Catching up! Max's birthday in Jasper

The kids had March 2nd and 3rd off so we took off to Jasper for the weekend! We stayed at one of my favorite places on Earth..the Jasper Park Lodge. It's actually really hard to leave once you get there...they know how to do winter! We haven't been there in the summer (they double an already expensive price) but we love it there in the winter. We drove through a snow storm, checked in, had some free appetizers (our room wasn't ready) and then headed to our room! They had birthday cupcakes for Max in the room waiting for us when we got there. We started a fire, kids went out to play in the snow and we ordered pizza! After the pizza we headed over to the outdoor pool and hot tub. No pictures this year of snow angels..it was snowing and I didn't want to wreck my phone. We had a great time!



The next morning we got up bright and early and made our way to Marmot Basin ski resort. Normally it takes 20 minutes or so to get there but it took over an hour this time. Apparently they got so much snow the plow got stuck! It was my first time skiing in this much powder. I loved it, but it was so hard on my legs! I was taking tons of breaks and felt like a wimp! Ivy had a tough morning, but rallied and ended up having a great day and ended up improving a ton on her speed and fearlessness.



Sunday we woke up to -24 degrees C (-10F) so we went into town for breakfast and then decided to brave the cold and go skating on the lake at the hotel. It didn't feel as cold as it was when we were out skating. The kids and Chris played a little hockey, we raced around the track, and had a great time. After skating, we packed up and drove home. It was such a great weekend!

Happy 10th birthday Max!!

Dear Max,

You are a decade old! Can't believe it...next year you won't have enough fingers for the picture! You are pretty happy to be 10...you're one of the first kids in your class to turn 10 and it's also an even number and you are an even number guy for sure. We are very proud of you in every way. I had many highlights with you over the past year, but my number one moment was the prayer you said before our Thanksgiving meal. You blew your dad and me away with what a great young man you are.

You remind me a lot of Uncle Brian with your eating habits. You are a meat and potatoes guy. You choose milk over anything else to drink..even with pizza which grosses us out. Your favorite meal is shepherds pie and your 2nd favorite is meat balls. You are not a huge steak guy yet because your mouth is so full of metal that it's hard for you to chew it sometimes! Hopefully all of that metal will becoming out in the next few months! I have to push you to eat breakfast everyday. If you could eat a scone from Cobb's bread every morning, you would. Namely the blueberry lemon scone. It only took 10 years, but you are now a crust eater. Now if only you could get your sisters on board and my mornings would get so much easier with packing lunches!

You are becoming much more self sufficient which was a goal of mine for you this last year. You can make your own hot chocolate, toast, and pb&j sandwiches. When I was sick last week you put Ivy to bed one night on your own. You read her books and sat with her until she fell asleep. You are starting to stay home alone for short periods of time during the day. Now we just need to work on putting dirty clothes in the hamper and putting clean clothes back in your drawer or closet. You still lose a lot of things, but we are working through that and trying to focus on slowing down and thinking about what you'll need, what you brought, etc. before leaving a place.

You are not afraid to speak/sing in front of crowds, you're good at talking to adults and having adult conversations, you are the world's number 1 eavesdropper, you love sports talk radio and learning all the teams, players, news, etc. You have quite a collection of hockey cards and football cards. One thing we didn't see coming was that you have become a big save the earth guy...you let us know when we put something in the recycling that belongs at the ecostation and when we put something in the garbage that belongs in the recycling. You have already told me that dad won't be washing the car in the driveway this summer. I'm not sure how that will go over with dad though! You have found your rhythm with friends. It took a couple years, but you have made some really nice friends and I feel confident in your ability to choose good ones. You are 63 pounds and 53.5 inches. You are becoming quite good at pulling your loose teeth out. They're not loose too long before you get really tired of it and pull them out! I'm half convinced it's because you need the money!

You love to try new things, but you're also ready for them to be over when they're done! In the past year you have participated in hockey, ball hockey, parkour, chess club, running club (both indoor and outdoor), guitar, piano, the church musical, soccer, skiing, and probably more that I've forgotten! I think this year will be the end of your piano career which is too bad, but I understand too. We are headed to Jasper today for your birthday to do some skiing, skating and swimming! Love you tons Maxwell David!

Love, Mom and Dad

March 3rd, 2007


March 3rd, 2008


March 3rd, 2009


March 3rd, 2010


March 3rd, 2011


March 3rd, 2012


March 3rd, 2013


March 3rd, 2014


March 3rd, 2015


March 3rd, 2016


March 3rd, 2017

Top 3

Top 3 things I want to remember about my top 3 right now!

