Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Natalie

Mommy and daddy remembered to have Gus sleep in their room this year so that he wouldn't scare the Easter bunny away like he did last year.  So when I woke up in the morning (I waited for the stoplight in my room to turn green), I walked out of my room and saw a few Easter eggs.  When I picked them up, they jingled.  I opened one and there was "noisy money" inside.  Each egg had a different amount and combination of "noisy money" inside.

I began to look all over for eggs.  But first, I went out to the family room to grab something to help me carry all the eggs.

Poor Katie was still sleeping so I had a good head start on her.  I think she heard all the commotion and all the "noisy money" and came out to discover my basket full of eggs.  She helped me find the hard ones and the ones up higher than I could reach.  That Easter bunny sure can hide eggs up HIGH in our house. 

Grandpa Larry and Grandma Judy came over for a lazy Easter Morning breakfast.

After breakfast, Auntie and Katie worked on making my birthday cake.

Poor lazy Gus was humiliated because he had to wear the Easter bunny ears...

 

Then we got to go SWIMMING in our pool!!!  This was the first swimming day of the season.  My crazy Auntie was brave enough to take Katie and I in the pool and play with us.  The water was pretty chilly but I didn't care at all.  I had a BLAST!

And then, after all that fun in one day, we got to have BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

Natalie's 3rd Birthday party

Mommy and daddy got smart this year and held my birthday party at the "big big" park, which is really the City of Chandler park near our house.  After we went to my friend Griffin's party at the same park, mommy decided it was the way to go (they offer fantastic birthday packages for kids -- complete with pizza and bounce house -- and take care of all the setup and cleanup).

So I invited all my friends from school and lots of my friends from the neighborhood and friends I know through mommy and daddy's friends.  It was a great turnout and I think everyone had a lot of fun.  My Auntie Adrienne even came to the party!!!

Special thanks to Griffin's daddy for braving the bounce house and helping
all the kids dunk on the basketball hoop inside.

 

 

 

After the party I came home and took a really BIG girl nap.  When I woke up, mommy said I could open all the presents that my friends brought to the party for me.

 As I opened my presents, I hung any clothes I got up on the nails we ususally hang our Christmas stockings from.  In the photo below: pretty new birthday dress from my Grandpa Husker, jammies from the De Marrs and day of the week panties from my Auntie Adrienne.

 After all the presents were opened, we had dinner and played outside.  I wanted to eat my dinner in the garage while daddy worked on fixing the window in his big white truck.

It was a great birthday party!!!

Big sassy eater

Natalie tells this piece of toast what she thinks...

Adult-only snowbeercation - 2014

With  help watching the kids from Grandpa Husker and Grandma Becky, we were able to take a grown-up snowbeercation to Colorado this year.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

It started with a trip to Vail to see Scott's younger brother and his wife from Texas who were there for some sort of work conference.  I mean really, who has a "work conference" in Vail in February?  Must be awful.  None-the-less, on my 2nd run of the day, I had a pretty spectacular yard sale (where basically you fall and lose all of your belongings - skis, poles, etc. - in the process) and was left all alone on the side of a very steep hill with no one around to deal with my misfortune.  Thankfully I was not injured but WOW -- after this fall -- it was like I forgot everything I knew from the past 12 years about how to ski.  The rest of the day was painfully slow and frustrating for me and likely for everyone around me.  Thanks for being patient!

Riding the lift with my sister-in-law, Meridith.

After a day on the mountain at Vail and a nice dinner out with Mark and Meridith, it was off to Winter Park all by ourselves.  We ended up meeting up with a good friend from Denver and Scott spent one day on the mountain with him (I spent the day as a lodge bunny drinking beer while I nursed my neck from my yard sale in Vail and went to get a massage) and the next day on the mountain with me.

Our cheap little motel in Winter Park.  Seems like a not-so-steep fine, but hey - what do I know?

We woke up the next morning to find our Hyundai So-not-a [car] covered in plenty of fresh powder.  Perfect for Scott and I to spend the day on the mountain together.

What started off as a fresh powder morning turned out to be a beautiful day.

 

 

That afternoon Adrienne came to meet us in Winter Park and we went out to dinner with some friends of my parents who happen to live just outside Winter Park.  It was great to see them, and, of course, to hear them tell stories about my parents when they were younger.  The next morning Scott, Adrienne and I drove up to Steamboat for our annual girls trip.  Scott ended up meeting up with the husband of one of the other girls attending girls trip.  The first day we were in Steamboat we learned that the gondola was closed due to high winds ... so we decided it would be a great excuse to scour the town in search of the BEST Bloody Mary.

 

 

 

 

That night the other ladies arrived and we ditched Scott.  Apparently I also stopped taking pictures at this point.  Probably because I was still very busy skiing like a 5 year old.

All in all, a super fun trip.

Although, as it turns out... I was pregnant.  Oops.  Sorry future kid -- mommy loves you lots!!

Sunday morning family hike

Sunday morning hike at South Mountain... Katie and Gus led the way up to the top.  Well mostly Gus was in front, but Katie was in charge of keeping track of Gus - the very well-mannered trail dog.

Someone tripped and fell as we were nearly 500 feet from the car ready to go home.  So she now has a her previously broken finger in a splint AND a busted lip.  Oh, and Grandma and Grandpa are supposed to arrive in a few hours.  Ugh.  Naturally, we stopped and got an ice cream cone to help her lip feel better.  Turns out she was so exhausted this is what happened...

And in case you're wondering, she woke up as soon as I tried to grab it.

Mommy's home improvement

Our house has always had this very stupid nook right at the far end of the hallway with the bedrooms.  If you don't have kids, I suppose it could be a wet-bar ... but even then, the location of it is pretty stupid for that.  We've always had either crap piled up or most recently, framed photos and other odd trinkets sitting on it (which no one ever looked at because it was at the end of the hallway).  Inside the cabinets?  Yup, all the half-used paint cans for the various colors of our walls.  All-in-all, it is a pretty worthless design and waste of space.

So after 7 years (and probably too much HGTV), I decided that I had had enough of the stupid nook and I went to work carefully disassembling it and removing it...

And so with a little help with Scott (I don't use power tools with rotating blades because they scare me), the kids now have a little research nook and their own place (that is not my desk) to use a computer for homework... all for under $100.