Winter weekend fun!

We had such a fun winter weekend!  The snow is great so we went ahead and got Bennett's cross country skies for him!  Lessons don't start until January, but with great snow, we thought we should get the skies out in the yard.

Bennett was a natural!

First time out and he had no problem skiing around the yard!

The boys had a great time!

And we ended the weekend with a cozy movie night!

Atlanta!

I was lucky to travel with John to his conference again this year - this time: Atlanta!  We had such a great time in Nashville last year, we knew we wanted to plan for me to come along again if we could!  Thanks to my parents for staying at our house and taking the kids to school a couple days while we take off!  And thanks to John's parents for taking us to the airport (SUPER early!) on Thursday!

We are off!  Its that surreal feeling when we feel like you must've left something behind because the kids aren't along!

Our first stop was a drive to Greenville, SC in our rental car from ATL.  We got to meet out sweet niece Nora for the first time!  Oh my goodness, my heart melts for this precious little one!  We got some perfect and lovely time with Scott, Jess, and Miss Nora while we spent just one night with them.

I monopolized the baby and got some serious snuggle time!

But I had to let John hold her some too :)

I loved that Nora just hung out on the island while we ate a yummy dinner.

John putting his baby skills to work

Thanks to Scott and Jess for letting us blitz into town to visit out first niece!  Congrats to them - she is so amazing!

Our hostess with the mostest (Jess, of course) sent some macaroons with us so on our drive back to Atlanta, I enjoyed them with a latte.  Yum.

We headed out to a lovely dinner with John's co-worker and his wife!

John attended his conference and I sent time reading, working out, watching tv and relaxing!  It was great!  We didn't do much sightseeing but we did stay at Olympic Park, so we got to see some of downtown, the CNN center, and the ferris wheel.

I grouponed us some tickets onto the ferris wheel, so we enjoyed that as our one touristy splurge.

Atlanta at night!

Olympic Park

And heading out we took the subway back to the airport - had to take this photo for the boys since it resembles the Ninja Turtles!

Oh Crazy Life

Life just seems crazy!  These three goofs keep us on our toes!

Hockey

We took kinda of a plunge this year and signed Logan up for HOCKEY!  He has been wanting to try and he did some skating lessons, so it felt like a good time to give it a try!  He is loving it and he is doing really well - improving each week!

John is a coach for Logan's team so it has been a fun thing for John and Logan to do together on Monday evenings and Saturday mornings.

Logan knows a couple buddies on his team and has met some new friends, too.

The team runs a short practice on Saturday and then they play a game to follow.  Bennett and Eden and I have snuck into the game a couple times to watch for a bit.  We usually stay at home for practices.

I think all Logan's shooting practice on the driveway has helped him with his shots and puck handling!

Mom's Morning Off

John let me sleep today and he took the kids out and about while I slept and tried to mend a headache.  But I sure did miss these faces.  Thank John!

Eden's Eyes

On October 12, I noticed for the first time Eden's eyes crossing when she was eating.  I didn't think too much of it, but I kept watching and we noticed it continued.  We went in to our pediatrician right away and were referred to an eye doctor.  He wanted to wait a year which unsettled us so we made an appointment right away with another doctor we know from church.  He saw us right away and shared our concerns.  So, we got eden some glasses to try to correct her eye crossing.  Hopefully glasses will be the answer and we won't need to talk about surgery.  Her eye overcorrects itself when trying to focus and maybe a year or two of glasses could help train it to focus properly.  We are praying her little glasses will be the answer!  I will post a picture of her in her glasses when they come!

Princess Tea Party

Our Children's Museum in Eau Claire hosts a Princess Tea Party every year and I thought it would be fun to take Eden this year since she has started to recognize some of the "princesses" and know some of their stories.  It was a Sunday afternoon so while Dad was at church we got ready.  Bennett came down in his Spiderman suit because he wanted to go to the Tea Party and he thought he should dress up.  Eden was excited to wear her Princess Sofia dress.

Since I had to explain that the Tea Party was just for the girls, we decided to have our own little tea party at home.

After john got home from church, it was almost time for us to leave. 

We had to wait to enter through a special entrance (just for Princesses!) and Eden was pretty excited and very curious.

This was the only Princess she got a photo with...she ended up being a little nervous about the characters.

Anna & Elsa

She wanted her face painted, so we waited in line for that.

I couldn't believe she wanted her face painted!  The boys have never wanted to do it! She sat so still.

There were some snacks...Eden mostly wanted to eat the frosting off the mini cupcakes.

She was feeling shy!

Then there was some time for playing at the museum.  We did a couple other little crafts, but she wasn't too into it.  There was a lot of waiting, so I think her patience ran out.

The cutest Princess of them all!  The tea party wasn't really our thing...but it sure was fun to do something special with my girl!