January

02: Nelsons and Keefers
The Nelsons came to visit for an afternoon and we loved it! Play. Nap. Park. Dos. Awesome.

This is the face we get when we ask Sof to say, "cheese!"

Don't mess with the Selah.

How great is this guy?!

 

We love this family. Even Kate (the white, donkey-like, non-compliant dog). Chili is hiding behind Big Lou's left ear!

05: Georgia, Julie and Quentin came for a visit.

10: Cowgirls on their way to Luke's 5th birthday party!

11/12: Spring in January. Seriously? Yes, this winter has been strange. Siena keeps saying, "Mama, the sun is out. Can we play in my little pool today?" I always say no. The sun may be out, but the water is not warm! Bah humbug.

She's three. And we see a lot of Sassy Pant's tongue these days.

Nothing warms my heart like seeing these two play together. Usually they are squawking and provoking and pinching, but occasionally we get a glimpse of what it might be like in ten years or so. :)

This is what happens when you're following the example of a three-year-old.

My little climber! Siena is overcoming a lot of the timidity and caution we have seen in her thus far. Though she won't let you push her on a swing, she is willing to get onto one.

13: SO tired...

14: Faith's Pony Party. Siena's little friend Faith, who has just moved to Colorado, had a great "last hurrah" at her 4th birthday party where they had a pony. So great. Unless, of course, you don't actually like to ride on ponies (Siena) or you are, at most, willing to sit atop one while a photo is snapped (Sofia). We still had fun with our friends and left with tiaras on our heads.

15: Long Hair and Loppers
Siena frequently informs us that her hair is getting "as long as Emma's" or "as long as Ellie's." Despite being told thousands of times every day that her hair is fabulous, Siena longs for a different style. In the bath we see just how long her hair really is! And the rest of the time we encourage her with promises that God gave her that beautiful head of hair for a reason, and we adore it!

Shiloh and I visited a tree-pruning seminar in Woodland and then went to town on our own Fantasia Nectarine at home. Siena was our event photographer. Can you tell?

16: PE Celebration
The Professional Engineer Exam is a big and important engineering test that Richie passed a few months ago. Hurrah! So to celebrate, Grammy treated us all to his dream dinner: In-N-Out and then Costco soft serve ice cream. Delicious.

"Who, us? Nope, we weren't doing anything wrong..."

20: Elena turned THREE! And she had a fun little Dora party, including  a candy-filled piñata. (Poor Dora was soon decapitated!) Elena and Siena have graduated from mostly fighting to mostly loving each other and we are very happy about that.

23: Stone Soup is what we had for lunch after Siena came home with the book on loan from Grammy. In her scoop of soup is a stone - snatched long ago, Siena tells me, from our dearly missed friends' (Kiki and Chuck's) house. We also added carrots, potatoes, onions, milk, and meat in accordance with the rhyming recipe and cooked it in a kid's Ikea pot. (I added a little broth and chopped the veggies when the chef wasn't looking.) Wasn't half bad!

25: Adventures in Burlap. Valentine's month is right around the corner, so with some fun burlap snagged for free by my friend Jenn, we created some fun holiday embellishments!

30: Sofia. 14 months old. Couldn't get any cuter! (Below, donning a new shirt from Grams.)

31: Siena can READ! A few words. Preferably three-lettered and containing an A as the vowel. But PAT, CAT, SAT, MAT, DAD, PAD, PAN, FAN, BAR, SAM, etc. are all part of her repertoire! Copying the lovely Jen Jarvis, we've made a fun fishing game to help us work on letters, sounds, words, etc.

And there you have it: January blogged. On time! My goal for February is to go in smaller chunks so more thoughts and reflections can be included here, because my memory does not do well summarizing without photos. :)