Winter Wonderland

Winter is officially upon us.  We got slammed with winter storm Brutus this weekend and it snowed for 48 hours straight.  Jeff did his usual fantastic job of staying on top of the shoveling, and as a bonus he even built us a luge course/sled run in the backyard.  The sun finally made an appearance this afternoon and the valley is amazing.  We pay our dues living here with the nasty inversion, but crisp, clear blue-skied days like today make it so worth it.

Still smiling on round 3 of shoveling

Like father, like son

A video of our awesome sledding hill

Zoom!

Ready or not, here we come!

I might have bribed these icicle lickers with Halloween candy to get this shot :)

Bathtub Aerial got the boot outside and became hot tub Aerial when she started creeping me out by speaking in the middle of the night, asking if we wanted to play with her.  Here you can see her a few hours into the storm.  And below...well, you can see just how much snow we got because Aerial is long gone!

View of the beautiful Wasatch from our closet window

Mama's getaway

My awesome sister hooked me up with a plane ticket to go visit her in Phoenix last weekend.  I flew Thursday after work and got to hang out until Sunday afternoon.  We worked out, ate out, shopped, read books, got a massage and just relaxed together.  It was a huge treat to have the entire weekend be about what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it.  Thanks Jen.  Love you!

My BFF!

Halloween 2012

I finally have a few spare minutes to sit down and update my neglected blog.  First up...Halloween.  Better late than never, right?!  Halloween was a blast again this year.  I think it must just get better as kids get older.  The daycare did their Halloween parade through the building.  Ten pounds of candy later, we headed home for wandering the neighborhood to gather at least ten more! 
We had our annual pumpkin carving party/BBQ the weekend before Halloween and it was a success.  We lucked out and had perfect weather and tons of friends showed up to play.  Unfortunately, I was busy and socializing and bit frazzled and thus didn't get a single picture from that day.  We made sure to have our own family night of carving when things were a bit less crazy.  It was scary to entrust a 5 year old with the knife, but he did great!

First year with knife privileges

Miles' first pumpkin!

Parade stash on a windy afternoon

Getting amped for the parade and ready to dust me with her wand

Last year Spiderman was the costume of choice for half the boys in his class.  This year...ninjas!

Folks in our new neighborhood don't mess around.  Check out that collection of full size candy bars! 

We embellished the street sign by our driveway a bit. Mostly it just made me miss Bella every time I saw it.  RIP baby girl.