I am feeling much better about doing monthly updates this year - but I don't know how good I am at it yet! January was a full month with lots of different challenges. It was hard in a lot of ways but thankfully had a lot of good as well!
We spent the first with family - Shem, Karah and Hazel were in town, so it was all of us spending time together! We had a great day. It was a great week spending time with them, the kids adore their cousin, as we all do! It was incredibly difficult to say goodbye since we most likely won't see them for awhile since they are moving and our travel will be limited here for a little while. We are so happy for them but will miss them terribly!
Work has been insane, but thankfully I am not there as often - which is a gift to our whole family. Since Jonathan was off until the week after New Years, William had a bit of a challenge going back to him working, but it was good for him! Poor guy, he just loves his Daddy so much and did not want to go back to being apart from him.
The new year is always a good chance for new habits, we are changing some of our grocery habits and working on preparing a little more for different weeks. We had a lot of preparing to do for Amelia's birthday party! She got all my old doll stuff, so there was a lot of washing and cleaning and re-doing going on. One of the dolls needed a ton of love, but she turned out great! Amelia is loving playing with everything and I think she will grow into it even more. We went shopping for her a few days before her party and got her new craft things and an awesome little cart to keep everything in. I think it was mainly for me because it makes art much easier to facilitate and keep organized! We just did finger painting last night and Amelia had some fun with it...William was not interested at all...which I just counted as a blessing and moved on!
We had a lot of good food and thankfully stayed healthy through her birthday. She had so much fun surrounded by people she loves. I took her actual birthday off and we had a lot of fun - went out to supper, played games, she was thrilled. The kids had their yearly doctors appointments, they did pretty well, William gets a little shy but he made it! We got to facetime with Shem and Karah a little bit as they were packing, it was fun to see them and helped the kids understand that they were moving!
Mom and Dad went away for a little bit to help them move, so Jonathan did some milking during the coldest part of the winter...I can't remember there being a colder winter in my life. While we were getting all the snow in the cold cold cold, we had my big ultrasound and Baby is very healthy so far, so that was good to know! Unfortunately, by the time we went, no one else in the family was other than me! The kids had 103 fevers and Jonathan was not doing well either, I didn't go down until later in the week...we were basically under the weather for almost a whole week. Amelia was sick back and forth for about 3 weeks, just got an ear infection and I am actually thankful because we can treat it! It worked out really well that we were sick during the extreme cold - no one felt like going outside, we got to stay warm, watch some movies and just work on feeling better.
Thankfully I got the house cleaned up while we were sick, so that as helpful. William got a little hair cut and was healthy enough to go...he does not like hair cuts. There are a lot of tears and crying...it is not that much fun, but he looks handsome!
We started small group - which has been a ton of fun! Our first week was great, William was a little overwhelmed, but I think he will adjust just fine! We also got to have a good play date with our friends, which was the first time in awhile, I think we all benefitted from that!
Jonathan has been working hard on the upstairs, he has installed a bunch in the bathroom and they came to install the counter - it is gorgeous! We are thankful for all that has been done, looking forward to Jonathan having some free time to work on the rest of it - we are SO excited to get into the new room!
February is supposed to be a month of relaxing - so we are hoping we get to do that! I hope everyone else gets to enjoy this month too. We are voting for some kind of spring-ish weather I think...Amelia keeps asking about it!
Love,
Jonathan, Allison, Amelia and William
