January 27

Wednesdays are half days at school for Carter and have become the main homework day around here. Tonight after dinner I got Addie to bed early and then both kids worked on homework for about an hour. Makenna does not have homework assigned but she loves to be in the thick of it with Carter and usually does worksheets while he works on his assignments. I'm proud of the students they both are and how hard they are willing to work to learn new things.

January 26

I spent the day comforting and holding a sick baby so the picture is a bit of an afterthought. As fun as being away for the weekend was, I still relish in being able to come home to my family and cook a good meal and have dinner together. I definitely feel refreshed and more ready to embrace my role as wife and mother. You can tell how sick Addison is by looking at her in the picture. I felt so bad for her today but I am glad that I am here and able to provide the care and comfort she needs.

January 25

Today's picture is of our Family Home Evening Lesson tonight. It was based on Alma 50 where Captain Moroni is fortifying the Nephite cities in preparation for war. We talked about how we would protect ourselves from bad guys by building a spiritual wall against temptation. The kids then came up with the ideas of what we can do to fortify our spiritual walls. It was a great lesson. I also love that there are bad guy Legos on the bad guy side.

January 24

I consider my sister to be one of the greatest blessings in my life. I am so grateful for her love and support. Even though we were not close growing up, she has become my best friend and lifeline as an adult. She knows me better than almost anyone in the world and I'm so blessed to have the relationship with her that I do.

January 23

Jon planned a great surprise party for Nic's birthday. He set up a drive-in movie in the parking lot of his office and had all of her favorite snacks and treats for refreshments. He also made a video of her life that was really fun. I am so glad I was able to be there for the big surprise. She loved it and had lots of friends and family there to help her celebrate.

January 22

Today I flew to Portland to surprise Nicole for her 40th birthday! She was shocked and thrilled when she opened her front door to find me standing there. This afternoon we were able to sneak away and get a pedicure together. That is a tradition when we are together and so relaxing and fun! I'm so excited for a fun sister's weekend.

January 21

I love that as Addie's hair is getting longer it is also getting curly. It's so so so cute! This is her hair fresh out of the bathtub. It's slowly getting longer and I can't wait to see if she has a head full of beautiful curls!

January 20

Today I took a bunch of pictures of Carter with some of his Lego creations to include on his birthday party invitation. He loved showing off his building skills in the pictures. This is the final shot I took and the one I ended up using on his invite. He's SO excited for his birthday party!

January 19

Ugh. Major tragedy. Today my iphone fell out of my pocket straight into the sink full of water.

It was only submerged for about two seconds but it was enough to make the phone stop working. After doing a bunch of online research I found that putting the phone in rice helps draw the moisture out. I'm totally crossing my fingers that my beloved phone starts working again soon. I already feel a little naked without it.

January 18

I probably get a *little* too excited when I get a Gymboree order for the kids delivered. Today I got my gymbucks order and had fun having the kids try on their new outfits. I bought mostly summer clothes and ended up with 10 full outfits, 2 swimsuits, a few accessories and 2 mix/match shirts for Carter. Seeing the cute warm weather clothes gave me serious spring fever!

January 17

Today Allen was sustained at the new Young Men's president in our ward. To say we were shocked when he was called would be putting it lightly. He's holding the Priesthood Leadership handbook in this picture. We know he will be crazily busy (3 meetings today alone) but he is really excited to get to know the young men and the other leaders in the ward. Goodbye vacation time, hello campouts/youth outings!

January 16

Today we had Carter's birthday lunch at Texas Land and Cattle. It was yummy and so much fun to go out together. He had a steak with applesauce and an icecream sundae. I had their YUMMY steak wedge salad. It was great to go out together, despite this highly unflattering picture of me.

January 15

Happy 7th Birthday to Carter!! This morning he woke up at 2:30 a.m. ready to open presents! We obviously made him go back to bed but he was so excited! We were finally ready by about 7:00 a.m. Here he is with his gifts minus the things I ordered and accidentally shipped to our AZ address (oops!). He was thrilled to get a new set of Power Miner Legos to add to his collection, a RC helicopter, a Nerf night vision gun set and a huge box of little gifts from G & G Baldwin (game, books, candy, craft projects, movie, etc.). He loved it all! We are so blessed to have Carter in our family. He is a loving son and big brother and so much fun to be around!

