It's been snowing for days. The Forest Service guys have done a great job keeping the roads and driveways clear but I'm sure they are also ready for the storm to pass! There are piles on top of piles everywhere in our little compound.

This limb came crashing down yesterday evening in our front yard. Even though several came down throughout the compound, no homes were hit, thankfully.

The trees do look beautiful with all the snow! As it starts to warm up, they will start dropping the snow out of their branches. You never know when you'll be hit when you are walking around outside.

All summer, the boys use a little tykes table to get on the trampoline. As you can see, it is almost totally buried under the mountains of snow. The rocking chairs are also buried, again.

There isn't much clearance for the swings right now, either. They will be covered before the night is over I'm guessing. We are suppose to get more snow on and off through the next 24 hours. I can't remember ever having so much snow!

During the last storm, the boys put a piece of plywood on top of the little tykes fort so they could have a snow fort. I'm surprised it didn't snap under the weight. Today there is so much snow out there that they don't even want to try and walk through it. I'm afraid if they went outside, we may never find them again! Maybe we'll all go out tubing later today or tomorrow and really enjoy all the fresh snow as a family.

Potty Training - Take Four

Since Dylan is the youngest of our four boys, I have been less than pushy when it comes to potty training. Sure, there are a lot of positives of having your baby potty trained but it is also a process that seems to take FOREVER if they aren't ready or, sometimes more importantly, if you aren't ready to dive in.

Before the holidays, he would ask to go potty on the potty whenever both bathrooms were full or we were in the car or we were at a gas station that did NOT look like a great place to take a two-year-old with, what seems like at times like this, extra fingers, arms, and hands to touch everything. I decided with all the long road trips through the holidays, we would just wait a month or so and then he would be really, really ready and the process would fly by leaving me with four potty trained boys by summer.

Fast forward a few weeks and Dylan has decided everything to do with potty training is an evil concept. He no longer asks to go potty. Now, whenever I mention pull-ups or underwear or going potty, he begs to wear his diaper. The nagging voice in my head saying potty train now that I heard a month ago, now says, "I told you so!"

Last night, I thought I'd give it a whirl. He tried to pee in his bathroom, to no avail. We rounded the corner to our bathroom to try again and found it occupied. While he waited by the door, for about 30 seconds, he made a puddle on my carpet. His response?

"Oh no!" coupled with the facial expression of, "How did that come out of there!" I think he was genuinely concerned that he had sprung a leak.

Today is a new day and I pulled out the pull-ups when I got him dressed this morning. Before putting it on, we went back into the bathroom to give it a go. He has to stand up - like his brothers of course - so we have a little step stool for him and then he leans over and grabs the back of the toilet. He would arch his little back and then, look down where he sprung a leak yesterday and, looking at me with concern, would say over and over, "No pee from my pee hole! No pee from my pee hole!"

Pee hole? No one has ever referred to that part of his anatomy as such. It was all I could do not to laugh. The phrases they come up with. Logical, yes. Politically correct? Not always.

Knock Knock

Last night, at dinner, the boys were telling Gary and I knock-knock jokes. You know the kind. We told them in elementary school. Our parents probably told them in elementary school. We politely laugh and make them think they are the most original joke teller in history. Here's how it went last night:

Logan: Knock, knock
Gary: Who's there?
L: Banana
G: Banana who?
L: Knock, knock
G: Who's there?
L: Banana
G: Banana who?
L: This is going to go on for while Dad (followed by a round of giggling.) Knock, knock
G: Who's there?
L: Banana
G: Banana who?
L: Knock, knock
G: Who's there?
L: Orange
G: Orange who?
L: "Orange" you glad I didn't say banana?

Ethan's turn was next. He knows one knock-knock joke so we've heard it regularly but he acts like it's new each time which is kind of funny.

Ethan: Knock, knock
Aironn: Who's there?
E: Boo
A: Boo Who?
E: It's just a joke. You don't have to cry about it!

Tom rounded out the joke session and took the cake for the funniest round.

Tom: Knock, knock
Gary: Who's there?
T: Interrupting cow.
G: Interrupting cow who?
T: Dang it!

He totally forgot to interrupt Gary when he was asking who! We all, including Tom, laughed pretty hard at that one!

Trying to Trick Ethan

For a few years now, Gary makes white chocolate covered pretzels around Christmas time. Not being a white chocolate fan, I haven't really tried them but the boys seem to love them. Tonight he pulled out a bag from the freezer as a pre-dinner snack. We had scouts this afternoon and that always makes dinner late and the boys grumpy.

All the boys had eaten several pretzels and Ethan was enjoying a few more at the table when, all of the sudden, he says, "Hey! You tried to trick me!"

