Sledding in the Fishbowl

We took the kids to the park that's called a "fishbowl" for some sledding.  It's a VERY popular sledding spot.  It's definitely looked like a fishbowl today.  Since it had rained all day before it snowed, it was a puddle of water at the bottom that we had to work to avoid. 

Water at the bottom

Colin getting ready to go down the hill

 Audrey LOVED it

Colin even climbed back up a few times by himself

Paul and Colin. "Get the mountains in the shot" he told me

Paul would wait at the bottom while I sent Colin down the hill and then Audrey.  Colin started jumping out of his sled to run over and give Audrey a kiss when she got down the hill and tell her "I'm so happy to see you Audrey"

This inflatable went pretty fast

Audrey and I

The camera got on some funny setting here

The kids and I

Otters!

Paul got out early this week so we had some time on Thursday to take the kids to the aquarium. They have a new otter exhibit that we hadn't seen yet. 

Colin's looking

Now, Audrey's looking

"In" the otter exhibit

Otters!  They were fun to watch

Otter Mask!

Audrey was afraid of Colin in the mask

On the way home Colin started signing a song about the otters.  There's a YoGabbaGabba song that goes "P P P P Plex, Plex".  He was singing "AH AH AH AH Otters, Otters!"  

Happy 34th Birthday to Paul!

Paul's birthday was last Monday.  We had fun celebrating our wonderful daddy(and husband).  

We had fun making cake

Colin picked out this tablecloth for the party

We had fun with noisemakers

We had fun singing "Happy Birthday"

We had fun eating cake

We had fun opening Daddy's presents

Daddy with all his kids

Daddy with Audrey and Colin(wearing his new shoes)

Colin made this video for Daddy(Papa was watching football in the background)

Puzzles

My Aunt Jenny sent the kids these cool puzzles.  They are pictures of themselves.  They are such great quality puzzles.  The kids love them and putting them together

Snow and Sledding

We finally got some snow!  The kids were so excited to head out into the front yard for some sledding.

Paul was pulling them up the hill and Audrey couldn't stay sitting upright.  She fell back into Colin...

...and they both fell right off the sled

Tattoos, Underwear and Paint

We're still not quite sure where we stand in potty training.  We tried underwear one night and it didn't go so well.  However, that same night she also ended up with a fever and throwing up.  

Loving painting with their new easel

Audrey doesn't have a whole lot of words that she says or that you can even understand.  It was funny how we put on these tattoos and she could say "tattoo" so well.  

It's finally gone!

When we first bought this house there were 4 big cottonwoods on the south side of the house.  This one was definitely the biggest.  Since we got the house in the spring we didn't realize that 3 of them were dead.  We had those 3 removed last year but had planned on keeping this one.  It was good shade, and a pretty tree.  However, we hated it because cottonwoods are aweful trees that are constantly dropping something; cotton, little green sticky things, leaves, sticks/branches.  There were sticks and branches falling off this thing all the time.  So we definitely had a love/hate relationship with the tree(more hate on Paul's part because he was always cleaning up after it).  This year, this tree decided to die also.  It lost all of its leaves in June.  Since it really draped over the house we wanted to make sure to get it down soon.  We did that this week.  

The company we went with this time was much more professional than the ones that took out the other trees. They came with all sorts of equipment

Almost down

Colin enjoyed the tractors in the back yard

Some videos of the process

Just the trunk left to come down

I guess I need to go take a picture of the backyard now.  Paul left before they were totally finished and it was dark when we got home.  It obviously looks a lot different.  We will be planting another tree, or trees, in the area this came down from.