Independence - 4

Sasha loves emptying the dishwasher. We're taking completely enamored with the task. Like, multiple time-outs because she couldn't keep her paws off of the dirty dishes and insisted on pulling them out of the dishwasher even after repeated explanations that those dishes are dirty, yucky, icky, and the like and need to stay in the dishwasher.

Her favorite part of the process is stacking the kid cups and bowls and waddling through the house "helping" me put them away. Can't you just hear her as I'm taking this picture? "No, no, Mommy, I got it, I got it, I got cups."

Ski Season Returns

Hooray for Utah powder! Last week, Steve and I indulged in a day on the slopes together - it was heavenly. Well, except for the winded breathing and bringing quads and aching feet. Gotta love that first day of the season feeling :)

It was a lovely day and the new skis and bindings felt great. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that I can still almost keep up with Steve - skiing every day does give him a rather unfair advantage! Of course, he spends most of those days coaxing frightened five-year-olds off of the handle tow, so maybe the advantage isn't as great as I imagine. Plus he's running fixed-heel when he works, poor baby.

A great start to the '09-'10 season. Now to figure out how we can get them to name a run for Steve...

Happy New Year!

We had a great time ringing in Sasha's first U.S. New Year - happy 2010! With all of the changes, excitement, and fun we've experienced in 2009, it's hard to imagine how 2010 will top it - but it's a safe bet that God has more planned for us in this new year than we could ever ask or imagine.

We attended a very fun New Year's Eve party with the kiddos, lots of friends, and a chocolate fountain! Sam and Ben completely rejected the idea of dipping fruit in the chocolate (what a ridiculous notion!) and instead opted for making their very own chocolate-covered crackers.

Sasha opted for the more traditional strawberries-and-chocolate combination (my favorite as well), but freaked out when the chocolate was applied to the strawberry and stuck with plain strawberries for the remainder of the evening. Well, plain strawberries eaten from long skewers, so I guess they were festive after all.

And everybody stayed up all the way to midnight to cheer in the new year! Well... to be more accurate, everybody but Sam stayed up long enough to cheer in the new year and Sam was awake but had already been sapped of requisite cheering energy (as shown). We did tease a smile from him before he crawled into the car and zonked out on the way home.

As Sasha has been saying all day, "Aggy goo gear" from all of the Utah Morningstars!