It's a....

It's a...

IT'S A....

SNOWSTORM!  

(didja think I'd magically gotten an ultrasound over the weekend?)

For those of you who might follow my blog but not my facebook (I like to think I'm *that* popular), Friday was supposed to be the 20-week ultrasound in which John would finally discover whether he had some "men" in 'im (or, better yet, in my uterus).  However, Mother Nature decided she'd make John wait a few extra days (or, as John puts it, "let him believe it was a boy for a few more days") and dumped 2+ feet of snow (in some areas), thus crippling our booming metropolis - and our OBGYN clinic.  Instead of boy or girl, pink or blue....we got a snowstorm.  

Humphf.

Not all of us were disappointed by this, however.

Some of us liked trying out our new snowsuit.

Some of us liked shoveling snow.
(isn't John's enthusiasm palpable?)

Indeed the storm was quite a doozy, and from the sounds of it this one may have ended up ranking as one of the Top Ten snowstorms to ever hit Denver.  I hardly see how this is possible, given that I've seen at least TWO that were worse since I've lived here, and I highly doubt that in less than 10 years THREE apocalyptic snowstorms have hit.  I am of the opinion that the worse you can make it sound on the 10 o'clock news, the better the ratings.

But I digress.

Just a shot of our street/drive/yard -
who can tell where one ends and the other begins?
(in the end, we got about a foot total? It snowed ~5 more inches AFTER this)

The little 4-year-old Snow Diva and her 4-year-old goober smile :)

Even though our Friday didn't go as planned, that didn't thwart our weekend plans to head up to more snow - Breckenridge!  My good friend Janelle (you met her here) decided that she was aching for a mountain fix and spent her 48-hour, once-a-year leave from her Navy internship year in San Diego and flew to Colorful Colorado to relax and rejuvenate.  Fortunately, she invited the Hurlifam to join her in Summit County - of course we accepted!

Because I seem to be hell-bent on our kids liking snow sports (even though we only go up to the mountains once a year), John got the job of taking the beautiful little snow diva from above to the bunny slopes at Breckenridge (see how that works?  I'm hell-bent, John gets the job.  If everything were only so easy.... :)  If you remember, last year's ski trip at Breck wasn't very successful - but we left with hopes that Tanner wasn't scarred and would go back for more.  Go back she did!

She's up!  And staying up!

Riding the t-bar up the bunny slope

Sometimes you gotta hold Daddy's hand, for moral and physical support :)
(omgtoocute!)

A happy skier and a proud daddy :)

John reports that Tanner did AMAZING and we are so proud of our little skier.  Her finest accomplishment is that she stayed up for TWENTY-FIVE whole seconds before she needed to hold Daddy's hand (she gets going a smidge fast sometimes... :)  She did SOOO fantastic that we're even thinking about doing the $200, day-long ski lesson when we go up for the Breck conference in a few weeks.  Any input on whether that's worth it???  Please let me know!

So what was Ellery doing while her Big Sass was skiing?

Well, a little of this:

...gawking at the beginner skiers and boarders...

And a little of this:

...acting like a crazy fool, sticking her tongue out, spinning in circles...

And a lot of this:

...being slyly ornery in the way that only Ellery Kay can be :)

(Just as a note, I love the above picture of Elle.  I think it encompasses everything that she is right now:  so flippin' adorable, so smiley and happy, and yet so full of ornery, well-intentioned, sly-spunk that it spills over into her beautiful blue eyes.  This picture = Ellry Kay Hurlmin (as she says it:)  I CANNOT look at this without smiling - it is truly her essence! :)  

So that's it!  It's a SNOWSTORM (sorry, I had to).  You'll have to wait until TUESDAY to figure out what's kickin' around in my uterus.  But be it girl or boy, pink or blue, it sure has a good head start in life with big sisters like these two!