CrAzY CoLoRaDo

If you are friends with me on Facebook, no doubt you are really tired of my snow picture posts and believe me, so am I.  Every time it snows I tell myself to resist the urge to take a picture and post it but I can't resist--it's baffling!  I know that historically, March and April are Colorado's snowiest months but still...I also know that all of this Spring snowfall will help with the drought (although I read we are still not out of the woods in that regard, despite the weekly dumps this month), but STILL....we did have a very pleasant winter at our house, but at the tail end here it seems we've all developed cabin fever.  I think we got that taste of Spring when it started warming up and just didn't want to put our coats and shoes back on and keep the doors closed.  Owen has turned into a stereotypical 2 1/2 year old boy seemingly overnight.  Yes, I'm aware that I've said this before but I'm finding that, similar to when Zoe was in this stage, it seems to get worse and wor--I  mean, more and more magical, enlightening, humbling, hilarious, torturous, confusing, character building and typical every month or so.  Some days I swear if I could just go 10 minutes without hearing Zoe say "O-WEN!!!" from the other room, or come running to me crying because he's pulled her hair, hit her, knocked her carefully constructed set up of "buddies" over, stolen her musical instrument or is copying everything she is saying I could add years to my life.  I cannot wait until we can open the doors and let the little bugger run around hitting trees with sticks and pulling the grass instead of taking that pent up energy out on our poor defeated bodies and souls. *sigh*

Today, I realized that this last snowfall might very well be our last for the year and I've been horrible about taking the kids sledding.  It's not really my fault because taking them sledding can be pretty torturous.  Zoe likes to sled if she's in a good mood, but Owen is at a stage in which many things make him nervous and sledding has been one of those things this year.  It was hard enough when Nathan and I took them together once so I never ever ever found the energy to give it a try on my own.  Today was so  beautiful though and since our sledding hill is pretty much right across the street from us, I decided to give it one last go.  I figured if it didn't work out, at least it was warm enough to not have to add being freezing cold on top of it all.  I can say that I'm glad we tried it, but I also have to admit that it was almost a total  bust.  I say almost because Zoe went down a few times and Owen and I successfully went down together once.  When I tried to get him to go down again though, he threw a fit and refused to believe me when I reminded him that just 3 minutes before, he had gone down the hill  laughing hysterically and yelling "YAHOOOOO!".  Zoe starting whining "I'm tired of walking" after run #3 so we officially bagged it and played at the playground for a bit before heading home.  Oh well!  Hopefully, winter is now thoroughly convinced that I've done my best to enjoy it and will give us a break for a few months.

Scott Carpenter, aka "The Rocketship" Park

I have a picture of Zoe doing this from when we first moved here.  Crazy.

I don't know what you call these things...they make your voice sound kind of tinny when you sit  between them and talk

If nothing else, the venture out helped with the cabin fever problem.  We seemed to get along a bit better than we have been after getting back.  The kids picked out a bag of marshmallows at the grocery store yesterday for their treat this week, so today after lunch they built some stuff with toothpicks and marshmallows.  Zoe seemed to vaguely remember doing this a couple of years ago  because she quietly said a couple  of times: "Wow,  we haven't done this in a really long time..." which is weird to me.

Owen made a ballerina and was asking it all kinds of kooky questions before munching the marshmallows off the toothpicks..."Bowahweena?  Weah is da paint?  Oh! Sank you!" munch  Huh?  Weirdo

Zoe made this!  I was really proud of her, although she "hates" it because it didn't look exactly like the one I'd made as a model for her.  I think she finally started believing me after the 3rd or so time I explained that this is a difficult skill to master and this was really awesome for her first attempt.  That kid is really going places, I think!

The forecast is looking pretty perfect for the next week or so, so we are all excited.  Thanks for the lovely time, Boulder Winter!  On to Boulder Spring and Summer!  Hooray!