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.

Here we go, 2022!

The time warp between Christmas and New Year!

We finally got snow in Fort Collins. We spent the week doing puzzles and legos and lite brites and all the other fun things that came on Christmas. We had peaceful moments and heartbreaking contentious moments. We had days at home and the older boys had a museum day with dad. The times I am at home with Asher just the two of us feel like absolute treasured moments.

I loved seeing Westin's "year in review" filled out that I printed for him. Favorite things he did in 2021: go to a cabin with all the Daetwylers, and ride a sheep. Biggest accomplishment: 7 monkey bars. 2022 goal: all the monkey bars. I love this kid.

Bennett has such focus. Watching him do his Lite Brite and seeing how proud he was of his first creation was super joyful and sweet. He and Camden have been playing together so much. That equals lots of laughs and lots of screaming. Does wrestling ever end well? Asking for my future.

Camden slept through the night a few times. Last night was not one of those times. I find myself counting down his toddler days but then his cute moments make me feel guilty. When you go into his room in the morning, or after nap time, or during nap time to tell him to take a nap, or during the night to tell him to stop screaming... you're always met with "Good mOOOOrning mommy!" And it does soften your heart a little, but more in the actual morning. If Michael tries to go in a different room than Camden we usually have about 2 minutes before he frantically says "Where daddy go! Where daddy go! DADDY!" Michael should know better by now than to attempt such things.

Asher has some pretty ok nights and some very newborn-y nights. I think my blog posts sound like I'm obsessed with sleep right now. That's because I'm obsessed with sleep. When we get it, it's a much better day. 

New Year is one of my very, very favorite times. Fresh starts and goals and carrying good things from the past year and seeing how much changed or was accomplished the last few months. It's such a hopeful time.

I put Christmas away so much earlier this year. I felt like a lot of people posted about putting it away early too. I think we were all ready to get into this new year. I can't believe we're coming up on two years of Covid and all that it has come with. I remember distinctly thinking in March 2021 "are we really going to have to stay home three whole weeks? It's going to be that long?" Oh wow :) I feel so, so grateful to have the vaccines we've had since then and that my kids have been able to have them too. There were extreme fires south of us this week that wiped out neighborhoods. That's one of those things that you think could never happen to you. But the people who lived in those houses felt that very same feeling. Life can change so fast and I'm so grateful for my boys. 

He wanted me to take a picture every time it changed colors :)

Reading by the fire -- it was cold this week!

That Christmas overwhelm when you're mid-putting away

Phew.

Clean slate.

My neighbor brought me this plant and I just love it.
You don't water it or do a thing for it and the bulb sprouts and I'm so excited for it to blossom.

This sweet boy.
Don't let him fool you, he hates being put down anywhere :)

Garbage truck spotting

Oh Westin. I love you so much,
and I want to help you through all your big feelings.

Sweetest.

The boys played in the snow so much on Saturday! Shoveled all morning with Michael.
Kept playing. Shoveled with our neighbor in the afternoon. Kept playing. 
Went sledding with Michael.

Hot chocolate time!
Such a messy treat with kids haha.

Camden hasn't mastered putting his feet by the fire...
we were all cracking up so much.

Ion, the Winter Storm

Mother Nature has closed the doors on Indianapolis today (with plenty of other cities and states affected) - Ion, the raging storm, has kept us all home. It was even illegal to drive today, beyond emergencies. I've never really been in a weather lock-down before. Utah made me go to school no matter what, always.

Well, we did have one half-day, one time. Because it was so windy.

This is more fun to play in. See?

One of the many shoveling shifts.

This inch came down in one hour. We had almost 12 inches by the end of Sunday.

We went for a walk that night to listen to the silent snow and wade through the inches of powder.

And Michael's skis were involved. This was hilarious to me. I just kept laughing the whole time.

Brian wanted a go on the skis the next day too.

The mounds of snow were one thing, but the dropping temperatures the next day has been a completely different story. We're dropping to -15 degrees with a wind chill that feels like -45 degrees. 

It feels weird to breathe out there.

I'll leave you with this little snow experiment.