Crazy kids

Everyone else's kids were bundled up nice and warm to play in the snow. My kids started out that way, but by the end of the day, the older two had stripped down to shorts. It didn't seem to bother them at all. They must get this from their dad because I'm always cold. I love this picture. It's just classic Grant and Brady.

Snow Days

The kids were out of school Tuesday through Thursday this week because of snow and ice. It wasn't that much snow and ice, but since Oklahoma doesn't get weather like this often, the roads take forever to get cleared. My kids were really happy to have a few days off.

The Echeverrias live a few blocks away from us and happen to have a perfect driveway for sledding. We walked down to their house several times and had a blast sledding for hours.
It's been 2 years since we've had enough snow to sled, and this time we couldn't find our sleds anywhere. We improvised and came up with all kinds of things that were fun to ride down a hill. We even used Drew's tricycle.

We also tried a cardboard box. It was pretty slow.

The Echeverrias had a few sleds that they shared with us.

Grant is sliding down on a pizza pan. The pizza pans were the winners. They were really fast.

My kids and the Echeverria kids decided to hold hands and go down together.

Here they come!

This picture was taken right before the giant sled mass hit me and knocked me to the ground. It's really not that smart to stand in front of a big group of sledders to take their picture. However, I didn't learn my lesson and was taken out again later in the day.

Drew couldn't get enough of the snow.

Grant perfected the "pizza pan snowboarding" technique.

The next day my sister and sister-in-law and my nieces and nephews came with us, too.

The boys were more than a little disappointed to go back to school Friday. But it was fun while it lasted.

Triathlon Results

Before the triathlon, there was a lot of friendly family taunting about which team would have the fastest time. Nick/Ben and Heather had to compete in the coed division which had tougher competition. They did so great and came in 4th place. Steve and Wes came in 2nd in the men's division, which had the toughest competitors of all.

It's been noticed by several people that I failed to mention in my previous post which family team won. (maybe my pride had something to do with it)

So, in all fairness, here are the results...
Steve smoked us all (which was no surprise). His time was 56:45.
Ben/Nick/Heather did it in 1:00:30
Christina/Alicia/Andrea did it in 1:02:42

There you have it. We were defeated, but only by 2 minutes!!! I get to take the credit for the 2 minute loss. Heather is SO fast, and I couldn't keep up with her in the run. But, we were all happy with our times. Had my team been competing in the coed division, we would have come in 5th right behind Ben, Nick and Heather aka the in-law team.

I don't think this is the last time our family will compete in an event like this together. A little friendly competition is good for us! (in other words...you're going down next time in-laws!)

St. John Indoor Triathlon

My sister signed me up to do an indoor team triathlon with her and her friend Christina. After hearing us talk about it, Nick, my brother-in-law Ben, and my sister-in-law Heather decided to form their own team. Then, my brother (who was originally signed up to do the individual triathlon) decided to compete with our friend Wes in the team triathlon, too. We all ended up in the same heat and that made the competition even more fun. My mom and dad brought ALL the grandkids to cheer us on. Here are a few of them.

Nick did the bike portion, and I did the run for my team.

Christina had an amazing swim time. You'd never know she's 5 months pregnant!

Ben and Wes after their swim

Steve and Nick in the middle of their 10 mile bike ride. It was kind of funny to do the bike ride on a stationary bike, but how else do you do an indoor triathlon? I was glad that there was a track for the run.

Alicia was enjoying every minute of her bike ride. :)

I loved being able to do this with my siblings and their spouses. What a great way to spend a Friday night!

Our team came in 1st place in the female division!!!

MLK Day

We love any holiday that gives you a day off from school. We invited Cole, Micah, and Brent over to play.

Grant and Cole had carpet skate races. My mom got these carpet skates for the boys for Christmas, and they have loved them.

We dumped our entire lego collection out in the living room, and the boys spent hours building all kinds of things.

They also built a huge fort in the living room complete with separate rooms.

That's why we love Martin Luther King Day!

Wii Bowling Tournament

We also had a Wii Bowling Tournament on MLK Day. They made a tournament bracket, and even a t-shirt for the winner.

I love the look of concentration on Brady's face.

They're still good friends after the game. :)

Drew and Brent were even in on the action. Drew is completely obsessed with the Wii. He would play it all day if I would let him.

Everyone always wants to play against me, and I'm not sure why. Could it possibly be because I ALWAYS lose? I really need to practice.

Brother vs. Brother

Semi-finals

Shaking hands before the final face off. That's right--Drew made it all the way to the finals. Look at Brady's face in the background--you can see just how happy he was to have been beaten by Drew in the semi-finals. He kept saying, "But he's only 4!"

And the winner is...

My sweet little Drew defeated his mom and 5 other boys to become our official Wii Bowling Champ. He wears his t-shirt proudly!

I love to hang out with my boys! I'm as happy as they are when school's out.

Partying with the Girls

Sometimes you just get tired of being the only girl in a house full of boys, so while Drew was at school Thursday, I invited my 3 nieces over for a "girls only" party.
First we painted our toenails. The girls chose pink, and Mazee chose red for me.

Emmy was our official "polish holder".

She was very helpful!

After we sang a few songs and played a few games, we were starving, so they made their own pizzas.

It tasted delicious!

Emmy is starting to act like such a big girl. She wanted to do everything Mazee and Kaylee were doing.

After pizza, we needed dessert, so we made sugar cookies.

Of course we decorated our cookies with pink and purple frosting.

It was such a fun morning with my favorite girls. I hope they'll come back and play with me soon!