Watch out Hollywood!

I love this kid. He gets so into character, it's hilarious. Watch out Hollywood!

Hardware Ranch and MORE sledding!

We went to Hardware Ranch on Saturday with the whole Merrill fam. I have to admit, I was not looking forward to getting up early to spend the whole day in the cold looking at elk but it's what Rich's dad wanted to do for his birthday so away we went. It was quite the drive up to Hyrum (near Logan) and then way, way up the canyon. We couldn't even get cell service- oh no!

We finally made it and loaded up on the wagon:

Zachary in his cool grinch hat

Cheesy Karter

My cute new baby neice Kenadee

It was a pretty nice day and would've been great but there was a cold breeze that was killing me.

The elk: the scenery was so pretty if you don't look at all the elk poop on the ground.

A big daddy

This one made me laugh. She just sat there chewing her cud and was looking at us like "is there something I can help you with?" I do believe she's the snob of the group.

There are something like 14,000 acres total on Hardware Ranch. Everything is paid for by ticket sales for the rides and elk tags from the hunters.

Sometimes we pretend we love each other

So, after the sleigh ride the plan was to go sledding but these silly kids couldn't even wait until we got to the sledding hill. Slippery coats and pants will do.

When we got to the sledding hill, I got all bundled up in Dick's snowpants since mine are MIA. They fit perfectly! Don't you think?

Sledding on boogie boards from Dick's DI finds is the greatest!

They went faster and farther than any sled I've ever seen (excluding the disk on Christmas Vacation).

Tubes are fun but you can't steer them and going backwards kinda freaks me out.

My little penguin

Me on the boogie board, it was kinda scary.

So Dick has been wanting to take the boys snowboarding and I've been kind of iffy about it, thinking they might not be able to get the hang of it. Boy was I wrong. Zach didn't get a chance to try it but Karter did and he did awesome!

My first time on a snowboard in almost 7 years! I was never very good to begin with and that is still the case. I'm a big chicken and can't control where I'm going but I had fun and got quite the workout!

Even though I was sort of dreading this little activity, we had SO much fun! It's quite the drive but I highly recommend this Saturday activity!

Sassafras challenge

WARNING: the following is another scrapbooking post.

I love Sassafras! They have some of my very favorite paper and I love to read the Sassafras blog (you may recall how excited I was when they featured one of my reviews...). Occasionally on the blog they have challenges. The current challenge (the first that I'm attempting) is to use up old Sassafras paper to make Valentines and make room for the new lines. I'm super excited for the new lines- they are so cute!

Anyhoo- here are my Valentines:

See how cute the papers are? The elephant stamps are also Sassafras- bet you can't guess who the elephant valentine is for...

So pretty!

I got a new toy today!

(Courtesy of a charitable friend who got a great deal on it, decided she didn't want it and is letting me make payments- yes, payments. I couldn't afford it otherwise. Sad, I know).

For those of you unfamiliar to my little scrapbook world, this is a Quickutz Silhouette SD. A digital die-cutting machine that is absolutely amazing! Far better than the ever popular Cricket (I think). I'm so excited to learn to use it and get to work! In the future, you can all expect handmade birthday cards, christmas cards, thank you cards, hello cards, etc, etc... Who's as excited as me?!!

It's already FEBRUARY!!

I cannot believe it's already February! I had hoped that 2010 would go by a bit slower than 2009 did. But so far- no luck...

I'm having a hard time keeping up on my 365 project, I've had to do a bit of catching up which means these pictures are slightly off on days but I figure close enough.

2-2-10

This picture of Zachary makes me laugh. I love the outfits he comes up with sometimes (I've given up fighting them to get them to wear what I want). And he told me he need to keep these ripped up pieces of Nemo fruitsnacks box for "his collection".

2-3-10

Zachary only had to say please to get me out in the cold to play baseball with him. He is getting so good.

2-4-10

Karter is becoming such a good little reader. He fights me most of the time but when he actually sits down to do it, he's great. He took this pic himself!

2-5-10

Ash and her cute boys came over to play on Friday. We always have fun snapping pics. She took this one of me and Fred playing on the chair (I wish you could see more of him), he's finally starting to like me again! He is seriously such a cute, funny kid. I love him!

Well, that's the beginning of my month #2. Cross your fingers with me that things will SLOW DOWN!

more sledding

Okay, I may not like living in our apartment but I have to admit that we have some pretty cool neighbors. Our downstairs neighbor (the one who mows the lawn in the summer and shovels the walks in the winter) made this awesome hill in the front yard for the kiddies to sled on. They had a blast today:

Zach

Karter

Niko

Hailee

Kayla

Here are a few pics I took off of the video Dick took yesterday.

Crazy kids. :)

Jan 30

Rich and the kids went sledding today. They had so much fun! (Since I was exhausted and our house was a disaster, I stayed home to rest/clean.)

We were hoping to have had some fresh snow to cover up all the ice but we did not and Karter ended up getting a battle wound. From the snow!

I was told Zachary fell too and hit his head- poor kids. But even with the injuries, I think fun was had by all!