No Bears Are Out Tonight

It's January. You know the drill by now, we go into hibernating. This is the month I take off. Well, we still do a lot of stuff, I just don't want to leave my house. It got so cold a few weeks ago that you didn't dare open the door, and of course our furnace had to go out on one of those freezing cold nights. The just as you thought it might start to warm up the inversion moved in. And someone who cares about their health would not go out and breath our nasty air. It's really gross. But FYI (all you politicians who read my blog): banning wood burning stoves is not the solution! Yes, the legislative session is upon us, so I may have some work coming up. It would really just be easier to climb back into my hole and ignore the whole mess up there at the Capitol, but I feel a duty to be involved and let my puny voice be heard.

So, back to whatever I was saying. We did venture out one day to go on a field trip. I found it ironic that as homeschoolers (who normally hide inside) we went out on the very day that other districts canceled school because it was too dangerous to go out. Oh well, I guess that's me being a rebel again. Did I really just use the word "rebel" to describe myself? Oh, you probably want to know where we went (or not), but I'll tell you. We finally made it to The Leonardo! I'd heard a lot of disappointing reviews of the place, so maybe I wasn't expecting much, but I thought it was pretty nice. Certainly not worth a full price admission, though! Go with a school group. They had a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit that was neat. Chloe acted completely uninterested, but the next day I overheard her telling her friend about it, and then saw she had opened up a couple tabs on the browser doing some research on Da Vinci. That's how I inspire :)

I even managed to break my camera out and take a few pictures lately. Nothing special, just playing around. This one was taken a week ago, just of my pretty girl.

Then I had a lot of fun on MLK Day. We were all just hanging out at home so I took pictures of everyone vegging. The girls use most of their free time to play on the computer.

Even on holidays he looks like this!

Friends come over almost every day, but they played a lot this day, with no school.

My beautiful husband:

My beautiful, zealous daughter:

My beautiful, bright daughter:

The next day I came downstairs and found Sophie making breakfast and Chloe doing the dishes. And a nice big green smoothie on the counter. This is how everyday should be. It made me so happy I had to take a photo to etch it in my mind forever.

We must have been having a lazy day, coming back from a 4 day weekend. The girls are doing their work in their pjs.

I have to throw one more of Sophie in, because she doesn't let me take her picture very often, but yesterday she was (sort of) willing. She always has to act a little silly.

Christmas Week

It started snowing on Christmas Eve. Chloe was ecstatic. She took the picture below. I took the girls sledding. It felt like it snowed all week -- maybe that was intensified by the fact that we have moved to a location that resembles Laramie much more than Utah. The plows don't do a very good job around here either. So, Brandon was home pretty much all week. He only went in for 1/2 a day on Wednesday. That really made it feel like we were on vacation.

I had made cinnamon rolls on Christmas eve, before going to bed. I thought that would help in the morning. Brandon got up at 6:30 to get them out of the fridge for me, but they took so long to raise that they weren't ready until 10:30! I could have just made them that morning and had them ready before then. Oh well. It gave us something to look forward to.

There were some questions about whether we should get up and get dressed before opening gifts. I kind of like that idea, but Sophie was so in love with the pajamas that I made her she didn't want to take them off. So, we didn't get dressed or have breakfast before opening presents.

This year our "weird" thing was that we would only give homemade gifts. Just for the record: we are not doing that again! This is the first Christmas I have ever been stressed out. The girls have figured out the pajama tradition -- they each get a pair to open on Christmas Eve. I thought it wouldn't be too hard to make them a pair of pajama pants, but sewing is always harder than I think it will be. I really don't mind the sewing part, it's the pattern I hate. I didn't have a pattern for pajamas, so I made one up. That's a very dangerous thing to do. I even broke down and bought me a mat, ruler and rotary cutter thinking that would make my projects easier. Yes, they were easier, but still not so easy.

I made Chloe the cute little apron you can see her wearing above. That wasn't too bad. It just turned out very large for her. She still looks cute in it, and now she's happy to help wash dishes!

Sophie's gift wasn't too stressful either. We made it back in June when they were at my parents for a week. Plus I had Brandon's help. We made her a doll bed that turned out really cute. So... if only I had all my gifts started in June I think I would have been OK.

See these two hooligans? They are so much alike that it's scary.

I have a friend who just moved to Hungary. She was explaining how in Hungary they celebrate St. Niklas day on December 6th (the day he died), and then Christmas is actually a holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ. I so wish I had heard that when my kids were younger. I've always felt pulled between the two, but I think that would have been great to celebrate them as two different holidays, giving each their own focus for the good they did (and not confusing my poor children!)

On Christmas day we went over to Tooele to hang out with some family. Dallas and Jessica decided to make a last minute trip out to Utah to surprise her family, so they came over as well as Ross & Melanie. When Ross had called to invite me I mentioned my plans to make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. He got a little excited about that, so I asked him if I needed to make a double batch to take to the family gathering. After I made it clear that I only bake with whole wheat, and always 1/2 the sugar he might not have been quite as excited, but I still took them. I noted the irony that Dallas brought a huge vegetable tray, and I brought the cinnamon rolls.

On Friday evening we were invited to a movie night at the Stephens, in Centerville. The girls chose to watch a separate movie from the adults, but I'm not sure how much watching they did. I think they mostly played -- which is fine by me :) The adults watched "Somewhere in Time." I've had Mackinac Island on my brain lately, as we had just decided that would be our next family vacation. In doing the research for it, though, I'm thinking we may want to try something else for this year -- but we'll see. Anyway, it was fun to finally see the movie and reminisce about the last time Brandon and I visited the island.

Saturday was our 14th wedding anniversary. We thought we were going to be babysitting my grandma that night, so we didn't make any plans, but when we found out she wasn't going to be here we decided we should do something. We tried to go out to dinner at Pizzeria 712. Ever since I saw this video about Colton Soelberg I've wanted to try one of his restaurants. We thought an anniversary was special enough. But when we got there we were told it was over an hour wait. We passed, and just drove around looking for something else. We just happened to pass Mountain West Burrito (one of his other restaurants), so we checked it out. It was quite a little dive, but like most places like that the food always seems to make up for the atmosphere. It was really good -- but pass on the hot sauce! It was deadly. We brought our leftovers home, and now Chloe is begging Brandon to take her there for their next date.