I don't know why

Romney has hit that inquisitive phase in life where the only things that come out of his mouth are the following......
1. No
2. Why?

He is a double question-asker, and sometimes his questions are hard. Here is a sample format to understand what I mean. It goes like this...
"Why does blah blah blah blah? Why daddy why?"
"Why does something something something? Why does it dad? Why?"

Every time. Here are a few questions from this week.

Why do we try and not crash our car?
What happens if our car is on fire?
What would we do if the tires of our car were on fire?
Why don’t we have a fire proof car?
Do we die if we catch on fire?
What would we do if our hands were on fire?
Would we die if we had balls of fire in our hands?
Why are there leaves on trees?
How do the trees grow the leaves?
Why are leaves green?
Why is Lainey older than me?
When I’m 8 will Lainey still be older than me?
Why does Jesus want Lainey to be older than me?
When I’m 8 will I still be older than Will?
Why do you know how to drive a car?
Why do we have to be safe inside a car?
How do you get strong?
How do boats get on fire?
How does fire come down from the sky?
How do you know how to drive a car?
Why does snow melt when it touches the ground?


BUT...
Those questions are nothing compared to these.....
How does the baby get inside the mommy’s tummy?
But HOW does it get inside the mommy's tummy?
Where does the baby come out?
Why does the baby come out of the mom’s vagina?

We have a TON of pregnant people in our neighborhood right now and clearly this has sparked some interest for Romney. One night just as I was arriving at a church meeting I got a text from Marie that said. "You just dodged a serious bullet. As soon as you left the kids hit me on the birds and the bees questions."

Turns out Romney was the instigator but Lainey was a very attentive listener. Marie and I had discussed that at some point when our kids were ready they would ask these questions. We also decided that when they did ask it would be MUCH easier to give them the nitty gritty right then. (That means we'd tell them the truth. Straight up.) They would likely be young enough to process what they could and disregard the rest. We imagined this would be much less embarrassing to have the conversation when they're young than when they're a little older, so after Rom asked the question it took Marie a minute but then she just laid it all out there. She used very correct words and described exactly how it all goes down. This was just fine for Rom and he was glad to know.
Lainey on the other hand said something like...
L - "Wait a second. Did YOU do that?"
M - "You mean to get you two kids? Yes, we did that." (she wasn't willing to commit to more than that in this particular context.)
L - "Mom, that is just freaky."

Lainey hasn't been too interested in talking about it since. Unfortunately Rom has been very interested in talking about it. He has told me at least three times exactly how babies are made and we learned a few weeks ago that during his weekly primary lesson the topic happen to be families. Romney promptly raised his hand and said, "I know how families are made!" He then explained it to the class in graphic detail. The just to be sure he explained it again because his classmates looked confused. Then, just for good measure, he explained it one more time just to be 100% sure everyone else knew that he knew where families come from. One teacher I think handled it pretty well. I think the other one may still be in shock. If any of you out there have a hard time talking to your kids about these sort of things just let us know. Some of you may even have older kids that refuse to talk to you about this sort of things. I once refused to go on a trip with my dad just because I was afraid he would try and talk to me about this. If you happen to have any of these problems, let us know. We would be happy to send Romney over and take care of it for you.

Food and Creative Love

Favorite quote of the day:

"NO! I don't LIKE that food. I want REAL food! No vegetables and no fruit. REAL food!"

(PS - I decided from now on all post titles are going to also be song titles or closely related to a song title. Just consider it like a little game we can play where I write a title and you try and guess who it is. I know my mom is really the only one that reads this so the game will only be fun for me but oh well.)

Hurtin' for more yurtin' (aka - Yurt me baby one more time)

I hate it when time gets away from me on a good post. It is so much harder to remember all the funny things that happen if I don't write them down right away.

So we headed back to the mountains a few weeks go for another yurt trip. It was great. The ski in was absolutely the longest 2 miles of my life. 2 miles just isn't that far. I can jog that in 20 minutes. Put me on XC skis and strap to a sled and suddenly it takes 6 to 8 hours. Okay - not that long, but it felt that long. My sled/pulk also totally stunk and that did not help. Sticky snow combined with a lousy sled led to a little harder work then I would have hoped for.

