The Jersey

Between open-skate on weekends, watching hockey games on Saturday mornings, the indoor hockey net and reading a hockey book before bed every night-- you'd think Little D would have as much as he needed for his new passion.  Believe it or not, one item was indeed missing from his repertoire, the hockey jersey -- he learned about these from his hockey book and by watching games on the weekends.  So Mom ordered up a Buffalo Sabres jersey and Dylan impatiently waited -- for days.  When it did arrive he could barely contain himself, he wears this thing every chance he gets (provided it's not in the wash).

I know, why choose the Sabres who have underwhelmed hometown audiences since joining the NHL?  It's a good question that I really don't have an answer for, then again, I don't think anyone from Buffalo could answer it for me.

Packing Snow

Good packing snow today.  The kids made their snowballs all by themselves, I didn't even provide a gentle nudge to keep the ball rolling.  I wasn't quite prepared to make a snowman, but the request came in so I helped grab what I could find -- small twigs for arms and leaves for the eyes.

Addicted to Hockey

I think Dylan is pretty close to replacing his favorite stuffed animal in bed at night with a hockey stick.  Little D is 100% addicted to hockey, I think we logged in about 2 hours today.  Right now he's all about being the goalie -- note the water bottle on the back of the net, when we were watching a game on Saturday he asked me what the goalie was drinking between plays, today he remembered and asked to have one while we played.  Although I think his offensive skills are quite impressive as well, look at that form on his slap shot!

Sneak Peek

Some pics of Maddie at her dance class, the recital will be in a few months -- she's been practicing hard every week.  During Madison's last class the teacher let the parents in to see a sneak peak of the performance they will be putting on.

From Swimming to Skating

Since the start of the year, each week, the kids have been going to swim class and open skate at the local rink.  You cannot tell it's the winter time by looking at the first pic, well maybe you can if you do your detective work and notice the winter coats hanging in the background... what I was going to say is, it's a nice contrast between pictures -- summer to winter, every weekend.  I like going to the pool class to pretend it's a different (warmer) season, but alas, when it's over I open the door to leave and walk out to the car in the bitter cold.  By the time I close the doors to the car, Mom has a tissue in hand to wipe the bodily fluids flowing out of our kids nostrils.  Fortunately, Spring is almost here... Punxsutawney Phil said so.

Snow Day

 

We had a decent amount of snow hit over night Thursday, roughly 5".  By Metro Detroit standards, this is quite a bit -- I was impressed with the cleanup, almost up to Buffalo standards in terms of the speed that the roads were navigable.  Nonetheless, the schools needed to crank through some "off" days, so they had their 2nd snow day of the year on Friday as well.  

Too bad their boots and snow pants were still at school -- they keep that stuff at school for the week and usually bring it back home after classes on Friday.  Luckily Mom decided to reach out to some of our neighbors after work to see what hand-me-downs might be available, we struck gold!  After dinner we headed out,  Dylan only lasted about 10 minutes -- Madison, well she would spend the night out there if she could, I called her my little polar bear.

Hockey Town

We purchased Dylan's first hockey helmet last weekend, he wanted to wear it for open skate at the local rink.  This was the smallest helmet they had, still a bit too big, but it works and he loves it.

So far we've made it to the rink every weekend since he got the skates back at Christmas, he's made  significant progress.  Dylan can skate by himself for a pretty good distance now -- and once he turns 4, the official hockey classes start.  So far so good, he likes to play and has great form on his slap shot.