Morgan is 6!

We had a blast celebrating Morgan's sixth birthday last week!

 Morgan loves Frozen, so our theme was Frozen/winter/snow.

 Waking up to a serenade and first gift of the day

 Morgan brought warm hugs to all his Kinder classmates in the form of snow dough.

 We had to have some winter decor, of course.

 Olaf makes us smile whenever we see him.

 Our sweet six year old!

 Opening some presents.  I gotta say, the indoor snowballs were the best $15 purchase on Amazon I have ever made.  They have been loads of fun for the boys and the adults!

 And he received item #1 from his wish list...the ice castle from Frozen.

And then our special people arrived for more birthday fun.

 We invited friends to join us for an afternoon of sledding at Hidden Valley up in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was such a fun afternoon!  Here are both the birthday boys!

 

 Morgan and his friend N. 

 Jacoby and his BFF L.

 Morgan is a sledding expert and went up and down the hill non-stop for about 2 hours.

 Me and my mama

 Barely caught Grandpa Bill and Morgan zipping by!

 Jacoby loves to go fast and furious!

 And then we paused for hot chocolate and popcorn balls.  Yummy!

These were delicious and so easy!

 The birthday boy again...can't believe the little one is six!

Remember when he was this big?!  (:

 We spent time outside, enjoying the beautiful weather.  Morgan tried out his awesome stomp rocket.

Grandma Pam and Jacoby practiced shooting arrows.

And this picture sort of just sums it all up...lots of fun, mess, presents, and snowballs.  It was a great time!

Jacoby is 8!

 We've had a great time celebrating Jacoby the past few days.  I can't believe we have an 8 year old!

 The fun started with a party yesterday.  Jacoby requested (for the third year in a row) a Lego party, with this year's theme being Ninjago.  Justin put together a really fun laser maze for the boys.

 The boys started by decorated ninja origami stars.

 And then they practiced throwing them through rings.

 The boys had to work their way through the maze to get their ninja swords and then find their way back out.

 We played Sensei Says.

 The boys had to battle the evil Lord Garmadon from Ninjago.  The ninjas won and Lord Garmadon was destroyed, into tiny bits of balloon and paper all over the basement. (:

 The ninjas had a snack to refuel: cake push-pops, pretzels, fruit snacks, and juice boxes.

 Push-pops for the fourth year in a row!  I have definitely got my money's worth out of these!

 Then there was free play, so they were all over the maze.

 Oh Morgan, and those britches...or lack there of.

 They paused for 3.2 seconds for a group picture.  One of our ninjas came dressed as a Hobbit, in case you were wondering.

 Present time!

 And Lego building, of course.

 Jacoby requested a pinata, but I wasn't sure we could swing that inside.  So, we did a punch board instead.  The ninjas collected their party favors with each punch: glider planes, tic tacs, and wikisticks.

 And then, the four ninjas somehow declared war on the two adults in the house.  And for at least 40 minutes, it was a full-on battle!  The maze didn't make it, as you can see.

 Shortly after this encounter with the smallest ninja, I went to my secret stash of extra swords to arm myself with a weapon!  It was a great time.  Boys never cease to amaze me with their imaginations, constant movement, and love of play.

This morning we sang to the Birthday Boy and he got to open a present.

Jacoby brought scratch art bookmarks to his classmates at school today.

 And here we are...8 eight years old!

 More presents...and apparently pretty pleased with this Lego Chima set.

Birthday Interview with Jacoby

1.  What do you want to be when you grow up? - A chef, so I can make a million cake push-pops.

2.  What is the best time of day? - Lunch time with my friends.

3.  What is the worst time of day? - Bedtime.

4.  What are you good at? - Basketball.

5.  What's something you like to do with your family? - Play in the snow.

6.  Who makes you laugh? - L., my best friend.

7.  Who do you like to spend time with? - L., my best friend.

8.  What are you afraid of? - My allergies sometimes.

9.  What is your favorite food? - Cheese sticks and hot dogs.

10.  What is your favorite movie? - The third Hobbit.

 

Catch Up Post

I'm happy to write that we made it to the other side of life after the dissertation.  Mostly and barely.  Does it sound like the dissertation is all-consuming and around which all our lives are based these days?  Yes, yes it is.

Anyways, on to a catch up post:

We enjoyed a few ski days in January.

 The boys are starting to get comfortable on their skis and are building up endurance.

 Morgan celebrated the 100th Day of School.  He brought 100 gems to trade with his classmates.

 The boys are boisterous, active, and healthy...all of which we are thankful for.

I celebrated a birthday...

 Which of course kicked off our birthday season...ninjas will be invading next week.

 The boys made a sweet get well sign for Aunt McKenzie, who had surgery earlier this month to repair a torn ACL.

 I took an impromtu trip to Montana to hang out with her post-surgery.

 The boys enjoyed Valentine's parties this week.  It's probably the first year Justin and I haven't attended one...the boys are doing really well managing their food allergies in school.

 And speaking of food allergies, there was much celebration when Cheerios appeared again in our house.  The ingredients have been reformulated quite a bit, so there's not nearly as much wheat.  And it appears all types of Cheerios will be gluten free by the fall.  The boys can't get enough of them!

 

We've been enjoying really warm weather (until today, and now we're under a winter storm watch) and spending lots of time outside.  The boys spent an afternoon shooting their nerf arrows in the field.

Crunch Time

Justin turns in a draft of his dissertation on Friday.  To say the adults in this house, one in particular, are maxed out would be a slight understatement at the moment.  He's quite literally working around the clock.  After Friday, it will be up to the powers that be to determine the next step.  We're hopeful the outcome will be to defend this sooner than later, but again, it's not up to us.  If you're the praying kind and would like to send a few off on our behalf, we'd appreciate it.

I am due to write a recap of 2014 and divulge some hopes and dreams for 2015 on the blog.  I can't really see the forest through the trees right now, so I'll save all that for another day.  Right now there's another thrilling dissertation chapter waiting in my DropBox for a quick review.

Christmas 2014

Well, hello and happy new year!  Here's a recap of our lovely Christmas holiday:

 We had our friends over for cookie decorating on Christmas Eve.

 We went to church together.  Morgan was a perfect angel during the service despite what this picture shows.  (:

 We came home and had a Christmas Eve pizza party.  Delicious!

 Christmas presents arrived while the small ones slept.

 And finally, long-awaited Christmas morning arrived.

 Lego building commenced right after a waffle breakfast.

 We enjoyed good conversation with our special visitors.

 The boys used their new sleds to haul around their Christmas loot.

 We played games and the big boys had some fun with the Wii in the evenings.

 It snowed Christmas afternoon, so the new sleds were broken in.

 Here we are...another Christmas and another year blessed.

 The snow continued so we enjoyed winter walks and a trip to the sledding hill.

 We did puzzles...I can't really say that wine helped my puzzling skills all that much.  (:

The boys did some programming with Uncle Jared on their new Raspberry Pi computer they got from Daddy.

It was a wonderful holiday and we were very thankful to share it with family!