Before I give any details of the trip I'm wondering if you have ever been in a situation where someone has asked you to take a picture for them? I've been in that situation too. I hope you try and do a nice job when someone asks you for this simple favor. I'm no great photographer but I have two simple rules I try and follow when taking a picture for someone. First, make sure they are in the picture. Second, let them know that I'm going to take the picture. Seems pretty simple, don't you think?

NOTE TO GUY IN THE TRAIL HEAD PARKING LOT:

You are not a good photographer. Not really at all. I know we took a few minutes out of your day and gave you two different cameras and asked you to operate them. I know this may have been a lot to ask but you seemed genuinely interested and helpful at the time. The truth is, I was surprised when you gave my camera back. I assumed you must have decided to only take a picture with one of the cameras but no, you did take one with my camera. Even though you can't see some people and even though no one is looking at you and even though this picture is really terrible, I just wanted to say thanks. So thanks parking lot cross country dude. Really appreciate your help. If in the future however, someone asks you for photographic help just explain that you are sick or allergic to cameras or are legally blind or something. Lets be honest, this is not really better than no picture at all. Thanks again for your time but feel free to give an excuse next time. (see not so awesome picture below)Okay, back on topic. I'm a little obsessive sometimes and I was packed completely two days before we left so I could just put it in the car and go. The only problem was, two days before we left I wasn't thinking of my coat. The coat that is nice and water repellent and keeps me dry. It is a good coat. It did not come on the trip with us. I'm not sure why, but somewhere in my mind it must not have been needed. But really, who hasn't been planning to go into snowy mountains to camp at 9,000 feet and left their coat at home? Happens to everyone, I'm sure.
.
We were with a fun family full of energetic boys, and since it was during the Olympics we decided to see if we could create a few of our own Olympic events at the yurt.

First we made our own luge track. It was an awesome and crazy luge track. It was awesome at first anyway. After a while it developed a mind of its own at the bottom and the track shifted in the direction of some trees. This picture is just before our second confirmation that something had gone terribly wrong with the trajectory at the bottom. I know its should have only taken ONE time running into a tree to stop and do something else but sometimes we don't learn that quickly. I really wish I had been video tapping so you could see Lainey go flying off the sled superman style, hit the tree and then totally face plant in the snow. Like the commercials say....priceless.

Our second event (and in my opinion clearly our best event) was the FLYING SNOW ANGEL! We have started a petition to the IOC to have this included in the 2018 Olympics. We'll post a link for you to sign later. Here is how a flying snow angel works. First, you pick a site where your intuition tells you there are probably not jagged rocks under the snow. Then you find a small child and you throw them into the air as high as you can. The child's job is to spread eagle backwards into the snow and make a snow angel. Extra points are given if the child completely disappears under the snow. Style points can also be awarded for amount of snow caked onto a face or accidentally doing a backwards dive. Here are a few examples of what was clearly, for me, the best part of the whole trip.

This is Lainey's first attempt. I think it is possible that she couldn't breathe under there based on how she came up coughing and wheezing. It is possible she was a little shocked by her face completely covered in snow. Maybe a little scared? Not that she would ever admit it.


This is Lainey's second try two minutes later after BEGGING to do it again. This time she was PUMPED! (posted just to prove that I'm not a terrible father and even though she ended the last one crying she was really having fun.)


In flying snow angels, the weight of the child is not uniform or regulated (say like in the shot put.) Here is a heavier version.



The final event was a little tackle football in the snow.
Part of any good sporting event is, of course, the refreshments so we had to wrap it all up with some snow cones!

Can you hear me Major Rom?

Can my son really be such a big space cadet that he doesn't stop to notice if the lid to the toilet is up or down before he decides to let loose? SERIOUSLY?
I also wish I had some audio for you so you could hear him yell from the other room out of the blue, "don't worry dad. I cleaned it up!"
and did I just reference pee in another post?