How We Did January

 January is usually the never ending month for me. But this year it has actually gone by relatively quickly. I made a goal around Thanksgiving that I wasn't going to fall into my usual unhealthy habits through the holidays so we bought a family pass to our local rec center. It's been a heaven sent! They offer child care so I can drop the boys off (Brooke is at school) and go work out. Then, twice a week they offer an "indoor playground" with bounce houses, tricycles and other indoor fun things for kids to do in their gymnasium. Porter and Grant both love it! We also take advantage of their "toddler time" swim sessions that happen while older kids are at school. The pool water is warm and we usually have it mostly to ourselves. It's been a great way to get out of the house in the winter time.

And speaking of water, I was busy doing some cleaning around the house and noticed that it seemed awfully quiet. I found these two giving their feet a bath.

 I'm grateful that, for the most part, they get along and play well together.

Brooke seems to have grown up so much lately. She's learning to read so well and is starting to grasp and understand deeper concepts at church. She is enjoying school and loves her teacher and friends there. One thing I think school has taught her is how to play in the snow. She'll come home from school asking to go back out again to play in the yard. And she'll stay out there for hours! She and I still have our power struggles so I've had to really back off and choose my battles. One battle I've stopped fighting is telling her she needs to wear her coat when it's cold. If she tells me she's fine, I just shrug and let her go out. I figure she'll learn soon enough she needs to wear her coat to stay warm. Not wearing one definitely didn't bother her on this day.

 Blake had a weekend off from work and the sun was shining so we spent the day at his parent's house sledding in their field. Porter liked being pulled by the four-wheeler but he really wanted to just ride on the four wheeler with Pinch.

 They drove and pulled Blake.

 Then it was Brooke's turn to go for a ride.

 Porter and Honey

 So this house in town build a giant snowman. We stopped by to see and the kids loved it. Porter talked about for days afterward.

 Some brotherly bath time togetherness

 I love Grant's expression. He does not like being hugged by his siblings.

 I ordered some things from amazon that arrived in a giant box. The kids love boxes and were so excited to play with this one. They colored in it, pretended it was a boat and a rocket ship. Brooke used it to play a game with Grant and it entertained them all day long.

 I had to grab the camera to capture this sweet moment between Grant and Brooke on the stairs.

 More playing in the snow. Brooke told me, "Mom, I'm making an igloo, and look I'm almost done!"

 Porter and I get to spend some one on one time together each day while Grant is napping. This may sound awful, but I'm still trying to figure this out. When Brooke was this age I was working full time so having Porter around all.the.time is kind of weird and sometimes we're both just doing our own thing and I realize that we should probably have some quality time together. Porter got a superhero matching game for Christmas and we like to play together.

And it's a wrap January! See you next year ;)

Holiday Aftermath

The week between Christmas and New Years was pretty low key. Dad was back at work, no more family came to visit, and the kids were constantly begging for friends or for me to entertain them. It got old really fast.

 Brooke made some fun art projects in school. These were used as decorations for their nutcracker performance in December.

Right after Christmas, Brooke got a stomach bug.  We missed church the last Sunday in December which was really sad for Brooke because she missed out on her last Sunday with her teachers before she moved to her new sunday school class in January. She's loved her teachers: Brother and Sister Bradley and they were really good to her.

On December 29 Grant turned 14 months! He is already acting so big. He likes to be right in the middle of whatever the older two kids are doing. He is a climber too. We have to be careful to push in the kitchen chairs otherwise he will climb up on the table. Grant still only has the same two bottom teeth he's had since 11 months. He's not walking yet, but is very close. He can stand up on his own and he's taken a couple "accidental" steps when he's not paying attention. If we try to get him to walk on purpose, he won't. Grant knows the signs for "milk" and "more" and will say "dot" for hot if we're around the fireplace. He can also say "uh-oh". I've heard him say "ma-ma" when he's just babbling, but if I asked him to say mama for me it always comes out as "da-da". One of these days we'll get him to say it.

This is Grant's favorite toy. He loves to sit inside this toy box. I've been going to the gym recently and there's a daycare there for the kids. When I go to pick them up, Grant will be sitting in the toy box at the daycare too!

 Grant is totally rocking his baby-mullet

 He also has a bruise on his cheek from falling off a kitchen chair on Christmas day.

 I am a little obsessed with baby selfies. Once, when Porter was a baby, we took the cutest baby selfie together. He was smiling so cute and I looked good. I keep on trying to recreate it with Grant but so far, no such luck. But it's fun to look at these pictures of us together over the past year to see how we both have changed.

 We don't even bother trying to get Grant to play with his "baby" toys anymore. He wants to play with all of Porter's things all the time. It's kind of cute and fun to watch them play together. Usually though, it ends in tears from one or both of them as they fight over toys and refuse to share with each other.

New Year's Eve night Blake had to work a night shift, so the kids and I ate pizza for dinner, made a time capsule that summarized the last year. We'll open it on NYE 2016 and then make another one. Hopefully this will be the start of a fun tradition for our family.

First, I got an empty shoebox and had the kids look through magazines for pictures that reminded them of our family and glued them on the outside of the box.

 Then, each child filled out a 2015 in review paper

 Each person in our family chose a word or phrase that summed up 2015:

 We put everything in the box and sealed it up!

After the time capsule, the kids and I watched a movie. By 7:20, Porter was saying, "Mom, do you think we should go to bed?" He was tired so off to bed we went! Happy 2016!