Good Stuff: Weather permitting

The last week or so has been a break in the routine we barely had reconstructed after the chaos of the holiday season.

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Madison Turned Three

They had a fun party for all her friends and family at Ninepipes.

Aspen put together an amazing and incredibly cute Nutcracker-themed party.

All of the little girls came dressed up in their tutus and ballerina shoes.  A few of the boys were dressed up, too.

Jack

I think her Pinintrest research makes Aspen more than qualified to handle all my children's birthdays. I wouldn't want her to have to wait an entire year to plan another party, anyway.

She had all sorts of fancy food and decorations, cookie decorating, Nutcracker story time, a pinata, and fancy goody bags with each kid's name on them which included little nutcracker coloring books and mini-Nutcracker. Since Lex was very intrigued with nutcrackers this Christams, he was pretty happy to have a little one of his own. It entertained him for few days.

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We did a lot of nothing on MLK Day. 

Some years we're good at actually recognizing the holiday.

This year not so much.

I worked in the morning and then left the little boys here playing games while the older people were still lazy and sleeping and ran into Missoula to return Christmas stuff I'd never got around to taking back.

I imagine they were still there an hour later.

Next year we'll do better. 

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After two days back to normal, we suddenly got a huge snow storm. . .  nearly two feet of snow in some of the higher areas.

So, it was a snow day for everyone. 

And then the one snow day turned into two snow days for the kids.

Israel on the sledding hill

Even their vehicles were snowed in.

Which was better than driving them.

There were an awful lot of slide off sorts of car situations.

And piles and piles of snow everywhere, even when it wasn't icy.

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Jenna Turned 10 on that first snow day.

And then she had her party on Saturday.

Ahni & Paisley

Getting a little help from her brothers with the present opening

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And then back out into the snow in the dark

Aodhan and Zoran were sledding partners for most of the evening.

The hill in town was pretty packed down by the end of the weekend. I don't know if it's even gotten so much use in such a short time span!

Ahni & Chula (I think? Maybe that's Gracie under the hair?)

Israel getting ready for a little snowboarding

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And inside, sewing. 


When she wasn't hanging out in the snow, Azia was figuring out her Christmas present.

She finally got her sewing machine out and set up. She figured it out pretty fast.

She had quite a collection of creations by the end of the weekend.

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and not really connected to anything else, but

Lex Loves His Orange Dishes

(also, he loves graham crackers and milk)

Graham crackers and milk. . . another good wintertime pastime.