February already

I can't believe that January is finished as of tomorrow. After I take down the Christmas decorations life tends to go into the blah mode. Usually, I'm just gutting it out until April comes but not so far. Our winter has been very mild with the temps staying in the upper teens and even up to thirty. I've been able to go skiing almost daily and now have been able to add several good friends to go with. Several outings and time spent doing fun things has made a great start to the year.

Of course we wouldn't be Mowers if we didn't have our adventures mixed in there also. The boys are either the best of friends or the worst of enemies. Most of the afternoons are filled with Carsten attacking Benjamin because Benjamin is taking out his grumpy attitude on everybody around him. Then there are the moments like this afternoon when they played blocks for 2 hours together while mom dozed nearby. There's also bedtime when a common desire to stay up as long as possible unifies them and we find them on the floor wrapped around each other. Those moments melt my heart and really erase the question of why I had felt to have two children so close in age, they had been together from the beginning and needed to be together here.
Benjamin's one desire for 2010 came true. He lost his first tooth. Matt and I both feel that he probably forced the issue sooner than it was supposed to happen. Half of his gum is missing but we can't say that Benjamin doesn't accomplish his goals as quickly as possible.
They had crazy hair day at school and Benjamin and Sophie participated with all they (well mom) could do.

The face is how Benjamin looks most mornings. He really hates being woken up for anything and makes everybody hate it too.

On Matt's flex Friday (he gets every other Friday off) he let Carsten loose with a drill. I don't know how I feel about introducing him to powertools yet but he sure loved it.
Josette is our dress-up cooking queen. She loves to fix us food and dress up as a "Sensess". Translatation: Princess.
Matt had a visit to the Emergency Care office to get a staple in his head and I super-glued Benjamin's head shut instead of doing an Emergency Care office run. Matt was on the slope and I wasn't about to load everybody in the car at bedtime if it could be handled otherwise. It worked great! That is going to be a very handy skill I feel. As long as it isn't on the face we are super gluing!

Our biggest adventure happened thanks to Blockbuster. Matt was going out on a boys night out to hike baldy. All the girls and kiddos were coming over to our house. I rented several movies for the kids because we were going to have all different ages and I do want to have a cool house. They nicely gave us a FREE tub of popcorn to pop in the microwave. Many will recognize that this isn't my usual style but I figured why not this will be "cool" for the older kids. I followed the directions, everybody is getting drinks and other snacks and Sophie turns the corner to tell me the kitchen is filled with smoke. I go in open the microwave to FLAMES. Images explain the rest. My FREE tub of popcorn cost me $300!