Tuesday, December 29, 2009

My Love/Hate Relationship

Let me tell you a little bit about my love/hate relationship with skiing. I think if I had to pick between the two I hate it, but there is a little part of me that does love it.

What in the world makes a person want to leave a nice cozy warm place and go out into the cold, put on extremely uncomfortable shoes, bundle up in a bunch of clothes that always fail to stay in the right place, carry a bunch of equipment that is impossible to handle all to only put this equipment on to try to get to a stupid lift that will only make you colder as the wind blows all around you while you are up in the air!!! Who loves this?!?! Apparently my family does! They call this "vacation". Last time I checked vacation meant being in the Carribbean, on a cruise, or in Hawaii all while having a fruity alcoholic beverage in my hand getting a tan in some nice weather with crystal clear water around!

So yesterday we left for our "vacation" to New Hampshire for our ski vacation. I never really put up much of a fight because I love having my family all under one roof that isn't our own. One... because my parents house is HUGE and everyone is always spread out all over doing their own thing. I love being trapped in a little condo and having to spend time together. Two... because it takes away a ton of responsibility of laundry, the business, pets, and so many other things that take up so much time. We get to enjoy each other :) Another reason I love it is because their is always those few rare moments in skiing where you can ignore the numbing pain in your body and just really enjoy the thrill of flying down a mountain and taking in the view. A huge plus on the skiing side is i'm pretty decent at it and don't really have the fear factor on my side... Thank God!

Soo anyhow... we went skiing. It was two degrees today with a wind chill factor making it feel like negative nineteen. I complained all the way from the car to the top of the mountain about how I "wasn't skiing" to my husband. He just continued to help me adjust my equipment and tell me we'll have fun all the way. I know he loves me because I would have slapped myself silly and told myself to get a grib. He was so sweet about it all and even told me how much he enjoyed being at the top of the mountain with me today... love him :)

We all made it out alive. I always get so nervous with Derrik out there because he can't afford to hurt himself. My brother took a pretty serious digger today. Fell hard enough my uncle said everyone in the chair lift made the "oh God!" sound from above. We think he might have a little concussion, but he's a little on the extreme side when it comes to sports. Like my mom said, "If he has a concussion it won't be his first and probably won't be his last." Anyone who knows him knows this is true. We've woken him up to check on him quite a few times and he is eating as I type. He'll be fine :)

Ryder spent the day in the daycare. He said bye to us and walked right in. I was a little sad he left us so easily, but I think all the toys were just too exciting! I checked on him after about two hours. They said he was doing great, was playing, and had just ate. I didn't let Ryder see me, but I saw him... walking around with his paci in his mouth! He never has it except in bed or at naptime. I wrote that in the notes, but he must have talked those daycare ladies into it. He's a little charmer, or it just shut him up! HAHA They said he had a rough afternoon. He wouldn't nap, but who would in a bright room with a playpen in the middle of the room. He crashed as soon as we got home for a late nap and appears to be unharmed from his first long daycare experience. I think mommy survived it too :)
Due to the extremely cold weather outside and my "I hate skiing" attitude I took zero pictures today. My husband decided to have my uncle take this one of us at the top of the mountain. Just before this picture such a huge gust of wind came whipping through that it blew me backwards quite a bit. It was ridiculous! I still had a blast going down the hill though... like I said... It's a love/hate relationship :)
Derrik and I at the top of the mountain

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Ice Skating

Yesterday we decided to go ice skating. I wouldn't have thought about going with Ryder except for the fact that his Daddy played hockey since he was little all the way through high school so skating is almost like walking to him. I can skate but just enough to get around the rink without landing on my butt. Ryder got a kick out of putting the skates on (which were SOOO cute in his size). The helmet was rather dorky, but his noggin' needed to be protected :)

Ryder is his skate attire
Our 1st time ice skating together
Skating around
Mommy, Uncle Ryan, and Ryder
Skating Around
Our Group
Uncle Ryan giving Ryder a lift around the rink
Grandpa and Grammy
Uncle Ryan does the pass off to Daddy
The boys thought he was awfully heavy to hold out there, but
still think they can take him skiing this week!
Ally and Ryan
Daddy and Ryder having a blast!
"I had so much fun!"
Ryder's cute little skates

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

So i'm done apologizing on my blog for a ridiculous amount of photos. I love photos, take lots of photos, and just can't help but post them for our family that loves to look at them. Just imagine if I post this many how many I really take!!!

You can tell Christmas has official begun in the Winter household when you see this taking place in the kitchen....
My poor mom is always running around with her head cut off the whole month of December. She has four kids, a son-in-law, a grand kid, a husband, extended family, friends, and teacher to buy presents for. She has my birthday December 15th to worry about, Hailey's birthday December 22nd to worry about, and a million other holiday obligations! After all of this... she is also in charge of the cooking. Starting last year my dad decided to make it tradition that the guys in the house would cook Christmas Eve dinner. They have succeded with flying colors two years in a row now.... with the meal that is. They always manage to leave the dishes afterwards which is harder then just cooking the meal ourselves after the mess they leave, but we still love them anyhow :)
Derrik making homemade meatballs
The Chefs
My Mom, Yuilya, and Carrie enjoying dinner
Some good-looking couple...hehe
Daddy with his girls
My sister and I on Christmas Eve
We love our baby sister
My Parents
For Christmas this year I did some shopping on an amazing website called Etsy (it's the devil!), but has amazing gifts!

