Johnny is growing so fast!

Just a couple random pictures of J to show how much he's grown. Why can't they stay little forever?
Baby on a String - He loves to chew on these.

Once There was a Snowman

One day after I brought J home from preschool baby J had fallen asleep so I took advantage of the time to shovel off our driveway and front walk, then I helped J make a snowman. You have to realize that I grew up in CA and probably had the opportunity to make a snowman once when I was 5. I decided to build him on our little mound in the front yard. We rolled the first big ball for the bottom of the snowman and stood back to survey our work. So now I'm getting more confident in my snowman making skills and thinking, "This isn't hard". We trudge down to the bottom of the mound and start rolling the second ball. When it looks decently round I start lifting it up to stack it on. I hoist it up and start to realize that a ball of snow that big is really heavy! As I try to lift it on top of the other ball I am staggering backwards and my feet begin to go out from under me. J can see that I am seconds away from dropping her precious snowman body so she puts her hands on my leg to steady me. In the end frosty was born. The kids were sad to see him belly down after a storm we had two days later.

J starts Preschool

J is very excited to start preschool up on campus (at Daddy's work, as she puts it). We got to go in for an open house to meet her teachers and see her room. She had a great time playing with play-doh, ooey stuff (homemade gak) and painting. She was not nervous at all and wishes that she could have preschool everyday instead of just three times a week.

Happy New Year! (Monster Post)

I'm finally ready to move past Christmas. (It's only Jan 25th!) My blog suffers when I get insanely busy. Here's a little update on what's been going on. . .

We had a wonderful Christmas at my parents house in CA. It was so fun to see my sister and niece and their husbands, too. We had a great time visiting, playing games and just not doing the normal routine. The loved grandma and grandpa's so much that they never wanted to leave. I strongly considered just staying on vacation forever, especially when it was 60 degrees there and we came home to two feet of snow.


While in CA we got to spend a day with my best bud, Jacie. It was so great to see her and her kids. Our children were basically raised as brothers and sisters and it took them no time at all to be back as best friends. We had such a nice day together (played at the park (in December!!) and went to "In N Out" for lunch. It's always hard to say see ya next year. I miss you Jacie!!


What we came home to. Thanks to K for digging us out!

Our now yearly tradition of making an igloo in the back yard.


Since we've been home it's been hard to get back into a routine. January is still party month for us with my Birthday and M's too. I had a nice relaxing birthday. A huge thank you to all my friends who remembered me. I appreciate it so much. It was fun to have my Birthday fall on a Friday this year. Thanks to my in-laws for watching our kids so we could go out to dinner and ice cream (at Leatherby's). If you haven't tried Leatherby's ice cream you are missing out. It is soooo good. Unfortunately their portions are huge and we made pigs of ourselves and ended up regretting our glutenous behavior. Oh well, you only get one Birthday a year (thank heavens).

M had a great Birthday, too. She decided on a pajama party (during the daytime because mommy hasn't decided if she believes in sleep-overs in this day and age). She had a small group of friends over to make paper-dolls, play and pig-out on popcorn, s'mores mix and little twinkies made to look like girls in sleeping bags. They had a good time.


Other than that we've just been taking it day by day. With our "Great to Be Eight" night and about a zillion primary meetings, I've been pretty busy. I guess it helps me obsess less about when winter will finally end.