The slower pace of January has been a welcome change.  We've been spending lots of time playing with our new toys from Christmas, getting the house back in order, and establishing more of a schedule for Harrison.  Our weather has been incredible...snow one day, 60 degrees the next.




We haven't seen any snowplows come to our neighborhood, and I love how the streets stay white until the snow melts.  It reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting.


Since our part of the neighborhood is as flat as a pancake, it makes sledding difficult.  Trying to make our own fun, we came up with sled shuffleboard!






Perler beads.  Remind me why I bought a tub full, then suggested MORE for Alaina for Christmas.  My Dyson  is getting a workout.


With each day that passes, Alaina is more and more a little mommy to Harrison.  He adores her and smiles, laughs, and coos at her.    When he cries, she chimes in with what she thinks the reason is and how to fix it.  As much as she loves him, she thinks his breath stinks, his spit up and drool are disgusting, and don't even suggest a diaper change!  In this photo, I plopped him down on top of her since he was drool-bombing all over the place.  He didn't know what to make of her squeals!






This baby is just the sweetest thing.  He's such a joy during the day that it makes the nights bearable.  I'm in a weird spot of being traumatized from the sleep deprivation, thinking that there's no way I could survive this again, but also loving his babyhood and getting so sad at the thought of not doing this again.


Harrison went under the knife last week to correct some things that didn't form right in utero, leaving him vulnerable to inguinal hernias.  The urologist assured us that the procedure was simple and that the recovery  time was virtually none, but it's always scary when a little guy goes under general anesthesia.  I didn't realize how worried and stressed I was about it until it was over, and it felt like I could breathe again after holding by breath for days.




We're finally getting into a somewhat normal routine.  We wake up, I feed Harrison, then put him down on his mat to talk to his butterfly friends while I get the older two ready for school.  Once they're out the door, he goes down for a 45ish minute nap, then is up for an hour, then goes down again for about an hour.  We pick up Alaina, get lunch in her, then put H down for his afternoon nap, which may or may not last about 1.5 hours.  We get Connor, set him up with a snack, then H may have another short nap or we try to keep him happy through snacktime, homework, and showers.  Anthony gets home, I put Harrison to bed for the night, then come down and we have dinner (which takes little snippets of time throughout the day to prepare).  Get the older kids in bed, right as Harrison wakes up for a feeding, then I go to bed and mentally prepare for the nights that are a blur of nursing, back patting, and checking Facebook at 3 AM.  It's busy, sometimes hectic, but without the angst of working a job that I hate, it's almost always pleasant.


What do you do when January boredom sets in?  Why, write "MAGIC" on a piece of paper, tape it around a hairspray can, and scare your kids, of course!






Connor's favorite thing to do is spend the night at Nana and Papa's, but Alaina is a girl after my own heart and prefers to sleep in her own bed.  She wakes up before us, but it super considerate and turns the volume way down on the tv, and one day, even made us breakfast boxes!  She really couldn't be any sweeter!


We watched the AFC Championship game at Nana and Papa's.  You'd think that after 9 years in this family, I'd be used to the amount of food they prepare, but it still surprises me.  Look at that rib sandwich!


Harrison's first Broncos gear!


It was a fun game to watch!  Ray was beside himself pretty much the whole time.


We're going to the Superbowl!