Max

1. Max is loving sports right now. Loves listening to sports talk radio in the morning, wants to know who won the game when he walks down the stairs when he wakes up, loves wearing sports clothes (in fact he has specific days for certain teams/brands..Tuesday is Vikings day, Wednesday is Nike and Fridays is Oilers) It's fun because Chris and I like to talk sports and now he's joining in. He even sat and watched the entire superbowl party with us at our friends' house!



2. He had his first big boy weekend a couple weekends ago when Chris, Mya, Ivy and I were out of town for a gym meet. He got dropped off at a friends house after school, spent the night there, went to his ball hockey game and then went with a different friend until we got home that night. He was pretty nervous, but did great. We're very fortunate to have friends who are like family here that we felt comfortable leaving him and being out of town. It was so good for him to get that first experience behind him!

3. He is very motivated to finish all of the books on the YRCA list of nominations. (YRCA is the pacific northwest's library association list of books) Once you read all of them, you can vote on your favorite one. Things like that are all the motivation Max needs to get reading. Here's the list...he's on the last one right now and then he can vote!


Absolutely Almost – Graff, Lisa
Loot – Watson, Jude
El Deafo – Bell, Cece
The Fourteenth Goldfish – Holm, Jennifer
Rain Reign – Martin, Ann M.
The Thickety: A Path Begins – White, J.A.
New Kid – Green, Tim
The Circus Dogs of Prague – Rachelle Delaney


Mya

1. She's in competition season right now with gymnastics. She works super hard every week (10.5 hours of weekly training) so we are super excited for her to finally get to compete. Her first competition was in Lethbridge (4.5 hours south of here..close to the border) and she ended up in first place overall! Chris and I are basket cases at these events, but she's as cool as a cucumber. We have this weekend off and then 5 meets in the next 7 weeks. Luckily, 4 are in town so it's not as big of a commitment.



2. Mya is a great big sister to Ivy at school. They play together every day for morning recess (the only recess that Ivy is at school with the half day program). When I pick Ivy up at lunch and ask about her day, the best part is always that she played with her sissy at recess. I'm hopeful this relationship will continue to be a good one for both girls and maybe, just maybe we can even skip the horrible years when sisters hate each other!

3. She is loving reading right now too. It wasn't too long ago that I was sure that day would never come. Right now she's very into my babysitter club books (she even talks to me about them like I still remember..."Mom! I'm at the part where Maryanne is babysitting and someone is calling her and hanging up!!" She also likes the diary of a wimpy kid series. She had to do a current event this week at school and chose to do an article about the Muslim ban. Her teacher sent me a nice e-mail afterwards saying she did an awesome job and he appreciated her bringing that up so they could have a class discussion. It's fun to have kids with opinions.


Ivy

1. Ivy is doing great in school. She's starting to read and loving all of the attention she is getting because of it! I could have 10 kids and I would still be amazed when the 10th one learns to read. I just think that whole process is unbelievable. She's sounding out words on signs along the road and loves to write notes to people at home. Her spelling is hilarious and even some of the words she's sounding out. She pronounced "nice" today as Nike. Still trying to learn all of those pesky rules!

(still finding lots of selfies on my phone!)


2. She is in gymnastics once a week and is training with Mya's coach. Christianne is big on conditioning so Ivy is getting quite the workout each week. She is very proud of herself and all of her rope climbing and frequently asks me to feel her muscles even though she doesn't know how to flex:)

3. We have not had much time for her to be involved in anything except the gymnastics one afternoon a week when Max and Mya were still in school. Next week though that's all changing and it could be crazy for us! She starts swimming lessons and ski lessons. Honestly we kind of forgot about the fact that she still needs some major swim lessons. Max and Mya do too, but they're at the point where they can swim a lap and pass the swim test, so we've kind of put lessons on the back burner. Ski lessons will be great and hopefully will speed things up for her in the mountains.

1st ski trip of the year!

On Saturday we drove to the mountains for a quick ski getaway. We had been wanting to go and our weekends are filling up really quickly with gymnastics competitions, ball hockey, etc. I found a groupon for Mount Norquay and Chris had been wanting to try that resort so we gave it a shot. We got to Canmore around 3:00. We checked into our hotel and then went for a hike along the bow river. It was pretty nice outside so we had a really enjoyable walk. Afterwards we hit up some stores and then had a nice dinner.




