The Winter Months

There's never really much to blog from January to about April. Usually they're just months that we grit our teeth and just tolerate. Especially February, gosh, how can such a short month seem so long. Thankfully this year was a bit different. Not only was there enough life and planning going on to make it go by fast, it also never got near as cold as usual. Not a single snow day, barely any snow at all, in fact, there were a few days in January so beautiful that we were at the park soaking up sun.  It was a nice break after two very narly winters. However, it was still cold enough to stay indoors and keep a lower profile, which is exactly what I did. With a big move coming up, I took advantage of some quiet time. I was released as Primary Pres in March, let go of a lot of other things that had kept me busy in the past, and allowed for a few months of working out, lunches with friends, reading and hanging out with my family. I can't say that I regret a second of it. Here are some random shots from our quiet winter.

Every year or so I like to take a Sunday shot of the kids.  They're getting so grown up, and rather good looking if you ask me :)

The story of the cupcakes is that as a New Years Resolution I decided that we were FINALLY going to have Family Home Evening.  To add more embarrassment to this confession, when I announced this to my kids I got the question "what's Family Home Evening?"  While we haven't been perfect at it, they've always turned out to be such fun and meaningful nights with the kids.  They each get a turn choosing the treat and this one Jayda picked from a cute princess cookbook.  FYI, cupcakes in a ramekin = a lot of cake!

Our kids discovered Monopoly, or Bonokoly as they like to call it.  The money had been lost forever ago, but apparently they figured out how to play it anyway.  They play this game ALL THE TIME and it cracks me up every time.

This is my cousin Tiff's little girl Abby.  I would adopt her if I could, she's pretty much precious.

Jayda wears my clothes all the time, I finally had to get a shot.  Love the pose.

This Valentine's Day I was determined to step it up as a mom, dive into my creative side, and let Pinterest tell me how to make my kids Valentine's for school.  Jayda sent butterflies suckers with eyeballs on the head.  Sky sent superhero suckers with a cape and mask.  And while I'm convinced that most of them had fallen apart before they even found their way inside the shoebox of their classmate's, I still felt pretty proud of myself.

I really like Valentine's Day.  Well, who am I kidding, I like any day that gives me an excuse to consume more calories than I do on an average day.  This year we had homemade lasagna, salad, French bread and some fizzy pink drink that would have made my toes fall off had I drank too much.  Jayda, who is nuts for strawberries and pink, loved it.  Please pay no attention to my son's grumpy face.  He's an angel until the clock strikes three, then it's just countdown to bedtime.

For the last two years Glenn has gone to Haiti to serve the underprivileged.  I would have him blog about it, but who are we kidding.  As a fundraiser, the club held an ice skating night.  I've always wanted to take the kids ice skating so we took advantage.  At first I was nervous, the kids were sliding all over the place and could barely stay on their feet.  But a few minutes later they brought out these mini sized walkers which are the best invention ever!  After that we could have skated all night, they had a blast, despite the fact that they were soaking wet from falling 798 times.  The beauty of falling in a skating rink is that you slide into the fall, so it doesn't hurt.  Skyler still begs for us to take him again.

Last year Glenn was in Haiti for my birthday, this year he got home just in the nick of time.  It was a quiet day, mostly me decompressing from being husbandless for a week and a half.  Gosh, that's a lot of candles.

Once again, Jayda rocking my wardrobe.

A few months ago, Sky came out of the bathroom after I told him to brush his teeth.  He was very distraught and told me that he had gotten toothpaste on the back of his neck.  I gasped and then laughed for about five minutes.  I just so wish I could have seen how this had happened.

Right before we left for Idaho in April, I decided to pull Sky from preschool  Honestly, it all came down to the money, I just didn't want to pay to only send him four more weeks.  I was sad, but he was okay with it.  We sent cupcakes and made a big deal of his last day.  We'll sure miss Miss Pat and Miss Lois as well as the Houston Park where were literally probably spent a third of our time while living in Philly.

This time of year is also when we learned that we would be living in New Jersey for a year.  It was really hard learning that Glenn didn't match, but it was still something that we were very prepared for.  The hardest part was going through the longest two weeks of our lives trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do next.  The internships just weren't out there like we though they would be.  Then UMDNJ from Newark came calling and we didn't have a choice but to accept.  I'll admit that initially I was pretty terrified of the idea, but after doing some research, and talking with people who had way more positive perspectives than I did at the time, I learned to embrace it and even become excited.  Now we're here and are very happy, but I'll save that for another post, I can't get out of order! :)