January

January- usually the most boring, cold, uncomfortable month of the year! Thank goodness we have lots of birthdays to celebrate to make it exciting! We started off the New Year with baked french toast and church. We moved to 1:00 pm church this year- which is a little rough on all of us, but mostly Hudson, who really functions much better with his afternoon nap. It was also his first sunday in Sunbeams. His teachers (the Jones') are the sweetest, kindest people, and I'm a little worried Hudson will give them a run for their money. When I picked him up he was all out yelling at them over some type of coloring incident that didn't go as he planned it. He was definitely over-tired and unreasonable. I'm hoping we will all adjust and it won't be quite as rough all year as I am building it up to be in my head. 

 That same Sunday we had dinner at my parents house and had a little early birthday cake for Chase. He has been so excited to turn six! He was super excited to open his gifts from his Nana and Papa.

 Then we got pounded with more snow! The boys think that helping dad shovel snow is the best, which I love! All three of them have worked out there together many mornings to clear our driveway. Hudson likes to try to initiate a snowball fight, Chase is more business. Their little shovels are getting lots of use this year!

We had a birthday party for Chase on his big day! This sweet kid just has too many friends, so we drew the line at inviting 14 kids! And I was hoping at least a few wouldn't be able to come, but no, they ALL CAME! Chase had a blast. He picked a Lightning McQueen party. We watched Mater's Tall Tales, played some easy party games (pin the moustache on mater, button-button, Mater-Mater-Lightning, bean bag toss and keeping balloons in the air). We did presents, and Chase was so darling and excited for each gift he got. He gave each child a very sincere "thank you". Then we did cupcakes and I happily sent them all home. It was a really crazy 90 minutes, but Chase loved it and felt very celebrated. He's so social and he just wanted to have all his friends together for his big day.

 We ended the day with Butternut Squash soup (his favorite) and took him out to ice cream at Coldstone.  We love celebrating this sweet boy- he really has a heart of gold and is the nicest, friendliest kid I've ever met.

Pretty much once the partying was over, we all succumbed to illness! Chase and I had annoying, but regular coughs/colds. Then Hudson started with it- which resulted in many days of coughing, on again off again fevering, a runny nose, eye infection and a whole lot of grumpiness and rough nights. On day 6 when he just wasn't getting better I took him to the doctor, just in case it was something treatable. Most of that was attributed to a virus (the reason I didn't take him in earlier) but the doctor checked his ears and found that they were super infected! I was so surprised because when he's had ear infections in the past he's been beyond miserable and unconsolable. So we started on antibiotics for that and hope that our Hudson boy would mend quickly! Being housebound was getting really really old.

 By Saturday, after a whole week of staying home and Chase complaining that we didn't do anything fun we finally went out! A neighbor offered us tickets to the Weber State Basketball game and we jumped at the chance to go. Hudson started off very excited about the game, which lasted about 10 minutes. Chase stayed engaged and excited the whole game! The Wildcats were down the whole game (at one point by a LOT) and they came back to win at the last second- Chase was so excited!

We've had a lot of fun in the snow this month! By we, I mostly mean the boys, since I haven't actually been out playing with them. They love to help Ben shovel the driveway and then love to dig and play and build igloos and slide down the snowbanks Ben creates for them. Hours of fun out there! They come inside freezing, wet, exhausted and happy- and always asking for hot chocolate.

 We had a fun morning at the museum together on Chase's day off school. The boys built and created with everything they could find and it eased my mama-guilt that they had watched so much TV during all the illness earlier in the month. We love that place!

Hudson turned four! He wanted a Paw Patrol birthday party- and he got a whole bunch of Paw Patrol toys. He was so excited to have his first "friends" party. We just invited a few little friends which kept things simple and he was pretty happy! He requested muffins for breakfast, funfetti cupcakes at his party, and then we finished off the day at Chick Fil-A with the whole family (it was conveniently a fundraiser that night for my mom's school- and we all love Chick Fil-A.) It was fun to have a day to celebrate our sweet Huds!

We started our new year with a new family theme scripture. We decided this year our theme scripture would be John 13:34: A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye may have love one to another. The kids have it memorized already (we say it every morning after our family prayer). We are hoping to teach the kids a lot about loving others (and each other) this year.

In all the craziness of other stuff going on, I totally spaced Chinese New Year. Luckily, the rest of the world didn't, so my kids still got some fun celebrating in. Hudson had a Chinese New Year day at preschool, then the next day we showed up at the library, coincidentally during story time, which we joined. And story time was all about Chinese New Year- and the boys made these cute dragons. Hudson named his "longy-tail" and I'm not sure Chase ever named his. 

 Then for Sunday dinner we had Chinese New Year at my parent's house. My mom set the table super cute, complete with red envelopes with money (which Chase especially loved) and dragon decor and we had a delicious (Americanized) Chinese dinner!

 Ben left for Toronto for work- the first of what will probably be many trips. Chase misses his dad a lot when he's gone, and frequently asks me to photograph random things he does to send to dad. He wanted me to show dad how he made his bed this particular morning, which I kind of loved. I mean, look at that stack of dogs! And his books all propped up nicely. A kid after my own heart!

At the end of January, all the stars aligned and my two out-of-town college roommates happened to be in Utah at the same time and we all met up for dinner one night! I've seen them all at some point in the last several years, but we haven't all been together for like 7 years. It was such a blast! To think I was worried that I wouldn't like my randomly assigned roommates...

And that was January! It was a crazy month, but full of fun and snow and friends and family. 2017 is off to a great start!