March 2016

Beach afternoon..so much for El Nino.

Viewing week at Dance Class.  Can't wait to see my Beauty dance at her recital.

Fun times with Lennon.

Putting together leprechaun traps.

St. Patrick's Day at school.

Liam, Lucy and Skylar

A special egg hunt in our front yards.

Skylar got to have a special play date with her Kinder friends at Lucy's house

Olivia, Liam, Parker, Lucy and Skylar

Easter 2016

Talk about the never ending Easter.  I swear I feel like we have been celebrating Easter for weeks now and we haven't even had Spring Break yet.  I think it was the unless egg hunts the kids participated in.  In the end it was a total of five egg hunts each and now we have enough candy to last us until Halloween.  

For Easter weekend we spent it with family and friends.  Saturday we went up to Aunt Elsa and Uncle Jon's for family Easter.  The kids swam the whole time, played with Lennon and had an egg hunt.

Cousin love!

On Easter Sunday the Finkel Family was sweet enough to include us again this year.  Janet of course went over the top. She sent up a massive egg hunt to the point that the kids couldn't carry their baskets because their were filled with eggs.  We had a delicious brunch, which even included a cadbury egg cake.  Skylar, Madden and Mackenzie played together all afternoon and ate enough sugar to keep them up all night.  

My precious bunnies!

Bressi Ranch Easter Event 2016

Last weekend Jenn and I (the two last standing on the social committee) put on our first event as a duo.  This was the first time in almost a decade that the social committee hosted an actual egg hunt so we wanted to make sure everything was perfect.  Along with the Egg Hunt we added a petting zoo, obstacle course, DJ, and of course the most important the Easter Bunny. 

To make the weekend and event even better Lennon came down to join us on the fun.  Erin and Matthew were away in Napa for the weekend so my parents were on babysitting duty so I told them to come down.  Lennon’s Egg Hunt was the first one up.  I took him out there and he didn’t seem to interested in putting the items in his basket, he wanted to carry most of them by hand.  He got over the egg hunt pretty quickly and wanted to spend most of his time in the petting zoo.  The petting zoo was a massive hit and the crowd was crazy in it and Lennon wanted to be right in the middle of it.  He didn’t care too much about the animals he just wanted to be in the middle of the crowd. 

The obstacle cross was the highlight for Skylar and Madden.  I swear they ran through it the entire 2 hour event, expect for their egg hunts.  They both conquered the warped wall a half full of times and Skylar even in her long dress won the time trials for her age group.

Skylar and Liam

Olivia, Skylar and Sophie

A full baskets of sweets. 

No success getting a picture of Madden with the Easter bunny, his fear of characters’ lives on.  Lennon did pretty good, no screaming or tears, but definitely wanted off the bunny’s lap.  Skylar and Sophie were perfect.

The event was a huge success and the community was super grateful for all the work we put into it.  Can't think of a better way to start off the Easter holiday.

Madden's Jog-a-Thon 2016

Last week Redeemer held it’s first ever Jog-a-thon.  We tried to explain it to Madden, but I really don’t think he understood what it was.  Finally I just told him not to worry and that his teachers would tell him exactly what to do.  I volunteered the day of the event to help tally laps for each kid in Madden’s classroom.  Madden’s class was asked to wear RED and Madden was stoked to be wearing his Spiderman shirt for the race.  

Madden and his best buddy Carter getting pumped up.

Enzo, Madden, Carter, and Braden getting ready for circle time in class before the run.

Our class was the first group to race.  The kids were super stoked when they arrived to the field.

Doing their stretches before the run.

Ready, Set, Go! The kids were off and they didn't really stop running for the next 25 minutes. 

The field was pretty small so the kids were racing around it so quick.  We had to tell them to slow down, rest and drink water because they were all zipping around so fast and still had a full day of school ahead of them.   

In the end Madden did an awesome job by running 36 laps and raised a total of $440.00 for his school.  He had a ton of fun and asked if he was going to get to do the jog-a-thon the next day.  

Mammoth 2016

Back to the snow for us.  We got a week off from skiing and then we packed up the kids and repacked our snow gear to headed up to Mammoth for a long weekend.  Since Jake and I had our own solo ski trip, this one was all about the kids.  It was going to be Skylar’s third year on ski’s and Madden’s first.    I really wanted this to be the trip that we got to ski with the kids,.  The usual suspects join us as well; Mom, Dad, and Jeremy.  We made record time and arrived to Mammoth by lunch time.  The condo was great and the kids were in heaven like they always are when it comes to hotel rooms.  That evening we ate dinner at the condo and after much discussion decided on ski school instead of a private lessons for the kids. 

