The Best of January

The first half of January consisted of potty-training Drew.  That's about it.  It completely consumed me!  But on the other hand, what goes on in January anyway?  I figured it was the best time.  He did pretty well!  There were many accidents (sorry again, Nora!), many frustrations,  and it was so hard not to get mad at him.  But we persevered and I'm comfortable entering public places again.  Woohoo!  Only ONE baby in diapers now!

Baby Tommy has been loving all the toilet attention too!  He loves plungers (for some weird reason) and will carry them around the house if I don't keep them out of reach.  He also loves throwing things in the toilets such as toy cars, crayons, phone chargers, and my hairbrush.  Gross!  He and Drew have each battled croup this month.  I don't know why that's the only illness my boys ever get?  Oh well, I'll take it over pneumonia or rsv.  Scary stuff!

The snow has been coming and coming!  We've had a few good dumps in January and the kids just love playing in it.  Underneath the trampoline is the new hangout.  There's also been the occasional snowman and mini sledding hills.  Snow is a great time-killer!  Dallin's new snow pants may be completely trashed by spring, but at least he's having fun.  I've been so obsessed with making sure everything gets dried at night, we bought a 2nd boot dryer.  It's been a necessity this winter!  What else has been happening?  Deep cleaning the kitchen (there was a gold mine underneath the oven), swimming lessons at the Kamas pool, adjusting to 2-hour church (trying to keep Tommy entertained makes it seem like 3-hours still),  and just watching the snow fall.  I've loved being home full-time this winter and I love that it's turning into a REAL winter!

Snowbasin Saturday!

I've never considered myself a great skier.  I plateaued in my mid-20's while working at Deer Valley.  During the 1-hr ski breaks, I had to get as many runs in as possible before going back to work.  I never took the time to slow down and practice technique or mogels or trees or steep terrain.  Bevan, on the hand, is fairly better than me.  He gets to ski many times during the day and never in a huge hurry... lucky duck.  Anyway, I've picked up a few things over the years from eavesdropping on real ski instructors.  Teaching Anna and Dallin how to ski has been a real eye-opening experience too! 
Just go down the hill and ski already!  You'll pick it up!
Anyway, Nora wanted me to come give some pointers to her older kids... AND also offered to watch my kids in the meantime.  Deal!  I was so excited to ski with Addie, Ben, and Paige at a new resort!  It was a bit of an adjustment with different lifts, different runs, and (gasp!) snowboarders.  It's definitely been a while!  Maybe I'm getting old, but it seemed like every other skier and snowboarder was skiing WAY too fast and slightly out of control.  Maniacs!
We had so much fun.  I'm glad they knew the resort and where to go.  The runs are long too!  My legs were so tired!  My favorite part was at the end of the day.  It was our final run back to the car, a new area and we just came to the top of very steep hill.  The teenagers had doubts, but pulled it off great!  They definitely improved throughout the day.  Ben said he wanted to keep going, but the rest of us were done.  Finito!  Don't worry, I'll be back.  Snowbasin is totally worth visiting again!