January in pictures

Here is my effort to catch up on all of the little things we did in January...

January marked the beginning of the new "Come follow me" curriculum for our church. Throughout the week we study a block of scripture together with the curriculum manual. The first week of January talked about being responsible for our own learning and being prepared. We studied the story of the wise and foolish virgins and made oil lamps out of clay one night. It was a big hit with the kids. Jack asked if we could do that every night. They looked pretty legit. You can almost guess which one belongs to each person in our family.

The new curriculum has been so enjoyable to study as a family. We have already learned and grown so much in the first month.

Grandma came back on the 7th and stayed for 2 weeks. She was a huge help and we had a lot of fun.

Daddy drove our new van from Kansas City. We named him "Moby" after the whale in Moby Dick. It seats 15 passengers which means we can fit the Noonan family and our family all in one car. We are going to have some pretty incredible road trips. The kids were so excited to take a ride that they stopped playing the instruments they just made with grandma and we went around the block as soon as daddy got home. Jack begged for us to drive him to school with the new van the next day. I wonder when he will figure out that this big van isn't as cool as he thinks it is.

Chap and Tenny got their first bath at 3 weeks old. Ruby loved watching the whole thing. Chap really liked it, Tenny not so much. That's pretty much been the standard ever since.

Tenny hating it

Chap loving it

On January 12th we discovered our gerbil, Jake, was no longer alive in his cage in the laundry room. I think this just proved that I really was the sole person keeping him alive as I fed him whenever I was in there doing laundry. I hadn't done laundry in a few days since my mom was here and he just couldn't last any longer. This is why we can't have pets.

Jake was Gracie's gerbil and her response when finding out he had died was "Well I guess I don't have to clean his cage today." Apparently, she was heartbroken.

Daddy and Haken went out in the sub zero temperatures and did the only thing we could with the hard ground...cream mate Jake. The kids watched from the window. That's gerbil number 3 in our burial grounds.

On the same day Jake died we had a huge storm that dropped a bunch of snow. They spent the whole day outside shoveling and building a snowman. Ruby helped out by eating the carrots we gave her for the snowman on the front porch and daddy helped out by creating an incredible snowman scene that became famous in our neighborhood.

Haken was ordained to the priesthood, the babies were blessed and Jack was baptized. While we had grandparents here we did a quick day trip to Nauvoo. More about all of that in this post.

Tenny and Chap got really good at staring contests. I think Tenny won.

We finally took down all of the Christmas cards that greeted us every day on our garage door. We sure do love our friends and family.

We went through a polar vortex and school was cancelled two days in a row. We had windchills of -44. We were even colder than Antarctica. We spent one day with the Noonans at our house and the next day Jack had his friend Braeden here. We were really grateful for our nice warm house. Those cold temperatures are no joke!

Jack's school celebrated the 100th day of school by dressing up like they were 100 yrs old. I think Jack nailed it with the help of daddy's art skills and my dry shampoo spray.

 Of course, we also loved on our babies constantly. They turned one month on January 21st and are doing fantastic. Here is their one month update.