Snow!

The Rock Star wanted a snowboard from Santa. He saw it in the sporting goods section of Target and, suddenly, he had eyes for nothing else. It's a training snowboard designed for children and, with a price tag that was less than $20, we just needed to decide if we wanted Santa to bring our son a vehicle of injury, destruction and death. But we're into sports, risk taking within reason, and letting our kids explore, learn, and grow in age appropriate ways.

So, pretty much he had us at, "I want a snowboard."

He got a helmet from his cousin and serious instructions from us that he would be using this injury trap only on very small hills with very slight inclines.

But then we went through the entire month of December with no snow. Christmas came and went. Garrett spent the days after Christmas asking me if he could snowboard down the stairs. Or on the dirt outside. Or if I would pretty please take him to Alaska.

When I woke up this morning there was snow on the ground. There was only one sensible thing to do. We all climbed into our winter gear.

Future snow bunny? Future winter Olympian? Future X Game Athlete? Future boy that gives his mom daily heart palpitations? That jacket, by the way, was originally an 80 dollar item.  Let's just say I got a really good deal. At Ross. I love good deals. I handed them a twenty and it was covered. But let's get this rabbit back on it's original trail...

Or, this snowboarder back on his board.

The first time we put him on the little hill, he fell over. Troy stood him up and walked with him until he got balanced. Then Garrett went a few feet alone before the incline leveled out. I caught it on camera but it wasn't nearly as impressive as his second run.

We went to a steeper hill because we also wanted to sled and that wasn't happening at the toddler slope. Garrett spent some time on his keister but impressed us with his ability to balance and stay upright at only five.

We also went sledding. There wasn't much snow so the hill was slow--pretty perfect for the boys, actually. If it hadn't been so cold we might have stayed all afternoon.

In the end Matthew began repeating, "My cheeks cold. My cheeks cold. My face hurts." But not before he laughed and smiled and said, "Again!" over and over.

It's a good thing we got to go out today because it's not supposed to snow again for at least another ten days. This is some kind of bizarre winter. (Has mother nature listened to me at last?)