January!

We had a great month!  It's always kind of sad - but also nice - to get past the Christmas busy-ness and be back to normal.  We had a nice New Year's Day, went to church, Bob had a meeting, and we went to the neighbors' for a hodgepodge good luck New Year's dinner.  The adults enjoyed the pork, collard greens, potatoes, sauerkraut, black eyed peas, and corn bread, but the kids did not.  The girls were still off on the 2nd - we ran a couple of errands, had Chick Fila for lunch, and played at home.  They went back to school on the 3rd, then off again on the 4th for a snow day!  They did return on Friday the 5th on a 2-hour delay.  We probably got about a 1/2" of snow on Wednesday night that melted pretty quickly.  We were able to play in it though.



The weekend of the 6th-7th was pretty quiet with just ballet and church.  We had a fun family outing on Saturday the 6th to the Natural History museum, the old state capitol building, and to Red Hat, followed by coat shopping for Bob and a Mexican dinner.  It was a really fun day!





I hosted the neighborhood book club on the night of the 8th with the help of Erin and Anna, while Bob was at church for his final parish council meeting (this term).  The rest of the week we spent getting back in the swing of things, running errands, and the girls had an early release on Friday the 12th.  Anna had her friend over to play.  I also had my post-op appointment that morning (postponed twice from the holidays and snow) and all checked out good!  Bob took down the nativity at church on Saturday the 13th as our final goodbye to Christmas.  Then we had a family roller skating adventure at Jellybeans that afternoon - our first time there and the girls' first time skating.  They were good sports and Anna seemed to like it by the end, but Erin wasn't sold on it.  They did enjoy the Cookout milkshakes that we got afterward.  Sunday the 14th was busy as Bob helped with the pancake breakfast at church after mass and we ladies went to Anna's friend Gerald's birthday lunch!  Anna and I then watched Paddington 2 as the rest of his birthday party, and Erin and Bob went home.  That evening, I enjoyed a nice dinner out for Liz's birthday.  2 restaurant meals in one day is a good day in my book!

The girls were off on Monday the 15th (between snow and holidays, I feel that I was cheated out of 5 days to myself during Sawyer's track out...but who's counting?!) for MLK Day.  Then it was back to school for one whole day until the second snow storm of the month hit on Wednesday morning!  This one gave us more like 5-6" of snow that was nice and wet and fun to play in.  It wasn't super good for sledding, but we were able to sled some on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning before it melted.







Schools were closed Wednesday through Friday that week, though Sawyer's mom did have to go in for her teacher workday on Friday the 19th.  That worked out well since we were bored by then.  The girls got to accompany Sawyer to his Friday music class which Anna (not sure about Erin) thoroughly enjoyed.  We all had a McDonalds lunch after in celebration of escaping the house after the snow days.



That evening, Maggie came over to babysit while we went to the annual parish council welcome/farewell dinner.  That is always a treat for me to have a nice dinner (that I don't have to cook) with adults!  The weekend was pretty quiet again...it warmed up and we took Nina to the park with us on Sunday, then home for some baking.



I sure do love being less busy after Christmas, but it's always a little sad too.  We have enjoyed the quiet time at home playing...Anna is very much into Legos these days, and we all like to play with them too!



It was back to normal on Monday the 22nd for a full week of school and Sawyer was back to his regular schedule too.  Bob had a busy week of work dinners/evening events Monday-Thursday for 3 different meetings at work last week.  Anna had her reconciliation retreat on Saturday the 27th which was lots of fun for her and for me.  We had a fun neighbor dinner out that evening to Amedeo's - brought back some Wolfpack memories!  Bob worked an inurnment at the columbarium on Sunday in the rain.  He had the great idea to bring our tailgate tent, which the priest loved!  This week is Catholic Schools Week, and the kids have enjoyed some special events and activities at school.  Erin moved up to the next level of piano books last week; her teacher takes these pictures when they move up:



That's about it for January!  We are trying to come up with an idea for spring break but can't come up with anything that will work weather-wise and that everyone will like.  We're also looking forward to February and some fun things coming up!