Pancakes

We don't make pancakes shaped like trains anymore, because those will never be eaten. We are way into letters and learning to read, so Ikey got initial pancakes and Jovie got her whole name.

Snowy zoo!

There weren't very many families at the zoo on the last day of January. It was probably the warmest day of the month, but we still wore our snow clothes. Ikey watched the armadillo for about 20 minutes. It was piling up straw and shredded phone books and tunneling under. I've never seen the armadillo do anything so it was kind of funny. Ikey said he was making a fort and he sang a song, "Armadillo armadillo: Scratching the tree. Armadillo armadillo: climbing the rocks." A lady walked by and said, "That looks like a big potato bug." Jovie said, "Potatoes are things you eat."

Snow storm!

A big snow storm finally cleared out the inversion and all the built up pollution so we can breathe again. Ikey got all his snow clothes together before 8 am today and announced that he would play outside before breakfast. He really gets into the snow and really can play outside for hours!http://youtu.be/Ld-jPNKwqwo

Todd had a lot of work to do clearing the sidewalks and driveway. The letter carrier left a note that we need to do a better job clearing in front of our mailbox so that's on TB's list now too. The kids like to help out with the little tractor. http://youtu.be/rGyLrdQckbE

Home defense and our arsenal

Our powdery Utah snow is great for skiing, but doesn't usually stick together enough for forts and snowballs, but it warmed up just enough today so we made it all. Thanks to AJ and Tommy for a bricker and snowballer. We warned you that we're armed and protected over here.

Swan Lake

Jovie is truly a little ballerina. Her favorite book right now is "Hooray for Ballet" and she dances to any kind of song and talks about "romantic tutus".
Here's a little movie: http://youtu.be/VO2OV9Be7Hg 
She says, "This song has a lot of feelings."

Poor Ikey

There's a flu epidemic in this country, but (knock on wood!) we haven't been very sick. Regular old sniffles and a little coughing is all, but Ikey's little lymph nodes on his neck are so swollen again. He had this last year during winter and it looks so creepy. He says it doesn't hurt, but it does bug him when I ask him to stick his chin up so I can look. We went to the doctor for this last year and his pediatrician said it was just his immune system at work, so I'm banking on that again this year. If you're a health professional though and you're worried about this at all, let me know asap and I'll take him in to the doctor.

Ikey has been working hard with his flash cards and letter games and he's starting to sound out words. He gets really excited about being able to read by himself. We finished reading "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" and just started "Fantastic Mr. Fox".

Third ski lesson

Ski class was at the top of the gondola this week, so we didn't see any of it.

 

 

 

 

 Todd says it makes him really nervous to give Ikey to someone and just walk away, but it doesn't seem to make Ikey nervous at all. He's the small person in the green coat who is not looking for his parents.

Maybe I need to define "polite"

The lady seems a little young to be gross, but she's potty trained now, so it turns out that she's old enough. Whenever someone in our house gets a little inappropriate with their conversation or name-calling, I tell them that it's only polite to talk about bathroom issues in the bathroom.

Jovie: Mom, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the potty. Pot, why do you have poop in you?
Aimee laughs
Jovie: Mom, the Pot said it's because I pooped in it. I can talk like this to the potty, can't I?

I guess you need one safe room in the whole world to say whatever comes to your two-year-old mind. You've been warned not to strike up a conversation with my kids in the bathroom because it won't be polite.

Ogden's Union Station

We visited the car museum and the train museum at Ogden's Union Station with our friends Breezy, Alyssa, Gracie, Kade and Sophie. We ate lunch at Union Grill and we were the craziest crowd there with only two moms and six kids.

3 seconds of fame

Here are my three seconds of fame. I have twelve left to burn I guess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plvu-Ncdp5g

Second Ski Lesson

Ikey and Kenny on Jan 18. Not too cold today!

Todd said, "You're so lucky to go to ski lessons this morning."
Isaac said, "I'm the luckiest person in the world! I feel luckier than someone who gets a present, or has a newborn baby or gets married."

He had second thoughts about that, because he was kind of heartbroken that he didn't get to go with Jovie to play with Grandma Pat and Grandpa Joe this morning.

Ikey had a private lesson today because Charlotte didn't come. I couldn't see much of the lesson so who knows if he learned anything, but Kenny did. Kenny said that Isaac is "so funny." He said that the gondola had a full load of kids and adults and Ikey climbed on and got everyone's attention and said, "Hey guys! How cute am I?" and pointed at himself with his thumbs. I asked Ikey about that and he said, "I did that because I was trying to be funny." I asked him to recreate the moment.

I told Kenny that we were watching the videos from last week and Jovie said, "There goes a pink skier!" Ikey said, "That's Charlotte. She's the only one in my class. See that snowbank? We call that a Charlotte-Catcher." Kenny laughed and laughed. I said, "That's your joke right? You made that up?" He said that must be Ikey's joke because he hadn't heard it.

After I dropped Ikey off, they announced that "Extra" was filming at the resort and they wanted a crowd to meet Mario Lopez ("Saved by the Bell" "Dancing with the Stars") and I am, of course, a huge celebrity chaser, so I stood in a background shot and was interviewed briefly about Lance Armstrong's admission of doping. Since I am Lance's biggest fan, I said something supportive, although I've thought of a thousand better things to say since then, not to mention a million more flattering things to wear. Also, I am not as beautiful as Mario Lopez and I never wear so much makeup, but I would have if I had known.

