My apologies for the blog silence lately...I'm trying to squeeze 10 lbs of stuff into a 5 lb day. Here's what's been going on lately:

:::Recently, Dave and Laurie, Matt's folks, came up for the weekend for a visit. Matt and Dave (Papa D) boldly took the almost-three-year-olds up to Bridger for their first skiing adventure.

Matt futilely trying to reason with a toddler. Here's how the morning went:

M and S: I'm goin' kee-in (skiing) with you, Dad. I'm gonna be really bwave.
M and S: (2 minutes later) I don't wanna go kee-in. I will cry.
M and S: (2 minutes later) I'm goin' kee-in (skiing) with you, Dad. I'm gonna be really bwave.
M and S: (2 minutes later) I don't wanna go kee-in. I will cry.


After much prodding, encouragement, frustration, and fruit snacks, they donned their gear and headed up the mountain.

Mason and Papa D on the bunny slope.

Though they didn't actually put on skis, Mason rode the Snowflake lift once with Papa D and walked down. Smitty rode the lift multiple times with Matt and rode down the hill in his arms.

Proud Dad and Smiggle.

After seeing Smith ride down with Matt, Mason agreed to ride down in Papa D's arms.

By the time we were ready to go home, Smith was ready to ride the lift over and over again.

By this point, my very patient hubby was ready to pass the kids off and do some real skiing.

Baby steps. Mason and Smith's first encounter with skiing was pressure-free, short, and accompanied with hot cocoa and gummy worms...and minimal tears. Success! My wonderful kiddos are cautious when it comes to new things...remember our first camping trip? Or how about the transition to big boy beds? The kind teachers at BSF tell me, weekly, that my boys "have trouble with transitions". Ahem. Matt and I have learned to have high hopes and low expectations when it comes to introducing something new and it has served us well :).

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::We've had some great sunny weather here in Winterland. Our backyard is south-facing and really heats up in the sun so we've been enjoying play-time outside as much as we can.

However, there's still snow covering our yard. Smith's shirt was "bodderin" (bothering) him so we took it off. Brrr!

Of the two boys, Smith really loves the outdoors. He has learned to put his rain boots on all by himself so he doesn't have to wait for me when he wants to go outside. He usually puts them on the right feet. The photo above shows his outside get-up: boots, tool belt and no coat. I love this look :).

My mama was in town for a visit and snapped a (rare) photo of me and my boys. I feel like my whole day revolves around feeding my family! It's always time to eat at my house.

We had our good friends over for dinner and fired up the chiminea. "Warm" is relative and since it was almost 30 degrees outside, we played outside and made s'mores over the fire.

A very talented friend took our family portrait before Christmas...but I still didn't manage to send out a Christmas card. We had another photo session with her recently, to capture a less-formal portrait, and I will be sending these out! Let me know in the comments if you'd like one. Sawyer's expression cracks me up.

Who doesn't love a laughing baby?