Gage's first ski lesson!

Gage loved skiing right away!  Look how legit he looks in these pictures.  Like the real deal from the outset.  He's been asking about when he gets to go again, and it must be hard for him to understand that it will be many months from now when we can get back at it.

He took a half-day lesson and was definitely getting the basics by the end of his first day.

That's Gavin in the yellow coat, heading up the "magic carpet" on the beginners' hill.  On this particular day, this was the ONLY time he went up and down that hill with his ski class.  They spent a lot of other time playing in the snow and doing very little related to skiing, so my friend and I both expressed our concerns at the end of the lesson, and Eldora gave us a voucher to come back.  And you better believed that we did!

We've decided that Gage always looks like a different boy when his hair is flat.  Different and about three years older.  Spike it back up, Baby, you're already growing up way too fast!  Here he's eating his post-ski-lesson snack in his snow pants. 

Snow shoveling...

Check out this little dude in his viking snow hat (courtesy of Uncle Zachie and Auntie Lorna).  Our two little men love to shovel snow!

Brent fondly says that they usually get about 80% of the snow, and then Daddy can just come in and handle the rest.  Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me!  (Can you tell that I do very little to none of the shoveling around here?  I'm spoiled!)

Here's our little ham in the snow.  Gavin certainly sets the tone for adventure around here, and Gage follows along very willingly and without much complaint. 

Our puzzle-building boys...

The boys have some great floor puzzles that keep them busy in certain seasons of our lives.  (Seeing this picture actually makes me realize how long it's been since they've worked on one at home!)  On this particular occasion, they had each put together their longest puzzle and then wanted to see if they were longer than their puzzles put end-to-end.  I always like to see the cute stuff they come up with.

Hiking at Sanitas

Can't believe how big Gage looks here!  We all really enjoy hiking together at Mt. Sanitas in Boulder, and that's where we were in these pictures.

Anytime you can let the kids run wild and climb things is a good time. 

This was our first time hiking there after the flood, and in some parts of the trail we were climbing over fallen trees and other debris.  Amazing the damage that water can cause!

The Chart...

Gavin was truly inspired by the behavior chart in his Kindergarten classroom this year.  So much so that he decided to re-create it at home.  The kids start at "Ready to Shine" in the middle of the chart every day, and with their good or bad decisions throughout the day, their clothespins move up and down.  When they got to "Super Star" on top of the chart, Mrs. Ryan would send home a star with piece of candy attached, and if the kids ended the day at the bottom of the chart, they were sent to the director's office and a note was sent home to parents.  Thankfully, Gavin never landed at the bottom, and we were very proud of him for getting to the top five times during the year.  It has become a pretty helpful behavior modification tool at home now, too, and Gavin and Gage are motivated to get to the top (special rewards and privileges) and not end up on the bottom (no electronics the next day or bedtime book) at the end of the day.  It's not a perfect system, of course, but I think that it's been mostly positive and helpful around here.  I love that Gavin re-created it with such precision, and I didn't realize that until I saw the real deal in his classroom one day. 

Gage's Birthday! - Part 2 of 2

After the climbing portion was done, we all moved into the party room that is off to one side of the climbing gym.  Here is the newly 4-year old Gage with Mom. 

Gage and Gavin posed under the Happy Birthday sign with his name written on it.  Gage had a great time and was happy to celebrate with many of his closest friends!

Gage's Birthday! - Part 1 of 2

It's hard to believe that Gage is growing up so fast.  As he has been totally loving climbing at ABC Kids Climbing, we decided to take the plunge and rent out the place for a birthday party for Gage.  He was pretty excited, though we had to be a bit careful with the invite list.  Unfortunately, his pre-school classmates didn't generally make the cut which was a bit tough.  Here he is above with two of his best friends.

Gavin also was excited about the choice and spent much of the time trying to show off his climbing skills to the younger crew. 

Gage was pretty happy to be able to finally climb with Daddy.  Typically, his classes are just a small group of kids and an instructor while the parents are relegated to the side waiting area.  Here he is waiting to climb on the wall and I (Brent) even have some climbing shoes on the get in on the action.

