Ice Skating and Dragon construction

Earlier this month we had mid winter break.  Megan and Melissa asked me to take them ice skating so we invited three friends and headed to a rink in Kirkland. These girls had only been skating once before so they were beginners.  They started out clinging to the wall but were pretty good by the end of our skating session.

 Melisa and Maddie made a great team.

 Megan and her friends had fun skating together too.

 I hadn't been ice skating in 20 years but I still remembered how to do it and never fell once!

 I thought these little seals that you push were super cute.

Recently we had the blue and gold dinner for cub scouts.  Nathan got to design and make a cool cake to take there.  He found a picture of a dragon cake online and decided to make that.  He did a great job mixing up two cake mixes.

 Then dad helped us to cut up the cakes into the right size of pieces.

 Here the cake is cut and ready for frosting.

 Nathan made the icing green and then I put it on.  Nathan did all the decorating and made the wings with fruit roll-ups.

The blue and gold dinner was lego themed.  I wish I would have taken more pictures of the decorations because they were really cute.

There were camping themed lego sets displayed on every table and these fun legos were on the serving table.  Notice the cub scout and his cake!

 I thought this cub scout cake was interesting.  I did not try it.

 Today I am thankful that:
*Emily got to go with her great friend Chelsey to Hawaii over midwinter break.  She had an amazing time.

*Holly got her mission call to Spain leaving in June.  She wanted to go Spanish speaking foreign and we wanted her leave in May or June so she would be back in time for winter 2019 at BYU. I'm glad it worked out so well.

*My cousin gave me this amaryllis flower bulb and we have had a lot of fun watching it grow each day.  This is 2 weeks of growth. We are growing forget me not flowers in the blue pot beside it.

The Magic of Snow Days

On Sunday night it began to snow.  It snowed all night and Monday morning school was cancelled.  We got 7 inches of snow, the most we've had in 5 years!  My kids were all very excited to play in it. At 7:45 am they couldn't wait any longer and headed out to play.  Here they are in our backyard.

 Around 9am I joined them in the front yard and we made these snowmen. 

 They spent the rest of the day running up and down our street, throwing snowballs, and playing with neighbors that they haven't played with since the warm days of summer.

Our neighborhood was like a winter wonderland with so many fun new things to do.  My kids didn't even want to come in and watch TV, play on their phones or on the computer.  Emily got together with two friends from her homeroom class who live nearby.  They went sledding, drank hot chocolate and played games.

 It was fun to see so many creative snowmen in our neighborhood.  This neighbor painted eyes and other details on her snowmen. 

 Scott worked from home but did spent a little time outside shaking the snow off our tree branches so they wouldn't snap off. 

 Then on Tuesday we had another snow day because the roads were icy.  I took my kids to a steep nearby street and they sledded down it on the ice.  It was very fun.

 We took Megan's friend with us.

 Then we had fun sledding down our manmade hill in our front yard.

 Emily was able to take a walk in the snow with a friend and her dog.  We wrapped up our second snow day with decorating Valentines cookies.  Melissa's friend Maddie joined us. 

 My kids are very creative decorators.  The cookies were delicious.

Today I am thankful for
*a clothes dryer.  Our snow clothes kept getting soaked these last 2 days and I would put them all in the dryer for an hour and then my kids would put them back on and head out for more fun.
*My awesome Aunt Kathy who is taking Holly and her roommates out to dinner this week to celebrate Holly's birthday.
*the chance I had to attend my nephews wrestling match on Saturday with my parents (he won the match too!) and an awesome dance competition at our high school with my daughter Megan (25 high school dance teams performed in amazing costumes).