The big 4-0

Another one joins the 40 club!  It won't be official until tomorrow, but we celebrated Jeff's birthday early over the weekend.  We met when we were 23 and it feels like a lifetime ago.  Here's to another few decades together babe!
As always, the kids were super excited for singing and cake and present opening. 

We'll save the "over the hill" letters for 50!

Smile

Getting some help

Iris randoms

Just had a few cute pictures of Iris I wanted to post. 

Sporting her leprechaun ears for St. Patrick's Day

With her friend Emma waiting to watch Frozen

Getting serious with dress up time.  That's my wedding dress!

Pink ruffles and big smiles

I hate video games

Yep, I hate video games.  That pretty much sums it up.  So I was a little torn when an xbox landed in my living room compliments of a friend Jeff works with.  The kids love it and Jeff loves it.  They have fun playing games together.  Here's hoping we find the balance between a fun way to unwind and pass some time versus zombie kids spending hours staring at the TV screen.

They love it.  Me...not so much

The good, the bad and the smiley

We had our spring parent teacher conference for Miles 2 weeks ago.  The good news was that he's much improved in reading and math.  The not-so-good news was that he is apparently quite disruptive in class, talking at inappropriate times and having trouble keeping his hands to himself.  I can joke and say I don't know who he gets the talking thing from :)  But in all seriousness we want him to do well and also be respectful of his teacher and the other students, so this is something we are working on.
His teacher agreed to provide us with daily feedback in the form of happy faces, neutral faces and sad faces on a summary sheet.  It's been hit or miss, but today was a good day.  Fingers crossed for more of them!

Rough day

Good day

Yellowstone

We just had a great weekend trip to Yellowstone.  It is such a beautiful place...magical and mysterious and amazing. I hadn't been up there since the summer of 1993 when I worked there during college.  I had a moment realizing just how quickly a big chunk of my life went by.  It is nuts really...all that has happened in that time.  The kids are at such cool ages now for traveling and trips like that.  We only had a short weekend there, so we will have to return and explore more, but it was fun. The trade off for snow and frigid temps was that we had the place to ourselves compared to the summer madness. 

The first thing to happen after 5 hours in the car

Enjoying the fancy presidential suite at Worldmark

The quintessential Yellowstone photo complete with bison and hydrothermal features

The very cool vehicle we toured the park in

Ready to roll

Keeping me warm

Posing post eruption

Curious about the boiling water off the boardwalk

Lower Geyser Basin

Snowy Firehole Canyon

Firehole Falls

Family shot at the falls.  Look who's missing lots of teeth!

Girl power

Another.  Since I pay google $2.49/month for photo storage why not have both?!

At the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center. Such awesome and beautiful animals

Family shot on cool (scary?) couch

Posing with their new friend

Class projects

Am I the only mother who hates class projects.? Really hates them? Decorate a Christmas tree with whatever crafty stuff you have on hand.  We had none, so Fruit Loops it was.  Decorate a picture to look like your face with yarn hair, button eyes and fun fabric for a shirt...ugh.  Decorate a shamrock telling why you are thankful to be part of a family...sigh.  Even doing Valentines is a bit stressful.  I tried to be in the moment and make it fun and take myself back to when I was a kid and remember how much exciting it was, but it's a challenge to do that at 6:30 PM after everyone's had a long day and we are all ready for baths and bed.  To all the crafty moms out there...you are amazing.  I will just do my best with my left brained ways.

Taping chocolates to her princess Valentines

Personalizing all of his

First ski lesson for Iris

Iris had her first day on skis last weekend.  She took a lesson at Brighton.  It was painful to watch with lots of falling, but she insisted she had fun and wants to go back and do it again.  I'm not sure if that is really because she got stickers and a cookie at the end of the day or because she truly enjoyed it, but we'll be back at Brighton next weekend!

Cutie pie

Ready to roll with her purple snowflake skis

Blurry picture of her first ride on the chairlift