february break

in all my catching up on five months worth of blogging, i forget to mention my girls trip in february. my parents took the girls with them on their annual skiing trip to utah. they stayed with pat's mom and were able to build great memories with the hinckley side of the family (and mine too).

my parents took the girls skiing for a few days. this was gracie's third year, and lily's first. lily was fearless (as usual) and ate it all up (as shown by pic on the collage below - i just love that smile.)

from what i hear, grace is doing quite well on skies; although, she is a more cautious child than lily - or should i say more reasonable child?

waiting to get on the lift with papa.

skiing down the mountain with nanna.

all geared up; ready to go.

my brother and his wife came down from idaho and the girls had a wonderful time goofing off with them. this might be a good time to mention that gracie's nickname "gigi" comes from abbreviating the phrase "gracie goofball."

one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip was to go babysit cousin mallory twice a week. seriously, the girls loved doing this and was always one of the top two things out of their mouths when asked what their favorite part of the trip was. looking at the picture below explains it. mallory has the sweetest disposition to match that face.

other highlights include decorating pottery with aunt carolyn, then being joined by cousin kait for a movie. of course, playing with nanna jean's (hinckley) amazing collection of dress-ups.

the girls took an overnight flight home. so we just went and got them at my parents' house the next morning. i was so giddy to see them that i felt like a kid on christmas morning. we even ended up waking them up because we couldn't wait any longer.

i always send the girls with money that i never see again. i don't think they ever need to use it with so many grandparents around to spoil them, but they do always come home with a sweet little token for us.

fritzy enjoyed the attention of being home with just mom and jake more than i thought he would. he was glad to see his sisters though when they returned.