Yellow Snow

I really enjoy rollerblading and ice skating.  When I lived near Red Lodge, some friends and I would go play hockey out on Cooney Resevoir.  Well with all this snow and cold, I've been at a loss of what to do to get the kids outside and active.  Luckily both kids have shown an interest in skating, and a local church does a great job of keeping their parking lot plowed.  Here are some pics from one of our last outings.

 Blake decided she was finally good enough on her own to help Wyatt.

 They were pretty cute skating together.

The kids REALLY enjoy skating.  In fact, the last time I took snacks and drinks because they keep me out there for hours. Since we stay out so long, Wyatt has a hard time making it without having to go pee.  So, one time I let him pee in a snowbank that was lining the parking lot.  He thought it was the greatest thing EVER - boys!!!

One morning, the kids built a zoo in our living room while I was in the shower.  They crack me up.  They even gave me a private tour ;)

One little Wyatt story before I go:

I took Wyatt to the IGA to pick out a donut for breakfast one day.  I gave him a dollar to pay for it himself.  The cashier gave him back 21 cents.  When we got in the car to leave, Wyatt proclaimed, "I have ONE MILLION dollars!"  I wish.

Snobruary

February brought us record snowfall and precipitation.  We ended up with 36.8" of snowfall which blasted the previous record for the month of February by 14.4" set in 1978.  As of the end of February, we have had the 3rd snowiest winter on record.  Of course, winter isn't over yet. We are expected to move up in the rankings since March is typically our snowiest month of the year.  But, we've completely given in to the snow and cold temps and decided to have as much fun with it as possible.

The kids with Spike, our snow dragon.  It was so bright out, the kids couldn't look at the camera.

 My babies and me

 Heck, it had finally warmed up to 18 degrees, so ice cream sounded like a good idea :)

 Water balloons filled with food coloring and water set out to freeze, make some pretty awesome giant-sized marbles when you finally cut away the balloon.  Thanks Grandma, for the cool idea!

 Hats off to Reading! day at school for Blake

 First bowling trip...Wy doesn't share well

 My Valentine cuties

 I had to make him sweat it for a bit since he wouldn't listen to me when I told him he'd get stuck.

 It's such a drag getting up so early to take Blake to school.

Wyatt just cracks us up.  He is a really happy, little guy.  Don't get me wrong, he throws his fair share of tantrums, but he is such a goof otherwise.  One morning he got the bright idea of putting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stickers on his eyes because he said it looked "pooky" (spooky).  So, he put on his pooky eyes, waited for his sister to walk out of her room, and then scared the crap out of her.  Blake screamed and took off running while Wy-Guy could not stop laughing.  Aren't little brothers great?!

 Cuddled up on the bean bag for some movie watchin'

I know this post is a little long, but I have to share a couple Wyatt stories:

One day I was sitting in our living room chatting with a friend.  We were talking about the parents' role in the education of their children and expressing some of our own concerns for our little ones.  Well, I made some comment about how at least you're not that parent who completely ignores your child's educational struggles and goes out for a few beers instead.  At which point, Wyatt walked in to the living room and handed me a Corona. Touche, you little turd. Touche.  Needless to say, we got one heck of a laugh out of it.

One afternoon, I asked the kids what they wanted for lunch.  Blake said, "I want a grill cheese."  Wyatt then said, "I want a boy cheese."

Avoiding the Cold

After Wyatt's birthday, the remainder of January had us avoiding cold temps.  We managed to find several activities INSIDE to keep us away from the nasty wind chills.  One day, the temperature was -25, and the wind chill was -51 degrees!!!  AND, Blake still had school that day...ugh.  I've come to learn that they don't cancel school around here for cold or snow, so that'll take some getting used to as the kiddos continue on in their school years.

Here's Wyatt helping me mix up a batch of banana muffins.

 Blake & Wyatt getting in a game of Memory

 Puzzle Time!

 One of many Friday/Saturday night living room campouts

Wyatt's Third Year Video

Wyatt's Third Year video is FINALLY ready!!! I had some problems getting content off of my phone, so it took quite a while to make this happen. Hopefully, I have that solved now. ENJOY!!!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Fast Forward

Well, it seems like it has been forever since we last posted.  So, here's a fast forward of the last couple months:

Wy pretending to read to avoid picking up toys

Kids' bedroom decorated for Christmas

 Decorating Rice Krispie treat Christmas trees and snowflakes as an advent calendar activity

 And eating them.

 Brothers are so helpful.  Nothing could go wrong here, right?!

 Enjoying the snow...

 ...and not enjoying the snow.

 My cool dude.

