How Much Fun it is to Ride . . .

Today we went on a sleigh ride up at Hardware Ranch up by Logan to see all the Elk. Annie is now well educated about these animals, telling me the whole drive back to our house how the boy ones have antlers (not horns, I was brutally rebuffed by Annie and Grandpa Robert when I made that mistake earlier) but the "girl ones just have ears on their heads." And we can now spot Elk poop from a mile away.

We were warned sternly and repeatedly before the sleigh ride that we would not be able to get out and retrieve any dropped items for any reason whatsoever. So, there was much discussion among my family what would happen if we dropped a kid overboard, would we really just continue on, stopping for no reason. Then Jovanny's binkie went flying off into the Elk's feeding grounds, lost and gone forever. Lacy almost dived overboard to retrieve it . . . I think mainly because she was the one who had to drive the two hours home with the now binkie-less kid in her car. (Turns out he did have a spare in the car, so he slept on the drive home, like normal babies do.)
We, obviously, took lots of pictures, which I will of course share with all of you!

Here we all are (minus my Dad who's taking the picture. And Ellie who's in Star's lap by hidden by Greg) before our sleigh ride began . . .

Star's holding Ellie (who looked much like Maggie Simpson does in her snow suit) off to the left, then Talina, Annie, Cody and Lacy. I have pretty much the coolest siblings in human history. You may think yours are, but that's just because you don't have mine. Sorry, it's true. :-)

Cody, being all, "I'm 17." As my Dad was pointing out to Annie how you could tell who the young male Elks were (by their single antlers), Star only heard this part of their conversaion, "So, Annie, how can you tell who the young boy one are?" To which Star piped in, "The moodiness." :-)

Ellie and I in a ton of shadow, but I really liked the picture anyway.

My adorable family. With two very bundled up pink girls.

I don't know why, I just LOVED the "Teen Angst" shots I got of Cody today!

Annie's favorite winter past time: eating snow.

Semi-unrelated, but since we're in the midst of potty training it's pretty much all we're focused on in our family. Annie wore pull-ups on this trip. And despite hours on end in vehicles, and public restrooms as her only option, Annie left our house at 8AM with a new pull-up on, and when we got home at 4PM she had a perfectly clean and dry pull-up on and several successful trips to strange bathrooms under her belt. This kid is amazing (I say that now, but I very much expect poop on my carpet or something tomorrow.) She got a brand new fairy princess dress up costume as a reward (I'd bought it cheap after Christmas and had just been looking for an excuse to give it to her.)