Snow and Update and Stuff

I think the kids have reached my favorite stage. I'm just loving parenting right now. The kids are independent, but they still need you and they still like to cuddle.You can motivate them with a dime. They can play for hours crazy, silly, imaginative, albeit messy play. They are funny and make me laugh. I can reason with them a little bit. It's just fun. I really would like to have ongoing video footage of them right now, so I can have it when they're teenagers, just because they're so sweet and charming right now, but it might get kind of boring to watch, yet I couldn't capture this moment in a single 1 minute clip.
I love that they're currently into playing "Rolling Derby" since we went to see the Babe City Rollers the other night. It's crazy how Eli knows all of the rules after watching one game and yet neither Dennis nor I sat down to really explain the rules to him. But, that's Eli. Eli loves rules, he loves to follow them and he hates if others break them!
They also love playing "Backyardigans" and go on adventures. Sadie is always "Tasha" who tends to be the confident, bossy one on the show and Eli likes to be "Pablo", who always seems to have a crazy, frenzied, panicky moment on every episode. They seemed to pick the characters that they could relate to the most.
Eli tried wrestling and has decided that he doesn't want to do it. Actually, I think he would love to do it on a Saturday morning, but when it's at 6pm, I think he's just too tired. And I don't blame him, I don't like having things at that time either!
Sadie has just moved up groups in Gymnastics. She is now a "Superbee" and has practice in the evening versus the morning class that she used to attend. She is working on mastering her cartwheels, and pointing her toes! We've never gone at night before and it was a totally different experience. Lots of gymnasts at all ages doing some pretty cool stuff. I think Sadie might have caught the bug. She was awestruck!
Now, onto the snow. We have a very large pile in the front of the house mostly due to Dennis pushing snow off of the roof. So, Dennis and the kids dug this tunnel:
One of our favorite things to do outside is lick icicles and dip them into the snow and eat the snow. Sort of a low-calorie lik-m-stick.