Here is Mom up with Gage in what appears to be the upstairs climbing area.  The kids often practice traversing and look for toy dinosaurs that have been hidden in some of the holds by the instructors.

Here is the lineup of his birthday party crew.  They all seemed to have a great time and several of them came back for later visits to climb on their own.

Bowling at Boondocks with Mommy...

The boys and I made the discovery of the free-pass-on-your-birthday at Boondocks, and we're hooked.  It's too much fun and too close to our house to be much of a question, really. 

Gavin is making an X after his strike.  He was more engaged in this bowling game than his younger brother, whose birthday we were celebrating that day on January 9th.  Our little boy is four years old!

The boys use a ramp that makes the game pretty fool-proof, considering that there are also bumpers up during kids' games.  Gavin and I were into it, but Gage was ready to move on about half-way through our game. 

Ooh, this one looks like a strike waiting to happen!  After bowling there are tons of cool "token games" that the boys enjoy playing, and the birthday boy gets 20 free tokens, which Mommy swiftly divvies up so that everyone can play.  And then my scavenger son (aka Gavin) always seems to find other tokens hiding under/behind games, and that becomes as much fun as the games themselves.  I remember it well. :)

Rock Climbing

We continue to love having these guys in rock climbing class.  Gavin continues to work on his listening to instruction and being focused during class, which is a bit hard.  However, above you can see how good he is getting.  He is actually blindfolded in this picture and is working on climbing based on feel and searching out the best hand and footholds without being able to spot them ahead of time.  Pretty impressive if you ask me.  

Gage is also doing amazing in climbing and always impresses with his skill and strength while only being 4 years old.  Gage has joined a Monkey's 2 class and fits right in with several class mates that are a bit older than him.  He can even tie himself in with a figure eight follow through knot.

SnowZone

Looks like someone is getting suited up for some time out in the snow.  Here is Gage looking pretty fully dressed.  This was close to the time we had to retire this coat because it was getting a bit small and just wasn't quite warm enough for more than the quick driveway snow time.

As usual, these guys like to get right to work shoveling the snow.  They are pretty good at it, but I (Brent) usually have to follow them up a bit and clean up what they don't seem to want to clear out.  They love the snow and being outside at almost any chance they get.  They also typically get along pretty well while playing around out there...that is until someone decides to dump a shovel full of snow on top of the other one.

Here is Gavin before he decides to ditch the shovel and try for some snow angels in the grass next to the driveway.  I'm not sure he could see very well but I guess it worked well enough when you are staring down with his hood covering most of his face.

Backyard Campfire?

It's comforting to see the impact that the camping trips have had on these guys.  Above, you can see they have recreated a fire pit in our back yard, built a make believe fire, and are now pretending to roast marshmellows over their "fire".

Apparently, they even tried to eat some of them, though I am pretty sure that is paper and not a real marshmellow.  I am sure the real ones taste better.

These look more like "lean-to's" which is more likely to be from Survivorman or some survival show we watched on tv rather than our camping experiences.  Either way though, it's a good start for an emergency shelter if they needed one.

No camping trip can be complete without some tree climbing to add some danger and dirtiness all rolled together.  It's fun that these guys can have so much fun in our backyard.  I do question how safe the tree climbing really is and tend to frown on that a bit.

National History Museum

While I (Brent) was off on Christmas break from work, we decided it would be a great time to head to the museum as a family.  It turned out to be a chilly, snowy day, which was great for being inside.  We had hopes to see an IMAX movie, as well, though it was sold out by the time we got there.  The lines were also quite long to buy tickets, so here is Gage waiting next to a large dinosaur while mom handled the tickets.

Eventually we made it in and one of their favorite exhibits was the dinosaurs.  Here they are in front of a few dinosaur skulls.  We also visited the health, rocks and minerals, and kids sensory exhibits.  I think they had a pretty good time, though they like to burn through all the areas fairly fast still.