Fun while we were there

We managed to have a great time at the cabin. Ben loved being toasty by the fire. Amelia braved the temps of the sun room to play the piano. We had a delicious pre-Christmas turkey dinner with all the fixings and Phil and Amelia even made a snowman. Much to everyone's fears, we headed out before the next storm rolled in.

Over the hill and through the woods........

DISCLAIMER: Sorry to all those who have heard this already, but it's too great to not post on the blog with the pics.

We had a fun adventure to the cabin for Christmas. We made it through half of Cedar Mountain with no problem until we hit Kane county who apparently is against plowing. Here's the difference.

Yep, the first picture is what it looks like plowed, so you can imagine the scariness of the not plowed parts. Philip was white knuckled the whole way. When we finally got to the cabin, the road was completely covered, so there was no way we were going on it. It was dusk and snowing, so Philip decided to run to the cabin, open it up, turn on the heat and water heater and head back with skis, snow attire and a sled to haul our stuff. I geared the kids up and consolidated the bare necessities into 1 bag.(THANK YOU Annie and Anneli for lending us snow clothes because they would have froze without it)
When Phil got back it was completely dark and the snow was really coming down. Ben started a fever somewhere outside of Vegas and was not doing so well, so we were really worried how we were going to get him to the cabin without making it worse. Luckily Phil brought a huge jacket so he carried Ben in the Baby Bjorn and zipped him inside his coat.
I loaded up the sled with our necessities, carried Amelia on my shoulders and pulled the sled. It was slow going. I was trying to manage walking in 18 inches of snow with no light or snow boots while pulling a sled and carrying Amelia, who was screaming because she had snow on her mittens and was scared because "it's dark in here". To say the least, I was holding Phil up, who had skis, a light and my sick baby, so I told him just to take Ben to the cabin and then come back for us. I attempted to stay in his tracks, but it was so dark, it was hard to find them some times. I kept going thanks to Amelia's little words of encouragement like, "don't fall mommy" and "mommy's so strong". I thought, if pioneers could do this wearing dresses, puling handcarts and having no warm cabin in sight, I could do this. We managed to get two thirds of the way when I heard Phil calling out to us. Amelia kept yelling back, "hey dad. What you doing". We met up and I was happy to hear Ben was able to stay asleep the whole way and was now happily sleeping in the warm cabin. I was so glad Phil was there to pull the sled the last part, because getting up to the driveway is the hardest and the driveway has the deepest snow. Phil decided he wanted to make 1 more trek to the car that night for Amelia's medicine and a few other things we were worried about leaving in the freezing car all night. (soda bottles that freeze and explode everywhere!!, expensive electronics, Amelia's baby and blankies) And I think he was so hopped up on adrenaline, he needed to do it one last time. It sounded fun until he hit that dreaded driveway again, and thought, "I've made a terrible mistake", but he made it. All in all, it was a crazy idea, but it all worked out. No huge problems, just a lot of sore muscles and wet clothes. For the rest of our visit, it was a fun adventure to trek to the car (in daylight, with snow clothes and skis or snow shoes) and see what we had done. Our last day, they plowed the road so even Amelia walked out. It seemed so cowardly. These are pics of us leaving but you get the idea of us coming.

Christmas at our house

We celebrated Christmas this morning since we will be gone on actual Christmas day. We started off by waking Amelia up to her snowflakes. Then we brought her out to open presents. She had a good time opening everyone's presents. In this collage you can see her helping all of us. If you could hear the sound of her showing Phil his gift it would be, "woooeeeeee". Unfortunately we were not videotaping this one burst of excitement. All other videos had little to none of the emotional outbursts we were expecting and hoping for. She is very meticulous about unwrapping gifts (and always has been). She rips little bits at a time, slowly and softly, as you can see in the top right pic. She made sure Ben didn't eat the wrapping paper because, "that's gross, buddy". She had a good time and we managed to do all this, eat, shower, dress and be at church by 9. I say that's a good morning. Merry Christmas to all. (Now I must help Phil take down the tree so we don't have to do it when we get home!!! I feel a little bah humbug taking the tree down BEFORE Christmas)

Let it Snow

Philip had a great idea last night to make some snowflakes and hang them in Amelia's room for when she woke up this morning. It turned out pretty cool and she loved it.

Ben's Eating Cereal

I love this series of pictures. Amelia insists on feeding Ben if she sees me do it. I like how wide she opens her mouth to show Ben. What a good teacher and Ben loves everything Amelia does. They could entertain each other for days. He is her real life doll for feeding, changing, inserting pacifiers, burping and wrapping up. If she could carry him around, she would. Although she has just realized that she can move him around by grabbing his feet and dragging him. He mostly thinks it's funny, but it's not helping his bald spot or dry skin on his face.

Quote of the Day (a few days ago)

The Subaru died last week, and every time we go past it Amelia has to remind me 50 times, "mom's car's broken". A couple days ago, she asked me if we could go to Costco. I told her we couldn't go because daddy has the car. She looks at me all accusingly and says, "mom's cars broken. Mommy broke it." I immediately said, "No I didn't" then laughed out loud because I felt the need to defend my honor to a 2 year old.

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth

This is Ben's theme song this year. Today Ben cut through his first bottom front tooth. He's been gnawing and drooling and whining for a couple of weeks now. I thought teeth were a little early, but when I saw and felt his lump a couple weeks ago, I was preparing for the long haul. With Amelia, it took months of swollen gums to cut 1 tooth. This kid fusses a few days and whines a little and boom, there's a tooth. Can I request that all my other kids be like this, or should I just end on a good note?!?!?! Look close, this was yesterday and you can kind of see his gummy lump. Today's it's a tooth. Congratulations Benjamin!!