We headed up the mountain early to get the kids signed up to ski school.  For weeks now we had be talking to Madden about skiing and he was pumped for it.  He kept telling us how he was going to go super-fast just like he does on his scooter.  He was going to ski with Sissy and get to have hot chocolate and a cookie.  He was all about it…well that was until we paid for ski school. I spent 10 minutes trying to convince him to just take off his snow boots so they could measure him for skis and boots.  He got sized up and put on his ski boots to only walk three steps and demand we take them off and he proclaimed he wouldn’t be skiing.   I tried for another 15 minutes telling him how much fun he was going to have, how he will be with Skylar, how he was going to get to ride an escalator and go really fast down the small hill.  I even threw my birthday at him, telling him its Mom’s birthday and the only thing she wants is to see him ski.  Nothing work…he would just say “No, No, No!”  So me dream of seeing Madden ski is just going to have to wait until next year.  Jake and I skied most of the morning while trying to peek in on Skylar.  Skylar was of course a gem and rocked ski school.  She had a blast and improved so much and got the OK to try and ride the Poma lift. 

#skischoolfail

Skylar age 3, 4 and 5.

That evening we went out to dinner in the village to celebrate my birthday.  Jake and the kids made me my favorite ice cream cake and everyone sung happy birthday to me.  It was a perfect birthday for me. 

The next morning Skylar was all about skiing with Mom, Dad, and Papa.  Yes, Papa rented skis and hit up the mountain for the first time in years. I don’t think I have seen him ski in almost 20 years.  What grandparents will do for their grand kids.  My dad was always an awesome skier and he still had it, I just wish he would of lasted longer than 5 runs. 

Jake and I probably should of listened to Skylar’s instructor better because we decide to forgo the Poma lift and head straight up the mountain on a bunny slope with Skylar.  Skylar got off the chair lift like a pro.  When we told her it was time to start skiing down the mountain everything went downhill, and not Skylar skiing downhill.  The tears began running down her face and they didn’t’ stop. She would only move as long as she was holding on to my arm, which in turn was us falling and not moving much.  We tried to tell her it’s just like what she did at ski school, she wasn’t going to get hurt, she wasn’t going to go fast.  It was just pizza all the way down, but she was crying and screaming so much she didn’t care.  She just wanted off that mountain.  At one point my Dad took her between his legs and was able to move her more than two feet.  That didn’t last very long and by that point she had pretty much given up and wasn’t even trying.  She would honestly move 2 inches and fall down on her butt and just cry and cry.  We finally just took her ski’s off her and she walked down the mountain with Jake.  In the end it took us an hour to get down the bunny run and it made me realize why lessons and instructors cost what they cost because they are worth every penny.  Jake and I said it was the hardest hour of our life as a parent for Skylar.  We knew she could do it and were so frustrated that she wasn’t even trying, but at the same time felt so bad for putting her in that situation.  I figured she would never get on a pair of ski’s again.  We left her with Jeremy at the bottom of the mountain and took off for a couple runs as we figured she  needed space from us and we did from her.

The chair lift up was fun.

This was just one of her many falls.

To our amazement when we came back from doing a couple runs Jeremy had Skylar back on her skis and she was skiing down the bottom part of the bunny slope, and not to mention she was skiing amazingly well.  Jeremy was a miracle worker and so great to  see her having fun after the debacle on the mountain with us.  She even hit the Poma lift and rocked it doing it a handful of times.  We couldn’t of been more proud of her!!!

Snowman building with Dad.

All smiles.

High five to sister after her awesome run.

Lending a hand to his sister.

A storm was brewin so Friday evening into Saturday morning we got some snow.  We decided to not ski and take the kids to our old sled run.  We built a snowman, did some sledding and the kids had a snowball fight with my Dad and Jeremy.  Snowballs were definitely Madden’s highlight of the trip.  We ate lunch at one of my favorite places in Mammoth that I hadn’t been to for years.  Saturday the snow really started dumping so we stayed indoors and played rounds and rounds of monopoly and uno.  Madden was definitely the champion of the weekend after winning most of the games.  Sunday morning we woke up to so much snow that it was hard to leave it.  Fresh powder was everywhere.  The snow was so bad and coming down still that we had to put chains on just to get out of Mammoth. 

Madden refused to be in the picture because the snowman didn't look enough like Frosty the Snowman.

Until next year Huck the Bear.