MLK Day

No way we were wasting the precious gift of a day free from schedules last Monday!

Adam, Zac and Ben woke up bright and early, before the sun, to make the drive to Copper with Chad, Dallin and Kate Murdock for a day on the slopes.  They had great snow and many great runs, including Ben's very first black diamond hill: Indian Ridge.  He spent more time on his skis than on his bum, even if a lot of it was sliding sideways, which we totally count as ski success!  It was a wonderful day with wonderful friends! 

Tom, Luke, Josh and I woke up nice and lazy.  Yessssss.  Mid-morning we piled in the car for a drive to meet up with some church friends for a little hike at Red Rocks Open Space after seeing a message on Facebook from a mom who sent out a "come one, come all to join us!" invite.  It was a beautiful Colorado January day, the kind that makes you think it's almost spring, even though spring is still months away.  I was happy for the opportunity to spend time with a few ladies from the ward and their cute kiddos.  Sometimes I feel like I know very few people in our ward outside of the young women organization, so it felt good to connect with some of the ladies who I see so often but only in passing.  It was a lovely hike in a gorgeous location and sweet time with my three littles and fun moms. 

Can you tell who takes more pictures?  No...really...I'm grateful that Adam takes any at all!  

The Bits: January 11th through January 21st

Mid-January Bits:

After moving rooms and switching beds a few times, Luke's old affirmations were looking a little ragged.  Recently, we finally got around to making new signs, repeating old favorites and adding some new ones.  Once they were up everyone wanted some.  So it was affirmations for all!  Feel the Conlin positivity flowing....

Zac came down with a sudden and yucky stomach bug a couple of Sundays ago.  He woke up happy and feeling fine, but by eleven he was throwing up, and by two he was sound asleep...and slept for almost two days.  I was worried, with the sudden onset, that the germs had spread before we knew he was sick and that everyone was exposed.  So many of our friends have faced some nasty bugs this season!  But luckily, Zac went through it and the rest of us were fine.  Phew!  A little germ here and a little germ there, but really, we've been lucky so far this year.  I hope it keeps up. {knock on wood!}

I had a meeting at church on Sunday night; a light snow was falling, but barely sticking.  When I came back outside after the hour-and-a-half gathering, four inches had fallen and more was coming down.  We woke up Monday morning to a snowy, chilly, foggy and starkly beautiful day.

When sky and earth blend.

Two days of late-starts: one misty and snowy, one sparkly and stunning!

Adam and I had a good chuckle over the yoga-among-the-laundry.  Real life, people!

A fun throwback to when my sister and I were rappers.  And we were gooooood.  Salt 'N' Pepa good!  Well...maybe not that good.

My dad found this gem on the support board under one of the beds in their house when they were doing some reorganizing and decluttering.  I am so lucky to have grown up with such a great dad who not only let me help him out, but also took the time to capture the memory. 

Because the snow outside was "too cold."  And not nearly as yummy!

Tommy spent all day working on a birthday party for Sven, complete with dance party, presents (carefully chosen by Tommy for each of us to give) and stargazing, and invited us all to come.  Tommy is so darn cute, it's hard to deny him anything, so before bed we partied with Sven and Tommy!

I added this to the calendar last week.  It makes my heart hurt just thinking about it!

Sunrise

The Deacons held their winter Wimp-o-Ree at our house last Friday night.  It was total tween-boy fiesta!  Thankfully, their Scout leaders were in charge and I could just hide away upstairs.  Above is a picture of some of the treats that one of the moms sent along with her boy for sharing.  Clearly this was a party for tween boys: Han Solo encased in carbonite chocolates with multi-colored nonpareils on the back are not something that you'd typically find at a gathering of girls! 

Tickle-torture gone wrong.  Luke always surprises us with how well he takes "real" injury.  Little scrapes, bumps and bruises are earth-shattering: screaming, limping, whimpering, wounded for hours; but a huge gouge in his head from the bed post?  He cried as any kid would after a major bang-up, and then, relatively quickly, he was fine and just talked about it calmly.  It was the same when he split his chin.  Weird that the ones that should hurt the most are the ones he's most chill about.  Happy about it, but always surprised!

Sugar and I are on a break.  Back during the holidays I think I OD'ed a bit.  I was craving sugary treats all the time and would sometimes get a little light-headed/dizzy after consuming something sugary, so I decided to cut the refined and added sugars, as well as refined white flours which act like sugars, out of my diet after the New Year just for the month of January to give myself a little reset.  Naturally occurring fruit sugars and whole wheat and other grains are OK!  It's been hard, and I crave sugar all the time still, but I haven't had that funny light-headedness, nor had the sugar ups and downs, since I started, which has been really nice.  I have also found some yummy sugarless treats to indulge in, like the chocolate pudding made with cashews, unsweetened cocoa powder and dates pictured above.  YUM!

