Rain day

Our vacation was extended by an extra day due to freezing rain all through the interior. Roads were just way too dangerous to drive on and it was just safer to stay at the cabin. We even had a rain day for the water trucks and kept them parked. 

This meant belly up to the kitchen bar for cards and drinks 

And indoor play and floor hockey

And naps all around, can't be too safe..

Eventually Gwendolyn snow shoed over to visit Rhonda and escape her brothers 

I kicked them out before dinner to play in the rain and apparently that meant "bury your sibling" Alaskan beach style. 

First winter weekend at the lake

Off to a wonderful start. Left a little wary from school so we could arrive before dark as we had a cold cabin to come to. It was about 18 degrees when we got here and had the cabin warmed up in under an hour. We brought aunt Linda with us for the weekend. 

Trevor is happy playing with the diaper basket and toddling around on the larger deck

Blake is learning about the outhouse and isn't a huge fan, so we are allowing the indoor bucket to keep the potty training momentum 

Owen is thrilled to be running around on his snowmachine again

Gwendolyn is wanting to do it all at once, par for her personality, games, sledding, movies, s'mores, snow machining, visiting at Rhonda's....

  

Biggest brother

Owen is also swimming and has competed in few meets this winter and continues to improved each meet. His coach Becky even said today that he rocked the flip turn. His best stroke is the back stroke and he will also swim the free style at meets. 

We have arranged a carpool plan with another swim family at watershed and he said to me last week "Audrey's moms car is cleaner than yours" my quick response was to ask him what he thought he would be doing this next weekend. Smartly he said he would be cleaning my car haha. He had a phase 1 of his teeth work done this winter and had his palette expander installed. 

As you can see from the pre-molds his wicked cross bite needed to match up. After 3 weeks of expanding the key twice a day his palette was plenty apart and ready to start setting up. He will have a retainer for a while and then braces once he has more adult teeth. Finally at 18 he will have his permanent fake tooth installed where he has no adult tooth to use. Silly mouth. 

 

Big sister

Gwendolyn rules the posse and likes to do it in pink. She is gaining more independence and has officially babysat on a Friday night. She also went to an afternoon movie with Natalie and Gwendy and NO adults. They were so tickled with the responsibility. 

Speaking of responsible, poppa Rufus had both his knees replaced a couple weeks ago and she went over every day and cleaned his incisions and gave him blood thinner shots. No hesitation. I think she has a future in medicine and I have always thought that. Though if you ask her right now she says she wants to be a 5th grade teacher like Me Harper. A couple years ago she wanted to be a baby nurse and an artist. All remains to be seen and is part of the fun. She has found her groove with reading and will stay up reading and has gotten sucked into a mystical cat series. 

She is still swimming but her passion lies with her eclipse soccer team. She played goalie last year but wasn't feeling it at the end of the season and let her amazing coach John Mayer know that she wanted a different position if he had a place for her. She has been playing forward and that is a good fit. 

Full on toddle

Trevor is now walking more than crawling and it is happening so very fast. My last baby is getting zippy and confident. 

He says momma and likes to give kisses and blow kisses. I think he is catching on to signing thank you but it could just be a blown kiss. He is still waking mostly twice a night to nurse. Bed is 7:30-7:30 and he usually gets 1 nap a day but the length varies with sibling activities. The life of a younger child....

He is a hungry kiddo and likes bites of everyone's food but not if it is a green veggie. He had his first haircut a couple weeks back and tolerated it well enough.

He is already a hockey lover and will try to connect his stick with the ball while scooting around on his butt. Hasn't quite mastered standing and swinging the stick. 

End in sight

Blake has been diaper free for 5 days. I have jumped in and he is sorta on board. There have been more accidents than I remember fromast time of doing this. 

There is something so adorable about a little boy hiney in underwear.