january happenings.

It was hard to see my mom go after having her around for nearly 3 weeks. I'm so glad she got to spend so much time with us and especially with the kids. Even though she was around to witness some of the usual daily chaos and mayhem around here, she also got a real glimpse of the kids' personalities, something that is hard to do when you only get to visit a few times each year. Simon loved seeing Grandma in the mornings or when she would finish working each day. He would run to her and give her a hug and then go about his business. Sometimes it's really hard to live so far from family.

Some random pictures from January...

Chatbooks! Ben gave me my whole instagram series for Christmas, 23 volumes in all. They are so fun to look at. In fact, the kids can't keep their hands off them and I think they're going to need their own set so they don't ruin mine! I'm still working on printing my blog and keeping up with my blog because it's a much more detailed family photo album, but I'm really far behind (just finished printing 2010) so these chatbooks at least give us something in print, with no extra work involved. I'll probably make one custom book for each of the kids every year that they can keep as their own scrapbook. (If you use instagram, I highly recommend checking out Chatbooks.)

Staying warm by the heater one cold morning.

A hot cocoa stop at Sheetz with Amelia after Activity Days one night. School was delayed the next morning because of a freezing rain forecast so she got to stay up late.

These boys love to "read" books together.

While Ben was working at home one afternoon, I took Oliver out for a special date while Simon napped at home. We went to the discount theater and saw The Boxtrolls. We had the entire theater to ourselves which was fun. He was a little scared of the movie though.

Elsa started a ballet class on Saturday mornings. She loves it. All the other girls and parents were standing around on the first day and the teacher asked me what Elsa's name was so she could find her name tag. When I said "Elsa" everyone in the room gasped. The girls were pretty excited to have an Elsa in their class.

Amelia started a gymnastics class and so far she is loving it.

 We noticed a really horrible smell coming from Oliver's nose. We took him to the doctor and the doctor managed to find the source. Oliver had shoved something up his nose. It was unidentifiable when it came out (we think it had been in there over a week) but my guess was a red berry from the bushes in our yard. Ben's guess was a black bean. The important thing is that it's out and the smell is gone! And hopefully he learned his lesson.

 Another cozy reading spot.

 Not a great picture, but these biscuits were delicious. Caramelized onion and gruyere biscuits (recipe from Smitten Kitchen), like french onion soup in biscuit form. And I love butternut squash so I made a butternut squash and goat cheese frittata to go with them. Good dinner for a gray January day.