January '13

 After Christmas we got right back in to the swing of school. We took the Christmas decorations down pretty quickly, and got out the Valentine's things. 

  We've never put Valentine's Day decorations up so early, but it helped us all avoid that January slump going from one festive holiday and jumping right into another. They even started on making their cards.

 Adam is enjoying being a fireman and often wears his hat wherever we go.  He is on the hunt for matching boots at Goodwill and DI when we go by. The kids love thrift stores because everything is within their price range.

My goal this year is to manage my time better.  For help I made this board for the week, which I've talked about making for a long time, but here it is finally.  I still need to add Velcro instead of tape. The idea is that after the kid finishes the subject in their column, they can take it off and feel accomplishment.  Then mom can also feel accomplished by seeing how much gets done and/or what is left at each point during the day. I'm hoping it helps me have a more realistic plan of how much should really be accomplished each day. I have hope that my weaknesses can really be made strong. 

One of the subjects we made time for is sewing, Rachel has been begging since she had so much fun sewing with Aunt Luise! Adam likes to "drive" by pushing the pedal for me. Sarah loves to learn new things and prepare to be self reliant. Here are some of the creations they have made...mostly dress-ups and Adam is wearing a Cars backpack.

We had a special family night about Family Search Indexing which the kids got really into.  We watched the tutorial and then each got a turn typing in the cursive name. We even added it now to our school regiment. It is a great way the whole family can be a part of temple and family history work, even Adam can do it, with help to know what the cursive says.

The kitchen in Adam's room was crowding him out.  He gave the fridge to his friend Carlee. Now he wants everything out. I am not so sure he won't regret it, so I'm hanging on to them for now.  I made a cute little house with them in the shed hoping the new location will inspire the kids to play with them again. They thought it was so cool and then never played in there once.  

Well, they did play in there, for a few minutes, but the game was short lived, they were much happier being outside picking weeds. I really can't say that I would rather have them playing in the shed if they'd rather be picking weeds!

Well, Adam and Rachel would rather pick weeds, but Sarah would rather be reading...

By moving out the kitchen game, there was room for moving in the box houses.

Before the Bishop Youth Fireside there were some youth presidency meetings that we needed to stay upstairs for.  Adam and I played this game of driving his new remote control car through block towers.

It was great fun and it started a game which we have played often now.

He wanted to build McQueen a garage to sleep in by his bed. 

Daddy on a Saturday playing Adam's new Thomas card game from Christmas.

Our friends the Montgomery's invited us over to play in their new bounce house. They have such a cute little family. Sarah is attached to baby Porter and the sweet 3 year old twins.

This is a very happy Adam getting invited to two 7 year old birthday parties. He isn't even 5, but he is a good friend to all, especially me.