 Buddies

 Wy pulling the sled

 Testing out the new ramp

 Adding to the ramp

 Real men wield pink & purple swords

 Living room camp out

 Wy's birthday cake

 The big three year old's birthday breakfast

 We've had a great last few months.  Grandma & Grampy came to visit on Christmas day and stayed for a week, but I didn't really get any pics.  We had an awesome visit, though.  Bob's been able to go out ice fishing quite a bit, and I was even able to get a ski day in with a good friend from college.  I'm sure I'm leaving quite a bit out, but I'm way behind on getting Wyatt's three year video posted...that'll be next.

Boo at the Zoo 2013

I'll start this post off with a picture of Blake's Positive Behavior Certificate from school.  She absolutely LOVES kindergarten, and she is evidently very well behaved and respectful.

Daddy was out elk hunting the weekend before and the week of Halloween.  So, I took the kids out to the annual Boo at the Zoo event at Zoo Montana.  The weather was about as perfect as it could be around here this time of year, and the kids had a blast trick-or-treating throughout the zoo and seeing the animals.  Wyatt went as Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Blake went as Rainbow Dash, the My Little Pony Equestria Girl.

Posing for Mom

Every time we go to the zoo, Wyatt tells us that there are sharks in the water under the bridge.  This is his impression of a shark.  He usually even throws a "ROAR" in there...I guess sharks look like they could roar?!

 They kindly stopped on the nature trail for me to take a pic.

I caught a good pic of Blake sitting on the rocks by the bear exhibit.  Wyatt, in the mean time, was climbing all over the boulders and falling down hills.

The kids even stopped to enjoy a Halloween performance at the zoo amphitheater, but we didn't get to watch the whole thing - Wy was a little too antsy.

After the show, we visited the barn area.  I had both of the kids' Halloween buckets tied to either side of my back pack.  One of the draft horses thought that I had a special snack for him, so he kept coming over to us.  It was pretty neat for the kids to get to pet him.  When we got done with the barn area, Wy-Guy was done.  As we were walking out of the zoo, there was a really long line to get in.  I happened to see an old co-worker and stopped to talk.  Wyatt just laid down and started to pretend to sleep.  Well, I say pretend.  I did talk for a while.  He may have really dozed off for a bit.

When Daddy's gone, the kids seem to talk me in to all sorts of fun activities - like putting jammies on and eating nachos for dinner in their sleeping bags while watching a movie :)

Blake got to have a Halloween party at school, so we made a little pumpkin toss game and took it as a fun party activity.  The kids really seemed to enjoy it, and then we gave them those butterfly, block and superman crayons that we made over Fall Break as a prize for playing.  We also took a healthy snack of ghost bananas and pumpkin tangerines - totally got that idea off of pinterest, I'm not THAT creative.

 

I carved the pumpkins while Blake was at school because we waited until the absolute last minute to do it.  I carved Blake a Rainbow Dash pumpkin, but it did not turn out very well.  Here's Wyatt's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pumpkin, though - it turned out nice.  I lined the pumpkin with foil and put green glow sticks in to light it up.  It looked pretty cool out on the front porch at nighttime.

The kids went trick or treating in our neighborhood, and then we came back to the house to pass out candy.  Blake LOVED it!  Wyatt enjoyed it as well, but the little turd kept grabbing candy out of the trick-or-treaters' bags as Blake was putting candy in...ugh!  Here's Wy enjoying some Skittles he snagged from some poor kid.  There will definitely be more supervision the next time Wyatt is allowed to pass out candy.

Hopefully, everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!

Fall...Again

We made our annual trip out to the pumpkin patch this morning.  Wyatt was pretty dead set on being a crank monster and not cooperating for pictures.  But, we still had a good time.  And, we even managed to catch a few accidental smiles from Wy.  Wyatt was not going to smile if he could help it.

 Daddy & the kiddos

I made Bob take pictures of me with the kids.  It's funny how when you spend most of the time taking the photos, you rarely get IN the photos.  We're long overdue for a family photo, but this is the best we could get for this outing.

 Blake with some teeny tiny pumpkins

After we finished up at the pumpkin patch and had some lunch, we made sure that our grumpy little Wy-Guy got a nap.  After naptime, I thought for sure he'd be in a better mood.  I was wrong.  We even went over to a neighbor's house across the street and played in the leaves (we don't get much for leaves in our yard).  Wyatt did have fun, but he was trying awful hard not to show it.

Blake, on the other hand, would have posed for a million photos if I would have let her.  She was having a blast jumping in the leaves, burying herself in the leaves, and building forts with the leaves.

 Stubborn Wy-Guy

 Finally, I caught a few smiles!!!

Hopefully, everyone is enjoying the fall weather as much as we are!  I'm just glad our little winter spell over the last couple weeks has turned back into fall again.