January

January got off to a busy start! I was sad to see Christmas go, but always welcome the new year. Every single year, I get a little sad taking down Christmas but once it is done, I love it! I love how fresh and clean my house feels - and how good it feels to get back into a routine. We had Anton's sister come into town for New Years which is always fun. We went sledding, saw the new Star Wars movie, went Ice Skating, Anton & Nicole even fit in a few hikes and all of us managed to stay up until midnight on New Years Eve! It was so fun having them in town. 

Claire loves to hang random things from her new light in her room. This particular day I thought it was so funny. Notice the sock. Funny girl!

I promised the girls that I would take them sledding over their Christmas break. I have such a love hate relationship with sledding. It is so cold & I hate the crowded hills, but I remember loving it so much as a kid that I feel guilty that I don't take the girls as often as I "should". This particular day, we woke up and decided we were going to go. It was early, and it was freezing cold, but we did it and had a blast. And, we were the only ones on the hill! (If you can't tell, I struggle with "crowds") We ended up taking the Leonard's to this same hill when they came to town!

I took the kids up to the Rec center to let them ice skate. Claire was insistent on wearing Lilly's ice skating dress - and she paid the price. She was so cold, and didn't last long on the ice. Its a perfect little dress for performances, but not great for a long time on the ice. The other kids had a lot of fun, and I was impressed how quickly Truman & Prentice picked it up. 

Lilly & Jack at Jack's baptism. These two have always had such a sweet and special little friendship. I hope they always stay close!

One of my favorite gifts from Christmas is my laminating machine! So nerdy, but so fun! I have used it so much since getting it, and have a whole list of things I want to laminate - including some art & notes from the girls that I never want to get damaged...then hopefully I will put them in a keepsake book or something. Anyway, one thing I was bound & determined to do was to put together chore charts & work for hire charts for the girls. So far, it has been great. Claire has no interest in doing the work for hire jobs - but Lilly does! They each have jobs they have to do during the week and on Saturday, and then if they choose to they can do a work for hire job and earn some money. So far, so good.

One day I got a phone call from Claire's teacher and she said "Claire has something very exciting to tell you"...it was she lost her tooth! The exact same thing happened with Lilly's first tooth - she lost hers while at school too! I knew it was going to happen soon because it was getting super wiggly and the permanent tooth was already on its way in. Both of my girls have gotten "shark mouth" where the permanent teeth come in before the baby teeth fall out. It looks so weird! But, it is quite common I guess. Anyway, she was super excited to show us, and was even more excited to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy!

Cute Anton. He came home from work one day with flowers for each of his girls. I couldn't get over how sweet that was. He was buying flowers for me, and saw the brightly colored ones and grabbed those for the girls. We put them in vases and put them in their rooms. They loved it, and so did I! The roses he go me were stunning. We are lucky girls to have Anton!!