Being completely unaware of what he was talking about I asked him what he meant. His response was priceless:

"There are pretzels inside these!"

Yep. Hence the name chocolate covered PRETZELS!

Amen

Every once in a while, I just have to copy something Gary has written on his family website. He has such a talent with storytelling. Here is a recent entry:

"For Christmas, Irene bought the boys a hunting game for the Wii. We have been shooting deer, elk, ducks, geese, bears, buffalo, you know, whatever moves. So last night Aironn started a little contest after dinner. There is a shooting gallery option and you can compete against other shooters for the high score. We had played a couple of rounds and different folks were winning. Finally, Aironn announced the final round. So we were going to say prayers, and after your turn, you had to go to bed. Nothing like prayer and shooting to get you ready for bed. But the boys all thought it was a swell idea. So I asked Logan to say the prayer.

We all knelt in a circle on the floor and held hands, like a Norman Rockwell painting. The prayer was simple:Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for today, please bless we won't fall out of bed. Please bless I'll win the next round. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Aironn almost broke my little finger she was squeezing so hard. I don't remember who won that round, but I never said Amen. God bless the innocent children."

Church on the Edge

Today is Sunday which, since moving to a small branch, is always full of surprises. Today Gary and I didn't play the attendance game. Instead, we should have played the "How Long Will Church Be?" game. Here, you never know.

We attend a non-traditional two-hour block consisting of one hour for Sacrament Meeting and the remainder split between Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood. That is the norm for most Sundays but, occasionally, the block schedule is adjusted. Today was one of those days.

Our speakers were scheduled to come from Flagstaff. No one called our Branch President to confirm they were coming which was our first hint. We don't generally know who is coming from Flagstaff unless it is High Council Sunday. When the time came for the speakers, they still had not come so, our Branch President called on a visitor who was recently baptized to bear her testimony and that would be the entire meeting. Thirty minutes give or take a couple and we were on to Sunday School - our two-hour block shortened to 90 minutes. Some Sundays the weather has us just attend the first hour. Other Sundays we make it the entire two. You just never know living on the edge like we do.

It's All Fun and Games Until.......

Christmas Eve plus a foot of new snow in the past few days equals one thing: tubing! We have a great tubing hill right in our neighborhood and, since we are the only little kids in the neighborhood, the lines are pretty short.


Getting the little ones ready is half the battle. Dylan thinks he looks GOOOOOD in his over the knee socks and onesie though.

It was a good thing he also added more layers. The snow is pretty deep. He is standing up in this shot. I know he isn't really tall but the snow this winter is almost unbelievable.

Dylan loved going down the hill. Who could blame him? He rode down and was hauled back up on the sled he rode down on. It was fun both directions!

This is Logan and Ethan at the bottom of the hill. They decided to go snow swimming and see how far they could get. Their energy for swimming ran out long before the undisturbed snow.

Ethan loves tubing. He climbs his little legs back up the hill after each run and can almost carry his tube too.

Toward the end, Dylan's patience began to wear out. He wanted to go down the hill now! and wasn't waiting for Gary or the sled. Ethan was at the bottom of the hill calling him and Dylan would yell back, "I coming Eth, I coming!"

Logan and Thomas started jumping off the sled at the bottom into the fresh powder. That was the beginning of .....

snow throws. Dylan kept asking for his turn so Gary threw him into the snow. He loved the throwing part.

Not so much the snow in the face landing part.

Ethan couldn't get enough of it. He laughed the whole time and loved landing in the deep, soft snow.

Getting out of the hole was a different story. It's hard when you have short legs.

Logan could do it over and over. Gary could throw them pretty far.

It started to look like they fell from the sky. Not close enough to any foot prints to look like they'd jumped and little other explanation of how they got there.

It was a pretty fun two hours. It all came to a screeching halt on the almost last run down the mountain. Ethan and Dylan were at the bottom and Gary, Thomas, Logan and myself were taking the big black sled on a fast run to see how far we could go with all the weight we had piled in. It's a goose decoy sled and does have quite a bit of room but we discovered the space limit. We piled in, biggest to smallest, and off we went. About a third of the way down the hill was a slight bump, not launch you into the air bump but enough you knew it was there each time. That was our demise.

We hit the bump and Logan, at the front of the sled, fell out. Not overboard, out of the way. Not out but with a leg or arm still in front of the fast moving sled. Not even half out dragging behind. Out, face first into the snow with the sled immediately behind him with no where to go but over him. We ran right over the top of him and, there he was, face first in the snow with sled tracks up his back.

"I had my eyes open, Dad, and I could see everything and then it all just went black."

The good news is that he is okay. The bad news is that he now tells people he was "road kill" and we aren't totally sure if he ended up with a concussion from the ordeal. A Christmas story to remember.