2009

Here’s a quick post about our new house here in Park City. It was a strange process getting it, but in the end it worked out thanks to luck, patience, and a huge help from our family. We owe a big big thanks. As you can see from the pics, this place is a bit […]

Tory loves bubbles. Bubbles in the bathtub, bubbles in his juice, and especially bubbles that come out of a jar.

It’s been a craaaazy last few months, which is a sad sad sad excuse for me not posting anything on the kids. I’ll be adding lots soon as there’s much to catch up on. For those of you who can’t get enough of Halloween, even after Thanksgiving, here’s how ours went this year.

Kari spends a Sunday afternoon capturing pics of Tegan crawling around in the autumn leaves. She did a similar shoot for Tory at this age, but I didn’t have my merde together with this site at the time or I’d post the link.

This is over a month late now, but Piper had her 3rd birthday party at Black Diamond Gymnastics in Park City. There was running and jumping and swinging and sliding and flipping and bouncing. And some other stuff. Oh, and some cupcakes – chocolate, if that brown schmeere on Tory’s shirt is any indication.

Grandpa and Grandma Hoffman came to Park City for a week load of fun. We went to the zoo, walked to the park, and other stuff.

We’ve done quite a bit of camping with the kids, but up to now it’s been of the car-based variety. We decided to change that in August with an overnight in the Uintas. Tory and I slept in bivy’s, and after waking to a drizzle and cold kids, we were forced out too early. It […]

Kari took the kids to Cold Stone Creamery the other night while I was out.  

You know how Crayons are non toxic? Well it’s a damn good thing.    

It’s been a couple of weeks now (Judging from my timeliness, they must have been very busy weeks?) but Grandpa and Grandma Moe came to visit, along with Tracy, Marcus, and Jacob. They were able to rent the condo directly above us, which allowed us to be together quite a bit without being directly on […]

Friday night found us at the Summit County fair, along with some Park City and Heber City friends. There were rides, games, snow cones, and corn dogs. Kari and I even got to ride the Zipper (still my favorite carney ride). This being our first Summit Co fair, I was struck by the fact that […]

I know I’ve posted this image already here: Yuba Reservoir Boat Trip, but I want to remember Tory’s first nights under the stars as an event on its own. This is only important because I’m eager to return to our backcountry ways, and this is a step closer.

The ice cream man drove by the other night, and it being such a rare event, Sam decided to partake. And no, I don’t normally let my kid go shopping in his birthday suit. It was a swimming pool/potty training thing.

We’ve been feeding her for about a month now, so here finally, are a few shots of the mess. Beware of the last one though, it may not be suitable for the weak stomached.

We headed south to Yuba State Park for a weekend of camping, beaching, and boating. Four families and one dog spent three days in the heat, eating drinking, surfing, swimming, laughing, and playing. It was a great time, and thanks go out to Pete and Kelly for inviting us all along. Click the image above […]

We always go to the Uintas to camp, because it’s relatively close, and so very woodsy-mountainsy. But we like to explore new places too, so we treked on up near Powder Mountain to a place that looked pretty good on the map. The bummer part is that lots of other people had that same crazy […]

We spent the 4th here in Park City, and it was a jam packed weekend. Concert and fireworks at the Canyons on Friday, Parade, street party and fireworks on Saturday,

These pics are now a couple of weeks old, but we try and make it to the free concerts at Deer Valley each week. Evan, Piper, and Riley often show up too, so the evenings are most often a kid-corralling fest.

My sister Jenny and I’s (is that a word??) grandfather was put into a nursing home recently, and we decided to plan a trip to visit him while he’s still sharp witted. She flew in (from Oregon) a few days early to hang here with us and get to spend a little time with the […]

We thought we were lucky that Tory was such a good baby. So before Tegan arrived, I was nervous that the scales would level, and we’d have a little terror on our hands. HA! This little girl is the happiest, easiest baby – if all babies were this easy there would be a lot more […]

“Hoo-ray for Underpants!” – These words, uttered by Prairie Dawn in Sesame Street’s Elmo’s Potty Time, are perhaps more exiting to us than to Tory, but he seems pretty excited to wear them none-the-less. Especially since they’re styled with characters from Cars. (Speaking of which, I really should rent that one from Netflix. Tory hasn’t […]

Sophia and her parents Sam and Michelle come over to visit quite often, but this time I got a couple of pictures of the occasion. Tory and Soph played in the grass, and Soph spent a little time with Tegan. Click above for more images.

