One Saturday, Arabella had a Destination Imagination instant challenge practice competition thing about 20 minutes from our house. I loaded everyone up and we dropped her off and found a nearby park to spend a little time in the glorious sunshine.
This park had tunnels connecting these dinfferent circles that lead to this "round table" in a castle like structure.
Peter went up to Utah to help his parents out after Max was sick and Lanell had neck surgery. So, we took this picture on Sunday to send him.
Samantha was not happy about how we were doing it and began to cry so she was not in the group picture and was still crying inside when we went in.
Samantha eating one of her new favorite things to eat- tomatoes with goat cheese. She actually says tomatoes like "potatoes" and it is cute but she is already fixing it. I know it is what she needs to do but it is sad to see her grow up.
Some days she takes naps like a little peaceful angel and other days she dresses in her Santa's daughter dress to go to the dollar store.
These little beauties arrived by mail for me to try and keep alive until our stake RS conference in February. (They made it by the way!) They are such unique looking plants.
Peter sent this treasure to me. He found it at his parents. The cub scout is so endearing but what is not to love about those shorts and tube socks! I love that man, I mean boy, you get what I mean.
Samantha and I played at the park one day and lasted a pretty long time but it was windy and we finally went to Peter's office where we had a picnic lunch at his desk with him.
And finally, one of the more random blessings of the month came in the form of logs. My committee for the decorations for the conference, decided we wanted to have wood circles for our centerpieces. They are expensive if you buy them. So, then I started looking for people cutting down trees in their yards. One day Peter walked down to our neighbors who had cut all of the branches off of a tree in their yard with the small chainsaw but had not cut down the trunk. We were going to ask for the trunk but they did not answer. He decided to walk along the green space behind our house by the train tracks, to see if there was a dead tree we could possibly use. And he found a treasure! Some person had cut down their tree and rather than take all of the branches and large logs from the trunk to the dump, they dumped it a few houses down from ours. Peter and I pulled out the chainsaw and in a short time we had more circles than we needed. Random blessings! One man's trash became my treasure.
The flu season has been a rough one here in Texas (really nationwide). Schools were even closed due to so many students being sick. I thought we would escape and actually we did because we tested negative for flu and strep but Arabella and Lily took turns vomiting all night long and a good part of the next day while also running fevers. Lily turned around and was only home for 2 days. Arabella was sick a bit longer but after 3 days she made it back to school. I was sick for a few days but not as bad as the girls. I ran a fever and had the chills something fierce. Samantha had her turn too but it was not as bad. Gratefully, the boys of the house escaped and we were grateful! For us, I say the flu shot worked because we never got the flu just some other lovely little virus. Fingers crossed we make it to the end of school without any more sick days.
And that folks, is the rest of January. I have realized that I do not take as many pictures in January and February. I also realized that Peter has a bunch of pictures on his phone that I will make a post of the pictures from his phone.
