Out of My Comfort Zone.

David and I made it back to Campgaw mountains for a second time. This kid ... he doesn't stop to amaze me. He is so different when it's just him and me. It seems as though he wants to take care of me and not the other way around.

Back to skiing. For every time I went down a hill, he made it 3 times. He had such a control of his body, that he would just zoom right back on line whereas it took me awhile to stop and then head back up to the back of the line. He was basically skiing by himself. I didn't mind as long as he didn't insist on going back to a ski lift.

No such luck. After thirty minutes skiing on a "bunny" slop, he insisted on going to a ski lift. He held my hand while we were up in the air, told me not to look down and insisted that a lift is really safe. He was cruising around the trees like a pro not falling down even once. He asked me to go all the way on the highest hill. No way. It's beyond going out of my comfort zone. It's stepping out of my body. I'll pay someone to take him there next year.

By the end he got bored a little bit. He needs to be challenged all the time and when he succeeds at something, it's not interesting for him anymore. Add to it waiting in line for 10-15 minutes and my 5 year old is ready to climb the highest mountains .... literally and figuratively.

A really good day indeed.

Happy Valentine's.

Children. They do change everything. In the past I used to buy a Valentine's card for my husband just right after the Christmas was over. Today I realized I had forgotten to purchase a card in spite of helping my kids make handmade cards for all of their friends and teachers and decorate every corner of our house with handmade hearts in the past month or so. The priorities have definitely changed.

I really didn't want to purchase any more chachkas, so instead I turned to this fun project -- melted crayon hearts. I remember seeing it many times on other blogs and no wonder, because it's so much fun to make with the kids (after we took all the paper off). My friend also blogged about it here . We ended up making about 45 of them using every single crayon in our house and still managed to run out of them.

This is what out table looked like on Saturday. David needed to take a lot of breaks since he was handwriting a lot of notes, cards and even a song. Breaks took a form of reading. He's into reading Magic Tree House series books right now. Eight done, forty more to go.

He wanted to write a poem for his speech therapist, but then changed his mind and decided to write a song. I just hope my card from him is as sweet.

The kids wrote cards to each other and their teachers. I knitted this dishcloth for David's teacher and yes, I realize she deserves a cashmere blanket instead, but that's all I had time for. It's being blocked right now, thus no picture.

Perhaps, being inspired by all this crafting and talks of Valentine's, Julia has been coming up with really hilarious sayings. She's been walking around the house saying to herself "Darth Vader is in love with me". The other day as we were in a car, in her whiny voice (it comes out whenever she really wants something) she tells me "Mommy, I like daddy, but I really really want Luke Skywalker to be my father". And that's when we realized the kids need to take a break from watching "Star Wars".

I hope to write more entries soon since we've been keeping ourselves very busy. Hope tomorrow everyone feels more loved and appreciated (I'll make it up to my husband for a forgotten card).