Time to share my beautiful boys with you again :) We've been doing some fun things lately in the snow specifically! I've also been trying to get more pictures of them... I used to practically follow them around behind the lens, but with all my blogging goings on, I feel like I've photographed more staged stuff these days. And I want to make sure it's all in balance... that they are my real focus, more than whatever is sitting in front of my makeshift photo backdrops :)
Blessedly, we've had snow off and on intermingled with the cold- makes winter much more bearable for sure! Ryder's been asking when we can go to the beach or the park a lot lately- he is a summer kid for sure!
Recently we were at the grocery store and he asked if we could "stop on the way home and get ice cream at that cart with the chairs around and the straws." (Something along that line.) It didn't compute... I crouched down in the busy aisle and got him to repeat himself, tried to ask questions that would give me more clues about what he meant. And finally deduced that he wanted to get snow cones! See what I mean- you don't have an August birthday and not live for the summer I guess! :) He melts me...
We went out to play in the snow with the intention of building a snowman that looked like Olaf (from the movie Frozen). The boys were on a mission, carrot in hand. But... truth: snowmen are hard to build! They really are! There is no such thing in real life (in my experience) as an actual round, large snowball. When we've (as in me alone while the boys play around and wait for me to finish) made snowmen in the past, it's more a matter of gathering snow into the center and packing it together... more of a rectangle than a ball really. Cooper kept trying to roll a small ball into a bigger one, but it was no use and he got really frustrated. So we went with this cool snow wall instead :) Once I got him in the mode of packing snow into the kitchen bowls I brought outside, it was all good again. :)
Isn't it interesting how we sabotage our fun, of all things, with our expectations sometimes? Now that could be a huge, deep post all it's own...
Before the older boys went back to Pocatello over the break, we went over to the sled hill near our house and made it work, even though (obviously) there really wasn't enough snow. It really did end up being fun actually- Ryder is a daredevil, I tell ya! This year he could make it back up the hill without any problem, instead of Taron having to drag him back up again on the sled :)
And New Years Day we headed to Roberts for some ice fishing... which ended up being just that- fishing. No catching. Cooper complained pretty well the whole time. And Ryder just made snow angels... until Stephen got a work page and we had to head home anyway... such is life :) Glad to be outside and live in the country no matter what!
We tried this cool ice excavating activity recently- bringing the snow inside- and the boys loved it! Froze little toys inside a plastic container and then they got to chisel them out with a butter knife. Will definitely be trying this again, bigger even, soon!
And in other indoor activity news.., the boys built this huge car track for driving their wheeled toys on out of chairs- they were so proud :) Love moments like this.
And this... :)
