*sNoW dAy, jAcK's ViRuS & eL BeiNg El!*

A couple of weeks ago Ella and I went outside for an adventure in the snow! While I froze my buns off she had an absolutely awesome time. I swear she couldn't even feel how cold it was! She was totally into digging, throwing, eating and pretty much anything else you could think to do with snow! I finally had to force her to go inside because her face was becoming quite red and I was about done with freezing myself! She still wanted to play though. I felt bad cause I know she misses playing outdoors but its just been so cold that I would rather keep her inside. So to keep her entertained once in awhile we drive to the "indoor park" at Arctic Circle and play there so she can at least get a little bit of the stuck-at-home jitters out! Gotta love Rexburg! :)















Of course we couldn't have our snow adventure without Tinkerbell. I think she enjoyed her snow bath. :)



So as I wrote about in a previous post that Jack had been sick...well when we got back from all the Christmas time travel Jack came down with a high fever again and so we took him back in to the doctor because this "cold" or whatever it was had been lingering for too long! Anywho they gave me a different type of antibiotic since he had had that weird reaction to the Amoxicillin and then he came down with this!....this crazy rash that was practically all over his body. I automatically thought it was a reaction to the new antibiotic but sure enough when we went back to the doc they said it was a VIRAL rash which means all the antibiotics we had given him were pretty much useless! Any ways it looks worse than it was he didn't seem to mind that the bumps were all over him, it was just crazy looking. And thank goodness it went away about 3 days later.







The new way to eat with a spoon.





While I was taking pics of Jack's rash Ella was being her normal crazy self but with the added safety goggles so of course I had to take some pictures of that as well. :)

Tubing

One of the days we were in Kemmerer we went tubing down this pretty steep hill they have in town! It was so much fun! Ella was so excited to go but we didn't really have any "real" snow clothes for her so we improvised with lots of layers and plastic bags over her bundled feet! It ended up working pretty well. After a bit of being out there she wanted to shed some layers, so really why invest in snow clothes when you can just be ghetto like us and make your own snow shoes! Ha ha. ( This was Crystal writing) But from now on Chad will be commenting on the rest of the post.

**This is Chad signing in for my quarterly blog chime in.**










This is the steepest hill SW Wyoming has to offer.



The tapered sweat pants and hiking boots combo helped me fit right in Wyoming style. I got compliments at the local grocery store - "Yeah, killer boots man!" - Lloyd Christmas



Ella's boots. Don't judge, we weren't planning on this adventure so we had to improvise. Yes, those are plastic bags with rubber bands holding them secure to her legs.



"I love sledding in less-than-adequate apparel."



This is Ella trying to karate chop the camera.



"I'm not bored, I have hypothermia. I feel so warm, what is that bright light?"



This looks deceivingly unsafe.



Cousin Phil and I experimenting with the most dangerous way to go down a snow slope, elbows joined like we're doing a do-si-do.



The result: gettin jacked up on the ice skating rink.

Christmas Part Dos

To start out here's a random little photo shoot I attempted by myself with my kids after church awhile back...It was not easy trying to keep them sitting in one place and not bugging each other or trying to run away! I definitely need an assistant the next time I try it!









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Yes I am still catching up on Christmas pictures...
So just for a recap, On my first Christmas post I wrote about how we had a Christmas Eve at our place and then we traveled to the Henkel's in WY for Christmas morning. For some reason we didn't take any pictures of us opening presents at the Henkels (bummer) but they were very generous gift givers and we had a lot of fun spending Christmas day and few days after that with them! Here are some of the pictures from our time there!



I think this picture is like the only one where Jack is smiling...long story short, Jack was sick when we went to the Henkels and the doctors had given me some Amoxicillin for it...everything seemed to be going fine and he seemed to be getting better and then for some reason we got to the Henkels in the morning and by night he started acting really strange and clingy and he became a complete wreck! He didn't sleep more than a half hour that whole night, he was so not like himself and pretty much would only let me hold him. It was a rough time there for awhile, we weren't sure if it was the antibiotics causing him to have the weird reaction so we stopped giving them to him. After a couple more days he started to get progressively better thank goodness! (so I just barely noticed Jason's face in the background! Ha ha, good one Jason! :)



Little buddies... El and her cousin Caz have some good times together.



Deer just hangin out in the Henkels front yard.



Grandpa and little buddy Jack. Pretty much the only other person that Jack would allow to hold him was Grandpa, he didn't even want to go to Chad when he was acting all weird and clingy! But
G-pa he accepted! Go Grandpa Don!



We celebrated Chad's 28th birthday while we were there in WY. This was the cake I made for him (it didn't turn out as pretty as the first time I tried to make this particular cake but It was still just as delicious!)



The awkward birthday boy! J/K just an awkward face :)



For some reason Chad and his dad decided to do a face off with each other like they do in the Ultimate Fighter, not sure where that came from but it was funny.



Our little Bella glued to the T.V. again...ever since we moved and left our T.V. with our renters she gets really excited to see a T.V. again! It's kinda funny, she actually will just tell people randomly, "I don't have a T.V." all matter of factly. I actually don't mind too much having it gone, our computer works pretty well as our "T.V." now and Ella has gotten pretty good at pushing random buttons on it to make her movie replay! Seriously, f I don't notice that her movie has ended she will try to push buttons to make it start over again and a lot of the time she gets it, the little stinker! She is a smart one I'll give her that much!



Riding the grandpa horse!



Chad's cousin's that live in Mesa, AZ came up to visit while we were with the Henkels and Chad and his cousin Phillip had a good ol' time "nerd alerting" on the Iphone playing "Tap Tap Revenge" (a version of guitar hero for the Iphone.) It was funny to watch them, they were really focused as you can see. :)



Cousin Rachel all cute reading her book on the couch.



Uncle Jason at his finest! :)



Waiting to go to church.




My little buddy, looking so sweet.

We had a really good time while we were there with the whole family! It's sad to have Christmas all over and done with! I love family get togethers! p.s. (I have a bunch of pictures from when we went tubing while we were there but this post is getting really long so I will just put them on a separate post after this one...)

Next on our travel itinerary was traveling to Boise to visit my parents. It was quite the deal for my kids to get to have Christmas 3 whole times! Pretty much Ella started to believe that Christmas would never end and opening presents would be a daily activity! My family were very kind to us as well and spoiled us with some great gifts.



Jack loved the whole opening present experience!



Ella got a Cinderella princess purse with necklace and gloves included so of course her and Papa Lamb had to go dance at the ball. The only thing Papa didn't bargain for was that she NEVER wants to stop dancing! :0)



Inspecting the goods... Looking over his new briefcase and wearing his new jacket my mom the expert shopper found!



Cute little beanie boy.



Loving her new chalkboard.

Both sides of our families were SO sweet to do all that they did for us over the Christmas break! We had a great time with both of our families and feel so blessed to have both of them!