January in Pictures

Mostly January was just trying to settle into the new house and routines. We did have some fun though - between the cat who tries to climb up on top of the kitchen cabinets and gets himself stuck to Ry locking his bedroom door so we had to break in, an invention convention, and of course - lots of snow!

Alex turns 2 Months

Alex turns 1 Month

Christmas

Christmas Eve was fairly nice and quiet. We all just played around and had our traditional make your own pizza night. Ryan conked off pretty early in his spot in the living room near the tree. Alicia was super excited to play elf this year and enjoyed helping to fill the stockings. Finally she went to sleep and some other elves made sure all the other presents and stockings were ready. 

 

Christmas morning Alicia had made a schedule of events for the day. It started with our stockings and was followed by a yummy breakfast of waffles and bacon and I think Alicia made eggs as well. After breakfast Mark, Alex, and I were treated to a delightful holiday dance performed by Alicia and Ryan (they'd been not-so-secretly practicing for a few days for it up in her room) then we got to tear into the presents. 

 

We didn't do so well with getting pictures of everything this year but Mark did get some video footage somewhere. Needless to say once again the kids (and Mark and I) were spoiled rotten. 

 

Ry with his new Perpluxus Maze Ball

Alex cuddled fast in a blanket from his Great/Great-Great Grandma (Grandma Dorothy will have to tell me which!)

Alicia having fun getting her origami on

After all the presents the kids had some time to play and then it was over to our friends house for a super fun Christmas brunch.

Other than that it was a pretty quiet day excepting my attempts at Christmas dinner. For some reason it just never goes as plan. Thankfully this years was pretty decent even if it was kind of late and probably not a recipe that I'll try again.

The Big Move

So the week after Alex was born we were all pretty much just enjoying everything. For a newborn Alex slept super well. Mark had time off of work. The Relief Society blessed us with more than enough food. We were even making some good progress on getting things ready for the move to our new house.  I should have known better....

Sometime Thursday the hot water heater at our old house broke. (It was pretty sudden and complete and we still haven't gotten a chance to figure it out yet.) In some kind of crazed daze I decided it was just a sign saying that we should just go ahead and move our stuff to the new house. Still not sure what I was thinking, especially considering that that weekend we also ended up with a baby shower and the Ward Christmas Activity.

Thanks to 3 amazing friends we did it. Mark and I moved a bunch of stuff on Thursday and Friday and then on Saturday he got help with the big stuff that needed to come over. It's still very much a work in progress but now that it's been almost 2 months I can say that we're starting to really settle in and it's beginning to feel like home.

Favorite comments from the kids...
Sunday night after we moved in from Alicia "Mom, it still doesn't feel like home here!"
Sometime more recently from Ry to his teacher "I like my new house because it has a library."