Winter is Here

 Michael: busy week at work, those college kids are still home and ready for their wisdom teeth to come out. He had a meeting Thursday night and agreed to go dancing with me on Saturday night which was just the happiest development of the week.

Maddie: liked going to the Food Bank with the youth on Saturday. I brought Westin along and it was fun to have him there. In just one year he'll be in Young Mens and that's pretty wild to me. I was heartbroken when the spot we were going dancing on Saturday night with 4 other couples was closed because of the snow... I was looking forward to dancing so much! Even if it was a kind of dance I've never done in my life ha. But we still went to Chipotle with the Schmidts and played games at the Gregorys and I loved laughing so much with friends that night. I also got a babysitter for book club this week and loved talking with friends about The Island of Sea Women.

Westin: Back to book club, and coding club, and heavily invested in the NFL and college football playoffs. I love listening to him practice the piano. There's still so much I'm learning how to navigate with Westin. I hope he always knows we love him and we try our best.

Bennett: Psyched about the science fair, 99th percentile in growth for reading (he's working SO hard and I love seeing that pay off for him), and he memorized his scripture for Sunday School and was excited to go show Brother Johnson. He has been wanting to start Karate so he had his first class this week and we'll skip soccer this spring. We'll see how he likes it!

Camden: Lost his first tooth! In a heartbreaking way, honestly... poor little guy! He was SO AFRAID of losing it and ended up swallowing it while eating lunch at a playgroup lunch thing at our friend's house, so he was so scared that he didn't even tell anyone and was just crying. He never would tell me why he was crying so I just held him there and eventually took him to preschool and he was happy by the time we got there. Then when he came home he was chatting to us and we noticed his tooth was gone. What! Poor guy, he'll probably still be just as scared for the next loose tooth because he never conquered the fears with this one. He looks so much bigger with his little tooth gone!

Asher: Obsessed with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and calls it Chicken Chicken Boom Boom. He loves racing us at the end when we sing the ABCs and it's so funny when he gets tripped up over the letters :) He likes watching Camden play indoor soccer on Mondays with me. 

Here we go into a 3-day weekend with REALLY low temperatures! I love being cozy at home but that sure does come with some chaos at this stage :)

Lunchtime and story time!
You guys are liking some story podcasts lately.

Michael and I watched a show on Netflix about longevity and the Blue Zones and it was really fascinating.

Finished a few books this month.
January is my reading month because I always hit December realizing how much I didn't read on my to-read list this year. And really there's no better way to spend winter than with a book.
This one was poignant and funny and rough.

Cover Your Assets addicts.

We got a good few inches of snow Friday night!
There's something so magical about waking up to that.
We can check our weather anytime we want, but I wonder how it felt to wake up to this with zero prior knowledge. We had fun shoveling with the boys that morning.

M&Ms but first, collect the data.