Tired Kids

A few more of Aaron on his skis

And Mia too...

I keep posting these backwards! The picture of Mia on the bottom should be the one on the top. Anyway...one of the cutest things in the world is a little 4 year old on skis!! I totally wish I could have gotten video but we were already lugging around enough stuff. Just seeing her slide down the hill on her little skis was too cute. She actually went down a longer hill than this one and was able to stop and even turn a little!

Chairlift

I posted these backwards, but you get the idea I hope! Aaron was excited to be able to ride the chairlift! Mia didn't get to do that in her class, so we didn't take her on the lift. I think she probably could have done it, but for sure she will be ready next year!

REAL Snow!

I know that some of you reading this blog live in places that have been getting TONS of snow. Some of you might even be getting a little bit sick of it! However. Our kiddos have FINALLY gotten to see what REAL snow looks like! And they've gotten to walk on it, play in it and ski on it! Yay!

Our school district has three teacher work days in a row (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) the first week of February every year so we decided to take the kids to Colorado to see some snow! We went to Durango, Colorado and it was a blast. Aaron and Mia each took a full day ski lesson and then James and I took them out on the bunny slopes the second day to practice. They did great - even better than I expected. Considering that I am kind of a nervous skier I thought they would be the same way, but I forgot that kids really don't have any fear - heh.

It's a 14 hour drive from Austin to Durango, but definitely worth it. I hope we can go often enough that they get more practice. Now, I will dig through my photos (I took over 300!) and post a few!

Pinewood Derby

Aaron had his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby today. Here's the car (see above). It works like this: Each scout is given a block of wood and some wheels and axles. The parent (James) helps cutting out the shape of the car, but the scout has to sand and paint it himself. Then, each car gets to race once in each lane of the six lane track. They throw out your slowest time and average the rest. And.....Aaron got the best time for his age group (the Tigers)! He got a medal and everything.

Here's the start of one of the races!

Aaron is pointing out his car. Note the cool Rubix Cube like car next to his!

Here are all the cars.

Here's the track.

Here's the medal! First Prize in the Tigers Group. Awesome!

Mia and Benjamin

These are from the first week of January when my friend Allison brought her son Benjamin over to play. Mia and Benjamin had a good time playing with the wagon in the backyard!

More Birthday Pictures

Trying to Catch Up

So, we've had a couple of birthdays over here! Mia turned four on the 9th and Aaron turned 7 on the 15th. I do love how the kids' birthdays are six days apart and two weeks after Christmas! Not really! This year I didn't plan much for them, just a few friends from our neighborhood came over for cake and ice cream.

I'm going to try to post a few pictures from the last couple of weeks to catch up. Here's one of Mia on her new bicycle (from Mom & Dad).

flickr Test!

Mia, originally uploaded by julukeblue.

I have been trying to figure out the best way to edit the photos taken with my new camera. I could either use flickr (as I did with this photo of Mia) or use Photoshop (which I have an old version of) and/or use the software that came with the camera.

It seems like I could do the most with Photoshop, but I am wondering if I will ever take the time to do all that stuff or will I just be installing more junk on my computer that I'll never use? The software that came with the camera seems kind of complicated and it won't even do the special effects that Photoshop will do (like having only one part of the picture in color).

Ah, well, I guess I'll figure it out eventually. This post is actually being made directly from flickr - I uploaded the photo to flickr, then cropped it and made it black and white and now I am using their "blog" function which will send this entry straight to my blog.

Let's see how it works...