Zack's Cars Party

Ever since Hunter had a birthday party Zack had been talking about his party.  I gave him two options superhero or Cars...he chose Cars.

When he said he wanted a party, what he really wanted was decorations.  Almost daily he would say to me "I want Cars party right here...right here...right here..." pointing to all the places where I had decorations for Hunters party.

I knew I had to do the decorations in a big way because that's really all he wanted.

We kept the guest list small so we could do things that Zack would love.

We had a second party for Zack the next day with all our family (minus my brother and sister-in-law since it was her birthday weekend as well).

Winter Walking

Hunter has been a walker for a pretty long time...almost 4 months.  However I don't really trust him to walk in an unconfined place.  Unlike Zack he is super quiet and super sneaky and super skilled combine that with his fearless nature and desire to run away from home...and well yeah...I don't trust him.

Typically when we go for a walk Zack walks with me and Hunter rides...unlike Zack, Hunter doesn't mind the stroller and I might go so far as to say he kind of likes it.  I however would love to not have to carry or push Hunter everywhere we go.

Lately on our walks I have let Hunter walk...basically it goes like this...

Hunter "runs" in whatever direction Zack isn't going

I chase him and turn him around

he turns right back in his preferred direction (usually into construction)

and I carry him far enough away that he finds a new preferred location

Last time I just let him go and we followed...within reason...I didn't let him run into the road.

He pretty much stayed on the sidewalk until we got to a driveway then he headed right into the road again.

Zack is great.  He will stay with me.  He is loud...so if I can't see him I can always hear him.  He is safety conscious...he makes me stop and look both ways at the store.

Last weekend we went on a family walk...you know the weekend it was 70 degrees...the weekend between the two snow storms.

Zack brought his car and Adam managed Hunter so I could snap a few pictures without endangering my children.

Happy Valentines From the Milton Boys

 And this is what I sent to the grandparents...

Snomageden 2014

It was a pretty bad storm.  Not in the fact that there was dangerous ice or lots of long term power outages...but in that it came early and it came strong.  Within 30 minutes of the first flake the roads were almost undrivable.  Lots of people had to leave their cars and walk home or to a friends house.  I had friends who took a couple hours to drive a few miles.  It was pretty bad.  Thankfully (I guess) Adam was home with the stomach flu so I didn't have to worry about him driving home and thankfully the boys wake up early meaning we take early naps so we weren't caught out running one last trip to the grocery store (unlike a lot of my friends).  And before you make a "must buy bread and milk joke"...I MUST always have bread and milk (along with bananas and applesauce and several other things that toddlers will ALWAYS eat).  I ran to the store at 8:30 that morning for those things because I knew even if the roads were OK they wouldn't be great and I am not willing to risk it with my kids...plus who wants to scrape a car and bundle the kids to run errands.  Not this girl. In our little world we didn't have to go anywhere or do anything.  We stayed home, we watched movies (sort of), we played and we made the obligatory trip outside to play.

dreaming of a chance to play in the "done)

standing by the window because the blinds are up

this is before the second layer of snow and ice on the road right outside our house

it's rare that I get a photo of me with both boys...let alone a cute one

someone liked throwing snowballs a little too much

my favorite part of this photo is the snot

he was happiest when we let him stand in the garage where his feet wouldn't sink into the snow

the boys took turns (sort of) sledding down our non hill.  As you can tell Hunter was thrilled

Zack LOVED every second.