Wallowas 2013.

We made our bi (tri?) annual trek to our favorite family vacation spot a couple weeks ago.  The weather was beautiful, the views were beautiful, and the company was pretty darn sweet.

 

 (Ed just about to beam Jack with a snowball)

 

Love. this. trip.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

The kids had their annual manners dinner at my parent's.  

The table:

 (whoa she is getting old.)

The little boys in matching ties:

The big boys:

(can you feel the love??)

And the big girls:

The little girls were there too but are too quick for my camera!  

And Ed loves me enough to watch the Notebook with me so the day was a success!

But even better, we leave in the morning for our favorite family vacation in the mountains.  I love a long weekend with my peoples!

oh henry.

 Got his brother's shorts on.  Super proud of himself.

I have a hard time getting pictures of this monkey because I squat down to take one and this is what he does!

oldies but still goodies.

Twenty years ago (20!!) Ed and I went to "Sleepless in Seattle" at our little downtown theater on our first ever group date.  Last night it was playing at the exact same theater.  Ahh.  I wanted to go but instead we were watching our little man play his heart out on the basketball court.  

Maybe not as romantic but certainly as sweet.

Seriously though.  Who would have thunk it 20 years ago?

(and this picture isn't actually that old...it's from our honeymoon, almost 15 years ago.)

safety girl.

 Jem and I had this conversation today:

Jemma, what do you do if you get lost at the store?

Call the cops.

What's your name?

Jemma Jane Driskill

What's your mommy's name?

Kelly Anne Driskill and my daddy is Edward P.

And.  I live on Concrete Street.  

Where??

(nose wrinkle) on a Concrete Street.  

And.  This is silly.  How would I get lost at the store??  We go there all the time.

brothers.

Henry was been talking like crazy these days and for the most part he makes a lot of sense.  (The best is that he now speaks about himself in the third person..."Hen-y lunch?  Hen-y go?  Hen-y fun?").  But sometimes he's a bit garbley and we all ask Jemma what he said.  This morning Jack just figured out that Jemma always knows what he wants because she plays with him all day.  And this made Jack sad.  So sad I could hardly get him out of the car to school...he just kept popping back in to hug Henry and kiss him and tell him he missed him. 

This has been one of those weeks.  

You know the kind where you look around and think, "where are the grown-ups??"  It started with Ed leaving town for the week and me waking up to several inches of fresh snow and then running out to haul the garbage to the curb....while the kids follow me out and the door (I swear in slow motion with me yelling "Noooo") closes behind them.  Locked.  Not even Henry left in the house to save us.  $50 and one freezing hour later, we got back in and the hits kept coming.  

This also happens to be the week of the kids' school auction, which means I have spent a good 8 hours a day on the phone begging for donations and then driving all over to get them.  The funny thing is that I helped with this exact event in high school, yet there was always a grown-up telling me what to do next.  

And I am always surprised to realize that now the grown-up is me.  What??  These are my kids (seriously, this still surprises me sometimes) and I am the mom.  Which was kind of a bummer when I dropped a huge jar of mayo tonight and it splattered everywhere.

But now that I have cleaned my house and checked on my sweet sleeping babies and cracked open a Mikes, I remember that being the grown-up does have it's perks.

hipsters.

My kids know a surprising number of Taylor Swift lyrics and this morning Jemma was singing, "it feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters"...only she sings (at the top of her lungs)..."it feels like a perfect night to dress up like cheese and crackers".

Cause who needs hipsters when you could have a snack instead.

My Jack

frying up the fish he caught ice fishing:

I've been meaning to post about Jack for weeks.  This kid has been amazing.  He works hard and plays hard.  The other day he spent hours sledding and then came in and heard us cleaning so ran upstairs and said, "What?! You guys are cleaning without me?" and jumped right in.  He takes sweet care of the other kids...Henry's favorite thing to do is wrestle him and I am always amazed how gentle Jack is with him.

He loves school, loves home, loves outside, loves inside, loves to work, loves to help....he is delight-full.

I took him to basketball practice the other night and watched him walk right up to the coach, stick out his hand and introduce himself.  Then he put on his serious face and listened but when the coach pulled out the ball, he broke into his Jack grin.  And I had to look away--sometimes the sweetness of watching him grow up makes my heart burst.

Happy Birthday Happy Jack!

 Jack had one busy birthday!

He started with breakfast at IHOP with his grandparents and a giant cookie.

He planned the rest of the day very carefully: he wanted to go bowling, then have Will come over to play the Wii, then dinner at Grandma's, and finish with staying up late cuddling me on the couch.  

All day long, he said this is an awesome birthday!

 This wasn't his year for a big party so he got to pick two friends from class and his buddy Gus to take bowling.  They were pretty hilarious.  Plus we ended up next to Jason Gesser so Ed was pretty pleased too.

We bought Jack golf clubs this year...Ed's been dying to do this for years and I finally gave in.  He was thrilled!  

One last birthday cake and wish to make!

I've mentioned this before...

but I am losing my mind.

Just this week, I 

1. realized (at dinner...with other people) that my shirt was on backwards

2. put the still warm clothes from the dryer right back into the washer

3. changed the remote batteries only to realize I had been pointing it at myself, not the tv

4. put my shirt on inside out.  

And almost all of these were pointed out by my children.

Who literally look me up and down before letting me leave the house.

Henry has taken to potty training Jemma's dolls.

(and, because he's a boy, there are sound effects).

Around here, it's all fun and games till someone falls in the toilet.

Jemma says

"Am I allergic to ice cream?"

I say no.

And she says, "Then why don't you ever buy me any?!"

And later she says, "you should wear your pink high heels."  And I tell her I don't have any and she says, "What??  You don't have pink high heels?" and pats my arm in sympathy.

Snap back to reality

Vacation is over and I gotta say I.am.sad.  This was a fantastic break.  (Except the part where we were sick for a week...but even then, it wasn't the stomach flu so it doesn't really count).  Ed had days and days off.  We had tons of snow fun plus clear roads so we could go wherever we wanted.  We had lunches out and coffee dates and snow parties and Wii parties and organized bedrooms.  We ate good food and watched stacks of movies and stayed up late and slept in.  And I mean slept in every single day.  And I was so busy doing nothing that I did not take a single picture for over a week.

On Tuesday the kids headed back to school.  And Jemma cried.  

Don't get me wrong, I love routine but I really love lazy days with my people.  

Hello 2013!

 We spent New Year's Eve with good friends and good food and then hurried to get our babysitter home by midnight and walked in the door of our house with seconds to spare.  Ed ran and got the kids out of bed and I started the countdown with Times Square and we rang in the new year together.

With fireworks.

(although Jack was the only one game enough to freeze his tail off outside)

Then we snuggled on the couch with the kids, some chocolate, and a glass of wine and everyone said one thing they want to do this year.  Then we tucked our sweet babies back in bed!

We started New Years day pretty lazy but finally worked up the energy to hit the awesome sledding hill right next door: 

Ed and I called it a day after we hit some air and landed hard enough to make our heads hurt.

Wow, we're getting old.

Then I started the usual round of mass purging in the kids' rooms, worked a bit on a wedding, and made the first dinner in weeks that consisted of more veggies than fats and had no dips, gravies, or anything made of cheese or bacon.  

Yep, it's January.