Snow day!

Last year we had almost no snow, so for us, this snow is a nice welcome! I know almost everywhere else in the country is sick of the snow but I LOVE it! Yesterday we were teased as it snowed wet snow all day with no accumulation.  Then this morning, we woke up to this....

Then it just continued to snow big wet flakes all day!  Started the day off right with blueberry pancakes then off to our friends to sled on their big dead end hill.  When we arrived back home, we had 6 inches and it just kept coming!

Bamboo forts. 

sledding with our friends and neighbors. 

snow fort in progress. 

No school for anyone tomorrow! I love snow days. Mostly because we have so much fun playing in it that we get little else done. So tomorrow will be a nice day to catch up on what we didn't get done today. AND, hopefully play a little more. At the end of the day we had over 9 inches of snow! The kids will sleep well tonight! 

A camping adventure...

We had some gorgeous weather a couple of weekends ago. My principal mentioned to me that he and his family were going to go camping over the weekend. I called up Adam on my way home from work at 3pm and said, "I wish we had thought to go camping or do something fun this weekend." He said, "we still could..." We have never gotten ready so fast! He stopped at the store on his way home for oatmeal and marshmallows. I just started pulling out all our camping things. Not checking anything. Just piling it in the living room. I put on "Dinosaur Train" for the kids. We loaded up the car, the kids, and dog and headed to Larabee State Park by 5:30pm! It was a little crazy. We are crazy. Yep. 

It was the first time using our super HUGE family car camping tent. This thing is AWESOME!

Corbin did not ride his bike. But he did wear his helmet. They went in and out of the tent.

Water fountains are fun.

Because we did not plan, we figured we could just cook hot dogs over the fire; problem #1. We bought potato salad and buns. I have always cooked pretty good camping meals over the camp stove. Never over the fire. Now I know why. You cannot rely on a fire starting. Wood being dry. Having enough newspaper. Or being timely. We ended up boiling the kids hot dogs. We finally ate our own fire cooked hot dogs around 7:30 pm. 

My biggest kid!

Hmmm...I wonder if this fire will ever start or only be smoke? What do you think Ellie?

Maybe if we stick our tongues out at it, it will start?

Bad planning #2. Friday is a long day for everyone. Bedtime for Corbin and Eliza is usually around 7pm. Luckily we had lots of distractions which helped with melt downs... but Eliza was going into the tent and trying to climb in her pack and play and saying "night night" around 7:30 pm. So we got her layered up for sleep. #3 problem... too many layers. Then Corbin realized she was going to bed and he said he was ready. Hmm...how will this work? Will they both go down together? Will Corbin being in the tent help Eliza feel better? #4 problem... No it did not.  We have all slept in the same room before but we stagger bed times. They just wanted to roll around the tent together. Eliza would not stay in her pack and play and wanted to lay down next to Corbin. So we snuggled them in and left the tent. "Eliza, close your eyes, it's time for sleeping. Close your eyes Eliza. CLOSE YOUR EYES! MOMMY, Eliza is NOT going to sleep." On and on...Now around 8:30-8:45 pm. "Ok, mommy will come in and lay down with you for a while." Still did not work. Ok. Daddy's turn. He just decided to get ready for bed and stay in. I read by the now working fire. 10pm rolls around... still no one is asleep. Time for me to go in. Try to lay down and get everyone settled. Take off some of Eliza's layers. She won't stop moving around, crawling on everyone. We put her into the pack and play. She screams. I mean screams. We have neighbors on both sides of our site. 10:15pm seems a little late for a screaming child. I am sure they think I am torturing my child. I am sure she can sense my nerves. By this time she won't stop crying even when I pull her out. She is SO over tired. I try to rock her. I try to give her her bottle. I try to walk around with her. Screaming. Screaming. And More screaming. She is just too over tired to sleep. I try to just hold her really tightly and let her body relax. Sometimes this works. All she does is resist. So finally around 11pm, we stick her back into the pack and play and just pray that she will go to sleep after crying for a little while. We try to get Corbin to lie still (HARD). She just screams standing up in the pack and play. For more than 10 min. I finally pull her out and try to cuddle her next to me. A train goes by. Oh did I mention that almost every 40 minutes a VERY LOUD train goes by on the tracks right next to the campground? No. Yep. She looks at me and says "choo-choo train" then lays down and goes to sleep! Seriously?