My sister's gifts
I got them new covers for their Boppy pillows (they got the pillow last year). A Boppy pillow(for those of you that don't know) are meant for babies. People use them to nurse or to prop the baby. The girls kept trying to steal Ryder's when he was a baby so last year I got them their own. This year I found some cute new covers on Etsy....
We had a great Christmas Eve with our friends and family. We have never made a huge deal out of Christmas Eve, but just use it to have some quiet time and a good meal with whoever can be there. We love to have our family around and take in any friends who might be in need of some company :)

Christmas morning Derrik and I knew we needed to get up early to have our own little Christmas at our apartment. We had a long day ahead of us... (early to us isn't early like other families.. we woke him up at about 7:45... my family never really starts until like 8:45-9:00... love it!)
We woke our little man up
Here is that excited "I know they woke me up for something good" look!
I keep asking Derrik what his family did on Christmas... if they had any traditions he truly remembered and wanted to keep going for Ryder to remember. I want to try to start those now that Ryder is so little. We've been trying to brainstorm things that were special to us each Christmas. I asked him about stockings and he said he remembered just opening their stockings by the Christmas tree before their gifts so I overruled him and decided to enforce our tradition :) Santa always left our stockings on our bed for us. We weren't allowed to touch them until my mom came in that morning, but in the middle of the night I could always feel it at the end of my bed and remember being SO excited that Santa came and knew there must be some amazing things waiting for us!!! Whether it was just Ryan and I, or eventually Ally and Hailey too, we always opened them together on our beds. Mom would join in on the festivities with us taking pictures while Dad showered. My dad was hard to get out of bed so the stockings would hold us over until he was showered and awake. Thank God he wasn't a coffee drinker too or we would have been in serious trouble!!!

Even though Derrik is an early riser on Christmas, unlike my dad, we still did our stockings with Ryder on our bed this year. We gave Ryder his stocking and Derrik showed him to look inside. Santa left some cool toys inside and Ryder loved it!!!

Checking out a toy from his stocking
Dad trying to show Ryder there is more then one toy in there... Ryder thought this was pretty cool once he realized it!
Dad's turn!
Afterwards we went upstairs to see what Santa had left under the Christmas tree for us! A tradition I had heard about from friends was that Santa wrapped all their gifts in the same wrapping paper. I loved this, but am a huge wrapping paper freak! I could spend thirty minutes easily contemplating what wrapping paper to get in the wrapping paper section during Christmas time(if Derrik knew this he'd probably freak out). So after contemplating back and forth, I put away the nice looking paper and got Ryder what I thought he would truly like.... I went with the extrememly tacky Sesame Street wrapping paper... Yuck! BUT... The first thing Ryder did when he saw the Christmas tree was lean down and point to the figures on the wrapping paper and smiled at us... made this Mommy's morning :)

Once he got over the paper he started to take in the whole scene...
SANTA CAME!!!!
So Excited!!!
Ryder was too funny opening presents. Every little piece of paper he ripped off he wanted to give to us or throw in the trash... he takes after me :) It took a little while to open his stuff because he wanted them opened and out of the box after each one, but we loved it anyhow.

Inspecting one of his presents
After we finished our family Christmas we headed next door to my parents house.

A view of Christmas at the Winter household
Since Ryder is still too little to expect his big gifts from Santa we passed the spoiling rights onto the grandparents and Uncle Ryan. Their gifts to him were the biggest hits with Ryder for the day.

Ryder in the past month or so has been showing signs of becoming a basketball player much more so then following in his Daddy's footsteps of being a baseball player. He loves his toys basketball, real basketball, his Auntie Ally's big basketball hoop outside, his shower basketball hoop.... anything basketball We started to realize Ryder was deprived when he would bring everyone his little bathtub basketball hoop to hold and then would pretend to put a real basketball through it.... didn't really work! Uncle Ryan got Ryder his first real basketball hoop. Ryder played with this all morning.... all day actually!

Our Basketball Star
Grammy and Grandpa got Ryder his second favorite gift (it could be his first, but we keep taking it away so it won't ruin their wood floors!) a new set of golf clubs! We were getting Derrik some golf clothes the other day and saw a small set of clubs. Grandpa couldn't resist... and the spoiling continues!

Daddy is thrilled Ryder doesn't have to smash his golf clubs at the driving range anymore!

Us :)
More gifts...
(side note... the weird silver thing in my parent's living room is a box for the back of my dad's truck that was given to him by my brother... not some weird furniture that it kind of appears to be)
Ally got her Miles to Go book by Miley Cyrus that she has been begging for all month!
Our Family on Christmas Morning
Our First Baby
Chloe
After Christmas with my immediate family, my mom's extended family all comes over to exchange gifts (We miss you Scott, Karen, Mike, and Jeff). It's always a little hectic, but nice to see everyone. It's also the one time of year the my Great Grandma, Gigi, get's to see everyone together and we all know it's so special to her.
Gram and Papa
Ally and Cooper
Brooke and I
The Guys
Ryan, Cooper, Uncle Sean, Uncle Greg, and Uncle Bobby
My brother Ryan and I
Auntie and Uncle Sean
Hailey and Dad
Some of my cousins...
Adam, Brooke, and Madison
Gigi passed out her gifts that she gives us every year... A can of Poppy Cock
Don't know why, but it makes us laugh every year (I think it's the name and the fact that is comes from our 90 year old Grandmother)
Five Generations
Ryder's with his Mommy, Grammy, Mimi, and his great-great-grandmother Gigi
The Whole Family
(minus my mom taking the picture)
We had such an amazing Christmas. I think the holiday truly changes when you can see it through your own child's eyes. I can honestly say the best present I received yesterday were watching him enjoy everything so much. I loved the look in his eyes! We can't wait to enjoy this upcoming week with family now that all the running around of Christmas is behind us, and we also can't wait to celebrate Christmas in Pennsylvania just after the New Year!