January 14

Tonight while I was making dinner, Makenna and Addison played in this big box that we received today in the mail (it was full of pillows for the Master Bedroom). They probably played in together for a good hour before getting bored. Makenna is Addie's 2nd mommy and I love to watch their relationship develop. This is what Addie's hair looks like by the end of most days. It always starts out cute but then she pulls out her ponytails and she walks around with a mohawk for the rest of the day.

January 13

Yum! This is so my favorite lunch right now. Fresh veggies and warm spinach artichoke dip from Costco. Zero carbs and delicious!

January 12

Today we had the entire morning free and just stayed home - something we rarely do. I decided to turn on Sesame Street for Addie because I realized she had never seen it before. She wasn't too interested until Elmo came on and then she was GLUED to the TV. She stood like this for the entire Elmo segment of the show. So cute!

January 11

This month Makenna's preschool class is learning about dinosaurs. I SO love her preschool. They are so organized and make everything so fun for the kids. Today she brought home a "dinosaur egg" that they made last week. They were able to "hatch" the egg and get out the baby dinosaur that was inside. She was loving it today and carried her little dino "Spot" all over in her pocket. She also sang, "I'm bringing home my baby dinosaur" (sung to the tune of I'm bring home a baby bumblebee) all day long and it was so cute!

January 10

Our winter Sunday night tradition is homemade cookies and board games! Tonight we played Pretty, Pretty Princess (Makenna's choice) and our all time favorite Sorry! (Carter's choice). It's always such a great way to wrap up the weekend together.

January 9

It was pretty ridiculous picking up my stack of holds from the library today. I had 18 books to check out. The stack here does not include several of the books from the Bourne series that I grabbed for Allen. I obviously LOVE to read and am happy to see Allen finding enjoyment from it too. On this trip I checked out Firefly Lane, Bitter is the new Black, Just Jane, Columbine, Rhett Butler's People, The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle, Cane River, The Handmaids Tale, The Book Theif, The Good EArth Trilogy, Three Cups of Tea & Molokai. Getting a stack of fresh reads always makes my day!

January 8

This is a project that has been on my To Do list for months! I adore how it turned out. I am always trying to find better ways to organize all of our gazillions of hair accessories. I saw this idea on another blog and knew it would work great for us. I bought a large, inexpensive frame and painted it to match the girls' bedroom. Then I strung ribbon through the frame and clipped the bows to it. Voila! Cute and functional hair storage. Sadly, this is not all of our bows. I pulled out all the fall/winter bows and will store them elsewhere until the seasons change again.

January 7

Today is my friend Bethany's birthday. We took advantage of Allen being home and left our kids with him to go to lunch together! What a nice break from the kiddos. This is Helayna and Makenna playing in the Hoberman sphere we got for Christmas! That is a great toy and has provided a ton of fun and entertainment for our family!

January 6

You can always tell when it is laundry day around here because I have clothes scattered everywhere drying. I love the ledge up in our hallway that I can throw jeans over the side. Not too classy but super effective. The sign of a big, busy family!

January 5

The return to school also means a return to our daily tradition of playing on the playground after school. Since Carter's school is brand new the playground is clean and so awesome. This is one of his favorite things to do. This equipment spins around and he loves to go fast. I tried it one time earlier in the year and could hardly stomach the spinning! I'm glad to be back to our routine!

January 4

The last day of winter break for the kids happened to coincide with the first day of Allen's mandatory work furlough today! We decided to take advantage of the last day together as a family and went bowling. We have never taken our kids bowling before so they were really excited to go. We had a really good time! Carter was frustrated that he never got a strike but otherwise it was so much fun. Our scores were considerably higher than normal from the help of the bumper guards!

January 3

We finally got around to taking the Christmas decor down today. I'm usually really anxious to clear it out of my house but for some reason this year I felt really sad taking it all down. I don't know if it's because I LOVED our tree this year or if it is because we took a vacation in the middle of the season and didn't get to enjoy it as much, but I just wasn't ready to have it down. My house is much cleaner, but also feeling much more bare tonight! See you next year!

January 2

Putting all of our new Christmas toys to good use! Makenna loves here new scooter and is already really good at riding it. We've been out most days riding to the park to play and to practice on the new toys. It is COLD so we don't usually last too long but it's nice to get out of the house and get some exercise and fresh air.

January 1

Happy New Year! I've always loved the fresh start that the new year provides. I always feel so full of hope and anticipation of the new year! This morning I got out these crowns for the kids to wear and they thought they were so funny. Here's to hoping that 2010 is our best year yet!