Ski Day!

Grammie Ellen is in town, so we decided to play hooky for the second half of today and take the girls up the mountain to ski.  They've been asking for weeks, and it was a beautiful time to go - lots of fresh snow, but the roads are all clear!

Here is our intrepid duo, ready to hit the slope.

Up the magic carpet they go - they can't wait to get to do the chair lift on the other slopes, but for now we're just happy they've mastered this and no one fell off this year!

Elena showed really amazing agility and balance - she had such a blast and really tore it up down the hill.

Clara took a more cautious approach, but remembered everything about making "pizza" with her skis to stop that she learned last year.

 

And she remembered to do "french fries" to get going again!

 

Elena, speeding straight into the safety of Dad's arms.

Clara, really knocking it out of the park with her form on the magic carpet - she is going to be some racer one day!

A Clara skiing sandwich.

Sweet, happy Elena.

Even though she knew to do "pizza' on the hill, when she got all the way to the bottom this was Clara's preferred method of stopping - just sitting right down!

They were so proud of each other after they would get down the hill - it's not easy to hug a sister on skis, but they managed!

Right when we had decided we were done (and Elena had taken her skis off) Clara decided she needed just one more run.  Elena told the rest of us to back off, and said she could help her sister back over to the lift.

So sweet to give a sister a helping hand!

And so sassy when praised about it!

A great last run for Clara:

 

And we were ready to head back in. 

After turning in all the ski stuff we headed into Philipsburg, land of sweets.  First stop was the Sweet Shoppe, to show Grammie Ellen what the fuss is all about.

Steve let each girl pick out TEN candies! 

 

Then we hopped across the street to Doe Brothers, home of awesome milkshakes and site of a picture you may remember taken there of the girls years ago.

A recreation from today:

They just keep growing up!

We all shared a chocolate milkshake.

It's nice to have so many sweet opportunities nearby.  And when we got home the girls went straight to bed - all that fun drains them, apparently!

Slowing of the snow

So, after two days of non-stop snow we awoke today to blue skies!  It was still difficult to drive anywhere (even with our four-wheel-drive truck) so we spent a lot of time at home again.  We made our snow family, and refined our at-home sledding hill.

 

That was really an awesome experience - can spring arrive now?? 

Snow Day!

We awoke to mountains of snow on Thursday, and to cancelled school.  So after a good interval of pancake-eating and Madeline-watching we headed outside to start the shoveling (and playing!).  Clara tries to tackle a mound to the side of the driveway:

While Elena is stellar at helping to clean off the car:

Steve played a fun game called: "Cover the Clara!"

When the driveway was finally clear the girls had a little sledding hill to play on.

It's the first time they've ever been able to sled at home, on their flat yard.  It's also the first time they've ever seen snow like this - we were wishing for them to have a day where the snow seemed as tall as they were so they'd have this in their memory banks, and we're glad it happened!

Although the girls seemed content eating snow...

 

...the rest of us outside wanted something more substantial.  We had been visiting and helping neighbors as we all shoveled together, and decided to have a snowed-in potluck lunch at our house.  It was so much fun!  We don't see a lot of one another in these cold months, and even though cleaning up snow has its downsides socializing is a nice upside.

This last picture is from the day before (Wednesday) when it was snowing so heavily by mid-morning that we already all knew it would probably be a snow day the next day.  Partly to ward of saddness at not seeing each other the next day, we hosted a playdate at our house for the girls' favorite friend, Talan, and his sister, Griffin.  The kids has a blast, and that fun will have to hold them through.  School got cancelled for Friday, too, so no one will get together again until at least Monday!

Sweet faces

Four quick snapshots of a few cute faces.  Clara, taunting us and wearing Christina's boots:

Elena, over-exposed, but somehow giving us a glimpse of what she'll look like at 14:

Clara, singing the book "Get Along Little Cowboy" to us (She LOVES this book!):

Elena cuddling her dad while he gets a little rest:

The cuteness - it abounds!