Sunday we got up early and headed to Norquay! On the way we saw a few dozen caribou hanging around the hotel which is always fun to see. We got to the ski hill and about 45 minutes later we were all geared up and on the ski lift! This marks the first time all 5 of us went skiing at the same time. Max and Mya can take care of themselves on the chair lifts now and on the mountain so Chris has to just take care of Ivy. It takes everything I have to take care of myself out there so I can't be in charge of anyone else! Luckily Chris is a big picture guy and he knows if he puts the time in now, the kids will be independent skiers soon and we can enjoy many years of family fun. So basically Max, Mya and I had a great day while Chris just went back and forth across the mountain with Ivy teaching her turns and control. We lasted about 5 hours with a small break for Max and Mya and a big break for Ivy. She kept calling the chalet "swiss chalet" (which is a restaurant here:)




After we skied, we decided to try out the snow tubing hill they have at Norquay. It was included with our groupon. Even though we had about 45 minutes until they closed, we still got 5 runs in and it was super fun. Each person has to be on their own individual tube, but you can hook together as many as 5 at a time so we had a blast doing that. It was ridiculously fast and cold, but totally worth it.



Click Here for a video of Max and Mya coming down on the tubes.

Christmas 2016

Christmas has come and gone! We had a great Christmas break with family and friends! I always get so nervous right before Christmas that we will all get sick, but this year we managed to stay healthy until the day we went back to school! (january 9th) Mya has been home Tue/Wed/Thurs and Max has been home a half day Wed and all day Thursday. Thankfully Chris, Ivy and I are healthy! Here's a run down on what we were up to the last few weeks.

Dec 24th: For the first time in our married life, we attended Christmas Eve service at our own church! We always travel to one of our family's houses for Christmas, but flight prices were cheapest on Christmas day so we were able to go to our church! It was an amazing candlelight service...Max even got to go on stage in front of 1,000 people and sing a Christmas carol! After church, we headed to some friends house from church and we enjoyed a really nice night together!

December 25th: We got the kids up nice and early to head to the airport by 6:15. We got picked up by a taxi and when we got in, Ivy asked me how the driver knew we were going on a field trip! Everything was smooth with our flight and Ivy and Mya were dressed pretty cute:) Lots of people were commenting on them.



David, Linda and Jeff picked us up and we drove straight up to the cabin! This is the first year we celebrated at the cabin and they had it all decked out with Christmas decor so it felt very festive! We had a few Christmas treats and then opened presents! The kids saw them right away and couldn't wait to open:)



December 26-Dec 29th: We stayed at the cabin and had a super relaxing time! We played in the snow, walked on the lake, watched the ice houses go up, built a snow fort, put together a 1000 piece puzzle that didn't look like the picture on the box, read, watched Christmas movies, ate lots of great food, saw the Gopher bowl game, played TONS of cards and had quality time as a family.




December 29: We drove down to Decorah to see my family! My sister got there the day before and the excitement was mounting from all the kids to be together! My kids miss their cousins so much so I didn't really see them for the next week or so! Honestly, once they got together, they hardly left each other's sides the entire time. 8 kiddos with one who takes lots of naps and two that take one nap a day can be hard, but the laughing/playing makes it all worth it. (Mom---maybe get rid of the piano before next Christmas break?!?!?) They played outside, built forts, did crafts, played dolls, went to the bank, played at Luther, went to a movie, went shopping, and lots more!



December 30: My parents celebrated their 40th anniversary in September. Brian, Tara and I were texting at the time that we should do something fun for them at Christmas when we were all together. So we got a babysitter for the kids and we all went out for dinner at Rubyiat with just the adults! They had a 4 course wine dinner set up for us and we had the best time. Even though it was 3+ months late, it was definitely worth it. We never get a chance to be together like that.



December 31: We celebrated Christmas that night and had so much fun with all the kids. Everyone did great with being happy for others and taking turns. After presents, the big 4 had a piano recital for us that was so great! All 4 of them are in piano lessons and since we didn't see their recitals, they played their songs for us at my parent's house.



January 1st: We watched Iowa lose at my aunt and uncle's house, (boo!) but then drove to Waverly to meet up with our friends the Neymeyers for pizza . Wish we had a picture, but we spent 2 1/2 hours talking non stop since it had been a year since we saw them last. I always laugh when we put kids in a room with kids they "kinda" know and within a few minutes, they were all laughing and talking like they were friends they see regularly.

The rest of the week was just hanging out having fun with cousins and getting an amazing haircut for Max!





January 5th: Max and I took off for Dubuque for the day to see some people. We weren't able to see everyone we watned to see, but we had to get back in order to fly out the next morning! It was worth it though and can't wait to visit longer next time! Chris took off on the 2nd and so the kids and I flew home on the 6th with no problems at all. It was good to be home and get back on a schedule!