A Day of Skiing

Here are some pics from a ski outing we did a few weeks agao. This is the trail that is just below our house, it's awesome! We can go skiing right from our house and this trial connects to about 100 miles worth of trails. We go skiing every weekend and I can no longer keep up with Ali and Saiger can almost keep up with me. This is a picture of Ali and Tana getting the hang of skijoring. Ali likes to hang on to her leash so she can let go when Tana gets going too fast or does one of her veers off into the trees. They are both still learning. It's fun tho, and we will also hook Tana up to the girls sled and she will pull them all around. I hope some of you are enjoying some spring weather. The temps have been great here, in the teens and twenties, but we have also received a TON of snow. Last Saturday it snowed a foot and yesterday it snowed another 10 inches. I couldn't get out of our road and Jeff had to go pick Ali up from school because I was stuck. It took me an hour of shoveling to finally make it back into our driveway. The snow is great but I am anxious for the spring weather to arrive.

The downstairs

I'm getting bored myself with all these pictures so these will be short. These are the stairs going down and the pantry/bookshelf. I haven't decided what I want to use it for so for now it's both.

My second favorite room in the house. This is the girl's hideout/playroom under the stairs. It's so nice because we can keep most of their toys in here and they don't get sprend out all over the house, or atleast not as bad.

The storage area, another work in progress. We want to build a bunch of shelves to keep the storage on.

Laundry room, across from the storage. With four kids I have a feeling this is where most of my time is going to be spent, joy!

The family room/box storage while we unpack.

The spare/guest area where you will all hopefully get a chance to stay because I know you are all planning on visiting. There is a bathroom off to the right that you can see the door and the green door that you can see the corner of on the left leads to outside. So FINALLY that about wraps up the house. There is some pics of the outside, we have a great yard that will be a lot of fun this summer, and a shed, but you will just have to come and see those for yourself.

The upstairs

These are the stairs going upstairs, because I'm sure none of you have ever seen stairs before. The carpet is one of the first things we would like to go if we can get some of my bros up here this summer. The blue isn't too bad, it's the wonderful pink it turns into once it gets to the top.

The view out our bedroom window. We watched a moose for about 20 minutes right here this morning.

The girls bedroom for now but will be the boys when they come. It's small but has to do. Our bedroom is below and is plenty big. I'm sure you are all so excited about these pictures, and I love showing off our mess but don't worry there is more!

House Pictures

Ok, so here are some pictures of our house finally! This is the view of the house from the front. It is three levels and these first pics are of the main level when you come in thru the front door.

This is the arctic entry, Jeff's favorite part of the house. It is very nice to have a place to take off snow boots and for Tana to sleep when it's really cold outside.

This is the bedroom on the main floor and has a bathroom next to it. This is where the girls will move to when the boys come.

My only disclaimer is when you look at these pics you have to ignore the mess and boxes for me. The house is still a work in progress but it's coming. So this is the dining room area, the arctic entry is behind the small wall, with our lovely dining room table ensamble. One of the works in progress, and you can see part of the kitchen off to the left.

Here is Ali modeling the kitchen. It's a little on the older side but it works just fine and is the biggest kitchen I've ever had.

This is the view out of one of the front room windows. This is my favorite part of the house. It has two huge windows and is so pretty to look out of. As you can see we still have a lot of snow but these pics were taken a few days ago and if I would have taken them today it would have looked way different because of the the foot of snow we just recieved today. I did take some pics of all of it tho today when we went skiing so I will put those on next.

This is the upper living room displaying Jeff's pride and joy. One day he came home and said, "I love coming home and looking at....." catching himself just in time by saying my wife instead of the sheep. Good thing, because he was about to see how much he loved his sheep when he was going to have to snuggle with it at night in bed instead of me! But it is still my favorite room in the house. So that is all of the main floor. I will do the upper and lower floors tomorrow because I am going to bed now.

Big Booda

So here they are!!! Pictures of the big belly that my family has been begging for. You might think that I'm not THAT big, but I am huge for only 5 months. I am probably the size of what someone 8 months pregnant would be. It's starting to get difficult to move and I am very tired by the end of the day, as you can see in the picture. I can only imagine what the next three, possibly more, months will bring agghh! Wish me luck! Also the pics of the house ARE coming I promise. I took a bunch with by brother's camera he gave us and went to put them on the computer but didn't have the software that I needed to download them. I'm trying to get it figured out but if I can't I'll resort back to old trusty. So be patient with me and I'll try and have them by this weekend.

A Great Day for a Hike

Here are some pics from a hike we took with the girls a few days after we returned home from our Christmas break. It had been a -40 degrees or colder for about three weeks here in Alaska but thankful me missed the entire thing. The day we got off the plane it was +35. That weekend we went on a fun hike to enjoy the beautiful weather. Jeff pulled the chariot and the girls thought it was fun to ride on the skiis. We built a fire and cooked hotdogs and enjoyed being outside without freezing or crying kids.

We are also getting settled into our new house and love it. We still can't believe it is ours but are so thankful to finally have a place of our own. It's so nice to not even care if the girls are too loud or Jeff is pounding a nail too late at night. I know you are STILL waiting for pics of the house and my goal is to do that this week. I will also include, tho not because of my wishes, a picture of my ever growing belly. I can't believe how big I am at a little more than 4 and a half months, but I've been saying that this entire prego, and I know it's only going to get worse. My stamina also isn't what I would expect and I get tired really easy. I'm hoping I don't have to go on bedrest but it will most likely be partial. The doctor says I have about 2-3 more weeks before I have to start really cutting back. Easier said then done! Jeff is also in the proccess of intrerviewing and looking for another job. He is struggling trying to decide if he should do the clerkship for another year or go to a firm. I'm trying to decide if I want his time to help with the twins or his money to afford the twins. I don't know! Ali is liking her new school and is doing the cross country ski club. I think it's a blast but I'm not sure she shares my same enthusiasm. She is becoming quite the skiier tho and this saturday we went for a great ski. We have some awesome trails that we can ski on right from our house at the end of our road. Anyway, Ali got her first taste of skiijoring with Tana and thought it was blast except when Tana would veer off and leave her flat on her face. Tana is young tho and this was her first time so they will both have to practice more. Saige did her best skiing this weekend too and skiied for almost an hour so we are making progress with her. We keep telling her when the babies come there will be no more riding. Well I have to start thinking about dinner but I will try and get those pics posted soon. Until later!

Fun on Ice

Before we left on our vacation for Christmas we took the girls to the ice park in North Pole. We went with our friends, Chuck and Karen and Riley and had a great time despite the -10 temp. There were some great ice sculptures and a really fun kids park with lots of slides for the kids to go down. One was a huge bob sled run that was a blast. Saige loved the cups that you could spin until whoever was spinning became too dizzy to continue. We are looking forward to the Fairbanks ice festival in March.