doing hill patrol and helping kids who fell.

Not that Chris wasn't a good dad when our kids were babies, but as they get older, he's starting to really get into this parenting thing. He took both kids out yesterday and I had some alone time in the house drinking cappuccino and watching dvr shows! He turns into a big kid when he's outside playing with them in the snow. They built two snowmen...a Daddy snow man and a Max snow man. Then, Chris built the luge track for sledding and they did it over and over and over and over (you get my point) again! Notice both of the snowmen have Minnesota sports hats. He's trying so hard to keep that MN pride while living in Iowa.

All I know is Max and Mya are pretty lucky to have the Daddy that they do:) Here are a few pictures from the fun day in the snow!

How much longer until spring??

I'm getting so tired of winter. I think I can make it a few more weeks, but if we have snow and cold in mid-March and you're looking for me, check the looney-bin. There are only so many things you can do when the weather is like this. Today the big excitement was shoveling the deck in preparation for Chris to grill!

Get ready....

Get set...

Throw snow at Mom! (oops...she's behind the door, I guess it didn't work as well as I would have liked!)

Chloe isn't as smart...Max and Mya thought it was hilarious to throw snow on her!

Happy Valentines Day!

We hope you are all enjoying a wonderful Valentines Day! Our parents are like new parents now that they're home from a relaxing weekend away! Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Hoden for coming down to watch us!

We love you! Max and Mya

What we've been up to around here...

Not a heck of a lot is the answer to that question!

Max has been working on opening his eyes for pictures...




Mya has been wanting to turn on/off the lights (she calls them beeps) so much that I started letting her stand on a chair so I could get something done.



I brought some of our outdoor toys inside so they have been going down the slide a ton and Mya makes the best faces when she's about to go down, so I caught some on camera.




That's about it! The kids both have colds, so we've been stuck inside with no playdates this week. Really makes me appreciate playdates so much when we can't have them!!

Gracie

We went to Decorah this weekend to visit the newest member of the Huinker family! It was so fun to see her and I couldn't believe how much hair she had! The overall consensus is that out of 4 cousins, she is the one that has the most chance to look like a Huinker:) Max loved to tell anyone who would listen that "Amanda gots a new baby" and "Grace is my new cousin." It was pretty cute to see him around her even though 90% of the time he was oblivious. Mya, on the other hand, was VERY interested in her and always wanted to touch her, try to pick her up, take the bow out of her hair, and say "baby" 1,000,000 times! Here are a few pictures. I took a good one of Max holding Gracie, but it must have been on someone else's camera, so I'll look into it and post it soon!