Happy Birthday Maren

Happy 6th birthday Maren! We are so happy to have you in our family. But how did 6 years go by so fast? It seems like we just brought you home from the hospital during a snowstorm with your crazy black hair and tendency to nap the day away.

Now you are a beautiful 6 year old girl, going to kindergarten, skiing black diamond runs and playing jokes on your sisters. You are imaginative and enthusiastic. You are spunky and anxious to be doing something. You love projects and outings. You hate chores and keeping clean. You have the most expressionistic face. We love you and hope this next year is even better than the last.

Birthday cake request... Chocolate cake with green vines, blue and purple flowers, and white writing - OR - a gingerbread house. I opted for the chocolate cake. It just isn't gingerbread season anymore.

Birthday breakfast request... Crepes with fruit and whipped cream. For dinner... Sukiyaki - a family favorite (recipe to follow).

Noise

Izzy discovered Paige's old tap shoes in the dress up box a few weeks ago.

They have not left her feet since.

Before, her constant chattering filled our house with noise.

Now, the chatter is joined by tapping.

As you can imagine, nap time is a much appreciated oasis of quiet in my day.

Holiday Camp

This year, we enrolled Hannah, Paige and Maren in Holiday Ski Camp. They spent the 5 days skiing from dawn till dusk and loving it. They had great coaches who helped them gain confidence and improve their skills. They would come home each night telling us about skiing on runs that we'd never even heard of. I was able to go up on the last day and ski some runs with them and thier coaches. I am so impressed with all that they learned and how much fun they had. They were skiing powder, groomed, crud, gates and trees. Grandpa would be proud!

Paige and Ally waiting to run the gates.

Maren with her coach.

New Year's

Since the girls spent all last week at Holiday Ski Camp, we decided to take a day off skiing and spend it at home taking it easy. The roads are covered with snow from last week's big blizzard, so we had some fun on new sleds from Grandma.

Kirk pulled us down to the lake with the quad. What a beautiful day!

The lake has frozen over and is amazingly clear and smooth. It's like walking on a very large sheet of glass. I wish I had ice skates! The ice is so clear that you can see everything underneath. The girls found plenty of interesting things, including a fish head and a barrel. It was so amazing!