But then an hour later. She wakes up again. Screaming. It's now almost 12:30 am. We try to get her to calm down. She won't. Her voice is hoarse from all the screaming. Corbin stays asleep, amazingly. I don't know what to do, so we get into the car and decide to go home. We will come back in the morning for Corbin, Adam and the stuff. She is asleep as soon as we get on the road. We get home close to 1am and sleep in our own beds till 7:15am. We head back to camp with coffee (the only thing I forgot!) and donuts. Eliza thinks it's great to be back...

I love camping. We can always go home in the middle of the night, right mom? And oatmeal in funny cups!

Breakfast of champions; instant oatmeal, hot chocolate, and donuts!

We headed down to the beach after breakfast. Pretty cool sandstone.

Rock climbing.

Brindzi was in heaven!

Perfect little seat!

All in all we had fun, minus in the moment of the screaming. But it was a good thing we were only 20 minutes from home. I have a few thoughts on how to make next time go better. We go camping with my parents in Ellensburg in two weekends...

Here is my crafty project! Garden markers.

Mother's Day dinner outside.

Bikes and books.

Some swim time!

Swimming lessons started too. Corbin is doing much better this year!

And are we surprised that she is a dare devil in the water too....?

SNOW!

We finally got our annual snow fall. I love it. I know some people don't love it and are thinking about all the days we will need to make up in June but I LOVE it! We already had a short school week because of MLK day on Monday. And now we are on our 3rd snow day tomorrow! I love it!!

This is what we woke up to on Monday morning. Going out to play!

Watching the big kids sled on the street.

The old runner sled that was my dad's. It's an old classic. I love it! It's perfect for snow covered packed down roads.

Corbin had a run-in with one of the neighborhood kids knees...although the kids shins probably looked worse!

I just love the look on Corbin's face!

Why not lounge in the tree, she says.

We had friends come over for dinner, tired the kids out, and then woke up to this! Almost 10 inches by the end of the day!

We headed over to the park to sled with friends. It was so quiet out. The snow was so peaceful. I love it!!!

Eliza and Uma weren't too into sledding but snacks and watching big brothers were pretty fun!

A little stop at Lafeen's for some hot chocolate and donuts, what could be better after sledding!

Then we had to head out to the best sledding hill in the neighborhood, next to our friend Jen and Toby's house. It was awesome! It was too big for Eliza and all Brindzi wanted to do was chase everyone down the hill. Tomorrow we will check it out even more and see how it goes with some hard cold packed down ice.

What I loved the most about this hill was that the whole neighborhood was there. Old, young, parents, kids, everyone. I loved it. On our street, only kids were out. Kids who should have been supervised. It was fun to see that just a couple of streets over with such a neighborhood feeling.

They are seriously crazy!

Today I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, so did Corbin and Eliza. Although I love the snow, it's hard. It tires everyone out. We get dressed up, undressed, look for mittens, hats, coats, etc. And today, I lost my patience with my kids. I couldn't decide if I needed some alone time or to get outside again. But one thing I did know was that I wanted to go x-country skiing out my front door before the storm was over. Tomorrow is supposed to not be so nice, so it was my only chance. It was also colder today and I had an allergy shot at 11:15 but I was determined to get out. So we bundled up again, and went out skiing. We went to the big field near Bloedell Donavan. I was a little nervous going along Electric for a bit, but we all made it. Corbin promptly decided he did not want to ski anymore and I had to leave. But I got out. I did it. Adam had to bring the kids back by himself while I hurried to my appointment. But I felt better afterward. I think we all did.

Brindzi also LOVES the snow! She was in 7th Heaven!

See this backpack. Eliza is all of a sudden obsessed. Seriously. After riding in it yesterday, she kept saying "Ba pack" over and over again. She wouldn't get out of it after we got home. She even had to sit in it while we ate dinner. Seriously. Then this morning, she sat in it for 30 minutes this morning. Whatever floats this girls boat! We had to hide it so she wouldn't see it.

Riding in the backpack makes me tired....(see our newest project...more on that later).

And down our hill again and again this afternoon. I had to sit out for the most part because, guess what, Eliza wanted to be in the backpack!

No school again tomorrow...possibly not on Friday either....wow!