Did I mention the birthdays?
This time of year were are inundated with birthdays. While yes, that does translate into lots of cake, it also usually translates into lots of work for Mommy.
My most recent birthday however (a precursor to a milestone... doesn't that make it a milestone in and of itself? Felt like it...) was a bit of a departure from the normal workload for Mommy. In fact, Greg and Gwen made a cake for me. All by themselves. (Except that I bought the mix and the frosting - it's an old family tradition, yellow cake, chocolate frosting). But they baked it and decorated it. It was very yummy. Plus the girls directed Daddy in the placement of crepe paper streamers, both on the ceiling and on the "birthday girl's chair" (that was Gwen favorite phrase of the evening) and how the table should look.
I'm here to tell you it all looked amazing!
We had
BFD for the evening meal. That's "Breakfast for Dinner" in case you didn't guess.
Scratch waffles, sausage, home fries, and cheesy scrambled eggs. It is always a big hit in this family.
That's right, I'm officially 39. I believe I will add "and holding" to that next year.
Not a fantastic picture of me, but a wonderful shot of the cake. They made green sprinkle mountains and a blue sprinkle "big-wide-open-ocean", even though according to Gwen it was supposed to be my name. Good recovery, guys!
Amelia helped with the candle blowing. She's a natural. Plus, she had wee little pig tails for the festivities. Can you see them?
The next birthday in our house is Gwen's fifth, coming up in mid-March. We are going all-out with Dora and Diego, balloons, cake, kids, pizza... Gwen has it all planned out. There will be crafts and music. It's bound to be a blast. She tells me some new addition every day. She dreams about it in technicolor. Pretty soon there will be real live ponies for everyone and a drive-in theater in our backyard. And a rock band. With authentic mullets. Wow- this sounds like a great party! Why didn't Mommy get rock mullets? Stay tuned for pictures.
So anyway, between Greg's immediate family and mine we have nearly all of the birthdays in January, February, March and April. Two in January, four in February, six in March and then Amelia and Cori in April (they'll be two already this year!). Out of all our immediate family, only three birthdays are not in those months. We have two in September, and one in October. Oh, wait - Greg's is in late December, but he was a preemie and was actually due on my birthday. Does that still count?
In any case, let the cakes begin!!
After a brief orientation, they had the kids walk up this turf/carpet and then scoot over to the "slope", and go!
The kids didn't use poles, but they did learn how to use their pizza slice to stop. I was a little lax on taking pictures because the whole thing just scared me; I can't zoom, focus, and keep my hands out to catch her at all times, can I? 
It was a fun but exhausting day. We took lots of breaks.
Rubbing elbows with the likes of Hilary Lindh, we left contented, excited to ski another day.