While we didn’t expect it to happen quite this soon, Tory got his first set of stitches last Wednesday, the result of him apparently falling and smacking his face on the side of his bed. I say ‘apparently’ because neither Kari nor I were there to see the initial impact. Later that day he pointed […]

The Park City Kids Fair, hosted by the Soaring Wings Montessori School, was held last week and we headed on down with Julie, Piper, and Riley, as well as Sam, Michelle and Soph for some timid horseback riding and bouncing around on blow up toys. It was a really nice day and I think the […]

We’d planned on heading down to Fruita for the weekend, but the forecast was dire. The prospect of spending the weekend ducking the rain with the kids was enough to keep us in closer range to home, so we headed up to the Mirror Lake area of the Uinta’s with Michelle, Sam and Sophia for […]

I’ve been giving Tory a gummy bear (organic of course) for sitting on the potty lately, and telling him he can have a pop if he poops. Well, I’m glad to say the boy got a pop today! I was going to take a picture of this historic event, but decided against it. Even if […]

Not 10 seconds before this image was taken, Tegan was on her back, arching and kicking, and then – boink! She rolled over. Keep up the good work girlie!

I’ve always heard that it’s best to keep your kids in a crib for as long as possible, until they can climb out on their own. This makes sense really, since once they’re in there, they can’t do much damage, except perhaps on your ear drums. So what would possess us to convert Tory’s crib […]

We considered flying back to Minnesota this year but opted for 2 days (each way) of torture in the car instead! We saved a bit of money this way, and also learned what high level, concentrated stress feels like. Actually it really wasn’t too terrible, we got a portable dvd player for Tory and Tegan […]

Ok, since I like tweaking this and other sites so much, I’ve gone ahead and made some changes to the site. First, since Michelle didn’t like the fact the ‘old’ gallery wouldn’t let you scroll through the picutres by using the arrow key, I’ve upgraded the the way the gallery works. While it looks nicer, […]

So I’ve heard through the grapevine that I don’t post enough pictures of Tegan. This is all very true, but that’s because she mostly just sits there, or is sleeping. I didn’t think anyone would really want to see another one of those. Apparently I was wrong. As before, click on that image up there […]

So I know there was a recent post about Tory skiing for the first time – and there’s no doubt that he was on a pair of skis that day, and gravity was doing its thing – but today the little man hit the big time and rode his first chair lift. As you can […]

Another powder day, another kiddie swap. I took a few pics of the kids on my shift, and I’m trying out a new gallery viewer. Let me know what you think. EDIT: So I broke this post by deleting the old gallery. This new gallery is much better.

One of the nicer things about living in Park City is that there are so many people around who love to do the same things we do. And we’re doubly fortunate to have friends like this who also have kids. Pete and Kelley offered to spring for a condo at Powder Mountain last Monday night, […]

Kari and I recently took a class on the Love and Logic® parenting… uh, technique?? Method?? Whatever… its a way for us to be on the same page, and have a plan about how we raise our kids. Basically its a way to give kids choices and consequences on the way to becoming responsible people. […]

I’m sure everyone has a different idea of what sleeping through the night means, but for us, a 6 hour stretch means we’ve made it through the woods. It means only one feeding at night. It means getting up only ONCE at night. Last night Tegan did it. Six hours straight. Let the hallelujahs begin!

When I was in kindergarten, we got to perform the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I don’t remember much of the story, except that there were three goats who crossed a bridge and troll who threatened to eat them, and then the goats ended up pummeling the troll. And I think the moral […]

Since Tegan was born over a month ago, we’ve been blessed with visits from family members from the east. I thought I’d just throw a couple of photos up as proof. First, Aunt Tracy was here: Then Grandpa Moe arrived: And then Grandma Pat was here after a week in Mexico: It was really nice […]

  On January 25 Tegan was baptized at Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran Church in Park City. Kari’s folks were in town so we thought it would be a good time to do it.