The Rest of January

I used to think January was the worst, more boring month of the year. Not anymore! The past two years we've had a mid-January trip somewhere, plus both boys birthdays- and it is a suddenly full month! I love it. It's a great way to spend this time of year!

Here are a few of the things we have been up to in the few days we weren't a. Traveling or b. celebrating a little boy's birthday.

I feel like we've spent a lot of time with Nora this month- partly due to Will and Katie moving to Layton so they are much closer to us! The boys adore their little cousin, and they kind of light up her world too. And all the adults involved sit back and smile at their delightful little relationship (until someone is bugging/hurting/stealing from another child). One day I took Nora with me to Sams Club and was pleasantly surprised at what a good influence she is on Hudson! Bringing Chase= Hudson demanding to run around out of the cart and throw tantrums when I don't buy cookies. Bringing Nora= Hudson sitting pleasantly in the cart and talking sweetly to cute Nora the whole time. 

We spent a good amount of time at the museum, I think we went 4 times in January! The boys love it there, we are so happy that Nana renewed their pass again for another year! It's such a great place for the kids to explore and play and be creative. 

Puzzles! We've done so many puzzles this month (or rather- we've done our four puzzles so many times this month!) This was the first time I just sat back and let the boys do this entire 50 piece jigsaw puzzle all on their own- they've since done it many times. Now doing these puzzles is almost a daily ritual. 

Ben was gone for a week to Nashville Tennessee for work. The last time he was gone was for about 10 days in October and it was...hard. I was fairly anxious for this time- and I was pleasantly surprised. The boys were so good while Ben was gone! They definitely earned their Disneyland surprise coming that next week!

 Chase is very interested in geography, so for his birthday we got him a map of the world to hang in the basement. Once a week we've been picking a country and doing an "international night". It's fairly simple. Earlier in the afternoon we make that country's flag and we locate it on the map. I make traditional food from that country for dinner. And then we do a little lesson on that country. Hudson usually listens to none of the lesson, but Chase does and seems to really enjoy it. So far we've done South Korea (where Ben served his mission), Mexico (where my dad served his mission) and Germany (where my mom lived in high school). It's been really fun, and fun for Chase to be able to easily locate these countries on the map and have a little frame of reference about other places. This is our German night.

And then our washing machine died. It was given to us for free (along with our dryer) a few years ago and it's been a trusty old washing machine. Since it's probably 30 years old, fixing it didn't seem worth it. We are now the proud owners of a new washing machine! Let the laundry resume!