Ruby is hoping the Seahawks take an early lead in the Super Bowl, because that conference championship game totally stressed her out.  First with the frustrated cursing and shouting, then with the joyous cheering and screaming!

Between this arriving in the mail and kindergarten enrollment coming next week, I'm concerned that my heart won't be able to handle the upcoming school year!

Those front two top teeth are {finally} both out!  With his new short mohawk cut and the banged-up brow, he's looking like the cutest scrappy little thug boxer in town!

Serving in the young women is such a joy to me!

More snow meant 2-hour delay number three for 2015.  Considering that they didn't start back at school until the 7th, and we still have a full week left in January, we've had a lot of wintry weather this month!  And January is typically one of our "dry" months.  I love it!

Josh loves it too.  Flying leap!

Wintry Luke.

Mom life.

Josh has been doing this funny little wink at bedtime for several weeks now.  About 15 minutes before bed, he closes one eye and walks around getting ready for bed with it shut tight.  He says it helps his eyes adjust to the dark more quickly once the light is off and the door is closed, so he's not so scared at bedtime.  It is a total crack up!  But hey, he's been staying in bed all night for a couple of months now, so whatever works is good by us!

Goodbye Braceface!

There was no way the snow on the ground was going to keep us from this appointment.  Zac's braces are OFF!  It is quite possible that Zac's joy in this development is surpassed by that of Adam and I.  Not that we will have to back off on the toothbrushing reminders anytime soon...or possibly ever...but cleaning a nice flat surface is a much, MUCH simpler process than trying to get in all the nooks and crannies of braces. 

And doesn't that smile look fantastic?!  Such a handsome, happy boy!

The Bits: January 1st Through January 10th

The first Bits of 2015!

This pruney-thumbed kid is officially a YMCA green-band swimmer!

Learning to solder using their new Christmas soldering kit so they can put together their Escape Robot and AM/FM Radio kits.  It's not easy!

Futsal is ON!

Happy first Sunday of 2015!

Luke wasn't too thrilled to have to move up to Senior Primary, but he had a great time in class with two fantastic teachers, so all was well by the time we left church.  Change is hard!

Gotta get the chores done before heading back to school.  The boys were singing "It's a Hard Knock Life."  Ha!

2015 has started with some really impressive sunsets.

On the last day of winter break we made sure everyone had a good time.  Tommy and Luke each had a pal over to the house to play.  Laughter, shrieking and fun ensued!

Josh went on a snowy, slippery hike to Helen Hunt Falls with his friend, Austin.  He couldn't stop talking about how fun it was sliding on his bum down the mountain.

Adam took Zac and Ben up for a great day at Copper.  Zac said it was one of the best days of boarding he's ever had.

At our troop's Court of Honor, Ben received TWO rank advancements.  Nicely done, First Class Scout, Ben!

Wednesday morning the kids were due back at school.  Luke and Josh had a hard time getting moving.  I could empathize; I wasn't quite ready for break to be over either.  Back to the real-life schedule!

This is what "frigid" looks like.  It is the beauty of cold!  We've had our typically crazy Colorado winter days, with temperatures in the mid- to upper-50's one day, then barely out of the single-digits the next.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Not surprisingly, Josh's bloody noses are frequent occurrences.

Our little Luke-o-Lantern!  I am going to miss that darling little baby-toothed smile!

The back-to-school week was only three-days long, and Friday ended up with a two-hour delay.  When the boys woke up and heard the news, they looked outside and said, "But there's no snow."  So I told them to go out and see why school was delayed.  Our entire city was covered in a thin, and super slick, layer of ice!  So slick, that the boys could slide from top to bottom of our slightly-sloped driveway and then do a little slidey dance trying to get back up, as Zac is doing in this series of photos.  Notice he never gets closer to that line as he moves his feet.

Since the beginning of the year, every few days I've been doing a little decluttering job.  Friday's job was to find all the dried out markers, eraser-less pencils, broken crayons and unsharpened colored pencils and throw them out or sharpen them up.  Since preschool was cancelled due to the delay, Tommy had a great time helping me with this task and wanted to keep the "pretty picture" we made. 

While so very cold, the icy days are extraordinarily beautiful!  When I went to pick the elementary boys up from school, I noticed there were places on the sidewalk where the salt the janitors put down to melt the ice had only been able to melt a small circle.  As if in response to this insult, the ice crystals had bloomed upward around the melted spot, creating little ice flowers with a melted salty center.

Then someone slipped on the slick road and crashed their car into our neighborhood transformer, and the power went out, just as night was falling.

Three hours later the transformer was replaced and the lights came back on.  But we weren't done with our game of Twister yet, so we carried on.

Although he was with me because he was in trouble, I was glad to have brought my muscle for Saturday's mighty Costco run.  I hadn't been since November, so....

The three older boys at Glow Dartz on Saturday night with Micah and Grant.  Word.