20 Questions

We just started playing this game in the car when we can't find any "regular songs" (not Christmas songs) on the radio. Our first category was Animal, and Ikey asked the following questions:
Is it a mammal?
Does it live in the zoo?
Those seemed like really smart questions for a brand-new-four-year-old to come up with.

The next category was Person. Ikey's questions were:
Does he celebrate Christmas? (A nod to our Jewish friends)
What color is her car?

I told Ikey to choose an animal, but he said, "I am thinking of a boat."
Me: Is it bigger than our SUV?
Ikey: Way bigger! Like as big a cruise ship.
Me: Do people go on it?
Ikey: Yes! People like kind of live on it and cruise around.
Me: Is it a cruise ship?
Ikey: Correct! Good guess!

Ski Lesson!

Isaac is asking Kenny a question. I think Isaac asked him questions for two hours. Kenny said Ikey did a great job and was "very pleasant" so good job buddy!

It was so cold, in the teens the whole time, and snowing and blowing pretty strongly by the end of his lesson, but Ikey is impervious to cold. He didn't complain for a second. Four more lessons to go!

Ski Lesson Movies - Part 1: http://youtu.be/ao7-VUvd_zM
Part 2: http://youtu.be/wSkMpusM_mU
Part 3: http://youtu.be/sGQjx-2MvjQ This one is my favorite! He looks like a little person riding the magic carpet by himself.

Downtown Field Trip

Can you see the Capitol behind the kids? This was the first day in weeks that you could even see your hand in front of your face. The air quality in the valley is not very good during the winter. 

Miss George gave us a friendly personal tour of the observation deck on the 26th floor of the Church Office Building on Temple Square. I had been telling the kids that it's the tallest building in Utah, but it turns out that the Wells Fargo building is two feet taller. We'll have to go look at that, but I'm not sure we'll get such a cheerful tour guide.

We ate a delicious meal at The Pantry at The Lion House. Our dining room used to be the vegetable cellar. We had two desserts and only one vegetable.

 

We had a nice tour of The Beehive House from ladies from Germany and Latvia. The kids loved the women. Ikey said, "You're being so polite!"

 
Ikey told the tour guides that he is a railfan (it's part of his regular introduction) so they pointed out this banister with a locomotive and a train track. Ikey said it's "a really old Trax."

 

We stopped at the beautiful new OC Tanner building in the old Hansen Planetarium building. We looked for amber and were hoping to see a piece with an insect in it, but they don't sell amber...but can I interest you in a Rolex? Yes, you can.

 

We checked out the Social Hall museum and the tunnel under State Street. It was snowing by the time we left our downtown field trip, so we pretended it was Christmas the whole way home.

Cedar Valley

Grandma Rainey's mother's parents were from Cedar Fort which is on the west side of Utah Lake. We've heard a lot of fun stories about Cedar Valley, so we packed up Grandma Rainey and went to see ourselves. We stopped for a quick look at Utah's veterans cemetery at Camp Williams which was pretty and peaceful. We drove around the snowy roads of the little town of Cedar Fort to see where Grandpa Cook's house was, but it's gone. We saw lots of uncles' houses and a cool old rock wall and the old school that is going to be remodeled soon. We saw the Hacking home where the kids' Great-Great-Grandmother grew up.
Past Cedar Fort is Fairfield and Camp Floyd Stagecoach Inn State Park. There was a big (the biggest at the time, just before the Civil War) camp of US soldiers at Camp Floyd to try to deal with
"The Mormon Problem" (it's complicated so you'll have to look it up). The state park has a little museum and a restored home/hotel. Mark Twain stayed here!

 
 
 
 
Grandma Rainey is a very friendly person, and she talked the ranger into showing us a restored school house in Fairfield. It was really cool!

 

We had lunch at the bar at Porter's Place on Lehi Main Street. The kids liked sitting on tractor seats.

We went to Hutchings Museum on Lehi Main Street. It's an old-fashioned museum full of minerals and rocks and gems, lots of arrowheads, and an old jail cell (Ikey liked that!).

It was a great day out in the cold with a wonderful tour guide, Grandma Rainey!

Round Valley Hike

The air in the valley has been so gunky since the inversion started at Christmas, we just couldn't take it anymore. It drove us so crazy in 2010, we sold our house and tried to move out of the valley, but only made it to Holladay. We decided to head up to Round Valley in Park City to get out of it for a few hours this time.

Ikey is usually a good hiker, but since there was a sled, he rode the whole time. Jovie hiked around a lot.

 

 

We saw a lot of skiers and dogs and the dad and the kids sledded down the hill to the car. It was a nice break out in cleaner air.

Practice Run

Ikey starts ski lessons next week, so we made a practice run to the Canyons to see how long it takes and how hard it will be to get there. It was stressful enough to get two kids safely through the parking lot and up the Cabriolet (even with no gear, two adults, good weather...) that I came right home to see if the Grandmas can watch Jovie during lessons for a while until I figure it out. We hiked on the "trail above Pete's house" after we left the resort.

Happy New Year!

We went to brunch at the Kanshepolsky/Gotshalk home with the Baskins. The kids had fun playing and we had good food. It's so nice to have fun friends!
I made "hoppin' john" and french bread and met Grandma and Grandpa Faucheux, Dallin, and the Wans in Lehi for a traditional New Year meal. We played Scrabble (Popa had a 45 point word- is that a record?) and unless I did the math wrong (totally possible), Dallin beat us all.  Happy New Year!