Our Mountain Getaway: Togetherness

One year ago today, I entitled my post "Families Can Be Together Forever." We spent a couple days of Aaron's Spring Break celebrating that truth with some togetherness time in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. (Courtesy of the thoughtful generosity of his PA School classmates--we can't thank you enough!) We had so much fun sledding together, drinking hot chocolate together, swimming together, eating out together, eating in together, trudging through the snow together, roasting marshmallows together, reading stories by the fire together, playing crazy eights together, building a snowman and snowdog together, snuggling up in our cozy cabin together, reading the scriptures together, singing songs together, and enjoying the gorgeous mountain scenery together.

It was the perfect time to share something worth celebrating with our kiddos. I decided I'd give them a big clue and let them guess.

Me: "Have you noticed anything about my tummy lately?"
Xander: "It's getting bigger because there's a baby growing in there."
Elodie: "It's just getting fat like Daddy's."

Who do you think was right on the money?

(This picture was taken on Apr. 8, when I was 13 weeks along.)

Good Clean(ish) Fun

Elodie is quite a well-rounded young lady, thanks to the influence of her big brother. She is quite opinionated and doesn't usually appreciate my suggestions about what she should wear. She does not like to wear jeans and LOVES to wear skirts with fun tights. Some days her outfits even almost match, like her purple day above. So that part of her is pretty obviously girlie. Yet she tells me she wants to play football when she grows up, even though she sees the amount of tackling it involves when she watches Nolan and Xander play football in the family room. Do you think she's got the build for it?

She also enjoys shooting bow and arrows with her brother, who was kind enough to insist that I make a bow for Elodie after he finally got me to help him make one for himself. The hanger with tied-together rubber bands ended up working out pretty well; much better than the splintery shards of wood Xander was bringing in from the garage when he was trying to make a bow all on his own. And the quick drawing of a target was a good substitute for me and Elodie as the prime targets. If only dad wasn't gone studying all the time, he'd make a pretty good target...

And when I was distracted, she found a highlighter and out came some more girliness. "Mom, it's just eyeliner!"

Yes, she is wearing a Princess Cinderella dress, but she just "launched a missile" complete with sound effects. For the record, I always call them rockets, not missiles. Where does she learn these things?

Oh, yeah, from my little space engineer. He currently hoards toilet paper rolls and the like so he'll have the materials when an idea strikes him. I think his favorite thing I bought him lately was a roll of masking tape. I believe this was a rocket that morphed into a jet that has the capacity to scoop up water to put out forest fires. Yes, these projects do result in a trail of paper, cardstock, and tape scraps, but it is so fun to see his creativity blossom! And he's not too bad at cleaning up after himself, either! This stage of life is just good, clean(ish) fun! Do I have to send him to all-day kindergarten in the fall?