Raising Cubs in a Campground

I can't help but wonder if all the sun streaming into our home is helping my mood. We pop vitamin D like candy around here - averaging 5-6 thousand {whatever the units are called} a day. I'm still running low on it according to my latest blood test, but spring is just around the corner. It has to be. At least that's what I keep telling myself. In the meantime we are doing our best job ever of making the most of winter. The kids are older now and can walk up the sledding hill themselves. Sam can ski for over a mile at a time and we've had the best snow pack that I can remember. We are suppose to host an open house in a few weeks to show people how we make maple syrup here in the park, but we need some warmer weather for that to happen. Plan, plan plan, and then hope the weather cooperates. Such is life in the Park and Rec field I guess. Speaking of planning...Sam has invited his preschool classmates to come climb on our snow mountains. It sounds like this coming wee...

By far this is my favorite page in Julia's Alphabitty Moments book. I love the pictures and I love the Q word that PapaBear thought of for me. How can you not love that face and her priceless expression?! I took the top picture while we were in the hammock last summer. We'd been at the pool earlier in the day and this is how her hair dried afterwards. I am soooo ready for these days of frizzy, static-y days to be OVER! I've been looking through my photo archives a lot lately because of various projects I'm working on and I can tell without looking at the date how old Julia is because of her hair. Age 1-2: curls were definitely there, but just beginning to form ringlets. Age 2-3: Ringlets are there in full force and she starts to get more length...finally. Age 3+: her hair is just beyond her shoulders now.

What are your winters made of? (If you do a post about it will you come back and let me know? I may be 375 posts behind in my Google Reader, but I can make time to click over from a comment.)

It has been so long since I wrote out my thoughts that many memories I had hoped to preserve are lost in the recesses of my mind. More times that I can count I've had great intentions of writing on a certain topic and then never have the time to do it. And now that I have carved out a few minutes, of course my mind would go blank. I can't remember what I wanted to say. Figures. I was going to say something about the fact that I have 328 unread items in my Google Reader, something about how I've lost control of Twitter, and have to stop following so many people, something about the series I found at the library on Saturday, something about how I dropped Sam off for his first school friend birthday party over the weekend....oh wait! that I remember: It was at McDonalds. The day after I watched Food, Inc. Nice. The McDonald's employee asked Sam if he wanted a hamburger, cheeseburger, or nuggets to eat. Of course he jumped at the cheeseburger since I only ever get ...

....a beautiful day for skiing. Here's hoping the upcoming weekend is just as beautiful! I'm looking forward to lots of family time spent outdoors and plenty of snuggles inside in our jammies. What do you have planned for the weekend?

Surprise! Alphabitty Moments is up and running and it's not even 7:30am! Shocker huh? It's another busy day in BearCountry and if I don't get this posted now, it will be late tonight before I have a free moment. That's been a trend lately - my 'me' time doesn't start until 11pm. Today that won't be the case. I'm meeting girlfriends for dinner at my favorite place - Panera. This week I chose Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the letter P. I love that this carnival gives me permission to use the pictures that wouldn't otherwise get printed. Julia with jelly on her face? Not usually printable material, but for Alphabitty Moments it's perfect! It's the little things that I want to remember and "I want a peanut butter jelly sammich" is most definitely a staple phrase around here...for now. If that ever changes, we'll have these pictures to remind of us sticky faces & simple pleasures. What P word did you chose th...

Don't bother to put out our pair of reindeer next year. Written any notes to self lately? Mentally or literally....do share!

Winter whispers... Put your skis on & listen. Winter whispers... I am so much more than snowy white. Winter whispers... Sometimes less is more. Winter whispers... Enjoy me while you can. My time here goes faster than you think.

After a week off to recover, gulp antibiotics, and snuggle with my babies it's back to business as usual here in BearCountry. We're on the letter O this week for Alphabitty Moments . I went with OUTSIDE for her page because I want to remember all the times we went outside on a nice day with hardly a care in the world. This picture was taken on our floating boardwalk - a favorite haunt of my kids. Julia still remembers falling off it and into the ishy water a while back while PapaBear and I were off on an adventure of our own. Many times we left the house with no agenda except to see what we could see. Sometimes we ended up on the turtle bridge to count turtles, other times we would end up running and/or rolling down one of the hills in the park. I love sharing these adventures with the kids and see no end in site to the fun we are going to have exploring all there is to see and do here. Now it's your turn - what O word did you come up with this week?

That one night that I didn't dress my kids in photo shoot appropriate clothes for a campfire program at our park yielded many a sweet photograph of Sam & Julia. I learned my lesson. Believe me. Who cares about ratty old jammies when siblings are getting along and {gasp} being nice to each other! To see other entries in the i heart faces contest for the week click here or on their snazzy new logo below...

Before I forget the details of Sam's sudden illness I want to record them here. I'm already mad at myself enough for not keeping up the kids' health notebooks that I started when they were babies (small notebooks to record illnesses, medications, well child measurements - nothing fancy but it's hard to remember who had x-rays when, who was the one with croup etc... so I had planned to keep a written record for when the doctor asked health history questions) For some reason Sam has managed to be sick every time it's his turn to bring home the snack bucket from school. He should have brought it home yesterday. Instead he spent the day coughing and coughing and coughing. He started with a temp on Tuesday the 2 nd after nap and was very lethargic and miserable. He threw up twice from coughing so hard. I called the nurse when his temp got to 102 under his arm, thinking that it meant 103. I couldn't remember if she said to call if it got to 103 or if that was when we...

*alternatively titled, "Bedtime Shmedtime"

I know, I know....who celebrates a 40 month birthday? {waves hand high in the air} We don't call them month birthdays - we call them special days . Julia was born on October 2nd so her special day falls on the second day of every month. Sam has a hard time waiting the eleven days until his special day, but somehow he survives. So what is a special day? It's means a variety of things depending on the day of the week it falls on, but here are a few ways we celebrate: that child gets to pick what we eat for dinner, gets to pick which movie we watch, gets to get a treat at the gas station, and most of all gets lots of extra special lovin' from Mommy and Daddy. It isn't anything huge, but just some extra special treatment - our way of letting them know how extra special they are. Notice (other than a cookie at the gas station) that there are no gifts involved. Just good old fashion bonding. On one of Sam's special days I wrote this post and so today on Julia's 40...

If only Mommy could look as cute in her winter hat.....