Thanksgiving Break

So my parents are on a mission in Modesto, California.  We normally would be at their house this holiday but really wanted to try to get together with siblings anyway!  So we hatched the plan to go visit my sister, Katherine, in St. George.  Emily and Dan and hopefully even my brother, Mike, were going to come, and we knew Liz wouldn't be able to come from North Carolina.  As the holiday approached Mike and Emily said they weren't coming but Jenn and I decided to forge ahead and so glad Kath welcomed us to St. George and into their home.
Robie and I left a few days early to try to ski at Brian head before Thanksgiving.  We got there late Monday night and checked into Cedar Breaks.  We really like that place - and this time we had a 2 bedroom deluxe unit which has a king bed, 2 doubles and a pullout... it was so nice to be able to spread out!  We went over and got Ashley to her snowboarding lesson at 10, and then got everyone else ready to go on the slopes, so by the time the little ones were ready it was about 1045, and by 12, the lifts were shut down for the day!  The wind just kept getting worse and worse.. so luckily they did give us a credit for the cost of the tickets (not Ashley's lesson since she had just finished) so we tried to go Wednesday and it was also shut down all that day.  It sort of turned out to be a blessing because the little ones were miserable anyway and we went over and just played in the snow and they had fun with that and without the pressure of riding the lifts, etc.  Ashley was totally pooped and sore anyway so she wasn't really wanting to snowboard anymore.  We did get back on Saturday and Fox went down one run I think total and Lauren went down a few times on the bunny hill and one time on the main beginner hill (Navajo)... she literally cried the entire way down, and some of the parts she was actually screaming.  If it wasn't so aggravating it would be hilarious. So we just let them sit in the lodge and we enjoyed the rest of the day... i'm still definitely a beginner, but I'm getting more comfortable on the slopes and only embarrassed myself a few times during the day :)  Fox did end up liking to ride the magic carpet up and then ride the training area down, but instead of going the way he was supposed to he wanted to ride up and down the edges and "jump" off the powder.. i don't know why he would want to do jumps but then won't even go down the freaking run - i was glad he finally found something he enjoyed.

just a dream

I usually wake the kids up around 7:15 to get ready and leave for school at 7:45 - it's a little tight, mostly just on the days when the kids don't want to wake up.  Of course, now that the kids are all getting older, the only two I really need to worry about are Fox and Lauren because the other two get themselves ready!  This morning when I woke Fox up, I did the usual walk into his room and just sat on his bed and softly said, "time to get up buddy".  He looked up at me and said "Oh, it WAS a dream!"    I was so confused until he said that he was having a dream where he was riding Grizzly Rapids at Disneyland, and then I woke him up but he knew he was just dreaming already :)  Hilarious kid!

Brooke's birthday

Brooke wanted to have a little snorkeling adventure and then cake for her birthday - so she did!

fox is cute...

Fox is not exactly loving school, but he's mostly been ok.  On Monday when I dropped him off for school, he got out of the car and then he came running back and starting getting a little teary-eyed and didn't want to walk away.  HEARTBREAKING!  seriously, its enough to make you park the car and just put him back in and let him skip the day of school.  Instead I said "shut the door, I have to get Ashley to school and I'll make you popcorn when you get home (they are really into air popped popcorn with the white cheddar flavoring on it)"  bye.

He just really wants to run and play and talk and school is all about not running or playing or talking... which kind of makes me a little sad!  He has been doing pretty good, though, and only has had blue (the designation for not a perfect behavior day) two times.  He is currently obsessed with video games, though.  He loves the WII but knows we don't play that often, but he also really likes the games on the iPad or the phone.  As soon as he finds one he likes, he literately can not stop thinking about anything else.  This morning when he was going to school he was already asking how many minutes he could play the iPad when he got home.  Then after school, the first thing he said was "I only get 20 minutes because I had a blue day"... it's like the first thing he thinks about in the morning too.  It honestly worries me, because he clearly goes to thinking of that whenever he is bored or not busy with something else.  The only way we got him to soccer practice was talking about how he could play later after he went to soccer practice.   I hope he doesn't turn into some sort of video game obsessive dude that only plays games all day and doesn't hold  a job!

I can't believe I didn't get a picture of his cute outfit and hair on Sunday.  Lauren had him all dressed up when I got home from ward council and they had slicked his hair down and so then he sort of looked like that old picture of that kid, Alfalfa, from that one show a long time ago (i know, so descriptive right?)  He is one super sweet, super cute kid!  We are always having people comment on how cute he is and that he should be in commercials - we agree, so cute!

Cute sayings

Fox is almost six and it is super sad that he is definitely not a baby anymore!  Robie and I love that he still says some things that aren't quite right.  As much as he loves his sports, he says two of them in kind of a funny way.  When he says football, he always says flootball, with an extra L in there... it's seriously darling.  But the other day the older girls were trying to help him say it correctly and Robie and I were both like "leave him alone - we like it that way!"

He also says baseball with 3 syllables, like base-a-ball.  It's seriously the cutest thing.  The only thing that isn't quite as cute is that he wants to play base-a-ball and neither Robie or I are really baseball fans, so we would really rather he not even know that base-a-ball exists :)

Family time

It's been a while, but I don't want to forget everything that is going on right now, so figured I'd pick this back up!  Specifically, we had a great day on Sunday.  The older girls and I went to the church for a fireside - the speaker was a BYU volleyball player and he was good, but that's not the thought of the blog.  When we got home, Robie and the younger kids were still up and Ashley really wanted to practice the piano, so she played for a little bit, but had a hard time keeping up with Robie and Brooke wanting to sing, so they asked me to play the piano for a little while.   We ended up singing different church songs (like old ones from when I was growing up with some Michael McLean etc.).  It was a great time - after we ran out of sheet music, Robie even pulled out his Spanish hymnal and he and Brooke started singing in Spanish (which is really what she had wanted to do in the first place).  We laughed a little about when we sang in church (the VonTyler family singers) and how they haven't had any families sing again after that (coincidence?!)   Especially with teenagers in the house who have their own interests, etc, those special family moments seem fewer and farther in between.  We have been playing games on Sundays, too, which has also been really nice.  We got Settlers of Cataan and have been playing that, and Fox is obsessed with this game called "Sleeping Queens" - it's a card game and he loves it!  I bought it like a year ago but we took it to Zion and got it out to play after the Mendenhalls left which my kids said would be boring and so it was super fun to have something new to introduce :)

text picture sent to a friend with a quote that said "favorite quote from this moment - 'this play house used to be bigger'" hahahaha