Future Hockey Star

Today we glided into a new adventure and tried not to break any bones.  We headed to the Farmington Hills Ice Arena to try out ice skating.  Despite my clumsiness, Chase showed pretty impressive stability and continued willingness to keep trying. Take a look at our future hockey star...

The ice rink had walkers for the kids to use to help them learn balance.

Chase wanted nothing to do with the walker.  He wanted to go on his own from the start and every time he fell he got right back up and kept on going.  I had a hard time keeping up with him because Leah was not supposed to be on the ice but of course did not want to miss out on the fun. It made for an interesting adventure.  We probably only spent 15 minutes on the ice but it was enough for Chase to fall in love with skating.  What is the best part about skating, the after ice treat...

I know there will be more ice skating in our future.  Before I leave you for today, I wanted to share some pictures from our snow fun this past weekend.

Kevin shoveled some snow to make a good play pile for the kids and then he and Chase had some fun building.

Chase was really excited about their igloo and was hoping that animals would use it to keep warm.

I love my boys!! Leah didn't last outside as long as the boys, so she hung out inside with me.  I got some pictures of her "cheesin."

Every time she sees the camera now she says "cheese". It is so cute! Have a great day!

Toot Sweets

I don't know about you but in my head I am singing the "toot sweets" song from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  I hope I got it stuck in your head too.

I think there is something very sweet and cute about little ones making tooting sounds and giggling about it.  Well at least it is sweet/cute now. I know it won't be in the near future. It will only be obnoxious.  For now enjoy the silliness from our house today...

I hope Leah's giggles made you smile today. I know they made me smile.  

Snow forts, snowmen, and slides oh my!

We were lucky to get to spend the morning playing in the snow with our friends Ellen, Lucy, and Charlie. Being southerners we needed help from some of our true northern friends to teach us how to really play in the snow. First of course every girl needs her accessories!



Leah loved her beads and would not go outside without them. Once I finally got her outside we all headed around back.



Within minutes I learned the quick and easy way to build a snow fort.






A big snow shovel, a bucket, and a laundry basket make for a quick fort. I would still be out there trying to roll snow balls, square them out, and stack them. Of course the kids attention span was not even long enough for the quick fort so if it would have been left up to me they would have only had one block of a fort before they were ready to move on. After fort building and snowman building the kids moved on to the playground.



Next time I will make sure to video the kids because they were having so much fun. We made a giant snowball and placed it at the bottom of the slide and the kids took turns sliding feet first into the snowball slowly destroying it. Needless to say the kids were well worn out after playing and we learned new tricks to snow playing!

Better late than never

I feel the need to apologize for my lack of blogging lately. It's not that we haven't been doing things, I have just not had the motivation to document them. Sorry!

Tuesday morning they were calling for rain with a possible winter mix. I can quote the weather man stating that it would just be a wet morning with no accumulation because it would be to warm. Well I guess the weather people up here are not any better at playing God than the weather men in the south because this is what we got....






I am not complaining by any means. Chase was so excited to have some fresh snow to play in instead of his icy plow piles at the end of the street.









I do have to give the weather people some credit because the snow was all gone by late afternoon. The snowfall changed to rain and melted everything pretty quickly. We however took advantage of every minute we could in the snow! We are getting more snow this morning and I hope it is enough for us to get out tomorrow and go sledding. We will see!

On a completely unrelated topic, I wanted to share with everyone the massive squirrels that live up here. Kevin caught one on camera the other day in our front tree.


Looks like he/she is posing for the camera. When we first moved here it took us a while to figure out they were squirrels. Guess they take storing up for the winter seriously up here!

Happy valentines day!!!

Hope your valentines day is full of love, joy, and maybe a surprise! Our two little Valentines bring each of those elements everyday. I hope you take the time today to reflect on the ones you love but also remember to do that more than just one day a year.





Chase and I had a little valentines fun making jello jiggers for his school party...



And I got a little treat myself thanks to my loving husband....



Happy valentines day!

Snow days

We finally got more snow last night! It has been so strange going from 55 degrees playing at the park to 13 degrees with a wind chill making it 0 playing in the snow. Luckily for me Kevin was home this morning and got to enjoy the snow with the kids.









Leah got tired of the snow pretty quick and Chase refused to come in so Kevin got Leah settled in the house so he could keep an eye on Chase.



After over an hour of outside time Kevin was finally able to get Chase back in the house.






He enjoyed a warm blanket and some hot cocoa. I think Kevin got Chase inside just in time. If you look at his poor arm in the picture above he was on his way to frostbite. Poor baby, he had so much fun!

Quack, quack

We are a couple weeks into February and we are still having spring like weather. Monday it was 55 degrees and sunny so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather.




We hopped into the stroller and walked to the park with our friends. It was so nice to get out and get some fresh air and vitamin D!








We had some playground fun climbing and sliding. Then we went in search of the ducks...








We found them and they were happy to get a few snacks from the kids.








Our nice long walk to the park kind of made me anxious for spring to really arrive so we can get out and about like that more often!

Surprise!

We love getting surprises around here! Yesterday evening we got a surprise box from Grammie and Papaw.




Chase was so excited when he opened the box!




A cash register! He has played with this particular cash register at friends houses before and loves it. I have been looking for one and was so excited that Grammie found one for the kiddos. It is fairly simple which is what makes it more fun and good for Leah to play with as well (when Chase lets her).








Today it has already provided hours of entertainment. Thanks Grammie and Papaw!

Welcome Home

As some of you know Kevin has been out of town for the past two weeks. The first three days of his trip were completely for fun and to celebrate his 30th birthday.  He left and headed for Las Vegas with with friends for a guys weekend.  They stayed at the Paris Las Vegas...

On Saturday they took a trip out to see the Hoover Dam.  Looks pretty awesome to me...

They saw the Blue Man group Saturday night and of course checked out the casino's. Early Monday morning Kevin headed out of Vegas on the Second half of his trip.  He caught a flight to New Jersey and then to Frankfurt Germany for work.  He arrived there Tuesday morning their time and jumped right into working.  After a busy work week he was able to begin birthday celebration number two.  Kevin met up with a co-worker who had moved back to Germany and on Saturday they headed to the Austrian Alps for some Skiing. 

Ha ha... ok so no Maria but from Kevin's perspective they were massive and beautiful! Here is a map of all the slops/ski lifts they had to choose from...

It was pretty foggy that day but still a breath taking site....

On Sunday, Kevin's actual birthday in this two week long celebration, his friend Maik and his wife fixed a nice lunch and cake for the birthday boy.

After another busy work week Kevin arrived back home on Thursday evening.  We could not let his birthday go uncelebrated so we had a little fun waiting for him at home as well.

After some presents, taco's, and birthday cake we enjoyed some of they German chocolate that Kevin brought back for us...

We all missed Kevin while he was gone and it was pretty evident that they kids missed him...

Happy birthday Kevin!