It's nice to begin a new year on the blog having successfully posted each week of the last year. Now I realize that I didn't exactly post each week on time, but they all got done. I have been working on putting them in an album to print and it's such a pleasure to review all the fun things we did this last year. It has helped me be so grateful for all my many blessings.
I am looking forward to posting each week again this year. So without further ado . . .
January 1. After spending a fun evening at the Kopaigora's we spent another night at Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's. Bryce was anxious to watch the two college football bowl games. I, on the other hand, was worried about the increasing mountain of laundry and the lack of time actually spent in our home doing said laundry. So on the first day of the new year, I went home by myself and had a lovely, quiet, but very busy few hours. Not only did I work on laundry, I was able to finish one of Abby's birthday presents. I painted a wooden cradle and made some bedding for it. I am happy to say she LOVED it.
I headed back up to the Hansen's where the kids were able to play some more with their friends, Dad was able to watch football, and we all had another nice holiday together. After dinner we sang to Abby and she got to open a present from Grandma and Grandpa. It was a Little People pet shop. It was hard to take it away from her so we could go to bed.
January 2. Friday morning we rushed home so Mom could work and then clean the house. We had over our friends the Chamorros for pizza and Abby's birthday. (Have I told you how much I love the Thai Chicken Pizza from Papa Murphys? Mmmm. Make sure you get it with pineapple.) Her cake was a little unusual: blue and red with chocolate icing and orange and purple sprinkles. Can you guess who chose it? Yup, the boys.
January 3. Saturday was a busy day of chores. We took down all of the Christmas decorations. One of the jobs was to make Abby's crib into a big girl bed. She was pretty excited to be able to get in and out by herself. Mom was less excited when it came to bedtime and convincing her to stay was a bit tricky.
January 4. Sunday morning was the first Church day of the new year and for us that means 9am church. Wish us luck. The nice part is having the whole afternoon at home. Mom started working on the yearly photo album from last year's blog posts and Dad did a little sledding with the kids. Bryce tried to build a sledding ramp, but there just wasn't enough snow. The next day, Bryce told Stan that he should pray for more snow. Stan laughed and said, "Jesus doesn't care about that." Ha!
January 5. Monday was Kimball's first day back at school. He says he didn't want to go back, but I think he will be glad to be back into a routine. I know Mom will be. For Family Home Evening we had a lesson on the steps to get back to Heavenly Father and Jesus. Each colored paper represented a step: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, Temple and Endure to the End. Stan insisted that I take a picture of him standing on each one. (I've only posted 3 here). Then he wanted to know if we could do it again next week.
January 6-8. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were busy days--school, preschool and work for mom. We tried to get back into the swing of things. We had our neighbor Oliver over on Wednesday and the kids spent several days playing with the tinker toys. Funny how they were playing with last years Christmas present rather than this years.
January 9. On Friday, Mom had a presentation to a board of Juvenile Court Judges. The night before she was feeling sick, but made it through. However Friday afternoon was spent watching the LEGO Movie twice. Stan thought Darth Vader should lay down next to me to help me feel better. It's not much fun being sick, but at least I have nice kids to take care of me.
