Finally a Snowman!

While this winter has been full of snow days...most of the snow has not been conducive to building a snowman... and the boys have desperately been wanting to build one!  Basically, we had to wait until one of the snowfalls started to melt- which also meant some warmer temperatures -better for outside play!  

Happy Birthday Coop!

My spunky baby is 2 whole years old now and growing so fast!  Here are the preparations for his birthday party.  First the cake and cupcakes and of course my helpers...

Then cookie central.  I baked the cookies Thursday, then decorated Friday night.  

Nana and Grandad came Saturday morning to play and brought a couple Birthday gifts!  I cannot tell you how excited he is about his bike!  He and Evan always fought over Ev's balance bike, which is actually a little too big for Cooper, so this should help things.  Cooper actually disappeared towards the end of the party- I found him in the basement riding his bike around.  Luckily we had a warmer weekend, so we were able to get the boys out to ride around too!

And some decoration pictures...  given our current situation...I kept decorations and food pretty simple.  The theme if you can't tell is 'hot air balloons'.

Our boys testing out the hot air balloon!

Oh my goodness, I'm actually in a picture...  (okay, I asked Brett to get me in a picture- after I went through all of our ski weekend pictures and found that I wasn't in any.)

Birthday boy trying to get a preview tasting....

Singing happy birthday...  Cooper wasn't quite sure what to think, but happily enjoyed some cake afterwards!  Thanks to all our friends for coming to celebrate our little one's second birthday!!!  

Snow Trip 2014!

We had our Winter 2014 trip planned for over a year...a little bit (...or 2 + feet) of snow would not get in our way!  We did leave a little later than planned and the drive was a little slower, but we made it to Herrington Manor State Park where our friends were waiting- 8 adults and 5 wee ones total in two cabins.  

Here are the boys helping Brett dig our car out of the driveway.

First thing Friday morning, we set off to Wisp, for a day of skiing!  Evan was super excited to try skiing!  It was a good first time and he kept wanting to go back out and ski with daddy again.  His only melt down was us not letting him go up the big chair lift....  Honestly, we were pretty surprised as Evan tends to be our cautious one.  Our only goal was a positive experience, and I think we were successful! 

And of course, Cooper, wanted to ski too just like Evan.  So we stuck him in Ev's skis and let him go out too.  And the picture below is as far as we got.  Which was a-okay too!  He got to try them on, see what it was about then head back in for some cocoa!

Cooper and Elli playing in the lodge.

Evan trying out Kari's ski helmet.

The rest of the weekend was filled with snow fun right outside our cabin.  The guys built a big ramp for the kiddos (and adults) to sled down and onto the XC ski trail.  It was pretty sweet, you could go quite a distance!  Preggo me even got to try it out!  Needless to say this was a huge hit!!!  We also built an igloo- Evan's big request, attempted a snowman- Cooper's constant request, and general jumping in snow fun.  The adults also made use of the XC ski trails.  It was also Connor's 1st Birthday- so we had a little Birthday celebration one evening.  I'll have to get pictures from someone of that.  Connor LOVED his chocolate cupcakes and Christy made adorable gnome hats for the tots!