An Ode to a New Year...

I started our Christmas letter this year like this,

"If we could, we would scoop up 2014 and give it a big old smackeroo."

And I meant it.

This year has been so, so good to the Gardner gang.  So you can imagine that to close it out felt a little bitter sweet.  Bitter because this window of tiny gents who are innocent and open with their emotions and their love is not going to last forever... 

Sweet because as they grow, so does our ability to do more & see more... Together.  They are more capable, more strong, more bold -- And I love our wild adventures. 

So, rather than dwell on the crossroads of bitter and sweet, I'm going to piece together in pictures and words the last week of 2014.   Because it was a deliciously good one, which was spent in a family bubble of sorts... all together and cozy and enjoying the gorgeous winterscapes that were painted so beautifully all around us.

For family night we asked the boys what their goals are for this year.  I love their answers.

Kael is going to learn to tie "hard shoes" and write all the letters "really good".

Dax is going to learn to tie his shoes as well, and he is going to "score lots of goals in soccer".

Ace is going to learn to write his name "willy good" and play T-Ball this year.

Ryan and I are going to get stronger and faster to keep up with all the stuff the little misters are doing.  And yes, that's our third year in a row with the same goal.  :)

So, where were we.  Oh yes, sledding.

I'm convinced we're living right because Grandma & Grandpa's cozy "red house" in the mountains has been the epicenter of these central/southern mountain storms two out of three years during the holidays and we have been there to partake.  And that place.... man it's gorgeous and quiet and sparkly and every other rad snowy adjective in the book when it snows there.  And that meat sled behind a four-wheeler or down a run at Sunglow?  Perfection.

With a side of danger... that's me putting on the brakes slightly panicked.

When you want to stay in your own back yard to play... well, Grandpa hooks up the equipment and you do just that.  Was I the only kid that got yanked around on a sled behind a four-wheeler?

Well hey, now I'm not.  :)

If you live in a two-mile radius you probably got called upon to take a turn pulling these gents around.  Fine that's a slight exaggeration.  It was wicked cold (to the tune of single digits plus a wind chill) so they probably wouldn't have walked that far to recruit a new driver... we'll make it a one-mile radius.

Ryno definitely put in his time.  But it was worth it.  Look at those three striped little noggins?  

I swear sometimes I get bowled over by how totally fortunate I am.  Not to be snarky, but they say the best way to bring joy to someone else is to first recognize your own.  There it is.  Right there.  My whole life's joy.  In a meat sled no less.  :)

My only advise to my favorite people on the planet?   Charge into it boys.

2015 Awaits You...

I know you'll ride hard.
XO